Butterflies Don't Lie

by B. R. Myers

  I looked guiltily at the white bucket, but only for a few seconds.

  What’s done is done. I can’t fix it now.

  Besides, what harm could a little seafood do to a flower garden? The plants might actually benefit from all the extra enzymes or whatever.

  I ran to the car, my fuzzy yellow gorilla bouncing off my hip the whole way.

  SEVEN

  Dad was watching TV when I dragged my sweaty, stinky self home. “Mom had to pick up some bread and run a few errands,” he told me. Chet was asleep, tucked into Dad’s side. The Sound Of Music, Chet’s favourite, was still playing.

  It was the scene where Liesl secretly meets Ralph in the darkened garden. They danced, they sang, and then finally, as the rain ran down the walls of the glass gazebo, they kissed. My heart broke a little.

  “How are things in the colonies these days?” Dad asked. I still had my stupid cap on. I explained the new owner’s “vision” for the summer.

  “It could be worse, Kelsey,” he said softly, running his fingers through Chet’s hair. “You could be a pirate.”

  “I’d get better tips as a pirate,” I said. I watched a bit more of the movie. When Julie Andrews hit the last note of “My Favorite Things,” Chet stirred awake. He blinked at me a few times, trying to focus, then he did his famous squint, making his eyes disappear.

  “Time for bed, Chetter-cheese,” I said, pulling him up to stand. His arms wrapped around my waist and he buried his face in my apron. “Pwetty,” he said.

  “Pretty gross,” I mumbled.

  God love that little stinker. Only Chet could make me smile right now.

  After my shower, I climbed into bed and flipped open my laptop. Francine’s spreadsheet was glowing. I was exhausted, my feet were swollen, and I couldn’t think of one person at the Queen’s Galley who liked me. But when I checked off the box labelled “Pick up uniform,” I felt a little endorphin release.

  I read down the list to the next box. “Spontaneous chit-chat #1.”

  According to Francine’s plan of Blaine domination, I would have to bump into Blaine for a “spontaneous chit-chat” two more times before advancing to the next box, labelled “Party.” We all know what happens at parties, right? Making out. My neurotransmitters were more than ready.

  THE NEXT MORNING, Mom knocked on my door. “Kelsey?”

  I rubbed my eyes and pushed myself up in bed. She knocked again.

  “Yup,” I said, blinking at the blurry alarm clock. Why was she waking me so early?

  Her face appeared in the crack of the door. She hesitated for a second, then came in and stood at the foot of my bed. She looked at the pile of clothes on my floor, and the disapproving expression I know so well surfaced. “I get so tired of telling you to pick up your clothes.” She frowned at the brown skirt.

  “It’s my awesome peasant uniform,” I said, hoping she might feel a bit sorry for me.

  “Your dad mentioned something about pirates.” Her hands cupped her mug of coffee. “I need you up and dressed in ten minutes.”

  I picked out an eye booger. “Huh?” I was praying I hadn’t heard her correctly. Summer is for sleeping in. Especially if you’re having awesome dreams about kissing under a gazebo.

  “Chet’s swimming lessons start today,” she said brightly. She read my confused expression. A long, exaggerated sigh, her speciality, came out, and she told me her news, which pretty much dropped a bomb on Operation Tongue.

  She had decided to take this summer to write her thesis. A thesis she had been working on for the last year but was really going to buckle down and complete. And since Dad was tutoring three days a week at the library reading program, I would have to take Chet to his swimming lessons.

  “My whole summer is going to be spent watching Chet at the pool and working!”

  Mom did the long sigh thing again. “Kelsey.” She dragged my name out. “I will be there to pick him up. All you have to do is get him there and wait until I arrive. It’s perfect, really—you can go straight to work afterwards.”

  “Perfect if I don’t want to have any kind of a life this summer!”

  Or any time of the year, for that matter.

  She gave me a look that was a cross between a huff and a challenge. “And what big plans do you have that this is interrupting?”

  “Operation Tongue” didn’t exactly roll off my tongue with my mom standing in my room with her cup of coffee waiting for a rebuttal.

