When Jinny arrived back in the kitchen, the boys were sitting on a bench, joking and counting up their stingers, as Ben plucked them out with an old set of tweezers. They seemed to be in fine spirits. Jinny sat down on the other side of the table and sheepishly waited her turn. In the end, Jak won the bee-sting contest, with sixteen stingers extracted, including one on the tip of his nose. Oz had only eleven.
After Ben had applied slices of raw wild onion to their welts, he sent the boys off to rest. Then he came around the table and turned his attention to Jinny’s hands. As he worked, she kept silent, but when he was done, she whispered, “Ben. I’m sorry.” It felt like she was saying that a lot lately.
“It’s fine,” he said without meeting her eyes. It felt like he was saying that a lot lately.
“No, I . . . I shouldn’t have done that, thrown the honeycomb that way. It was stupid, careless. I just . . . I saw Ess running at the hives, and I didn’t think. I panicked.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Ben, looking up. “Nobody blames you. It was quick thinking. Plus, the boys should know better than to run near the hives. Maybe they learned a lesson.”
Jinny shook her head. “It shouldn’t have happened.”
Ben set down the tweezers and looked at Jinny thoughtfully, as though he was deciding what to say. “You know what shouldn’t have happened?” he said. “You getting upset like that around the littles. You scared them much worse than the bees did.”
Jinny stared at her hands. “I know.”
“Then why did you get so crazy, Jinny?”
Jinny shook her head. “I couldn’t help it. I felt like it was my fault!” She felt her whisper turn into a sob. “My fault they got hurt.”
“It happens, Jinny,” said Ben. “People get hurt.”
“But they shouldn’t,” said Jinny. “They never did before.”
“That’s not true,” said Ben. “Remember when Joon fell out of the tree she was sleeping in that time and bent her finger back so far it didn’t work for a while?”
“I guess,” said Jinny.
Ben sighed and turned away from her. “I’ve never seen you like this before.”
“I’ve never felt like this before. I don’t know . . . how to talk about it.”
“Well, I wish you’d at least try. We shouldn’t keep secrets.”
“No, we shouldn’t,” Jinny said.
Part of her wanted to talk to Ben, to open her mouth and let everything out, all the things she was afraid of, even if it didn’t make sense. It would feel good to empty herself, she thought. But what would that do? If she truly explained her worries about the changing sky, the snake—if she told him that she feared she’d broken the island . . . that the sky might actually fall, like in the rhyme? That it felt, inside Jinny, like the sky was already falling? Then what? If Ben believed her, he might blame her, and if he didn’t . . . She didn’t know what was real, only her feelings, her fears, the things inside her. Nothing she could explain in a way anyone would understand.
“Anyway,” said Ben, “we’ve spent enough time on this already, and I need to make dinner. Please go rest and get better, okay?”
“Okay,” sniffed Jinny. She breathed deep, let it out in a rush. “I will.”
But as she rose and made her way back to her cabin, she knew that wasn’t a promise she could keep.
Jinny stared at the sky as she walked. The blue of it. Like an ocean above her, full of sun. It reminded her of her dream from that morning. It washed back over her, that warm bubble, that sense of closeness, of being held.
Jinny crossed her arms over her chest, gripped her shoulders in two white-knuckled hands. “Deen,” she said. She closed her eyes and squeezed herself, hugged herself hard.
It didn’t help anything.
21
Unfolding Wings
The next day at lunch, Eevie sat down and immediately wrinkled her nose. “Who stinks?” she asked, sniffing first Nat and then Sam on either side of her.
“That’s not very nice, Eevie,” cautioned Ben.
“No, it’s not nice at all,” said Eevie. “But neither is the smell. Like a rotten skunk pumpkin.”
Jak and Oz burst out laughing.
“Not nice!” warned Ben. Then he sniffed the air himself, and he couldn’t help wrinkling his own nose. “Skunk pumpkin? What’s a skunk pumpkin?”
Eevie shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “Something stinky.”
After that, everyone was sniffing the air and laughing as they ate their lunch.
“Well,” offered Joon, setting down her spoon, “I don’t want to blame any one person, but truth be told, we could all use a bath. With everything that’s been going on lately, we’ve gotten off our schedule, haven’t we? Can anyone remember the last time we washed up?”
