Caterpillar Summer, page 6
Up by the houses, three boys jumped and rolled on the sandy hills.
“The signs say ‘Stay off,’” said Cat.
“The dunes are protected,” said Lily. “If the beach grass dies, it will destroy the dune.”
“How obnoxious,” said Cat.
Lily looked like she was thinking about saying something to the boys, but instead she turned to Cat. “It’s so nice having you here, Cat. You’re such a great kid.”
“Oh,” said Cat, looking down. She squeezed the sand between her fingers. “Thanks.”
“I see how you look out for Chicken,” said Lily. “You do so much for him.”
Cat shrugged. Chicken made speedboat noises.
“Holding a family together is a quiet kind of work,” Lily continued. “Sometimes that work doesn’t get noticed so much.”
Cat brushed the sand from her hands, thinking. Both Mom and Chicken would go in a hundred different directions without Cat there to steady them. But sometimes it was like they didn’t notice she was there. Lily had a point.
Suddenly, the boat noises stopped. Chicken peeped over the edge of the laundry basket.
“I have to poop,” he announced. “Emergency.”
Lily touched her hand lightly to her chest. “Gracious.” She gave Chicken her hand. They hurried inside.
Cat held the basket and gathered the toys. She didn’t want to build a castle anymore. The beach was deserted except for the boys playing on the dunes. They climbed to the top and flipped forward, turning a circle in the air before landing. A wheelbarrow stood at the bottom and they nearly crashed into it several times. They didn’t seem to care, just clambered up the hill again, not noticing the plants they trampled. Cat inched closer.
Two boys had brown hair, and one had floppy blond hair. The blond kid was smaller than the other two. She guessed he was eight or nine—somewhere between her and Chicken in age. He wasn’t as solid as the other boys, not as strong.
The biggest boy took the most daring flips. He also assigned scores to each of them according to some made-up scoring pattern. “Tanner, that’s fifty points. John Harvey, that’s six for you.”
Cat rolled her eyes. Six points for the little blond kid when the other one got fifty? It made her sure the bigger boy was John Harvey’s brother.
John Harvey frowned. “That’s not fair, Briggs.” His voice was surprisingly deep and raspy for a little kid.
Briggs sneered. “Don’t be such a baby. You’d get more points if you managed a halfway decent flip.”
John Harvey’s neck flushed. He scrambled up the dune and stood at the top, waving his arms. “I’ll do a backflip!”
Briggs and the other boy laughed.
“I’d love to see you try,” said Briggs.
John Harvey glared at them. “A hundred points if I make it.”
He threw himself backward from the top of the hill. His start was strong and at first, it seemed he would land on his feet, but he lost momentum partway. He smacked the ground face-first in the world’s sandiest belly flop.
John Harvey lay still, facedown, while the other boys hooted. Briggs kicked an arc of sand across John Harvey’s legs. He didn’t react. Cat set down the laundry basket and moved closer. She couldn’t walk away with him lying there. He could have hurt his back or neck. The bigger boys jostled each other, laughing.
“Hey,” Cat said. They didn’t stop. She walked closer. “Hey!”
This time they heard her. The older boys turned her way, and as they did, John Harvey stirred. He sat up, scrubbing at his eyes and mouth. The sand coating his face made him look like a sugar doughnut.
“What do you want?” Briggs asked.
He glared at her like she was the one who’d done something wrong. Cat couldn’t stand kids who had to be so nasty.
She tilted her head at John Harvey. He looked small sitting on the ground. “Are you okay?”
Briggs and the other boy laughed. Cat frowned. That was not the reaction she was expecting.
Briggs pushed John Harvey’s shoulder. “You got a girl standing up for you!”
Cat glared at Briggs. She didn’t know what being a girl had to do with anything. “You shouldn’t pick on little kids!”
At this, the older boys started laughing so hard, they bent over.
John Harvey’s ears flamed red. He got to his feet and stood straight. “I’m not little. I’m twelve.”
