Half a Chance

by Cynthia Lord

  He nodded, scrolling back through. “These are great! They’re funny, because with just three feet, you wonder where the other foot is.” He hit the scrolling button. “Oh. Thanks a lot for taking this photo of the EXIT sign at the grocery store that day. It was a big help.”

  I smiled. “You’re welcome.”

  He scrolled again. “Oh, wow! The rock candy shots look great, too! These are awesome, Lucy.” He scrolled again and his face changed. “What’s this?”

  It was the photo of Grandma Lilah with the teacup.

  My smile slipped. “Oh. I took that one the day you went on Loon Patrol with Megan. Grandma Lilah and I were waiting for you to come back and she asked me to take her photo. She told me she was Doris Day. There are more if you scroll back. I thought we could use the photo of her hand on the rocking chair for ‘holding on’ and this one —”

  “She looks awful.” He hit the button to scroll, but his eyebrows stayed down.

  “I was just making conversation,” I said, hurt. “I thought if she talked about the teacup, she’d have an expression on her face. So I asked her where it came from and she said it wasn’t hers. She got upset and I didn’t know what to do. So I said the cup was mine. It only lasted a few seconds, though. Then you came back from Loon Patrol and told her there were two baby loons. That made her happy.”

  “It’s a horrible picture of her,” Nate said, shutting off my camera.

  “It’s not horrible.” I tried to explain the way Dad would say it. “Her face has strong emotion and it draws you in. It makes you care about her.”

  I had looked carefully through the words of the contest, and one word stopped me. Grandma Lilah was losing things inside herself. She said it herself, that day.

  “I think we should use it for ‘lost,’” I said.

  Nate didn’t look at me as he gave me my camera. “There are a million photos you could shoot for ‘lost.’ It doesn’t have to be that one. Besides, she’s not even really lost. She’s scared, and that’s not the same thing at all.”

  “But don’t you want to win?” I asked. “We can’t take Grandma Lilah out to see the loons if we don’t win.”

  “I’ll pretend to be lost for you.”

  That night, I saved the best “Three Feet” shot and the best one of Nate in the little patch of woods near the lake pretending to be lost. But the photo of Nate looked fake, like an actor overdoing it.

  When the picture of Grandma Lilah came up on my viewer, I pushed the button to edit.

  DELETE? YES OR NO

  It was a truthful photo, even if that truth wasn’t beautiful. At first, it hadn’t mattered about winning. But now I wanted to. If it were just a regular photo, I could let it go because Nate wanted me to. But this photo was amazing. There was a powerful story in her eyes, and Dad would see that immediately.

  When Nate looked at it, he saw his grandmother, the person he loved. I couldn’t make him understand that sometimes a photo was more than that. It had a regular truth you could see with your eyes, and a second one that you felt. This photo would make the person looking at it experience something important. And that made it special.

  It made it art.

  But when two things matter, how do you know which one matters more? What Nate saw when he looked at it? Or what other people would feel?

  DELETE? YES OR NO

  I shut the camera off so I didn’t have to choose.

  Later, I lay in bed with my hand resting on Ansel’s chest, rising and falling in sleep. It was so quiet I could hear his breath and the waves down on the beach in rhythm with each other.

  I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t turn my mind off. Why did my best photo come with the hardest choices? It didn’t seem fair. And whose photo was it? Did it belong to Grandma Lilah because she was in it? Or did it belong to me because I had taken it?

  There wouldn’t even be a photo if I hadn’t taken it. But it wouldn’t be powerful without her. I finally fell asleep listening to the loons’ nighttime wailing. And they woke me again before sunrise.

  I’m here. Where are you?

  I stared at my dark ceiling, waiting for the answer.

  Waiting.

  But when the answering call finally came, it startled even Ansel awake. The male was yodeling.

  Maybe the dad was giving the babies loonsong lessons? I held my breath, expecting him to stop.

  But tremolos and more yodels came instead, one after the other so fast that it didn’t sound like the loons could even be taking a breath between them. This wasn’t practice. They jolted me out of bed and to my open window. I strained to see something. Somewhere on the dark lake, the loons were in trouble.

