by Jill Barnett
The sad truth was that she didn’t really know her father. But she desperately wanted to, so she just stood there with her eye pressed to that brass keyhole and watched him.
It was odd how he looked different to her, and yet the same. His hair had grown longer than the last time she’d seen him and it was darker than her own pale gold hair. Her father’s hair was deep golden, the color that the tops of the puffy clouds turned when the sun set over the western hills. He wore his hair combed back from his broad forehead, which made his face look like the rocky cliffs on Arrant Island with their sharp granite edges.
She could remember trying to mold his likeness from the clay they’d made from wheat flour in art class one day, but she could never form her father’s strong features with her small pudgy fingers. She had needed something sharp like a knife to cut the clay. But knives were against the school rules, even in art class, something which made her so peevish that instead she’d made a likeness of Miss Harrington riding a broomstick, then had to spend the next few hours printing “I will not be disrespectful to my elders” on the blackboard a hundred times.
That was last spring. Now it was the end of summer and she could see the last of the warm season on her father’s face. His skin was tanned from the intense summer sun that crawled over the islands. She was glad her father’s skin was the color of the hickory nuts that fell on the grounds outside and wasn’t the milky pale skin color that made the arithmetic master look so sickly and weak, even when he wasn’t unconscious.
Her father wasn’t sickly or weak. One look at him and anyone could see that. He was an enormous man. The top of her head barely came to his wrist. When she would tilt back her head so she could look up at him, he seemed as tall and straight as those island pine trees, almost as tall and straight as she imagined God Himself must be.
Her father hadn’t been to the school in months, not since the last really bad letter, when she and Graham had dunked Chester Farriday’s head in the mop bucket. Chester’s father was the governor of the state, so there had been a lot of brouhaha over that prank. But Chester was wrong. He was dumb and said stupid, mean things. Her family was not a bunch of spooky ghosts and monsters that scalped men with claymores and wrapped women in their plaids, then rode off in the mist to have their way with them. She wasn’t certain what having-their-way-with-them was, but she knew MacLachlans didn’t do it because Chester Farriday was a big old dummy.
He had to be. MacLachlans didn’t eat small spit-roasted children and boil bat wings and toads for supper. Although she had wished she were really a witch so she could turn Chester Farriday into a toad, then maybe someone else would boil him.
Chester had caused the whole thing anyway. He had tried to get the other boys to pin Kirsty and Graham on the ground and yank off their shoes and stockings to see if they had cloven feet. But Kirsty had pinched him really hard and scrambled away. She had to do something. Graham didn’t fight back with those boys and, besides, it was dumb old Chester who was standing right next to the mop bucket. If he didn’t want to get his head stuck in the bucket, he shouldn’t’ve been dumb enough to stand next to it.
“Lemme see.” Graham was pestering her and poking his finger in her shoulder blade.
“Just a minute.” She turned her head sideways and could see Miss Harrington’s skinny freckled hand twisting a silver letter opener while she spoke. Also on the desktop was the wooden ruler, the same one that her knuckles knew so well that they cried out “howdy-do” when they met each other. At least in her mind they cried out “howdy-do.” If she pretended something silly like that then it didn’t sting so terribly much and she could keep herself from crying and showing anyone that the cruel smack from that ruler truly did hurt her.
Miss Harrington was jabbing a silver letter opener into the desktop’s green ink blotter over and over again as she spoke. After a minute Kirsty realized she was using the opener to accentuate each of her nouns and pronouns—grammar was Kirsty’s very best subject.
“Your children have a severe discipline problem.”
After the words “your children,” the letter opener stuck in the desk and wiggled like an arrow did when it hit the archery target bull’s-eye.
“Harrington Hall has an exemplary reputation, Mr. MacLachlan. We are known as one of the finest boarding academies in New England. Harrington alumni have become pillars of society. We have never failed to mold even the most headstrong of children into proper young ladies and gentlemen. Our history of success, as I told you when you enrolled your son and daughter, has been one hundred percent.” Miss Harrington cleared her throat and there was absolute silence for so long that Kirsty could barely keep her breath in her chest.
“Until now.” Miss Harrington planted her thin white hands on the desk and stood up stiffly. “The situation has gotten completely out of hand. I’m sorry, Mr. MacLachlan, but I must ask you to withdraw your children from Harrington Hall immediately.”
Kirsty turned back to Graham and whispered excitedly, “We did it!”
“I wanna see!” Graham whispered and tried to shove her aside.
Kirsty ground her heel into his foot and glared at him until he winced. “Not yet,” she said through gritted teeth and looked back through the keyhole. Her father opened his coat pocket and took out a money pouch.
She heard him say, “How much?” Her breath froze in her chest and grew thin like the cold winter air did.
“This isn’t a monetary issue.”
His expression changed suddenly. He shoved away from the fireplace and crossed the room with three long and quick strides. “My children need to be in school. I’ll have another talk with them.”
No! No! No! Kirsty’s hand tightened on the glass doorknob so tightly she could feel the diamond-shaped facets press into her palm.