  Mom sensed victory. “Chet is really starting to blossom, Kelsey, and I don’t want him to miss this opportunity. The more exercise the better, and he’ll meet new kids…”

  I softened as the list went on. How could I deny him this? I didn’t want Chet growing up with aquaphobia too.

  “Yeah, sure,” I finally said—as if I even had a choice. The irony of me taking Chet to swimming lessons was enough to make my stomach turn.

  She doesn’t even remember.

  Mom disappeared into her home office. I pulled on a T-shirt and shorts, combed my hair into a ponytail, and packed Chet’s swim bag.

  Chet chased me to the car, wearing his new shark goggles. As I drove, he sang his version of “The Sound of Music.” Then he disappeared behind his latest library book. He said, “Owed’s baving soup is funny.”

  “Uh-huh,” I nodded, cramming a stale cranberry muffin in my mouth. Gross. I’m usually a toast-with-a-lavish-layer-of smooth-peanut-butter kind of girl, but whatever errands Mom went on last night she’d totally forgotten to pick up the bread. “What is Frog wearing?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Naked!” Chet screamed.

  I laughed, spraying crumbs all over the dashboard. I remembered reading that as a kid, and it freaking me out that Frog would go skinny-dipping with his best bud.

  The local pool, or lido, as we all called it, happened to be on the same green slope as the yacht club. I dropped Chet’s swim bag and sat on his folded towel on the bleachers. His instructor was an older girl I recognized from high school, whose name I couldn’t remember. That happened a lot in Mariner’s Cove. It was a village on the cusp of becoming a town: small enough so that everyone looked familiar, but big enough to not know everyone’s name.

  I leaned forward, feeling anxious. Chet was probably older than the other three kids in his class, but he was small for his age. The instructor gave him a high-five. I smiled automatically and my shoulders relaxed.

  Everybody loved Chet, especially me.

  I had been one of the older kids in my first swimming lesson too. Academia Nuts don’t put a lot of emphasis on summer sports. When I was Chet’s age, I spent most of my time in the library. Which was okay until I’d read everything in the middle-grade section.

  (Goosebumps, anyone?)

  Bored, I’d stopped by the magazine rack, and that’s when everything changed. I started doing quizzes, analyzing not only myself but my parents as well. Soon everyone I came in contact with was categorized and labelled before you could say, “lonely only child.”

  Those magazines were like the older sister I never had. Just as the fairy godmother had appeared before a bewildered Cinderella at her most desperate moment, quizzes were my saving grace when I finally got my first period. They opened a whole new world for me. It was like I had my own hotline to an advice guru. Magazines always had the answers I was looking for.

  I couldn’t imagine approaching Mom with my love life problems. She was all grammar and proper tense. Words like “crush” and “style” weren’t even in her vocabulary. It’s not like Mom neglected me or was mean, she was just there; necessary but kind of boring—like oxygen. She was the one who’d sat me down for the sex talk, but she made it sound so dull it was an effort to even be embarrassed let alone interested.

  Chet was knee-deep, blowing bubbles. They do that to get you used to putting your face in the water. And if you can put yo
ur face in the water, everything comes easy after that.

  Except if you’re me.

  I checked the clock by the lifeguards’ shed. Chet had another twenty-five minutes of class. All around me, moms were on their iPhones or chatting with other parents. I looked at Chet again. He laughed and splashed with another boy in his class. The kid had green hair—a sign of a cool mom.

  I thought of the next empty box on my spreadsheet. The yacht club was next door. It would be silly not to take advantage of this opportunity. I left the pool and crossed the parking lot. “Spontaneous chit-chat #2,” here I come, I thought.

  I redid my ponytail, trying to make it look more like Chloe’s. I pinched my cheeks and wiped a few muffin crumbs from my lips and T-shirt. I made up a story in my head as I walked past the gazebo and down the stairs.

  Francine had told me that Tanner was working at the yacht club as well, scraping barnacles and overturning motors or something mechanical like that. It wouldn’t be peculiar if I came down here looking for him. We were friends, and I could ask if he’d heard from Francine.

