by Pam Withers
“Here he is!” I hear Mr. Roth’s voice. People turn, and the crowd parts to let me through.
My eyes fix on my bridge. It’s just like when I turned it in—slim pillars, vertical suspender cables, tons of tiny wires and cables and plates. Except for the blue ribbon hung on it.
“Congratulations!” Friends punch me in the shoulder, smiling at me. They say things like, “Way to go” and “Knew you’d do something great.”
“You rock!” says Tom.
“It’s amazing,” crows Bella.
Then suddenly everyone’s pressing around it. They ask me questions. I answer them all. After all the research I had to do to make the model, I know a lot about bridge construction.
“It certainly deserved to win first place!” Mr. Roth says, and I turn pink.
“All it’s missing is a bungee-jump rope!” Anya says. The next thing I know, the kids are crowding around Caitlin and me to ask about the bungee jump.
“How long will the rope be?”
“Can you go on it upside down?”
“When is it opening?”
“How much will it cost?”
“Wow, I can’t wait!”
By the time the bell rings, I’m standing with my head held high. And thinking maybe the bungee jump really will save our tree farm.
Chapter Four
“Chris!” Gord greets me as I arrive panting from climbing the bluff. He places his measuring tape back into his tool belt and plops down on the newly painted pipe. “Home from school already? No homework?”
That probably means I bug him too much. But hey, nothing can keep me away. It’s cool watching him work. I really like seeing the trestle part (steel beams around the pipe) getting repaired. And I especially like asking Gord questions.
Gord studies the plans he keeps in a red binder. He flips pages back and forth like he’s confused about something. He wipes sweat from his neck.
“You have to calculate for loading and size, right?” I ask.
“Of course,” he says, frowning.
“My science teacher says the welding is the most important part.” Welding, of course, is joining metal pieces together—fusing and hammering them.
“Is that so?” His eyes are still on the plans.
“When does the boom crane come to put in the catwalk?” I ask.
“The what? Oh. Soon, Chris.”
“And what’s the catwalk made of?”
“Steel mesh. Twenty inches wide.”
“My science teacher says you’ll get a shop to pre-make it in pieces. Then you’ll use the crane to put them together.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I can’t wait till the platform is on. Can I see the plans again, please?”
Gord slams the binder closed and hands it to me.
“Something wrong?” I ask. I hope he’s not going to send me away. He hasn’t yet. I’m the boss’s son, after all. Or the boss, if you read Dad’s most recent letter to Gord. It’s in my jeans pocket, ready to deliver to him.
“Just trying to make sense of some stuff.”
“Oh.” I turn back to the binder.
The final drawing shows the fixed-up pipe surrounded by stronger steel casing. The repaired frame resembles a long, airy boxcar with steel Xs on the top, bottom and sides. Like a freight-train section frozen midair over the channel, carrying the pipe.
On top is a narrow walkway with sturdy railings. That’s the catwalk. Halfway across the bridge, the catwalk opens onto a platform. It sticks out over the water, a sort of topless metal cage with a gate. Under the cage is the bungee-jump anchor and winch. (A winch is machinery that pulls things up.) Whoever steps through the gate is on a plank like a diving board.
Two diagonal railings support the jump-off point like it’s a drawbridge about to be pulled up. Giant red footprints are painted on the end of the board to show where the jumper stands before leaping.
The jump master—that’s the guy in charge of checking jumpers’ equipment before saying, “Go!”—will stand inside the cage.
“So the platform is eight by eight feet,” I muse. “Whoa, can you imagine standing on it, ready to jump 150 feet down into—?”
“Ahoyyy up there!”
“Oh no, not him again,” Gord mumbles.
“Ahoyyy down there!” I dare to shout to the rowboat. “That’s Craven, the fisherman,” I tell Gord. “He’s grumpy but harmless. You can ignore him.”
“The more I ignore him, the more he bugs me,” Gord says.
“You tell her to stay off the island!” Craven instructs me.
“Who?” I respond impatiently.
“She’s disturbing them.”