Miss Harrington, bless her ruler-thwacking, blackboard-writing, and corner-sitting old soul, shook her head and handed him an envelope.
Her father stared at it.
“It’s a bank draft refunding the balance of the tuition,” Miss Harrington explained, then added, “less damages, physicians’ fees, and the like.”
Now he was the one who braced his hands on the desk and leaned toward Miss Harrington. “There are no other schools available. There must be some solution.” His jaw was so tight, like when he and Uncle Calum had a fight, and his words sounded fiercely quiet and strained. Was he angry? Suddenly their pranks took on new meaning when it looked like their father might actually care enough to be angry.
“I’m sorry, but you’ll have to take your children home with you.”
“I can’t take care of two children.” There was a thread of something that sounded like panic in her father’s voice as he pinned Miss Harrington with one of those “listen-to-me” looks that all adults got when something wasn’t going as they wanted it to.
Kirsty chewed her lower lip for a second. She had never heard him sound like that—almost scared—and it confused her a little, got her thinking until she remembered their plan had worked.
She and Graham were going back to the island. Back home. She’d accept the consequences of what they had done because the only way she could even try to win over her father was if she and Graham were with him day after day, instead of locked away at a dumb old school with people who hated them.
“You are their father, Mr. MacLachlan. You’ll have to take care of them.” Miss Harrington stepped around the desk and moved ahead of their father toward the door. “Your children are waiting in the next room.”
Kirsty moved back quickly and turned to her brother. “Okay, Graham. Now it’s your turn.” She stepped back and Graham scrambled to look in the keyhole.
Boys were such silly and impatient creatures, she thought with a sigh.
A second later the door opened . . . and Graham fell flat on his face, right at their father’s feet.
Chapter 8
You should never do anything wicked and then lay it on your brother, when it is just as convenient to
lay it on another boy.
—Advice to Youth, Mark Twain
Kirsty stood there looking all the way up at her father. However, he wasn’t looking at her. Both he and Miss Harrington were staring down at Graham, who was still lying flat on the floor while his face turned redder and redder, almost as bright a red color as his hair. He slowly turned, his expression a little dazed, until he focused on her.
Her brother’s gaze narrowed. His lower lip and chin jutted out. She knew that look. She made her eyes as wide as she could and shrugged her shoulders.
He wasn’t hoodwinked at all, so she looked up quickly and gave her father that same wide-eyed look, which worked. She captured his attention long enough to get in two whole blinks and a saintly look.
Then Graham tackled her. They hit the carpet hard, but Kirsty got in one good sock. She wiggled out of his grasp, and at exactly the same time . . . she pinched him. While he was hollering, she sat on his chest. Graham might be bigger and older than she, but she would not let him best her. He was a boy.
She heard Miss Harrington shriek. She sounded like a barn owl. Out of the corner of Kirsty’s eye, she saw her grab two china bluebirds that wobbled on a nearby table, then hug them to her bony old chest.
Before Kirsty could get in one more good sock, her father lifted her off Graham and set her on her feet right next to him, so close she could feel the heat from him and was aware of his scent, like the sea and leather. If she really tried, she could almost smell that sharp pine scent of the island. Her father smelled like home.
She looked up at him.
His brow was creased and his eyebrows were almost touching—a really stern look.
“Do. Not. Move,” he said with force, but not anger, then turned his attention to Graham.
Kirsty took two wee little steps, then froze when her father whipped back around with a suspicious look.
Standing perfectly still, she gave him her most brilliant smile.
He blinked once and stood there for the briefest second, his expression odd, as if she were a stranger to him. He looked away and shook his head slightly, then scowled down at her brother who was still on the floor. “Stand up, Graham.”
“My belly hurts. She socked me.”
“I saw the whole thing. You started this.”
“But she—”
Her father held up his hand and Graham shut right up.
Kirsty was amazed. She had to pinch her brother or grind her heel into his foot so he’d shut up.
“Boys do not hit girls.”
“But she’s not a girl, Father.” Now Graham was whining. “She’s my sister!”
Boys always whined, Kirsty thought with disgust. Grown up men did too. The arithmetic master whined whenever the class didn’t understand what he was trying to teach them and the school janitor whined when Chester Farriday had pulled his soaked head out of the mop bucket and messed up his clean floor. The pastor even whined when they didn’t know their Bible verses.
She wondered if God whined, then remembered the Bible story about the creation they’d read in Sunday school. Adam had whined to God that it was Eve who had given him the fruit. Considering that, Kirsty figured God probably whined too, since He made Adam in His own image and since men whined in the Bible and the Bible was God’s own word.
Kirsty just stood there very calmly watching her father’s face while he stared down at her brother, who blinked a couple of times before he slowly looked directly at their father and swallowed so hard Kirsty could almost hear the gulping sound of his Adam’s apple. She actually felt a wee bit sorry for Graham. She did play a trick on him after all. It was just so very hard for her to pass up on such a perfect chance to best someone, especially her brother, who so often called her a troll under his breath.
She sighed.
