Summer of the War (5 page)

I had come barging into the room eager to accuse Carrie, and all the time she was thinking we hated her. “Look, you're all wrong about us,” I said. “We don't think we're perfect. It's just that we've always done things a certain way, and I guess we thought you'd want to do them that way, too.”

“You're not interested in what I like or what I want to do. It's your way or nothing. Anyhow, I don't belong here. I should be with my papa. I'd rather
have bombs dropping on me than everybody trying to make me into one of you.”

“I'm sorry if we made you feel like an outsider. When you get to know us, you'll see we're all different.”

She was blinking her eyes to keep back tears. “Are you going to tell Grandpa I cheated?”

I shook my head. “You won't cheat again?”

She wiped away the tears with the back of her hand and grinned at me. “I don't have to. I can beat all of you without cheating.”

The next morning Emily positively refused to go in the water. “Where everyone is splashing around,” she said, giving Tommy a sharp look.

When Grandpa called us to help him build up the cribs, Carrie said, “Moving stones around is the kind of work prisoners do. This might as well be Alcatraz Island. Besides, it would ruin my nails.”

“So what are we supposed to do,” Tommy asked, “let the lake wash away the whole island?”

Under her breath so that only Tommy and I heard her, Carrie said, “That would be fine with me.”

Tommy gave her an angry look. He hadn't forgiven her cheating. I had promised him that she wouldn't do it again, but he didn't believe me.

In the past I had enjoyed the half hour we spent filling in the cribs, bragging about the size of the stones we were lifting, finding the stone that fit a certain place, winning the battle with the water and the
currents. Just seeing Grandpa's pleasure in what we accomplished made it fun. With Carrie standing there watching us, a superior look on her face, I did feel like a prisoner on Alcatraz. Carrie had spoiled all the pleasure. Grandpa and Tommy were the only ones who worked as hard as usual. If Grandpa noticed how little we were doing, he didn't say anything.

Since talking with Carrie, I kept seeing us not the way we had always been, but as Carrie saw us. I honestly wanted to be friends with her. I think I even hoped that in the weeks she was with us, some of her sophistication would rub off onto me. Once I had held a butterfly lightly, and when I let it go, a little of the bright dust of its wings remained on my hands. I hoped that if I could just learn a little of Carrie's sophistication, Ned might look at me like he looked at Carrie.

I tried to think of something that would please her. Grandma had given me the weekly list of groceries to get on the mainland. Now I asked, “You want to come with me?”

She headed for the closet. “Never mind changing your clothes,” I said. “It's only Birch Bay. And don't wear heels on the boat.” Grandpa had two boats, the runabout and his Chris-Craft. He was fanatic about both of them, keeping their wood lacquered like fine pieces of furniture and their brightwork polished to a gleaming shine. The proudest day of my life was when Grandpa allowed me to take the runabout out
on my own. That was only after I had crossed the channel a million times under his watchful eye, memorizing all the shoals and boulders that lay just beneath the surface of the water ready to tear open the boat's hull.

Carrie didn't wear heels, but she did change her clothes, and I wondered what the people in Birch Bay would think of a girl who dressed as if Birch Bay were New York City and she were going for a stroll on Fifth Avenue. She was wearing a white eyelet blouse and pleated pink skirt.

It was Mrs. Norkin's day to help Grandma with the cooking and cleaning. As we left, Mrs. Norkin called out, “See that Ned doesn't give you any green potatoes, Belle, and bring back some rhubarb. I'll make a pie.”

Birch Bay was a fishing town. The boats went out each morning and came back with a load of whitefish and perch thrashing about on the bottom of the boat. The fish were cleaned and iced and sent all over the state. The town had a large hotel for summer people, but once the war started, the big steamers no longer brought people up the lakes from Detroit and Chicago, so the hotel had closed.

