Two hundred percent.
“The fix was in that day, Little Emily,” her father went on.
Emily wouldn’t have thought that it was possible to break the tension in the room—but, that actually worked pretty well.
“You set a very poor example, Theo,” her mother said, but she was smiling, too, now.
“Shenanigans!” her father said emphatically. “I tell you, there were shenanigans in that judging room!”
He probably really believed that, but Emily assumed that he was trying to change the subject, too. Whenever an umpire’s call went against the Red Sox, her father was prone to shouting “I sense shenanigans!” at the television set. Once, when they had been at Fenway Park, he had yelled that at the field, but everyone sitting near them had stared at him. It had been funny, but also embarrassing.
“Do you have more questions?” her mother said.
Of course she did. But, they probably weren’t questions that had any answers. “Yeah,” Emily said. “But—I don’t know. Maybe not any more today. I’m really tired.”
Her parents nodded, both of them looking visibly relieved to hear that.
It was quiet again.
“I’m really sorry about all of this,” her mother said. “Nothing that has been happening today is remotely the way I expected us to spend your birthday.”
Yeah, it had been kind of a downer, all the way around, from start to finish. “I think I want to go to bed, but can we maybe eat the rest of the melted cake first?” Emily said.
Her father nodded enthusiastically. “We sure can!” he said.
4
So, they all went into the kitchen and ate the rest of the cake—which was delicious. They didn’t talk about anything serious, either, which was nice. When they finished, her mother took Zachary out to the yard for a few minutes, while Emily carried Josephine upstairs to the guest room. Her father set up one of the battery-powered lanterns on the bedside table, but it still felt dark and shadowy in the room.
“Are you going to be okay?” he asked.
Emily nodded. “Yeah. But, I’ll be glad when we get the power back.”
“Maybe tomorrow, if we’re lucky,” he said.
She sure hoped so.
When she was ready for bed, her parents hugged her good night and tucked her in—and wished her happy birthday one last time.
“You’re sure you’re going to be able to sleep?” her mother asked. “Or do you want to talk some more?”
Emily wasn’t sure about either of those things, but she shook her head. “It’s pretty late. I think I just want to crash.”
After her parents left the room, Emily yawned—and laughed when Zachary yawned, too. Normally, she liked to read for a while before trying to go to sleep, but tonight she was too tired. It was nicer just to lie under the covers, and let her mind wander.
Even though it wanted to wander straight to Atlanta.
But, she should probably save that for another day. She was way too exhausted to think about all of this stuff tonight.
She wasn’t afraid of the dark—exactly—but, Emily was glad that both Zack and Josephine were up on the bed with her, snuggling close. She didn’t believe in monsters or ghosts or anything like that—well, not much—but, at least, if one showed up during the night, she wouldn’t be outnumbered.
She thought she would be awake for hours, but the next thing she knew, it was morning, and the sun was coming in through her windows. Well, through the guest room windows, anyway.
It was Sunday, so they drove into Brunswick to go to church, where her mother sang in the choir every week. Some of the places in Brunswick had already gotten their electric power back, so they had a nice hot brunch at a local diner. Then, when they got home, they spent the rest of the day cleaning up the backyard, and helping their neighbors, the Henriks, clean up the Peabodys’ yard, too. Emily’s father was frustrated that he couldn’t do much on his crutches, so he ended up sitting by the kindling pile on a lawn chair, breaking all of the sticks into manageable sizes.
Cyril, who operated the town’s Mini-Mart, had arranged for some people—mostly underemployed fishermen who worked part-time as carpenters or handymen—to go down to Mrs. Griswold’s house and start repairing the storm damage there, too.
Emily had kind of been hoping that school would be cancelled for the next week, but by Monday morning, the power was back almost everywhere—except for their neighborhood, and a few other coastal areas—and things around town felt as though they were getting back to normal.
Sometimes, one of Emily’s parents drove her to school, but usually, she waited for the bus in front of the Mini-Mart. The Mini-Mart was one of those funny, tiny stores which seemed to carry everything, no matter how obscure it was. Sometimes, people in town liked to go in with a “Stump Cyril” request, and ask if he had any imported green capers or elderberry jelly or hairnets—and the answer was always yes. One afternoon, Emily had even been able to buy a horse’s rubber curry comb there to use to brush Zachary.
Emily really liked Cyril, who was a gruff and tough Vietnam veteran whose bark was much, much louder than his bite. Unfortunately, he didn’t like her friend Bobby, who had shoplifted a piece of candy back when he was about four years old—and Cyril had never forgiven him.
But, since Bobby and his older siblings were the only other kids who lived on the peninsula, it was Bobby’s bus stop, too. So, he would come and wait there, carefully not stepping on the store’s property.
Usually, Emily got there first, but this morning, Bobby had beaten her. He was sitting down on a tree stump by the side of the road, reading a book on boat-building. Before they had started working on the boat, she had never seen Bobby reading, but now he did all the time. Mostly, he read books about building boats, but he had started reading novels about boats and sailors, too.