“Who’s disturbing whom?”
“You’re disturbing us!” Gord inserts for good measure.
Craven shakes his head like we’re the troublesome ones. “Your sister is bothering the children!”
I stand up so fast I almost fall off the pipe.
“Is Caitlin on Hospital Island? By herself? Now?”
“She’s on Thorn Island. She was bothering the children. They got mad.”
“Where’s Thorn Island, and what children?” Gord asks me. He pauses from scribbling numbers on the plans.
“Thorn Island is what Hospital Island used to be called. And he’s talking about the leper children. I mean, the ghosts of the leper children.” I attempt a chuckle, but it comes out like a hiccupy cough. “Sorry, Gord. Gotta go. But Dad asked me to give this to you.”
Gord accepts the envelope and stares at me. I scramble up and start crawling. My knees are on the pipe. My hands are on the cagelike structure around it.
“Hey! That’s not safe, Christopher Bigg!” Gord calls out to me. “You get down right now. Safer to crawl through if you have to go across, you know.”
“Caitlin crawls through. I crawl on top,” I inform him. Halfway across, while crawling over the hatch, I glance down at Craven. He scowls upward.
“You’re in charge?” Gord shouts suddenly, waving the letter he has just opened. “A thirteen-year-old is my boss?” He laughs like it’s the best joke he has heard all day. “Now I’ve heard everything!”
I should answer back, but I know I have to check on my sister. My knees go into high gear. I move like a jockey on a racehorse. When I reach solid ground, I sprint downhill. Into the hospital ruins, down the corridors. I zigzag from one cruddy room to another, trying to locate a faint shouting.
“Chris! Someone! Heeeelp!” comes her muffled voice. I enter a room that ages ago must have been tiled from ceiling to floor. Now the squares of ceramic are covered in filth. Half the pieces are missing. Rusty pipes run down the walls. Piles of moldy leaves mush underfoot.
“Heeelp me!” Banging is coming from under a big rotted square of heavy wood. It must have fallen from where it was leaning against the wall.
I grab hold and try to lift it. It won’t budge. Grunting, I try again. This time it comes up. “Quick!” I urge my dirt-covered sister as she pokes her tear-stained face up from some kind of former hot tub. “Get out before I lose my grip.”
She bolts free like a rabbit out of a hole. The second she’s clear, I let go, and the wood comes crashing down again. It cracks and sends dust flying.
I’m sneezing. Caitlin clings to me.
“What are you doing here? What happened?” I ask.
“Exploring this old pool. I was wiping dirt off the tiles. Underneath, it’s kind of pretty. There are lots of colors and designs.”
“And the leper children didn’t like you here. So they crashed the board down and trapped you,” I say dryly.
Caitlin’s eyes grow big. “D-d-do you really think so?” She clutches me harder and looks around the room.
“Of course not. But that’s what Craven told me.”
“How’d he know I—?”
“Probably got out of his boat and saw you. I’ve seen him using the outhouse on the island before. Then rowed out to tell me. Anyway, it’s not safe here. Especially by yourself. If
Dad knew, he’d—”
“Yeah, well, he’s not here. And you’re not Dad. And you’re never around to play with anymore. All you care about is Gord and that stupid—”
“It’s not stupid, Caitlin. And it’s my job to make sure Gord is doing it right.” At this, she peels herself away and crosses her arms. The glare on her filthy face is enough to scare away a roomful of ghosts.
“Yeah, right,” she huffs.
“Did you hear any noise before that board came down?”
Caitlin uncrosses her arms and looks around warily. “I don’t think so.”
“So it came down all by itself?”
“I guess.”
“’Cause if someone is trying to scare you, they’ll be sorry. No one messes with the Bigg family!” I say it loud enough for trespassers, vandals, jokers and ghosts to hear.
Chapter Five
I’m in the school library, looking at books on leprosy. Mrs. Dubin was right. The people in the photos and drawings are gross. Weird lumps and sores all over their bodies, toes and fingers like scarecrow sticks.
