The Fog

by Caroline B. Cooney

  Anya said you can’t tell anybody if it’s hard; they just worry and they can’t do anything anyway. I want everybody on Burning Fog Isle worried about me. But the Shevvingtons took care of that. Nobody’s worried. Just mad.

  Anya doesn’t sleep much any more. She’s afraid the seaweed on the window was a sign that the waves are going to come right into the room for her. Her grades are slipping. She breaks down in Public Speaking class and sobs. Mr. Shevvington comes in to give her moral support. She’s always thanking him for being so good to her. He’s not good to her! He’s the one who put her in there to start with.

  Mr. Shevvington wrote Anya’s parents, Dolly.

  Dear Mr. and Mrs. Rothrock, Anya continues to work far below her capacity. Just what immaturity causes this, I do not seem to be able to find out. Instead of growing more mature, contributing more in class, acquiring and using skills, Anya moves steadily backward. …

  I hate Mr. Shevvington, Dolly. You go to junior high to learn government, begin algebra, increase your vocabulary, start a foreign language. Me, I’m learning to hate.

  I cornered Robbie. I asked about his sister. Robbie was afraid, but he told me in the end. Val was sweet and friendly once. Sang in the choir, won prizes in the art fair.

  “Ordinary,” Robbie told me. “But nice.” He frowned; this was the real stumbling block. Val had been nice. … She became nothing. It wasn’t that she stopped being nice. She stopped being anything.

  Val slipped during her senior year; forgot to do homework, stopped washing her hair, avoided her friends, ate strange things, like Spaghetti-O’s cold from a can. She adopted a single outfit — torn corduroy pants and an old shirt of her father’s — and wore it daily for weeks. She was not on drugs, Dolly. She was not on booze.

  She’s locked up now. The Shevvingtons recommended a really good adolescent mental hospital.

  Jonah has fallen in love with me. I know. I wanted to have a boy fall in love with me. But I wanted to choose what boy. Jonah is overflowing with emotions that I do not share. I have to ask for instructions. “How do you feel now?” he asks. I say to him, “How should I feel?” He loves to hear me talk about the island, and whenever I finish my stories he laughs. I can’t tell if he’s laughing at me or with me. I want to be friends with the real kids! Like Vicki and Gretch. But they don’t pay any attention to me. Except when they’re laughing at me.

  Oh, Dolly, it’s so awful. The only good thing is you are safe on Burning Fog. I know you hate sixth. I hated it last year, too. But sixth grade is safe.

  Sometimes when Anya wakes up at night, and slips into bed with me, her feet cold, her hands cold, and she says that the fingers of the dead are walking on her back —

  We hang onto each other, Dolly, but I can’t hold on forever. One of us is going to fall.

  Well, of course she couldn’t send a tape like that to Dolly.

  So she sent nothing.

  “I have to give a speech about the ocean,” said Anya, twitching with nerves. They were up in Anya’s bedroom, Anya staring into the poster of the sea, Blake and Christina staring into Anya. In the afternoon Blake was always at the Schooner Inne now. The Shevvingtons stayed late at the high school, Michael had soccer practice, and Benj had a job pumping gas at the Mobil station.

  “Who says it has to be about the ocean?” demanded Christina. “Talk about the sky, or the grocery store, or Blake’s catalog clothes.”

  Blake was sprawled on the floor of Anya’s room. Christina was never afraid when Blake was there. She did not know what it was about Blake that kept away the fingers of the sea. Was it that he was a boy? That he was in love? That it was daylight?

  “Mr. Shevvington says I have to overcome my fears. He says I have to tackle the scariest topics of all.” Anya whispered to the poster. “He knows all my fears.”

  If I had those forms, thought Christina, if I showed them to my mother and father, then they would believe! Then they would realize that Mr. Shevvington is the one who is sick, not me.

  She wondered where the forms were kept. Who else had read them? Who else had had to fill them out? What about Val’s forms? What had Val been afraid of? How had Mr. Shevvington destroyed Val?

  Anya ran her fingers through her hair and pulled it down over her face to hide herself. Blake sighed and pulled Anya off her bed and down on top of him, putting her hands and hair away from her face. “Anya, stop being so worried. It’s only a high school class. The worst thing that can happen is that you’ll forget your speech and have to sit down.”