On the outskirts of the town there were a few small farms, but the sandy soil and the long winters kept anyone from making much of a living farming. The main business, apart from logging, was taking care of people like us who summered on the islands.
Along with the post office, the boat repair shop, the hardware store, and a small grocery, there were carpenters and a plumber and electrician. I loved the town. On a summer's day there was a slowness to everything you never found in a city. You said hello to anyone you met because you knew them and they knew you or about you.

Carrie must have seen the town when she came to the island, so I thought she would know what to expect, but she kept looking behind the small string of buildings on the main street as if they were just a stage set for some movie, and lurking behind them must be a real town.

“What do these people do?” she kept asking, as if it were impossible for human beings to live normal lives in a town like Birch Bay.

Until gas rationing there had been a mailboat that delivered letters to the islands. Now our first stop was the post office. Mrs. Newcomb handed me two letters, both from Mom and Dad, one for us kids and one for our grandparents. Mrs. Newcomb smiled at Carrie. “You must be Caroline Westman. I have a letter for you, too. It looks like it's from your father all the way from England.” The letter was on thin blue airmail stationery with the face of a king on the stamp. I thought of the distance the letter had traveled and the strangers who had handled it and how far away Carrie's father was.

Caroline gave Mrs. Newcomb a cold look, as if she
were angry that the postmistress knew all about her. As soon as we were outside, she tore open the letter, read it quickly, and stuffed it into her pocket without saying a word. I was fascinated with the foreign-looking letter and dying to know what it said. “Is your father all right?” I asked.

“Papa is fine. I don't understand why I couldn't go to England with him. I wouldn't mind the bombs. I like dangerous things.”

Danger, something else we couldn't provide on the island. The next stop was the grocery store. Besides groceries you could find toothpaste, playing cards, comic books (which Grandpa wouldn't let us buy), worms, and notebooks.

“So this is your cousin?” Mr. Brock said. “We'll just have to show her our welcome with a little present.” He handed each of us a penny lollipop. We had been going to the store since we were babies, so Mr. Brock still thought of us as little kids.

I was horribly embarrassed when Carrie said, “No thanks.”

Mr. Brock gave her a long look and then turned abruptly to wait on Mrs. Nelson from one of the other islands.

When we were outside, I said, “That was rude.”

“I'm not going to be treated like a two-year-old,” Carrie said.

“He was just being friendly. He gives all the kids suckers.”

Carrie brightened when we got to the Norkins'. Mrs. Norkin had a large garden and sold vegetables and flowers from her front yard. On the days she worked for us on the island, Ned took over the stand. He was watching us come toward him.

He gave me a familiar grin, all the awkwardness of two nights before forgotten. He smiled at Carrie, too, but that smile had a lot more warmth to it. It didn't say, “Hey, here's old Belle again.” It said, “Wow, this is a special day.”

“Welcome to the Norkin emporium,” Ned said. “What can I sell you? We've got diamonds, elephants, rainbows.”

“Rhubarb and potatoes,” I said, “and your mother said no green potatoes.”

Ned gave me a withering look. “I offer you diamonds and you want potatoes.”

Carrie was down on her knees smelling some plants Mrs. Norkin had potted up for sale. “Lavender!” She reached into her purse and pulled out a handful of bills. “I'll take five of these. We always had lavender in our garden in France.”

Ned's eyes widened. “You lived in France?”

“Certainement.”

“And you speak French?”

“
Naturellement
. Would you like to learn French?”

“You can teach me French and I'll teach you to sail.”

“Oh, I know how to sail. I'd love to go out with you though.”

I scooped up the rhubarb and the potatoes. “We better be going,” I said to Ned. “Your mom wants the rhubarb for a pie.” My words came out sounding stiff and sour.

Ned left it to me to put everything into a brown paper bag while he carefully arranged the pots of lavender in a cardboard box for Carrie.

“Au revoir,”
Carrie said.

“Right,” Ned said, never taking his eyes from her.