Cat raised her eyebrows. Twelve? She looked at him carefully. He was short, but compact and strong-looking in a way most little kids weren’t, his face pinched in a snarl.
“What a baby,” Briggs said, stretching out his voice so the vowels took forever and a day. “What a sweet widdle baby.”
“Maybe she can help you do your flip next time,” added Tanner. He grinned when this comment sent Briggs into a new wave of laughter.
Cat’s face warmed, partly for herself and partly for John Harvey. “You shouldn’t have been up on the dunes anyway!”
The boys straightened up. Briggs’s laugh was gone and he had that sneer again.
“What do you know about it?” he asked. “Here on vacation and you’re some kind of expert? Let me guess, one-week rental?”
Cat glared back at him, heart buzzing like a trapped insect. She wasn’t wrong. Lily said being on the dunes was wrong, even illegal. He had no right to make her feel like she didn’t belong. She straightened her shoulders.
“For your information,” she began, “I am not on vacation. I am staying with my grandparents who live here.” She pointed to the sign behind them. “And anyway, I don’t have to be from here to know how to read. Unless you guys haven’t learned how.”
“Shut up,” said John Harvey. He shook his hair out of his eyes. “At least we don’t take a laundry basket to the beach.”
Cat was about to ask what that meant coming from a kid who’d brought a wheelbarrow, but Briggs was too quick for her. With a few long steps, he crossed to the basket on the sand, scooped it with one hand, and tossed it to Tanner. Toys and seashells spilled out.
Cat clenched her fists by her sides. “Give it back. That’s my brother’s.”
The boy tossed the basket to John Harvey in a lopsided arc. He caught it and looked toward Briggs, who jerked his head toward the dune.
John Harvey’s mouth curled in a mean smile. He scaled the dune and placed the basket at the top. “Why do you have this out here anyway? Doing your laundry?” The other boys laughed.
“Why do you have that wheelbarrow?” Cat asked. “Doing some gardening?”
They ignored her.
“Let’s get out of here,” said Briggs. “I hate this part of the beach anyway.”
She couldn’t believe they were leaving Chicken’s basket on the dune.
“You better go get it,” Cat yelled after them.
Briggs spun around, walking backward as he shouted back at her. “Or what?”
Cat didn’t have an answer.
John Harvey sneered. “Next time, we’ll toss it in the ocean.”
The three of them laughed and continued walking down the beach, John Harvey pushing their dumb wheelbarrow, which made stupid lines in the sand. She pushed her fingers against her eyes. She was not going to cry over a bunch of nasty, dumb island kids. She had to get the basket.
The dune was steeper than she realized. She wanted to climb it in a dash, but instead she lumbered awkwardly. If she paused to take a breath, she slid backward and stumbled on the loose sand. Finally, she found footholds and made her way to the top.
A window in the nearby house whooshed up. A balding man leaned out. “Hey now! Y’all need to get off that dune.”
Cat held up the basket. “I was—” she started. The window slammed shut.
Inside, she boiled. She got yelled at, and the boys didn’t hear a peep. She hurried down the dune and gathered the seashells and sand toys. It was a small island, but not a tiny one. If she was lucky, she could avoid those boys.
She slid open the glass door.
“My boat!” said Chicken.
Chicken had no idea what she’d been through to get that dumb basket, but he still could have said “thank you” for bringing it in.
“Nice to see you, too,” said Cat.
Chicken shrugged. “I am glad to see you, Cat. But I am extra super glad to see my boat!” He put the basket over his head and marched around the living room.
Lily was busy chopping vegetables. Cat didn’t want to talk to her anyway, not about this. She felt deflated, emptied out, after what had happened on the beach.
She turned to Chicken. “Let’s see if Mom can video chat.”
“Yes! I want to show her my boat.”
Cat ran upstairs for her tablet and brought it back down. It took a while to connect.
“Now don’t yell and don’t put your face too close to the screen,” she reminded Chicken.
“I won’t,” he said.
“Well, you always do,” said Cat.