  Anya burst into tears. She quivered when anybody raised a voice around her now. Mr. Shevvington never raised his voice, so she skipped a lot of her classes and huddled near his desk. “Blake, don’t yell at me. I can’t date a person who yells at me.”

  “I’m not yelling at you!” yelled Blake.

  “Anyway,” said Anya, “Benj is not afraid of anything. If I have a job, I won’t be afraid, either. So I’m quitting school, too. I found a wonderful job. Where the water is all locked up.”

  “What?” shouted Blake. “Quit school? Are you out of your mind? You will end up a wharf rat then.”

  Christina had thought romance would be fast red cars, billowing black hair, long drives down the coast, alone together, kissing, and in love. That’s what Blake thinks, too, she realized, watching him watch Anya. But Anya — the most romantic-looking person in Maine — Anya doesn’t even know.

  Blake changed subjects. Perhaps he thought he could change Anya as easily. “I made you a present,” said Blake pleadingly. “It’s a calendar. Full of our dates. Nothing but our dates.”

  He had drawn the squares and the months himself. Each week was illustrated with cartoons cut from the newspaper — Far Side, Funky Winkerbean, Peanuts, Cathy, Garfield — cartoons about love and romance and boys and girls. Each Friday and Saturday listed a movie, a drive, or a dance that Blake would take Anya to.

  “That’s so romantic!” said Christina, hugging herself.

  “A paper calendar?” muttered Anya. She never talked in a normal voice any more; she just whispered to herself or to the sea. “Silly little squares with numbers on them. The only true calendar is the tide. It speaks to you; it ordains the time.”

  “Anya,” said Christina nervously, “when the tide speaks to you, don’t answer.”

  Blake got up off the floor. Christina could feel his rage. No, no, Blake, don’t leave her! Don’t break up! You’re all she has. I don’t count. I’m just the seventh-grader in the other bedroom! She needs you!

  But Blake was trembling; his muscles quivered strangely, and she could not tell if he wanted to hit something or hug somebody.

  “I’m putting an end to this,” said Blake. He slammed the window down, hard enough to break the glass. He yanked the paper shade so it snapped on the roller like a gunshot and jerked the thin cotton curtains closed.

  “You can’t get rid of the sea that easily,” said Anya dreamily.

  “Anya, I don’t know what’s happened to you. But it makes me nervous. And my parents — listen, the screwy way you talked in front of them this afternoon — Anya, it didn’t help us any. What is going on?”

  Anya turned very slowly, like a ballerina. She arched onto her toes and with a long, slow wave of her own, pointed to the poster of the sea. “Ask it,” she said. “It knows.”

  How big he is, thought Christina. She was filled with admiration for him, for his body and muscles and anger.

  Blake attacked.

  For one horrible minute she thought she would witness a homicide after all, that Blake would kill Anya with his bare hands. His fingers were huge and curled, like the souvenir woman’s, like Mrs. Shevvington’s, like the waves on the poster of the sea.

  Blake ripped the poster off the wall. Sliding his fingers under the paper, he tore it off in great strips and chunks. The sound filled the room, like the huffing of night, the sound of mutilating. He threw the strips of poster behind him. Bits of green ocean and blue wave fell in the four corne
rs of the room.

  Anya jumped onto her bed, getting off the floor, as if the bits of poster were rats about to bite her bare feet. “I didn’t do it,” she cried. “It wasn’t me!”

  “Who are you talking to, Anya?” shouted Blake, shredding the poster. “This thing was printed by the thousands in some factory in Boston. It’s nothing. Nothing. See? I tore it up. It’s gone.”

  Why didn’t I think of that? wondered Christina. I could have torn it up myself. How clever Blake is.

  The bedroom door was flung open, hitting the wall. The last strip of torn poster hung on the handle like a Christmas tree decoration.