Her father turned to her, his face unreadable, but he ran a hand through his golden hair. He looked away and stared at the floor for a long tense second while he rubbed his forehead like Miss Harrington did when she had one of her many headaches that seem to happen whenever Kirsty was in trouble.
“I will leave you to reacquaint yourself with your children, Mr. MacLachlan. Their belongings are packed and by now should be waiting at the front doors. Good day, sir.” Old Miss Harrington stuck her pointy chin in the air. She turned and “perambulated”—one of last week’s spelling words—out the door with those fragile-looking porcelain bluebirds still clutched to her chest like she was one of those mid-evil knights who had vowed to save holy relics from the heathens. Kirsty always remembered the story of those knights ’cause she never understood why evil men, even if they were only halfway evil, would make a vow to save things for God.
Her father watched the door close, then finally and slowly turned back and looked from her to her brother, who was still sitting on the floor.
“Get up, Graham,” was all he said.
As her brother got up, Kirsty stepped forward before he could do or say something dumb. Besides, she supposed she owed him. And he was her brother.
“Father?”
“What?”
She smiled as brightly as she could, held it for a second or two, then said, “I didn’t drop that brick out of the window onto Mr. Appleby’s head.”
Her father didn’t say anything, but watched her as if he were trying to see the lie or the truth on her face. She was telling a little of both, as usual, so she figured she was safe.
“And Graham didn’t do it either.” She stepped a little in front of her brother and covertly pressed her elbow into his ribs. “Did you, Graham?”
Her brother’s eyes grew wide from the jab of her elbow and shook his head perfectly. He wasn’t as dumb as some boys.
“I suppose that brick fell right out of the sky.”
“Well, not exactly.”
Looking into her father’s eyes was not easy. He seemed to know more than most adults and more than she wanted him to.
After a minute, he gave a bark of laughter that was not at all humorous. “I think for once in his meddling old life, Fergus was right.”
“Right about what, Father?”
“About what I need,” he said distractedly.
There it was: the perfect opportunity for her to change the subject. “What do you need?”
He just stood there for a long silence that to her seemed to stretch endlessly. The whole time he stared at his hands and absently twisted the gold ring he wore. His thoughts weren’t with them. She could see that. He had a faraway look, the same look people got when they were lost and trying to figure out which way to go. She wondered what Fergus had told her father he needed, and if it had to do with them, Graham and her.
Now she was curious. “You need something, Father?” She had her hands clasped demurely behind her back, and she rocked slightly from the heels to the toes of her red leather button-top shoes.
He looked down at her as if he were surprised to see her standing there.
Could he really forget her that quickly? Her heart felt a little tighter deep inside of her chest and she realized she had stopped rocking and was standing still and stiff. She lifted her chin a notch to hide her feelings.
He shook his head. “It’s nothing either of you have to worry about.”
She just stood there. Scared.
He gave her an odd look. “Are you all right?”
She nodded.
“You look pale. You’re not sick, are you?”
“No.” She paused, then realized he must care if he looked so uneasy. “It’s just the stuffy old air in here.”
Her father looked around, puzzled.
“Why sometimes it’s so stuffy that we can hardly breathe.” She poked her brother again. “Isn’t it, Graham?”
He nodded, then gave her a questioning look she was afraid her father would see, so she pinched him.
“See. Even Graham looks poorly.”
Now she had her father’s complete attention; she could tell because he was staring at her so sharply. “The class
rooms have no fresh air a’tall and there are no windows and . . . ” She crooked her finger at him so he would bend down to her. When he did, she whispered, “The children faint sometimes. They do.” She nodded. “They truly do. Why Alice Whiting passed out right in the middle of history class. Bam!” She clapped her hands. “Right on her pig fa—” She clamped her lips together, then swallowed. “Right on her face.”
She searched her father’s expression for some reaction, and when she got none, she added, “And it wasn’t just Alice, either. There were lots more. I can tell you all the stories, Father.”
“Yes.” He nodded his head and his face had a pensive but odd expression, as if he knew a secret. “I expect you have plenty of stories in that head of yours.” He continued to look down at her.
She realized at that moment that perhaps there were times when having her father’s complete attention was not such a wonderful thing.
“What I want to hear is the story of what happened to the arithmetic master.”
Neither she nor Graham said anything.
Her father crossed his big arms and looked down at her. “I’m waiting.”
“Well . . . ” She gave a nice big weary kind of sigh and stared at the toes of her shoes. She thought it might make her look less guilty, just in case the fib showed more than she thought. “It’s kind of a long story.”
Her father opened the door and gestured for them to leave. “Come along. I have plenty of time to hear it.”
Both she and Graham walked the few steps to the door, shoulder to shoulder, but once there she let Graham through first, then stopped in the doorway.
She looked up, searching for something in her father’s expression. But she wasn’t sure what, just something she needed to see there.
Nothing happened, so very slowly she held out her hand to him. Her heart was beating so fast, like those stubborn spring birds that pecked at tree trunks, and suddenly she wanted to snatch back her hand. What if he didn’t take it?