  Ironclad story. Totally legit.

  My heart started to thump against my chest. I crammed my fists into the pockets of my shorts. I wished I had brought sunglasses. I turned the corner and smacked into someone’s chest.

  “Oh, hey.” Blaine smiled.

  “Hey,” I said. Then I kept walking.

  What? Wait! Stop!

  But my body wasn’t listening. I kept walking around the porch, one foot in front of the other. I didn’t stop at the end, either. I went into the marine shop, then out through the other doorway, bringing me right back to the foot of the stairs.

  “Oh my God,” I whispered. My face turned into a goofy grin. I replayed the way our chests had smacked against each other. He’d put a hand on my elbow. He’d smiled at me.

  He. Smiled. At. Me.

  “Oh, hey,” he’d said. As if bumping into me was a pleasant surprise. My heart was exploding with fireworks. I ran up the stairs, barely feeling my feet hit the steps, and then hid in the gazebo.

  Spy much?

  Blaine was taking his class out on lasers in groups of two. The kids were probably early junior high. I bet a few of the girls had mad crushes on him.

  I leaned against the gazebo’s railing, scenes from The Sound of Music drifting into my mind.

  “I am sixteen going on seventeen…”

  The lasers took several turns. Laughter and screams echoed up the slope. Blaine was great with kids. Chet would love him to death. I lingered a little while longer, waiting until my cardiac cells had stopped doing the tango, then headed back across the dusty parking lot.

  Mom was standing at the edge of the parking lot near the steps leading down to the lido, her hand shielding her eyes. She tilted to the side as if to look around me. “Where’s Chet?” she asked.

  Geez, she can’t even recognize her own son. I pointed at the pool. “He’s wearing his new shark goggles,” I told her. I hope she picked up on my attitude. I felt slightly gratified in a weird way.

  “No, he’s not,” she said. Her scared voice sent a chill down my spine. I scanned the pool deck. I couldn’t see Chet. The kid with the green hair was already towelled off and having a snack. I looked at the clock on the lifeguards’ shed. My stomach dropped. His lesson had ended five minutes ago.

  Chet was missing.

  EIGHT

  “His class ended five minutes ago!” Mom’s voice got lost in the wind. I raced down the bleachers. Chet’s swim bag was still where I’d left it, along with his folded towel. I looked back up to Mom, but now she was gone, too.

  A bubble of panic was building in my chest. I ran up to the green-haired kid. “Hey there,” I began, my voice trembling and scaring me even more. “My brother was in your class, he had the shark goggles.”

  “Oh.” The kid smiled widely. “You mean Chet?”

  “Yeah, did you see where he went after class?”

  The mom looked worried, then a flash of disgust crossed her face. “I think he went straight up the steps,” she said. Then she cruelly added, “I assumed someone would be watching him.”

  Her tone did nothing to upset me, though the terror building inside made me unable to speak. I had to push down the panic—I won’t be able to find him if I’m a crying and screaming mess. I hustled around parents and kids, swerving my way back up the steps. I frantically looked in every direction, but there was no sign of him. For the second day in a row, I’d put Chet at risk.

  If he’d gone down the steps to the yacht club, someone would help him, I reasoned. So I took off down the road that edged the harbour. I scanned the beaches, hoping to see him making a sandcastle or chasing a seagull.

  Oh God! What if he chased it right off a wharf?

  “Kelsey!”

  High on the green slope, close to the Queen’s Galley patio, How-hole was waving at me. Chet was beside him, staring intently at one of the shrubs.

  I started up the lawn. A wave of relief swept through me, cooling the goosebumps on my arms. Thank you, God, I kept repeating in my head.

  How-hole turned back to Chet, then crouched beside him, pointing at something on the bush. My mom came out of nowhere and zoomed past me. She rushed to the pair and squeezed Chet into her chest. How-hole stood up and brushed his hands on the back of his shorts, smiling at their reunion.

  I could imagine her speech of gratitude to the kindly stranger. Their body language told me everything. Her head bobbed up and down as she peppered How-hole with compliments. He held his hands behind his back, like he was humbled. Then he gave her a big smile, and even a laugh.