  “What is going on here?” Mrs. Shevvington said in a tight thin voice. “Anya, what are you doing, bringing young men up to your bedroom? Christina, why are you in this room? You have your own room, as I recall. Blake Lathem, I thought better of you. Since you have been associating with these island girls, your behavior has become worse and worse. I plan to address your parents about this. They have been discussing the idea of boarding school with Mr. Shevvington, to remove you from Anya’s influence, and I see that they were very probably right.”

  Anya cried out, draping herself over the bed like some old damp towel. Blake went white.

  “Nothing has happened,” said Christina. “Nothing was going to happen. We were just watching the tide.” She hated how people yielded to Mrs. Shevvington. Why didn’t they kick her in the shins? Why didn’t Blake, who had enough rage in him to break windows, attack her?

  “Oh, you were, were you?” Mrs. Shevvington smiled. It was a brighter, more challenging smile than any she had directed at Christina before.

  War, thought Christina. We’re at war now.

  “Anya, Blake, go downstairs immediately. Christina, clean up the mess in this room.”

  They were gone, Mrs. Shevvington pushing Blake and Anya downstairs like a high wind shifting driftwood.

  Christina was alone with the shreds of poster. From the bathroom she got the whisk broom and dustpan. She began sweeping up the bits of paper.

  Ffffffffffff, began the house.

  She brushed.

  Ffffffffffff, said the house.

  Fffffffffff, said the walls and the floor and the glass.

  Christina tried to stand up but there was weight on her, as if she were standing under water.

  If I can just get downstairs … she thought. With the others. With Blake and Benj. I know it’s just the tide. I know it funnels sounds up through the foundations and between the cracks and inside the cupola windows. I know it’s just Candle Cove.

  She dropped the whisk and dustpan in the hall. She grabbed the banister. She could not remember the way to the stairs. “I’m granite,” she whispered, “it’s Anya who is the tern.” She felt herself tip, as if her granite was only a facade, and indoors, inside her rib cage, under her skin, she was as weak and scared as Anya.

  She heard the ocean clapping with delight. It’s the waves against the rocks, she told herself.

  She smelled the sweat of the sea. It’s just the salt spray, she told herself.

  She fell, clinging to the rope, eyes squeezed shut against the salt water, praying for help.

  “Christina,” said Michael, laughing. “You look so funny hanging onto the banister like that. You know we’re not supposed to run down these stairs. They’re too steep.” He helped her up. He said, “I’ve heard dumb rumors about you in seventh grade, Chrissie. You’ve got to shape up. What’s the matter with you? Don’t you want to fit in? You’re giving island kids a bad name. You of all people!”

  Chapter 10

  IN ENGLISH CLASS MRS. Shevvington was doing adjectives. She would call upon a student, give him a noun — like “prairie” or “ocean liner” — and he would have to think up ten adjectives. Mrs. Shevvington had a stopwatch and they went fast, like a spelling bee. It was fun. Christina hoped she got a good word.

  “Burning Fog Isle,” said Mrs. Shevvington to Christina.

  She made a face. That was no challenge. “Rock-bound,” she began, counting on her fingers, “salty, windy, isolated, pink, lonely, foggy, beloved, famous, and popular.”

  “Very nice, Christina,” said Mrs. Shevvington. “Eleven seconds. Quickest of all so far. No hesitation. But why ‘pink’?”

  “The granite is pink. The pink flecks are called ‘horses.’ My grandmother was called a horse in the granite and so am I.”

  “A horse in the granite,” repeated Mrs. Shevvington. “What does that mean?”

  “Tough,” said Christina. “Impossible to break.”

  She met Mrs. Shevvington’s eyes, but there was nothing to meet. The woman was simply an English teacher working on adjectives. Today when I am strong enough to meet the enemy, thought Christina, there is not one.

  “Do you have electricity out there on that island of yours?” said Gretch scornfully.

  “Oh, we have all the amenities,” Christina told her. “Hot water, telephone, television, microwave oven, the works.” She ached for friendship. Who wanted telephones when you couldn’t talk to your mother? What good were hot showers or the evening news when you needed love?

  Mrs. Shevvington said that Burning Fog Isle had quite an interesting history. The class looked as if they found that hard to believe. “History,” said Gretch, “is never interesting.”

  Mrs. Shevvington smiled. “Burning Fog has always been crime ridden.”