  Getting dressed in the dark, I didn’t even know what I could do to help the loons. I just knew all those frantic tremolos and yodels coming through my open bedroom window meant they were in trouble.

  Nate and Grandma Lilah were already on the beach when I got there. Nate was dressed, but barefoot. Grandma Lilah was in her nightgown, looking through the binoculars. “What’s happening to the loons?” she snapped. “Where are they?”

  “Shh. You’ll wake everyone,” Nate said.

  A tremolo sounded. Grandma Lilah started for the lake, like she was planning to walk right out over the water.

  “Wait!” Nate ran after her. “Where are you going?”

  “I’ll go!” I said quickly. “Don’t worry, Grandma Lilah. I’ll scare away whatever is bothering them.”

  “Come back inside, Grandma Lilah. Please? Lucy will check on the loons. She’ll make sure they’re okay,” I heard Nate say as I raced to get a paddle and life vest from under their porch.

  Come on, come on, come on! It seemed to take forever to get my life vest zipped and the kayak in the water. But even as Nate pushed me off in the direction of the tremolos, I still had no plan, no idea what I would do.

  I paddled as fast as I could. The sun was rising as I crossed the lake. It sounded like the loons’ calls were coming from somewhere on the other side. Only when I reached the middle did I see one of the adult loons. His wings were outstretched, his feet moving fast, like he was doing a furious, jerky dance. Upright, he was almost running on the water; his bottom feathers only skimmed the surface. He looked like he was trying to take off and fly, only to fall clumsily, headfirst, into the water.

  Was he hurt? The loon popped up a second later and yodeled. That must be the male. Where were the female and the chicks?

  Scanning the water, my eyes caught a movement high in the trees. A flash of white head and dark wings.

  I gasped as the eagle leapt off the branch and plummeted toward the water. The female loon and the babies dove as the eagle reached out for them. He skimmed the water, his talons almost touching the waves.

  Missed! The loons surfaced: Mom, Baby One, and Baby Two. As the eagle circled for another pass, I paddled harder. If I could scare him, maybe he’d leave.

  He came in for another swipe, his talons spread wide like hands. “Go away!” I yelled, waving my paddle in the air to distract him as the loons dove.

  Missed again! The eagle circled around, but this time, he flew back to the tree and landed on a branch. Yes! If I could keep him away long enough, maybe he’d get too tired and have to give up. The mother loon and babies popped up again. I wished the little ones could stay underwater longer.

  Please don’t hurt them, I begged the eagle. Please give up.

  But he didn’t. Each time he swooped, I yelled, and each time he came up empty, my heart beat harder. My arms ached, but I kept waving and paddling, trying to catch up to the loons. He wouldn’t come near the babies with me right there. Would he?

  But the loons kept swimming away from me. “Wait!” I swung my paddle again in the air to scare the eagle. “I’m trying to help you!” I yelled.

  The eagle soared in again, so low over the water that he could brush the waves with his feet. The loons dove as the eagle’s talons stretched out, snatching at the surface with a splash.

  He had
something.

  Please let it be a fish! But my eyes filled with tears, because I knew it was a little loon clutched in his talons.

  Drop him! I pleaded as the eagle flew off low over the waves. The loon baby would already be hurt, but I could scoop him up and get Mom to drive me to an animal hospital somewhere. He could still be okay. Just drop him! But the eagle rose into the trees, holding tight. On a branch, he dipped his beak to his talons.

  And I couldn’t watch.

  The mother loon swam fast on the water, Baby One behind.

  I don’t know how long I floated there, feeling the sideways rock of the kayak. The lake was quiet again, just the ordinary morning sounds of birds and insects and the leaves shaken by the morning breeze.

  When I finally dared to peek back at the trees, the eagle was gone.

  I’d done everything I could, but I still felt like I had let everyone down. Maybe I had taken too long getting dressed, and I should’ve just gone out there in my pajamas. Or maybe I could’ve paddled harder. Or shouted louder. I clenched my teeth, hating that eagle. He had just swooped in and snatched our loon baby away from all of us.

