And then I’m alone. I lie back in the sand and watch the darkening sky, then turn my face toward the rising waves. I could slip under them and kick until I popped up on the Eastern Shore. I could escape. I could start a new life.
If only I could swim.
Joan of Arc was born into war.
For almost seventy years, the French and the English had fought. England wanted French land. France wanted independence. But their king was unfit to rule. It was a time of great unrest.
When Joan was three, a great battle ensued in the north. The French were defeated by the English and the traitorous Burgundians in northern France. The loss was staggering and embarrassing. A treaty was signed, declaring the king of England the ruler of France.
France was devastated.
Joan lived on the border between the still-feuding factions. Although under Burgundian rule, her town was loyal to the French crown. They hated the English. They wanted freedom.
Fights and skirmishes broke out in her village. The roads outside of town were unsafe. Bandits and thieves attacked travelers. When the church bells would sound in alarm, Joan’s father, the leader, would guide the villagers to the safety of a nearby castle.
The enemy could strike at any moment.
On Wednesday, I oversleep because my parents are arguing all night. I’m late to school, my twentieth tardy of the year. I burst into the science lab. The whole class turns to look at me, but no one’s in their regular seats.
“Pick a partner, Mary,” Mr. Fen says. He hands me a pink packet.
The STEM project. How could I have forgotten? If I can just get my grade up, everyone will stop asking me questions, and I can be a normal eighth grader.
Usually I work with Kathleen since we sit next to each other, but she’s sitting on the other side of the room with one of the drama kids. So I stand there staring at my options, my heart still pounding from my rush to school.
“Fen, she can work with me!” Kip yells. “Watson is dead to me!” He nudges his friend Ben Watson out of the seat to his left until he plummets to the ground.
Kip isn’t exactly the best pick to help me salvage my science existence. I don’t know what his grades are, but they can’t be good. He barely pays attention. He has to stay for lunch detention in Fen’s class almost every day. But I don’t see how I have any other choice.
He grins up at me when I walk over to his table. Please don’t mention yesterday. Please don’t ask me if I’m okay. I sit and smack the packet down on the cool black tabletop. “Are you going to work hard?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Are you? Because I really need a good grade on this.”
“I promise,” he says. Kip slaps his palm to his chest, against the pocket of his white dress shirt. “I can’t wait to do a project with you. It’s gonna be great!”
I just stare at his freckles. Why? Why is he excited about this? I’m not sure, but at least he’s not talking about yesterday.
I shake my head and turn my attention to the assignment. We could explain light reflection. We could manipulate heat energy. We could build an electrical current. And now I remember that, earlier in the week, Mr. Fen showed us projects from last year. A group had built a mechanical claw like at an arcade. That sounds like more fun than measuring light and shadows.
“I like building things,” I say. “Do you?”
He leans forward. “I don’t just like building things, I love building things. We could build Noah’s Ark.”
I roll my eyes and look at him. Some of the Our Lady girls think he’s cute. Cute but immature. He never has girlfriends. “Why are you . . .?” I don’t understand. “This is the most we’ve talked since we were six, remember?”
“Six?” He frowns. “No, I definitely remember trying to hold your hand in fourth grade.”
“That’s not talking, is it?”
“No way, I was too scared to talk to you. Too pretty.”
Is he making fun of me? I cross my arms. “Anyway, you can’t just grab someone’s hand. You should ask them first,” I mumble.
“Okay, the next time I want to hold someone’s hand, I’ll ask.”
“Good,” I say. I have no idea whether he’s talking about me or not, and I also don’t know if I want him to be.
We are both very quiet. Too quiet. It’s awkward, but my chest feels light for the first time in days. I scowl and read the instructions again. My best bet is to make something. Last year for the science fair, I made an oyster filtration system, and it was the most fun I’ve ever had in school.
“We’re not building the Ark,” I tell him. “But we could build a boat. Or a motor or something with water.” I glance out the window at a big white fishing boat, buoyant and bobbing on the surface. So vulnerable and exposed. One hole, one blemish, and it sinks to the bottom of the sea.