  The class laughed. Christina was enraged. How dare anybody say bad things about her island? “We are not crime ridden,” she said furiously. “I don’t think there’s been so much as a wallet stolen in my whole life.”

  Mrs. Shevvington beckoned to the class, and everybody leaned forward, following the call of that powerful finger. “Before the Revolutionary War, the people on the island were simple fishermen or farmers,” said Mrs. Shevvington with contempt. “Mostly they raised sheep,” she added, as if sheep were invented to be laughed at.

  The mainland kids giggled. They looked at Christina with pity.

  “Before the Revolution, the islanders were very religious, very stern. After the Revolution, the only religion on the island was rum. Islanders were drunk all the time.” Gretch and Vicki snickered. Mrs. Shevvington not only allowed this, but joined in. Mockingly, folding her arms across her chest, she faced Christina. “Burning Fog boys ceased to be sea captains,” she went on, “and became pirates.” The class laughed out loud. “This may sound quaint — an attractive little myth — but bad people populated Burning Fog. Vicious, amoral people. In fact … murderers.” Mrs. Shevvington savored the word. The children mirrored her, whispering the word to each other, letting it murmur like a distant motor. “Generation after generation the people of Burning Fog salvaged from ships they wrecked themselves.”

  “We did not!” cried Christina. “You’re making that up.”

  Mrs. Shevvington raised her eyebrows. “No, Christina, I read it just last night in a book about the shoreline.” She lifted the local Historical Society’s privately printed book and proceeded to read aloud. The names of the supposed shipwreckers were Romney and Rothrock — her family and Anya’s. “You, Christina,” said Mrs. Shevvington, “come from a long line of murderers.”

  The fingers of the sea pressed into the small of Christina’s back.

  She remembered Anya stepping out the window toward Burning Fog.

  She thought of Mr. Shevvington implying that she, Christina Romney, had been trying to push Anya out.

  They are going to murder Anya, thought Christina. They are going to blame it on me. They are going to say that I come from a long line of murderers. That my great grandparents thought nothing of enticing ships onto shoals.

  “Christina the Criminal,” said Gretch, giggling. “I like that.”

  “Christina the Pirate’s Daughter,” suggested Vicki.

  “No, that’s too romantic,” said Gretch.

  The class laughed.

  She went through the cafeteria line. She filled her tray. She passed in he
r blue ticket. She could feel them all watching her. She could feel them all waiting, getting ready to mock or laugh or sneer.

  I will not break down, she thought.

  She walked alone, threading through the filled tables. She did not attempt to say hello and she did not look to see if anybody would let her in. She knew that Gretch and Vicki controlled popularity and they had decided she could not have it after all. Christina walked steadily to one of the empty tables and pulled out a chair. It scraped a little on the floor, the sound her soul would have made if it could have cried out. The seventh grade smirked and turned its back.

  It seemed that all the girls came in pairs and trios and quartets, and giggled together, shared candy bars, alternated arithmetic problems on homework. She wanted to sob, or throw herself at their feet, begging to be allowed to giggle with them.

  Every time she reminded herself that she was granite, it seemed to be a little less true. They were chipping away at her.

  Jonah sat down with her.

  She hated him for it. No boy sat with girls. Not in seventh. It was better to be alone than have a boy take pity on her.

  “I’m not here because of Mr. Shevvington’s orders,” said Jonah. “I really and truly want to go to the dance with you.”

  Christina made a foul noise.

  Jonah said, “You’re beautiful, Christina. You really are.”

  “Get lost, Jonah Bergeron.”

  “My middle name is also a graveyard name,” said Jonah. “It’s Gideon. Jonah Gideon Bergeron.”

  “So?”

  “So don’t you think you could go to a dance with Jonah Gideon?”

  “What makes Jonah Gideon an improvement over Jonah?”

  “He’s more interesting,” said Jonah. “More depth.”

  Christina snorted. Her mind was occupied with other things. She wanted the flashlight. Her allowance was like nothing. One snack, one ticket, a single item at the pharmacy, and it was gone. If she needed a piece of posterboard for a school project, or Magic Markers, or more gym socks — there it went. “Jonah, would you loan me some money?”