  Nature isn’t always right. One life matters. Nate and his family wanted this to be a special summer, full of things Grandma Lilah loved. How could I tell her? Cupping water into my hand, I tried to wash my face so she wouldn’t know I’d been crying.

  They were waiting on the dock. “Are the babies all right?” Grandma Lilah called.

  Behind her, Nate looked exhausted. He shook his head “don’t” at me. When we hiked Cherry Mountain I didn’t understand why he didn’t want to tell Grandma Lilah the truth, but I understood now. There was nothing anyone could do. So why hurt her?

  “Are the babies all right?” she asked again.

  “Yes,” I lied. “They’re fine.”

  An eagle killed one of our loon babies, I texted to Nate when I got back home so he’d know the truth.

  Oh no! We won’t tell GL. OK?

  OK, I agreed.

  But I had to talk to someone before I exploded into pieces. Mom had been sympathetic, but she didn’t understand. And Dad was worse. When I texted him, An eagle killed one of our loon babies. I saw it happen, he had texted back, I’m sorry you had to see that. But remember that the eagle needs to feed his babies, too.

  That’s MEAN! I texted back. I was so mad that Dad took the eagle’s side that I deleted his message and turned off my phone so I wouldn’t have to hear him apologize.

  Nate and Emily were the only people who would understand. So even though I felt raw and knew it’d hurt even more to see the loons with only one baby, I walked next door at ten o’clock for Loon Patrol.

  “We’ll tell you what the loons are doing when we get back,” Nate said, handing the clipboard to Grandma Lilah.

  “They’ll be teaching the babies to fish soon,” Grandma Lilah said. “I wish I could go with you and watch them.”

  “We’ll tell you everything we see,” Emily promised.

  But as soon as we were well away from shore, I couldn’t hold it in anymore. “At some point we have to tell the Loon Preservation Committee.” I moved my pink kayak slowly behind Nate and Emily. “They’re trying to protect the loons. They can’t do that if they don’t know the whole truth.”

  “They don’t need to know today,” Nate said.

  Emily nodded. “It’s not like there’s anything they can do. When the summer’s over, we’ll write what happened on the last survey form after Grandma Lilah has signed it. She doesn’t have to see it.”

  Could we really hide it from her for the whole rest of the summer?

  Near the middle of the lake, an adult loon swam with Baby One behind. Did they remember there used to be two babies? Do wild animals even have memories like that? Or do they only know “now,” and move on without looking back?

  The adult loon dipped his head low to look underneath the waves, then curled his neck, rolling forward to dive. Maybe it’s kinder not to remember, because you don’t have to grieve.

  Please hurry. Don’t leave the baby alone. I knew the adult had to fish to keep them both alive and deaths happen in nature all the time and no one notices. But this one mattered to me.

  I looked around at the treetops moving in the breeze. “I wish the eagle had picked a fish,” I said. “The lake has those to spare.”

  “Me, too,” Emily said. “But the fish probably don’t think that.”

  She was right. There was no way to win. I wanted the eagle to eat. Just not something I loved.

  “I’ve been thinking if Grandma Lilah looks through the binoculars and only sees one baby, we can say the other was under the parent’s wing,” Nate said. “Or he’s swimming on the other side of the adult. You don’t always see both babies together, even when there are two. She seemed okay with —”

  Nate’s text chime sounded so out of place on the lake. I watched his kayak swaying as he worked his phone out of his pocket.

  “We aren’t doing anything this afternoon, are we?” Nate asked, reading his screen.

  The way he said, “we aren’t” hurt my feelings. After what happened that morning, I wanted someone to spend the day with. I wanted a friend. Why wouldn’t he know that?

  “I did want to finish the contest today,” I said.

  Nate didn’t immediately say, “Okay,” so I added softly, “But I can do that myself.”

  “What words do you want to do next?” Emily asked. “Maybe I can help?”

  “‘Left behind,’” I said pointedly.

  “That shouldn’t be too hard,” Emily said. “Maybe you could take a photo of someone walking away?”

  Or driving away with Megan?