“No wonder people used to dump them on islands. Didn’t want anyone else to catch the disease,” I say as she wanders up and peers over my shoulder.
“That was before they knew leprosy wasn’t very contagious after all,” Mrs. Dubin says.
“They are kind of ugly,” I muse. I turn pages that show medieval drawings. I see lepers slumped on village streets, collecting coins.
“Yes, the muscle weakness caused by the disease made their bodies crooked. That’s also why their toes and fingers shrank. And the sores didn’t help. People were deathly afraid of them. Those who helped sometimes caught the disease. There weren’t plastic gloves and mouth masks then.”
“So the doctor and nurse who helped leper children on Hospital Island were really brave, right?”
“Thorn Island,” she corrects me. Then she straightens, and her smile lights her face. “Brave and generous, Chris. Heroes, I’d say.”
“Except then the doctor got the disease and—”
“No one really knows what happened to him,” she interrupts with a frown.
“That story about him stealing and hiding the money. What do you think?”
“I think you should stick to your school report,” she snaps.
Whoa, what’d she have for breakfast? “And you should never, ever visit Thorn Island. It disturbs the children’s spirits.”
“Mmmm,” I reply.
She shuffles away. I look from the library book to my empty notebook page. I sigh and read more. Then I start writing so fast that my hand cramps:
Leprosy (Hansen’s disease)
Symptoms: sores, rashes and lumps all over the body. (Yuck!) Especially on eyes, nose, ears, hands and feet. Numbness and weak muscles that make toes and fingers shrink. Like they’ve fallen off or something. If they don’t get medicine, lepers eventually can’t walk, go blind and die. Children catch leprosy easier than adults.
Where lepers lived: in leper colonies, places that other people wouldn’t visit. Especially islands. Until about seventy-five years ago. Including Hospital Thorn Island.
History: Leprosy was considered incurable and very contagious. So lepers were banned and avoided. Only brave doctors, priests and monks would try to help them.
Cause: a germ
Cure: discovered in 1982 (whew!)
Brrrrng!
All right, the bell! Time’s up, and I’m out of here to play basketball with my friends before I head home.
“Gord’s not on the pipe,” Caitlin reports when I get home.
“He should be,” I say.
“You going to make him?” She smiles. “He’s on Hospital Island with some weird tool, wandering around like he’s lost something.”
“Let’s get the boat and go see.”
Minutes later I’m rowing our family dinghy over, ready to disturb the children’s spirits if I have to. I need to make sure Gord earns the money our family is paying him.
The engineer doesn’t notice us as we pull to shore.
“See?” Caitlin whispers.
He’s bent over a metal rod with a circle of black metal on the end, hovering a few inches from the ground. He is wandering in circles, eyes intent on the device. “What’s that?” I wonder aloud.
Caitlin shrugs. “I dunno, but I don’t think it has anything to do with the bungee jump.”
I lift the oars out of the water, and we tie up the boat. “Hi, Gord!”
He jumps. “Oh, hi, kids. Didn’t know you were on the island. This is a metal detector. I lost one of my tools. Hoping it will help me find it.”
“Which tool?” I ask.
“Um, screwdriver.”
“It’s right there on your tool belt.”
He looks down. “Well, I’ll be! You’re right. Thanks, Chris.”
“Aren’t metal detectors for finding rings and coins and stuff?” Caitlin asks.
“Anything metal,” he says.
“Can I try it?” Caitlin asks.
“Um, sure, but—”
“—but right now we have to get to work,” I finish for him. “Walk you up to the pipe, Gord?”
His eyebrows slant downward for a moment. Then he nods. “Of course. Got to get ready for that crane tomorrow!”
We work hard for the rest of the afternoon. We clear brush and stuff from the road to make room for the crane and prefab catwalk sections. We’re so focused, we almost forget about Caitlin. She comes rushing up the Hospital Island rise, waving one hand and carrying Gord’s metal detector in the other.
“Look what I found!” As she greets us, she lifts something from a pocket before we can answer. “Four bracelets!” She flashes some old copper bangles. “I can wear them in the school play next week!”