“It’s been a while,” Jinny admitted. “I guess that means it’s washing-up day.”
“Good idea,” said Ben.
Joon stood and called down the table. “Hey! Everyone! Grab your things and meet at the fire circle as soon as you’re done eating.”
The kids all finished eating quickly and raced back to their cabins. Washing-up day on the island was a simple process, and everyone loved it. Each kid layered on all their clothes at once—their pants and tunic and sleeping shift too. Then they walked down the beach to the far side of the island, where the water was clear and there were no waves. There, in the sea-star field, they swam and played tag, until everything they owned was sopping wet and clean as they could get it. Their clothes, as they got wetter, became heavier, so it was a strange, slow game. After that, everyone walked back to dry in the hot sun. Nobody minded doing laundry.
When they arrived at the washing-up spot, Jinny was disappointed to realize she wouldn’t really be able to join in, since Loo didn’t know how to swim yet. Instead she sat at the water’s edge, as she had done when Ess was littler, and watched the others jump and shout. She sighed as she rolled in the shallow water, cleaning herself as best she could and dreading Loo’s swim lessons. Out in the water, she could see, Ess and Sam were swimming side by side, in some sort of game that involved spitting water into the air. She wondered what the game was. Then she remembered Loo beside her, and turned to discover that he was methodically tugging on one arm of a red sea star.
“Hey,” she said. “Loo! What are you doing? Stop that!”
Loo looked up at her briefly. Jinny was sure he’d understood her, that her words had registered. But the boy simply blinked, then looked back down at the sea star and tugged again, harder.
“Hey, I mean it,” Jinny said, more forcefully. “Cut that out!”
This time Loo didn’t even look up. He just kept at it, torturing the soft body of the creature, pulling harder, stretching the tender thing as far as it would go. Jinny couldn’t stand to watch, and she didn’t like being ignored. She reached over with a quick hand, grabbed the sea star, and tossed it out into the water. Loo, surprised, opened his mouth and began to yell.
Listening to his screams, Jinny found herself sneering at the boy. It was like she was curdling inside, filling with anger. Stewing in it. What was wrong with this kid? As annoying as Eevie could be, she would never hurt a defenseless animal. None of them would. How had Loo even thought to do such a thing? Where had that instinct come from?
“You know, Loo,” Jinny said through gritted teeth, “it would sure be fun if you knew how to swim, wouldn’t it?”
Loo looked puzzled. “Whah?” he said.
Jinny rose and leaned over Loo, towered above him in the shallows. “See,” she said, “if you could swim, then you could play out there too. And I wouldn’t have to sit here with you. Wouldn’t you like to learn to swim?”
Loo looked up at Jinny. “No!” he shouted. “No, no, no!” He shook his head wildly back and forth.
“Oh, come on,” she said. “You have to start somewhere. Like this.” Jinny laid her long body down in the shallow water and showed him how to kick his feet and splash his arms at the
same time, forcing a grin. “Now you try,” she added.
“No!” shouted Loo.
Jinny reached up with one arm and tugged at Loo’s leg, so that he lost his balance and toppled over beside her. He hit the surface with a splash, and Jinny was almost surprised by how good it felt, the motion of grabbing him, pulling him down, hearing the splash and his shout. Serves him right, she thought. Poor sea star.
But then . . . Loo sat right up, and with his eyes on Jinny the whole time, he reached into the water and pulled out another sea star. Right in front of Jinny’s face, staring deep into her eyes, Loo began to tug. Again.
Jinny couldn’t believe it. “Loo!” she shouted. She scrambled onto her knees beside him in the water. “Drop it!” she said. “I’m not kidding. Cut that out!”
Loo pulled harder than before, his expression unchanging.
“I mean it!” shouted Jinny.
With a quick, sharp tug, Loo yanked at the leg . . . and pulled it right off. “Ha!” he said, holding up the sea-star chunk proudly. He stuck out his tongue.
“No!” shouted Jinny. Before she knew what she was doing, her wet hand was slicing through the air swiftly. She felt Loo’s small cheek explode against her palm. It stung like the bees, like a burn, full of prickles.