  “But a person walking away might just look like someone going on a trip,” Nate said. “Maybe if Emily had dropped something on the road behind her? Like a dollar? That would be the ‘left behind’ part.”

  “That would look too staged,” Emily said.

  “I could paddle away,” Nate suggested. “And Lucy could shoot you from behind watching me go. You could be the ‘left behind’ part.”

  I didn’t have time to think of something better. When I had started the contest, it had seemed like I had lots of time and a million possibilities. But now I had to get my entry in the mail — even if the last photos were only “good enough” and not everything I wanted them to be.

  “I wish I could take a photo of Ansel looking out the window, because he has the saddest ‘left behind’ face ever,” I said. “But Dad would recognize him immediately.”

  So I settled for a couple of shots from behind of Nate paddling away and Emily looking after him. But as I was shooting, my eye caught something else. Grandma Lilah was standing on the dock, waiting for us to come back. From this distance she looked tiny.

  I zoomed in to cut our house out of the frame, but not close enough that you could read any expression on Grandma Lilah’s face. Nate couldn’t object to that.

  I took a photo of her waiting for us, alone.

  Left behind.

  I waited in my room for Megan’s car to come and take Nate to I-don’t-know-where. Maybe it was some place cool that he’d never been before and that’s why he said yes so fast.

  Or maybe he felt guilty that he’d said no to Megan before and wanted to make up for that.

  Or maybe our friendship was about me being the new kid next door, and that newness had worn off and he was going back to the friend he had before me.

  Lying on my stomach on my bed, I heard a car door slam and the sound of tires on a dirt driveway. Part of me wanted to watch him leave, but the rest of me didn’t move. I didn’t even know why it bothered me so much that he was doing something with Megan, except maybe because I liked him as a best friend. And maybe he liked me as a for-now friend.

  Beside me, Ansel poked me with his paw. “No,” I said.

  I wondered what Nate and Megan were talking about. It felt like the rest of the world was going on around me and without me. All I wanted
to do was feel sorry for myself, but Ansel pushed me with his nose. The front end of him bowed down and the back end pointed up, tail wagging, wanting to play.

  “Not now!” I snapped, and his tail stopped wagging.

  “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” I held his head between my hands. “I didn’t mean it. It’s been the worst day in the world.”

  One of the best things about Ansel is that he believes you when you say you’re sorry. He doesn’t make you wait or prove it, he just lets you start over and try again. He licked my face.

  “Come on,” I said. “Get the leash?”

  That word lifted him right off the bed and down the stairs ahead of me. I had one last photo to shoot for the contest. It was “Your Name.” I had planned to let Nate choose how we wrote his name, but he wasn’t here. And even though I was hurt that he’d left, I still cared about Grandma Lilah seeing the loons. She might not remember it forever, but I would.

  “I’m just taking Ansel for a quick walk. I’ll be back,” I yelled at the kitchen and hurried outside so Mom wouldn’t say she’d come with us or see my face and ask me if something was wrong.

  In the woods behind our house, Ansel sniffed each plant and rock he could reach on his leash. I followed behind him, from smelling place to smelling place, and gathered up long pinecones. Then I laid them out on a patch of ground to spell out NATE BAILEY.

  After I shot a few photos of his name, I kicked and threw the pinecones in all different directions to erase the letters. Ansel thought it was a game and tried to chase after the pinecones. I let him bring one home in his mouth. It made the walk home shorter, because he couldn’t smell things and carry a pinecone in his mouth at the same time.

  Back in my room, Ansel shredded the pinecone to little bits on my rug, and I got out the contest list. I’d always imagined that Nate and I would make the final choices together, but as I looked at the photos and made decisions, I stopped minding he wasn’t there and started feeling happy with the photos I had taken. With each photo, I asked myself if it was my best shot for that word. And then I considered if Dad might recognize it. But he’d spent so little time here before his trip; I didn’t think anything in my photos would stand out to him. He might recognize Grandma Lilah when he met her again, but Dad had said he needed to pick the contest winner as soon as he got home. It was unlikely that he’d see her up close before then.