  Great, they’re pals.

  I trudged up the slope, the dread burning a hole in my gut. Mom stopped talking and they both turned my way. I gulped. My two enemies had made an alliance—had he told her about me walking Chet in front of his bike the other day?

  I was rescued by Chet as he ran up to me with his goggles still in place. “Buddifwy,” he said. A monarch was on the shrub, slowly fanning its wings.

  “Did you chase it?” I asked him, imagining that’s how he ended up here.

  Chet nodded. “How-hole,” he whispered, pointing to Mom’s new best friend. His whisper was loud enough for them to hear.

  I laughed weakly.

  Mom narrowed her eyes. I could almost see her mind doing a phonics check on “How-hole,” but it only lasted a second before her good manners kicked in. She smiled at him again. “It was very lucky you happened to be on the grounds when Chet came running down the street.”

  How-hole snuck a quick glance my way. “I was called in early to work today,” he said. “I recognized him from the other day,” he added cautiously.

  Now it was Mom’s turn to be surprised. “Oh?”

  There was a hint of a smirk on his face. I guess he’d figured out that my family wasn’t going to sue him, since I hadn’t even told my mom. He then added, “I ran into Kelsey outside the library yesterday.”

  If I were a cartoon, smoke would have been pouring out of my ears. My only choice was to stay quiet. (The guilty have a tendency to blab, that’s why they always get caught on Law & Order.) Mom looked suspicious, but thankfully Chet was a distraction. He was more interested in trying to catch the butterfly flitting around the shrubs.

  But How-hole wasn’t finished torturing me yet. “So I guess that’s two lucky days in a row for Chet and Kelsey,” he delightedly informed my mom.

  Dagger eyeballs on the sly are hard to do, but I think I managed to convey, PLEASE, SHUT UP!

  Mom took notice of his clothes and asked, “You do lawn maintenance?” He was wearing mud-caked work boots and his T-shirt was smeared. I was grateful for the switch in topic, but the longer she chatted with How-hole, the more likely it was that Chet would spill the beans about yesterday.

  “I do whatever is necessary,
” he answered, and then he gave Mom a smile so charming he reminded me of Edward.

  She actually laughed, and then tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Oh my holy bacon turds! My mouth almost filled with my own vomit—Mom was flirting with How-hole.

  I guess a younger guy can seem charming to an old bag, just like a mature rich dude can seem attractive to a young loser like myself. Great, maybe we could double date. Poor Dad with his socks and sandals.

  Mom took Chet by the hand, then turned to me. “Call if you need a drive home after your shift,” she instructed curtly. I could tell from her tone that a speech about responsibility would be waiting for me tonight. She passed me my Kipling bag, bulging with my uniform. Then she and Chet walked hand in hand over the green slope, disappearing around the corner toward the lido parking lot.

  How-hole crossed his arms and hit me with those blue eyes. I was all too aware of my plain face and messy ponytail. I took a few breaths, fighting the embarrassment of once again screwing up in front of him. I had to at least acknowledge how grateful I was. “Um…thanks for finding Chet,” I managed to choke out.

  “Sure.” Then he slouched down to me, looking serious. “But is your dad going to sue me for finding your little brother?” he asked, his voice thick with drama.

  I refused to take the bait. Besides, having the wits scared out of me had hardly put me in the mood for confrontation. He wasn’t wearing his baseball cap today, and I could see about two inches of dark roots before his neon blue hair started.

  I took the witty approach. “You need a touch-up,” I said, motioning to his head. “Like three months ago.”

  He didn’t even flinch. Those piercing blue eyes kept staring. I shouldered my Kipling bag, already feeling exhausted. “This is hilarious, fun times,” I declared, “but I’ve got to get ready.”

  He made a grand gesture of stepping out of my way. I noticed his knees were caked with mud.

  Clyde’s voice bellowed through the kitchen window. I picked out a few delightful curse words. “Looks like another awesome day at the Queen’s Galley,” I mumbled, making sure to take a wide step around How-hole.