Loo gave a cry of pain and fell back over into the water. Jinny did too. They stared at each other, both of them shocked into silence, as the sea star and its leg fell from Loo’s small hands.
Jinny stood up suddenly. “Ben!” she called, frantic. “Joon?”
Nobody came, and a fear rose inside Jinny, bubbling up in the back of her throat. What was happening to her? She had hit a Care. What else might she do?
“Ben!” she screamed. “Please, come, now!”
In a moment, Ben was by her side. “What is it? Are you okay? You need something?”
“Just . . . can you watch him?” asked Jinny. “Please? I need a minute. Just a minute. By myself.”
Before Ben could answer, Jinny dashed forward into the water, dived under the surface, and swam out evenly in a straight line. Away. Away, away, away. Away from Loo, from the scene of what had just happened. She swam, to feel her own body pull and move. Jinny turned a somersault and felt the extra weight tugging at her skin, the odd heavyiness of her wet clothes. She wished she could take them off, strip this weight from herself. It was all so heavy, so terribly heavy.
She just needed to get away, away from everything, from all of them. Her whole world. Sometimes it was all too much, too close, too loud.
Jinny swam. And swam. And swam.
Walking home a little while later, her clothes baking in the sun, Jinny was silent. She trudged slowly, a little apart from the group. She couldn’t help noticing that Ess was with Sam again, deep in conversation. Jinny wondered what they had to talk about so intently. It was good, she told herself, that they had finally found each other. So good. And yet . . .
When she passed the place in the cove where the boat sat up on the sand, beside the bell on its hook, Jinny stopped. The green paint was peeling in the sun. Jinny kicked the boat. “This is all your fault,” she said. “Where did you come from? Why can’t you tell me?”
Of course, the boat didn’t reply. It just sat there. Jinny kicked it again, harder.
“Hey, now,” said a voice behind her. “There’s no need for kicking.”
Jinny turned, flustered at being caught. “Oh, hi, Ben.”
“Hey,” said Ben. “Rough day?”
“Yeah, you could say that,” said Jinny.
After a pause, Ben added, “Hey, Jinny . . . can I ask you a question?”
“Sure,” she replied. “What is it?”
“Oh, just . . . do you think . . . ,” Ben began, staring at where Jinny’s foot had flaked off a bit of paint. “Do you think you’ll ever go?”
Jinny stared at Ben. “I was just thinking about that. . . .”
“I wondered,” added Ben. “Because maybe, one day, I might. Go. I mean, at some point, it would be time for me to go, right? Even if you don’t? But I don’t know when to go, with the boat on land like this. I don’t know when it’s my time.”
“I hadn’t . . . thought about that . . . very much,” Jinny said slowly. It felt wrong, to be holding Ben back, and wrong not to tell him the things she knew. What if he had a mammaloo waiting for him, like Abbie? “Honestly, I hadn’t thought about that at all.”
“I can tell,” said Ben.
Jinny turned. “What do you mean by that?” she asked.
“Nothing,” said Ben. “Just that the rest of us are here too, you know?”
“Well, of course I do!” snapped Jinny.
“Sometimes it’s hard to be certain what you know, or feel,” said Ben with a shrug. “You don’t . . . talk to me. Not the same way you used to. It makes it hard to tell you things.”
Jinny squinted at the sun. How had they used to talk? She could hardly remember anymore. It occurred to her in that moment that if he wanted to, he could go, at any time. With no warning at all. Ben could just sail away, and she’d be left behind, without the boat, without any control at all. “You wouldn’t . . . just go, without saying anything, would you? Take the boat and leave?”
Ben shrugged. “That doesn’t sound like me, does it?”
“No,” said Jinny. “It doesn’t.”
“But what difference would it really make if I did leave? I don’t have a Care to worry about. It’s one thing to feel like you’re abandoning people, I guess. But I don’t have anyone to abandon, do I? I don’t have anyone who needs me.”
“No. I don’t guess you do,” said Jinny.
Ben winced and, without another word, turned to walk away.
“Wait, no!” called Jinny. “We all need you, Ben.”
Buy he kept on walking away.