But there is one kind of ship that controls its buoyancy and spites gravity. One ship that can rise and rise and rise, even if it falls.
“We could build a submarine,” I say. Like the display at the marine museum. There’s a German submarine at the bottom of the Bay, the Black Panther. We learned about the wreck site. “We could make a model, like a remote-controlled one. I’ve seen videos online.”
“Perfect!” Kip leans back in his chair and stretches his arms behind his head. “Fenster!”
Mr. Fen mumbles to himself and walks over to our table.
“What is it, Mr. Dwyer?” he asks, his voice dry. He rubs his head with his wrinkly tie.
“You’re so strange, Fen, but I love you. I really do. That’s not what I wanted to say.” Kip clears his throat. “Sir, would you hold my hand? I promised Murphy I would ask permission.”
Mr. Fen drops his tie and sighs. He ignores Kip and asks me, “Did you pick a project?”
I nod. “A submarine? Can we make a remote-controlled sub?”
“Good choice,” our teacher says. “Oh, and I’ll see you both for lunch detention,” he adds, walking back to the front of the classroom.
I groan at the back of his crumpled shirt.
“Murphy’s Law, Mary,” Fen offers from his desk. “Whatever can go wrong, will.” I’ve never heard of it, but it sure makes sense.
I glower at Kip. “You told me you were going to work hard.”
“I am,” he says. “I promise. I’ll see you at lunch.” He smiles, and one blue eye disappears into a wink. Like we are instant friends. Like Jell-O. Just add water.
At lunch, I go to Mr. Fen’s room for detention, but I don’t really mind. It’s better than eating in the cafeteria anyway, where I have to pretend everything is fine to Lydia. Kip and I watch videos of other kids who have made similar projects, and then we look up submersible parts online. Submarines are used for war, and submersibles are used for science and discovery. Kip says his mom will probably pay for the parts if he’s actually trying in school.
He makes me laugh twice. Once when he imitates Sister Brigid, and once when he falls out of his chair. I can’t tell if it’s an accident or not. Mr. Fen yells at him either way. After school, I ride my bike home smiling. I’m so distracted by the project and Kip that I’m not worried about the pickup truck with the dented front bumper parked in the driveway.
As soon as I step through the doorway, though, I know something is wrong. My stomach sinks. It’s too early for him to be home from the boat. He should be on the water. Or at the Tavern. Not here.
Did Sister Eu call them? Did she tell them I failed my test?
She did. I know it. Or Mr. Fen did. My dad sits at the kitchen table, a beer can open in his hand. My mom stands behind him. They’re waiting for me.
One step in, and I freeze. We all freeze.
The clock above the stove ticks loud in my ears.
I step backward to slip outside again, and when my heel touches the ground, my dad is up, the beer spilled.
I don’t turn quickly enough. He’s near me, his hand on my wrist, the only piece of me he can catch.
The fingers cur
l around my bone and squeeze, but I brace myself against the door and yank. Once. Twice. I’m free, slamming through the screen door and racing down the porch stairs.
I hide behind Mrs. Arlyn’s house and rub my thumb along the mark, like I can wipe it away. Like I could wipe everything away. I hold my hand to my heart. I’m shaking, and the beat in my chest is frantic. A sob flies from my lips.
I fumble in my pocket and pull out Joan’s card, wiping my palm over it. I am not afraid. I am not afraid. I am not afraid.
I close my eyes and blow out air slowly, deliberately. I am okay. I am not hurt, not really. It’s been worse.
A door slams, and I glance around the corner of the house. My dad’s truck drives away quickly, probably to the Tavern.
I give myself a few minutes, then shuffle my feet up the steps, my hand heavy on the wood of the railing. I sigh and open the door again. My mother sits at the table and runs her hands over her hair, frowning.
Susan Murphy used to have my hair–long, black, and unruly. Only, hers is sad now, limp and dull, the stress eating away at her until she’s a living ghost. I don’t want to be anything like her.