When we were back in the boat, Carrie said, “Your Ned's really
très charmant
.”

“He's not
my
Ned,” I snapped.

Carrie gave me a long look. “Sorry, I didn't know I was trespassing.”

“I don't care,” I lied. I didn't know whom to be more angry with, Carrie for flirting with Ned or Ned for falling all over her. Or worst of all, myself for caring so much.

After I delivered the groceries to Mrs. Norkin, I tramped over to the storm side of the island and spent an hour skipping stones on the lake. Grandpa had showed us how to pick out the flat oval stones and how to fling them out with a flick of your wrist so they skipped along the surface of the water. Grandpa could make a stone bounce along a dozen times. I loved the idea of a stone skimming over the water's surface, its heaviness bewitched away. My stones were sinking. I couldn't make them skip. I realized I was throwing the stones, wanting to hit something, and gave up.

When I returned to the cottage, I found Carrie had borrowed my best shorts and was out in the garden planting up the lavender. Grandma was standing alongside her, a big smile on her face.

“Belle, come here and see what Carrie is doing. I don't know why I never thought of lavender. It does so well in poor soil. Just smell that fragrance. It was so thoughtful of you, Carrie, but I'm not surprised. You're being your mother's daughter. I'm sure she had lavender. Your mother loved this garden. It was Julia's project. We should never have let it fall apart like this. It's just that working on it made me unhappy, it reminded me so of her.” Grandma smiled. “You're like your mother, Carrie. It's almost like having Julia back.”

Carrie stopped what she was doing and looked up at Grandma in surprise. Her face was flushed, and for a moment I thought I saw tears in her eyes. The next minute she was plunging the trowel into the ground as if she had something against the earth.

“I don't really remember my mother.” Carrie patted the sandy soil in around the plants.

Grandma said, “One day we'll look for some pictures of Julia when she was your age, Carrie. I'm sure there must be some in the attic.”

I left them and wandered up to my room feeling sorry for Carrie, making excuses for her because she had no mother. When I saw our room, my sympathy dwindled away. Carrie had flung her clothes every which way, leaving the room a complete mess. There
was no corner of the room that she hadn't occupied. I knew that wolves peed on their territory to mark it as theirs. That seemed to be what Carrie was doing, marking my room for her own by putting her things in every corner. It was obvious that she was used to having someone pick up after her, but I wasn't going to be another Louise. I looked at the dress she had worn to the mainland. I had never in my whole life read someone else's mail, but I was so curious about Carrie, I couldn't resist. I reached into the dress pocket and pulled out the letter from her father. For a minute I guess I thought she was just another character in a book I was reading and the letter was another page to turn.

I was too furious to read more. I put the letter back where I had found it. We were savages. There was no civilization on the island. Carrie was to suffer with us until she could get back to the
beau monde
, the fashionable world, as opposed to the trees and stones of the island. I longed to show the letter to Grandpa, “the gruff old man.” Of course I couldn't. I wouldn't have hurt Grandpa's feelings for the world. Besides, he would be furious with me for reading someone else's letter. I was already furious with myself. I was even more furious with Carrie. She had been here only a few days and already Tommy and Emily had gotten into a fight, Nancy was refusing to play her recorder, Ned was acting like a sick cow, and now I had done something I was ashamed of doing.

After reading the letter, I didn't see how I was ever going to speak to Carrie again, let alone be nice to her. Yet I had to.

At dinner no one noticed how quiet I was. Grandpa was listening, fascinated, to Carrie's account of what her father had written about the effect of the war in England. I wondered what Grandpa would say if he knew how Uncle Howard had described him.

Grandma was going on about how perfect the lavender was for the garden. Emily was chattering about Carrie's having given her one of her velvet headbands to wear with her new pageboy. Nancy showed off the polish Carrie had put on her toenails. Mrs. Norkin was grinning because Carrie had said her rhubarb pie was
délicieuse
.