Jinny let him leave. She watched him run on ahead. She waited. She didn’t trust herself to walk beside him now. She might open her mouth. And the way she’d been feeling lately, she had absolutely no idea what could come out.
Everything was so wrong, so ruined. It was like the whole world was spoiled—the sky and everything beneath it. Jinny wished things could just go back. To the way they’d been before. Before Loo. Loo. Before things had begun to change. The island. And Jinny herself, on the inside. Before she’d ever felt like this, or imagined she could.
She hated this feeling. This sadness. Or . . . what was it? Not sadness exactly. Fury? Maybe both? She wasn’t sure if she wanted to hit someone or cry. Only that there was a tightness in the back of her throat. A pull. A strain. Like there were words back there that wanted to fly out, like fire. Words she didn’t know how to speak. Jinny thought it might help to scream, just scream, wordlessly. But then the others would all hear, and worry.
The others. Always the others. Always there, to think about.
Jinny looked down once more at the boat. The boat. The stupid boat. Jinny found herself clenching and unclenching her fists at the sight of it. Gritting her teeth.
Was this what Deen had felt, before the green boat arrived for him? Like he was suffocating?
And then Jinny wasn’t angry at the boat. Suddenly it was as though she was staring at the cool blue sea on a broiling hot day. The boat was beautiful, a beautiful green. Soothing, even. Jinny longed for it, wanted to run to it, climb in. Suddenly, the boat looked like relief. All she had to do was drag it to the water and climb in. Then she could leave it all behind her. This feeling, and the island she loved.
But what kind of Elder would she be, to leave now? To leave her littles, just when their world was falling apart? No better than whoever had set her in a boat, releasing her to the sea. Only worse, because she’d broken the world she was abandoning them to. What kind of person broke the walls of the world, and then ran away as the roof fell in?
Oh, it would feel . . . free. She could imagine it. The cool wind cutting across the water on this hot day. She’d sit in the prow, close her eyes, leave it all behind her. And ahead of her wou
ld be . . . what?
A mammaloo of her own? Her . . . parents? If they existed? The ones who had set her in the boat to begin with? No, not them. They weren’t real. Or if they were, they didn’t matter. Which was pretty much the same thing.
But Deen. Waiting. Would he greet her? Would she tell him what she’d done? What had happened? All of it? What if she did? Would he understand? What would he say?
Nothing, he’d say nothing. Not at first, anyway. He was Deen. Jinny smiled as she imagined it. He’d fold her in big long arms. He’d rock her just a little, her head on his shoulder. He’d say, “Shh, it’s okay.” And then it would be. Because he’d be there.
Jinny closed her eyes. She tilted her face to the sun, shook her head slightly, and as her hair grazed her cheek, it was almost like Deen’s hair, falling against her. And she wasn’t so alone anymore.
Then the tears came. Rising, brimming. The green paint in front of her blurred. Jinny stood, rocking on her heels in the soft sand of the dunes, and shook her head hard, as all through her she felt a flutter. Like something was waking up inside her. A tiny bird in her belly, unfolding wings, and taking flight.
“Oh!” she gasped lightly, opening her eyes to the glaring sun. The boat in front of her was blurred by tears now, a smudge of green.
Jinny took off running, back to camp, back to the others.
22
From the Inside
Back at the cabin, Jinny found Loo and Ess curled up together, worn out and resting. She stared at them a second. They looked so sweet. What was wrong with her that Loo made her so crazy? And she seemed to bring out the worst in him too. What kind of Elder was she? She remembered that awful moment of the slap, the automatic rage inside her. Where had that part of her come from? What had woken it up?
“Hey, Loo, Ess,” whispered Jinny. “How about I go and get some books for us to read? Shall we have a quiet story time?”
Loo eyed Jinny warily.
Ess registered his look, but she nodded. “Yes, please, Jinny.”
So Jinny turned and left the cabin, trudged up the path. When she got to the book cabin, though, and was hunting through the books, Jinny found herself thinking not about Loo and Ess but about Abbie again. Each time she saw her name—Abigail Ellis—at the top of a book, or noticed her notes in the margins, she thought of the letter hidden back in her cabin.
Orphan Island Page 16