Emily waved at the little group of locals sitting at the picnic table outside Cyril’s store—they gathered every day for coffee and snacks and long conversations—and then, she sat on an old log near the tree stump.
“What happened to The Cay?” she asked, since that was the book he had been reading when they were in the hurricane shelter.
“Finished it last night,” Bobby said. “It was like, old-fashioned and everything, but pretty cool. I’m going to ask Mrs. Billingham if she can give me something that’s like, more modern, though.”
Emily nodded. Mrs. Billingham was one of the town librarians, and when Bobby had shuffled up to the front desk and mumbled that he was maybe, you know, sort of looking for a book he might possibly like to read, she had looked startled—and then, delighted, and brought him several.
Cyril came stomping out of the store with a steaming pot of fresh coffee and a platter of Danishes for the group of people gathered at the picnic table. Rumor had it that Cyril baked all of his own pastries every morning, but Emily found that really hard to imagine.
He smiled and waved at her. “Good morning, Emily!” Then, he frowned at Bobby. “Were you on weekend furlough from the juvenile detention hall?”
Bobby shook his head solemnly. “Work release, sir.”
Cyril looked as though he wanted to smile, but he sniffed, instead. “Well—get a haircut.”
Bobby’s hair was pretty long these days, and he looked as though he had just left a beach somewhere and was wondering where his surfboard was.
“Would you like a Danish, Emily?” Cyril asked.
She nodded. “Yes, please. Could I have one for my prison friend, too?”
Cyril grumbled, but came across the parking lot to give each of them one.
By the time they had finished their pastries, the bus still hadn’t shown up.
“We’re going to be totally late,” Bobby said. “You think we’ll get in trouble?”
Emily shook her head. “Everyone else on the bus is going to be late, too.”
“Oh.” He thought about that. “Yeah, good point.”
Since she hadn’t been able to use her email or
telephone for the past couple of days, she hadn’t talked to him at all.
“I found out my mother was a college student my parents knew,” she said.
That got Bobby’s full attention. “Seriously?” he said. “Wow.”
She told him the whole story, during which he mostly kept shaking his head and saying, “Wow.”
“So,” he said, when she was finished. “Is it good that you know about this stuff now—or bad?”
She shrugged, because the honest answer was that she had no idea.
The bus was finally heading towards them, and they got on, finding seats near the back. A lot of the other buses had been late, too, apparently, because so many roads were still blocked by fallen branches and other debris, and that had caused delays all over the place. So, their principal, Mrs. Wilkins, had canceled first period, and everyone was supposed to go to their homerooms, instead, until second period.
Even the people who lived pretty far from the coast were full of stories about the storm. It seemed that the wind and rain had done a lot of damage to trees and houses and other buildings, even if they were miles away from the actual ocean. At least one small river had flooded, and washed out a bridge, too.
The school itself had some broken and cracked windows, which were heavily taped up, or were being repaired even while they were all sitting in class.
The goalie nets on the soccer field had blown into the nearby woods, one of the poles holding up a net and backboard on the outdoor basketball court was completely tilted to one side, a tree had fallen on top of the backstop on the baseball field, and trash cans had been thrown all over the place. It was a mess, and she could see the custodians outside, trying to clean it up.
Her other best friend, Karen, was in her homeroom. Normally, they not only emailed each other and talked on the phone a lot, but they texted constantly, too. So, it had been strange to be out of contact all weekend. She had known Karen since they had taken a Tiny Tots swimming class at the college, when they were about three years old. Karen loved music more than anything else, and could play any instrument she picked up, although piano and saxophone were her favorites.
While they were waiting for second period to start, Emily told Karen about her latest news—and, like Bobby, Karen said, “Wow” several times, in response.
“How do you feel about it?” Karen asked, after hearing all of the details.
That was a good question—that still didn’t have a definite answer. “I don’t know,” Emily said. “It feels like a big adjustment.”
“But, you know some stuff now, at least,” Karen said. “So, it’s not just this total blank in your mind.”
Yes, but it was both more—and less—than she wanted to know, in many ways. She now knew where she had been born, that her mother must be smart, since she got into a really demanding college, and that she was probably never going to have any idea who her birth father was, except that he maybe—possibly, perhaps—had gone to Bowdoin, too.
“It doesn’t seem right that she has twins now,” Emily said, “but doesn’t bother getting in touch with me.”
“Maybe she feels like she would be getting in your way,” Karen guessed.
Maybe. But, as far as Emily was concerned, it just seemed cowardly.
“If you’d grown up in Atlanta, you probably would have had a Southern accent and all,” Karen said.
That was true. Emily considered that. “You’re right. I would be completely different, wouldn’t I?”
Karen nodded. “Yeah, you’d be saying ‘Y’all,’ and calling people ‘sugar’ and ‘honey’ and things like that.”
Which was hard to imagine. Her actual accent was a combination of New York and California, with New England expressions like “wicked” creeping in here and there. “Do you think I would still be myself?” Emily asked curiously.
Karen looked very wise. “Nature or nurture. Hmmm.”
She sounded so serious, that Emily laughed. “Tell me what you think, Professor Mankins.” Karen’s father, Dr. Mankins, was a music professor, and Emily suspected that someday, Karen would be one, too.