She speaks softly, barely above a whisper, even though she’s loud when they fight. “I don’t know why you have to upset him like that.”
Her words slice through me. “I didn’t do anything,” I manage.
“You’re failing science.”
“It won’t affect my scholarship. I won’t fail science. I’m fine. I will be fine.” I’m not sure who I’m trying to convince.
“Please don’t mess this up, Mary. He’s finally home. We need the crab money. If he goes back to prison . . .”
She says it like my science grade is the culprit, like failing a test is the problem. My mom shrugs her shoulders like there’s nothing she can do about it.
My braids fly behind me as I run to my room to grab a jacket. When I leave the house, a glimpse back at my mom reveals nothing. I want her to do anything. Something. Tell me she’s saving money to leave. Hug me. Tell me it’s not my fault.
But she does nothing.
I race to the Cliffs, my feet pumping pure anger. It doesn’t take me long to reach the path entrance. I drop my bike, then walk, my shoes making sloppy prints. I kneel in the sand and cry as the storm that never came yesterday finally hits our shores.
I throw myself into the project. Hurl my body against the walls of it. I meet Kip in the science lab every day at lunch. I start to meet him after school too. We go to Kip’s house because the internet is slow at Our Lady. His sisters sit at the dining room table doing homework, and his mother brings us snacks. Their yellow Lab, Shrimp, sleeps on my feet, her nose pink and wet. It’s loud, the noise from too many people talking at once, but always with smiles.
It is the opposite of the Murphy house in every possible way.
“What are you doing?” Babe asks me and Kip the third time I come over. Babe is two grades below us. Her real name is Barbara, but no one calls her that.
When she was a toddler, she played Jesus in the Christmas pageant and cried the whole time. She has freckles like Kip. They all do, the Dwyer kids, like with each pregnancy their mom ate a different pen that exploded in her womb. None of them got their dad’s red hair.
“Tell her, Murphy,” Kip says.
“We’re making a submersible.”
On the table, we have an old fish tank and an empty soda bottle that will turn into the sub. Kip ordered a kit off the internet with a motor, servos, and a propeller. When I had asked him about it, he said his mom paid for it. Then he threw his pencil across the room at Watson and got us detention again.
I grab the bottle and float it on top of the water. “Subs have a pressure hull—usually really strong metal—so they don’t get crushed under the pressure of the water. Like when you go down really deep in a pool and your ears hurt,” I explain. “That’s pressure. So subs need to be able to withstand that.” Kip squishes his hands together.
I point to the cap. “Ballasts are pockets of air. When the sub dives, it’s the ballasts filling up with water that makes the sub sink.” I push the bottle under the surface. “And the sub moves up and down and side to side by flaps called diving planes and rudders.” Two switches on the controller move them.
“That’s boring.” Monica is younger than Barbara. She has dark freckles and deep brown hair like her mother probably does when it’s not dyed.
“Monica Frances Dwyer, you’re being rude.” Mrs. Dwyer is standing in front of the stove, the fan blasting noisily because she burned something. Her hair is a blond puff, and her skin is very tan like it’s August and not May.
“Sorry, Mary,” Monica says.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. I smile and scratch my scalp above my braid. “I don’t think it’s boring. I like it.” I like it a lot. I like it more than anything. More than the filtration project I did last year. More than the Cliffs even.
And when Kip says he likes it too, I smile again.
The day before the presentation, I bounce my legs under the lab table. After Kip and I show the class our sub tomorrow, we won’t have to work together anymore. It’s been only three weeks, but I can’t remember not being friends.
Mr. Fen goes to the cafeteria to get a sandwich, so we’re alone in his classroom. I watch Kip peel a servo—the control that turns the sub left—off the flap and realign it.
Kip squints his eyes and sticks the servo on tight, his mouth pressed together in concentration. He jumps off the stool and runs to the sink.
He yells over the running water, “The controls work, but it’s leaking.” Last week, to store the battery, we cut the soda bottle around the middle and used tape and hot glue to seal it. “Should we add more glue?”