“Not always,” said Chicken, leaning backward so far, he almost fell over.
Finally, it connected with a ping.
“Hey kids!” said Mom. “How are you doing? My phone is low on charge, so I can’t talk for long.”
“We were on the beach two times today,” said Chicken. “Also we saw Macon’s boat, which goes in a jar.”
“Not a jar, a bottle,” said Cat.
“That’s nice,” said Mom. “What else?”
“Lily showed us their Big Blue Book,” said Chicken. “Except it’s not blue, but other than that it is like our Big Blue Book.”
“I saw your photos,” said Cat.
Even on a tiny screen from four hundred miles away, it was easy to see that Mom was uncomfortable. “Pretty boring, right?”
Cat didn’t know what she was talking about. Mom and Macon had been grinning in all those photos. That wasn’t boring, that was special. The kind of special she wanted with Mom.
“You went fishing with Macon all the time,” she said.
“It was a lifetime ago,” Mom answered.
“Could we go this weekend when you visit?” asked Cat. “You could teach me.”
“Um . . .”
“Come on, Mom, please?”
Mom sighed. “Okay. We’ll see.”
Cat grinned. They would fish together, be a team together. It wasn’t as good as their Atlanta trip would have been, but it could be a kind of second place vacation.
“My phone is running out, let’s talk later this week. Love you guys! Be good!”
“Yes, Mama,” said Chicken.
“Love you, too,” said Cat.
The picture cut out. Cat looked at the blank screen for a moment before turning it off. She didn’t know why Mom had to be so mysterious about her past. Cat thought about everything she had learned so far—that Mom had loved fishing, that Macon was a busy doctor, that Mom had left and never come back. Nothing added up. It felt like Cat had a handful of puzzle pieces but couldn’t see the picture they made.
Mom held all the pieces, but she wasn’t helpful. She avoided talking about the island as much as she could. To get the answers she needed, Cat would have to be creative. If Mom wouldn’t tell her, she’d have to find someone who could.
The sky was pink from the rising sun, and Cat wanted to watch from the deck. She wrapped herself in a fuzzy blanket and went downstairs.
The living room was dim and quiet, except for the gurgling of the coffeepot. No one was in the kitchen. She was about to push open the sliding glass door when she heard a voice behind her.
“Mornin’.”
Cat turned. It was Macon. He was pouring coffee into his travel mug.
“Hey,” she said. “Is it time for your walk?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Macon, tightening the lid. “This morning and every morning.”
Cat wondered if the sunrise was even prettier up close to the waves. “Can I go with you?”
As soon as the words were out, she regretted them. Yesterday, Macon barely spoke three sentences before he bolted out the door. He wouldn’t want her on his special morning walk.
Macon seemed surprised. “If you like. Not much to see this early in the morning, mind you.”
“That’s okay,” she said.
Macon hesitated, but then nodded once. “There’s a chill; best get yourself a sweater.”
She ran for her hoodie. When she returned, he was waiting on the deck. His strides were long, and Cat had to add a half jog to her step so she wouldn’t fall behind.
After a while, Cat adjusted to his speed and they reached a steady pace.
“Lily said these were turtle walks,” Cat said. “Will we see any?”
Macon waved his hand toward the water. “Unlikely. We might see tracks from when they lay their eggs in the sand.”
That was interesting. “How many eggs in a nest?”
“Up to sixty,” Macon said. “Takes a couple of months to hatch. You and your brother will be long gone by then.”
Cat looked at him sideways. She and Chicken had just arrived, but he was thinking ahead to when they’d be gone—maybe even looking forward to it. She tried again.
“That ship in the bottle was cool,” she said.
“Hobbies are good,” he said.
A seagull raced along the shore. “Do you do other stuff—besides the ships?”
“A bit of woodworking here and there, and I like to tinker in my shop. Used to be hard to find time for everything I wanted to do. Now I’ve got plenty of time to fill.”
The line of trophies on the bookshelf popped into Cat’s head. “What about fishing?”