Karen grinned. “Well, I mean, you would still be smart and nice and everything, but there’s stuff you probably do now that’s because of your parents, and maybe some of that would be different.”
There were almost too many possibilities to consider. “I wonder if I would still love animals,” Emily said. If, for example, her birth mother was allergic or something, and didn’t have any around.
Karen nodded. “You definitely would. Your father would probably rather not have had pets, but you always wanted them, even when you were really little.”
That was true. Her mother liked animals, but didn’t require them, the way Emily did. As far as she could tell, her father had still never completely adjusted to the idea of pets running around the house and doing things like jumping on beds and sitting on the kitchen table, although he seemed to love Josephine and Zack a lot.
“I wonder if I would still like music,” Karen said thoughtfully. “With, you know, the same parents as like, birth parents, but growing up with other parents.”
There were no clear answers to that, either. “I don’t know,” Emily said. “You would still have talent, but if you had parents who never listened to music, I wonder if you’d still be interested.”
“Predisposition,” Karen said in her professor voice.
Maybe, yeah.
The bell rang, and they all filed out to the crowded hallway to go their second-period classes. In Emily’s case, that meant Spanish, which she enjoyed, even though she sort of wished that she could have taken French, instead. French always seemed—elegant. From there, it was on to language arts, social studies, and then, lunch. The cafeteria usually had one vegetarian option—today, it was cheese ravioli—and there was a salad bar, too.
After lunch, she had math. Emily’s pencil broke during the middle of her teacher’s algebra lesson, and she hurried over to sharpen it, so that she wouldn’t miss any notes.
The sharpener was right near the windows, and she glanced outside at the soccer and softball fields. Now that she was in junior high, they didn’t have formal recess anymore, but sometimes, on nice days, they had gym class outside. But, she privately missed getting a chance every day to take a break in the fresh air, and run around a lot, and play games that weren’t organized and almost never had rules. It seemed kind of arbitrary for schools to decide that recess was okay if you were in sixth grade, but much too childish if you were in seventh grade.
As she was gazing out the window, she flinched when a face suddenly popped up out of nowhere and stared at her with big brown eyes.
It was Zachary!
5
Ever since school had started, Zack had made a habit of coming to visit her regularly. Most of the time, she wasn’t completely sure how he got out of the house, but he always seemed to manage to do it, somehow.
“Lassie!” someone in her class shouted, and everyone laughed. “Lassie came home again!”
It was a little embarrassing, but Emily was also happy to see him. “Is it all right if I let him in, Mr. Pennington?” she asked her teacher.
“Yes, he can stay in here until class is over. But, this really needs to be happening less often,” Mr. Pennington said pleasantly.
Emily nodded. It was way too dangerous for Zack to be running around the streets all the way into town when he was looking for her.
Although Mr. Pennington probably just meant the interrupting-class-and-disturbing-everyone part.
She tugged the window open—the latch was stiff—and Zack climbed in clumsily. He jumped up to lick her face, wagging his tail, and then ran around the room to greet everyone else, including Mr. Pennington.
Emily got him settled down as quickly as she could, so that they could continue with the class. Zack yawned loudly and stretched out in the aisle, resting his head on her sneaker. Which made her feel as though it would be nice to have him go to school with her every day�
��but, that probably wasn’t going to work.
Whenever Zachary appeared unexpectedly at the school, one of her parents would usually have to drive over, pick him up, and take him back to the college, where he would presumably spend the rest of the afternoon napping in one of their offices. Her mother’s office was up on the third floor, in the political science department, and her father’s was downstairs, in the history department.
After her math class ended, Emily guided Zack through the busy corridors and down to the main office. The vice principal, Mr. Kaufman, sighed when he saw them come in.
“Again?” he said.
Emily nodded sheepishly.
“How does he keep getting out?” he asked.
Emily shrugged. Sometimes, she thought he was just plain magic, since there really wasn’t any other explanation that made sense.
“What is your next class, so I can write you a pass?” Mr. Kaufman asked.
“Science,” she said. “With Mr. Strader.”
After she called her parents, and her mother promised to come over right away, Emily sat down to wait. Zack sat on the floor next to her chair, leaning his muzzle on the crook of her elbow, and gazing up at her.
“I’m always happy to see you,” she said to Zack. “But, you really need to stay home. It’s not good for you to be running around by yourself.”
Zack wagged his tail.
Emily had a sneaking suspicion that the only two words he had listened to were “happy” and “good.”
They sat there for a few minutes, and she yawned. Zack immediately yawned, too, which made her yawn again. It was funny, how yawns were always contagious. But then, he suddenly perked up, looking very focused, and she instantly stopped feeling drowsy. Something must be going on, but she wasn’t sure—wait, she could smell smoke. Or maybe Zack could smell smoke. Either way, she was sure that there was smoke—strong, acrid smoke—somewhere inside the school.
She jumped to her feet only about half a second after Zack did, and followed him towards the now-empty corridor.
“Hey, wait a minute!” one of the assistants in the office said. “Where are you going?”
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