“Just like a dancer’s bracelets,” I say, humoring her.
“Good for you,” Gord says less enthusiastically. “But you’ll put my detector away carefully in my trailer now, right?”
“You bet!”
“And if you find an old rusty box,” he continues, “don’t dig it up. Tell me first. It could be dangerous. Could be the leper doctor’s tools. They might infect you.”
Caitlin’s eyes grow large. “Oh. Okay. Thanks, Gord.” And with her bracelets jangling, she and the metal detector disappear down the hill to Gord’s trailer.
Chapter Six
Mom is wearing a dress and lipstick for a night out to watch the school play. She’s making a real effort, even though she has been working long hours.
“I’m so proud you got one of the dancer parts, Caitlin,” she says. “And you planned your costume all by yourself.”
I’ve decided not to make fun of my sister’s strange outfit—pink tights, sparkly slippers and a too-large silk dress from a charity shop. Around her neck, several bright scarves flutter as she twirls on the path.
“I’m sooo excited!” she says as she shakes her arms to rattle the copper bracelets. “I’ve found sixteen so far! So I have eight on each arm. Had to polish them, but aren’t they shiny now?”
“They’re lovely,” Mom says, inspecting them. “I feel sorry for the person who lost them.”
“Finders keepers,” Caitlin says quickly. “No names on them. Just little numbers on the inside.”
We deliver my hyped-up sister to the gym’s back door. We seat ourselves in the gym. I wave to some friends. The place is full.
The teachers are seated a few rows ahead, close to the front. Mr. Roth turns and waves at me. I wave back. I spot Mrs. Dubin in the row behind him.
I look around. Craven is a few rows behind me. It’s nice to see that he gets out of his boat and joins the community sometimes. No sign of Gord. Wonder what he’s doing tonight? Resting after the crane and catwalk sections finally came? Maybe playing cards with himself in the trailer? Or wandering around with that stupid metal detector.
“Too bad you didn’t audition, Chris,” Mom says.
“Not my thing. And it’s not like
I have the time,” I say. “But it’s great that Caitlin got a part.”
“And her friends Bella and Anya.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the drama teacher says. He’s standing in front of the red velvet curtain. “Tonight we are proud to present the play Tiny Dancers. Let the show begin!”
We clap, and the older actors come out first. As they recite their parts in flat or overdramatic voices, my mind drifts to the bungee-jump project.
Gord has patched and painted the pipe. He has replaced the steel straps and some gridwork around it. Now the catwalk is here. Tomorrow he starts installing that. Next, the gated platform goes on. Then, maybe in five weeks, the grand opening. If only Dad would finish earning what he needs to and come home to see it.
“The dancers just came out,” Mom says, nudging me.
Music has started from some boom box behind the curtain. I sit up straight and try to concentrate. Caitlin, her two friends and three other girls in her grade step into view. The stage lights make their costumes sparkle.
Caitlin is in the middle, grinning like a fairy. She spins, glides and takes over the floor. She’s leading the other girls, brimming with confidence. Way to go, Caitlin!
In the middle of the number, she dances close to stage’s edge, near the teachers. She lifts her arms like a ballerina. Then she does a spin and shakes her wrists. Even people in the back row can probably hear the jingling.
Mom is leaning forward, smiling like crazy. She presses her palms together. One of the teachers rises. Her large body blocks our view. She pushes slowly through a sea of knees to reach the aisle. Lots of people look annoyed.
“Sit back down!” I hear someone shout.
“That’s your librarian, isn’t it?” Mom asks.
We watch Mrs. Dubin charge up the aisle, finger pointed at Caitlin.
Caitlin stops moving. Her sweaty face reveals confusion and fright.
Mrs. Dubin halts in front of the stage and stares up at Caitlin. Then she collapses onto the floor.
A big commotion starts. Someone shouts, “Call an ambulance! Is there a doctor here?”
Caitlin backs up slowly, as deflated as a punctured balloon. The drama teacher ushers everyone off the stage.