He frowned a crease in the center of his forehead. “That was a long time ago.”
“Mom said she’d teach me.” Cat didn’t say she’d had to push Mom to agree.
He sipped his coffee.
Cat remembered how upset he’d been yesterday when they talked about fishing. Maybe he was sad because he was missing all those good times with Mom. From the look of the pictures, fishing had been special for them. And he said he needed hobbies.
“You should come with us,” she said.
Macon coughed. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why?” Cat asked. She walked five steps before she realized he wasn’t beside her anymore. He stood behind her, looking out at the water. She watched him, and then walked back to where he stood. He didn’t seem to be looking at anything in particular.
Cat waited.
Finally, as if nothing unusual had happened, he started walking again.
“I’d be in the way,” he said, finally. “Besides, I don’t like it much anymore.”
Macon was as stubborn as Mom, but Cat was sure that if he tried fishing again, he would like it. Mom and Macon would have to remember all the good times they had.
“Please come, Macon,” she said. “It will be fun.”
“No,” he snapped. “I can’t. Let’s turn back.” He pivoted and walked back the way they came.
Cat frowned. The list of what Macon didn’t like included boat rides, fishing trips, Chicken, and Cat. The list of what he liked: sea turtles and hot coffee. Seeing as Cat was neither, there was no point in trying to talk to him. On the way back she didn’t bother trying to catch up.
The afternoon sky puffed with clouds. Macon brought down an old kite from the attic and, after much encouragement from Lily, he agreed to join them on the beach. Chicken about burst from excitement. He asked technical questions about the kite and soon he and Macon were deep in conversation about aerodynamics. They talked like they had known each other forever.
Cat pushed her toes in the sand in irritation. She guessed she could remove Chicken from the list of what Macon didn’t like.
“I feel like walking,” Lily said. “Come with me, Cat?”
Cat nodded at her brother. “I have to stay with him.”
“We’ll stay close by,” said Lily.
Cat studied them. Macon was Chicken’s new best friend. And Cat wouldn’t go far.
Together Cat and Lily walked along the water. Cat’s favorite beach find was sea glass. It was difficult to spot, so each piece felt like a treasure. So far Cat had two brown and one clear in her collection. Lily also loved the glass. She collected green and blue pieces in a big bowl on the coffee table.
Lily was explaining the way waves tumble and smooth the glass when Cat saw something out of the corner of her eye.
Macon looked at the kite in the sky. He talked and gestured but didn’t realize Chicken had turned toward the water and taken a few steps toward it. A wave approached and its edge rushed over Chicken’s feet. Cat thought he’d panic, but he smiled. She smiled, too, remembering how it felt to realize an ocean could be warm.
For an instant, he stood completely still.
“Warm water!” he shouted.
Macon looked at him, startled. Cat looked at Chicken hard, her brain calculating how long it would take to reach him.
He charged into the water, but stumbled. A wave went over his head and he disappeared.
“Chicken! Chicken!”
She raced across the sand, Lily right behind her. Macon was thigh-deep in the waves. He fished Chicken out of the water. When Chicken’s head popped up, he looked surprised, but he was even more surprised when Macon scooped him up and held him like a baby.
Lily ran right into the water after them. “Is he all right? Is he breathing?”
Chicken answered this by throwing his head back and howling. He yelled so hard, he blocked out the sound of the waves. Macon held Chicken as he walked onto the sand. Chicken was twisting desperately in Macon’s arms.
Lily patted at Chicken like she was trying to check that he was all in one piece. “Is he hurt?”
Lily didn’t understand. Chicken’s body was okay. But his insides were crashing harder than the waves. Macon and Lily meant well, but they were doing everything wrong.
Chicken hadn’t stopped howling. He arched his back, arms pinwheeling.
Cat took a step toward them. “You’re holding him too tight, Macon. And he doesn’t like being on his back like that, he doesn’t feel safe.”
Macon didn’t seem to hear. He and Lily kept fussing over Chicken. All three of them were soaking wet.