I pull on my braid. “No. It will keep leaking. It’s weak there now, so we need to make something like a brace.”
In Fen’s supply drawer, I grab a spool of masking tape. I need the hard circle of the cardboard. Back at our table, I put the ring around the bottle at the leak. It just fits. I take it off again and fold up paper.
“What are you doing?”
“We need to reinforce it. Like if you broke your arm and had a cast.” I roll the paper around the spool and stick clear tape over the whole thing. Then I tape that to the bottle.
When we put the sub back in the water, it doesn’t leak. Kip says, “You’re good at this, Murph.”
I’m quiet at the compliment. I jam my hand in my pocket and run my fingers over Joan’s card. “What are you doing after school?” I blurt out.
He looks at me sideways. “Are you asking me on a date? I knew you couldn’t resist this physique. This charm.”
My cheeks flare. “No, never mind.” I stand up quickly, gathering my work to distract myself. Is he making fun of me?
“I’m kidding!” He laughs. “What do you want to do?”
“I was going to go to the Cliffs. Do you want to go with me?” I roll my eyes and look at the speckled ceiling of the science room. I wish I hadn’t brought it up. It’s a terrible idea. I want to curl up in my shell.
“Are we gonna make out?”
“We are not!” I rip my backpack off the table and turn to leave. He touches my elbow. It makes me feel light and bouncy.
“I’m sorry.” He stands up. “I’m sorry. I was joking. I didn’t really think that. Now, if you’d asked me to go to South Beach . . .” Kip winks. The south side of the island is where the high schoolers go. To kiss.
I suck in air. What was I thinking? Asking him was a terrible idea. I push my eyebrows down. “Never mind.”
“Wanna look for shark teeth? I’ll meet you by the bike racks? I need to be at the marina at six though. I’m on gas duty.”
Clasping my books to my chest, I watch Mr. Fen walk back into the room. “I don’t know now,” I say to Kip.
Fen shakes his head. “Did you say ‘gas duty,’ Dwyer?”
“You’re gonna mock me while Murph breaks my heart? That’s cold, sir.”
From his desk, our teacher laughs, opening his wrapped sandwich. “I didn’t know you had a heart.” He bites into his chicken salad and a glob of mayonnaise lands on his gray tie. I grimace.
“I do, and it beats entirely for Mary Murphy. You couldn’t tell?” Kip grins, and steam evaporates off of me. Stop it.
“I think you overestimate your appeal,” Mr. Fen points out.
“Are you an expert on women, Fen? You got a lady?”
“I don’t ‘got a lady,’ Dwyer, but yes. I have a girlfriend.”
He does? I wish she would address the wrinkled shirts with him.
“Do you love her as much as I love Mary?”
“Oh, dear Lord,” I say. “I’m leaving.” I’m sick of his jokes. I don’t know what they mean, and I don’t understand how he can make jokes twenty-four hours a day. It’s unbearable.
The bell rings for fifth period, and I hurry to my locker. I catch Lydia’s eye and she gives me a weak smile. She walks across the hall toward me. “Hey.” She puts her hand on the locker next to mine. “Did you do the math homework? I swear, I don’t get anything that man teaches.”
“I did.”
“Can you explain it like a human? Mr. Wisniewski is a calculator, I’m pretty sure.”
I don’t answer her, because Kip walks by and waves at me, but it’s a loud wave, like noises come out of his fingers. Lydia grins at him. “What’s up with you and Kip?”
I grab my English textbook and shut the door. “I don’t know. What do you mean?”
“Are you together? I thought that might be why I haven’t seen you.”
I open my mouth to answer, but she says, “It’s okay, I get it. Maybe we can double-date or something. Omar and Kip are friends. Then we can see each other.”
Omar’s dad works for the sheriff’s department, so I don’t want to do that at all.
“We’re just partners on Fen’s project.”
“So, you just . . .” Lydia pulls on the short sleeve of her white shirt. Hers is crisp and bright. “Are you mad at me? Did I do something?” She tips her head to the side.
Mary Underwater Page 2