LITMIR.BIZ

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the rooster lived. I’d forgotten all about him and his earlymorning wake-up call. Across the canal, kitty-corner from our bungalow, was a small wooden shack, gone nearly black with age, its roof sagging and its yard home to shoulder-high grasses and cattails. It was the only house, if it could even be called that, on that side of the canal and I couldn’t remember ever seeing a soul around it, but someone had to live there to feed the rooster. A dock was cut into the land near the house. I could zip over there in the runabout, dock the boat and climb up into the tall weeds surrounding the house without being seen. I mentally added “exploration of the shack” to my agenda for the day.

      I got out of bed, knowing no one else would yet be up. The curtains were pulled around Isabel’s double bed. I didn’t know what time she’d gotten home the night before and I wondered what sort of punishment my parents had agreed on for her. I hoped it was harsh. I hated that she could lie and get away with it.

      I put on one of my bathing suits and pulled my capris over it, then walked across the linoleum-covered floor. We’d been at the shore less than twenty-four hours and already I could feel the gritty sand beneath my bare feet. I tiptoed as I passed Lucy’s bed. Her curtains had not been pulled shut, and I didn’t want to wake her. I was nearly to the stairs when I heard Isabel’s voice.

      “Julie?”

      I turned to see her pull back part of the curtain around her bed. Her long, dark hair was a tangled mess, but she looked beautiful in the pink sunlight.

      I tiptoed over to her bed. She took my arm and pulled me behind the curtain.

      “I need you to do me a favor,” she said. Her shoulders were bare above the sheet and I felt shock when I realized that she had slept naked. I didn’t know anyone who actually did that.

      I sat down on her bed. This close, I could see that her eyes were red. “What did Mom and Dad say?” I said. “You shouldn’t have gone to Daddy after—”

      “Shh!” she said. “That’s none of your business.” She fumbled among the covers on her bed and picked up a small plastic giraffe, about the size of her fist. “Give this to Ned Chapman, okay?” she asked, although I knew it was more of a demand than a request.

      I looked down at the red-and-purple giraffe nestled in my hands. “Why?” I asked. I knew she couldn’t tell me it was none of my business if she wanted my cooperation.

      “It’s his,” she said. “I forgot to give it to him last night.”

      “What would an eighteen-year-old boy want this for?” I asked. The giraffe looked like something even a toddler would get bored playing with after a minute or two.

      “Don’t ask so many questions,” Isabel said. “Just do it. Please. I’m not allowed to leave the house all day.”

      “That’s all?” I thought Mom was right—she should be grounded for a week.

      “That’s enough,” Isabel said. She flopped back onto her pillow. “I’m going back to sleep.”

      “You’re welcome,” I said, annoyed at her ingratitude.

      No one was up when I got downstairs. I went outside where the warm, damp morning air filled my lungs. I stuck the giraffe under one of the Adirondack chairs to keep it safe until I saw Ned. I grabbed my bucket and the crab net from where it leaned against the tree and began making the crabbing rounds, standing at the edge of our dock, peering into the water, looking for crabs that rested against the bulkhead below the water’s surface. I found three in our dock, then I walked outside the fence, balancing myself on the top of the wooden planks of the bulkhead as I checked the canal for crabs. The current was pulling strongly toward the river and I watched a paper cup sweep past me in the water, followed a moment later by a crab. I put my net into the water in the crab’s path and drew him up and into the bucket. It was almost too easy. A giant tangle of seaweed floated past me, and then a little ball, which I scooped out with my net and examined. It was nothing special, just a dented Ping-Pong ball, but I would put it under my bed to kick off my Bay Head Shores clue collection.

      I glanced across the canal, looking toward the rooster shack, and my gaze was drawn to the tall reeds directly across the canal from my house. Fishermen were arriving. They walked along a path cut through the reeds and began setting up their gear and their folding chairs behind the fence. Every one of them was colored, and they weren’t all men, either. It was hard to tell the women from the men at that distance, but I could tell for certain that a couple of them were children.

      “Crabbing, huh?”

      The voice came from behind me, surprising me so much that I had to grab the fence to keep my balance. I turned to see Ned Chapman walking toward me, grinning widely. Something happened to me in that moment. I don’t know if it was the way his blue eyes shone in the sunlight, or the triangle of tanned chest clearly visible beneath the collar of his open shirt, or the way he held his cigarette between his thumb and index finger, but I thought I might keel over and fall into the canal. I’d gotten my period for the first time in the early spring, and ever since then, I felt my stomach turn inside-out at the sight of a cute boy. And Ned was definitely cute. His hair was thick, the color of sunshine. He looked a little like Troy Donahue.

      “Hi, Ned,” I managed to say, and only when I said his name out loud did I realize that he had the same name as Nancy Drew’s steady boyfriend. “Hi, Ned,” I repeated, this time to myself, just to feel his name on my tongue again.

      He’d reached the opposite side of the fence from where I was standing and leaned over, his elbows resting on the metal bar at the top of the chain link. “You’re an early bird,” he said.

      “You, too.”

      “How many did you get?” He leaned farther over the fence to try to look in the bucket.

      “Five, so far.”

      “You like them?”

      “To eat, you mean?”

      He took a drag on his cigarette and let the smoke out in a long stream. “What else?” he asked.

      “Actually, no.” I giggled and was annoyed with myself for sounding like a kid. “Grandma loves them, though. And I love catching them, so it works out okay.”

      “So.” He rubbed his hand across his chin as though checking if he needed a shave. It was a sexy gesture. “Did Izzy get in trouble last night?”

      I nodded. “She can’t go out all day. She asked me to give you something, though.”

      I balanced carefully as I walked back along the bulkhead, trying to impress him by not holding on to the fence. In my yard, I put down the bucket and the net, then grabbed the giraffe from beneath the chair and carried it over to him. “She asked me to give you this,” I said.

      He smiled, taking the giraffe from my hand. I felt embarrassed for Isabel that she wanted to give him something so dumb. I didn’t believe her when she’d said it was actually his.

      “That’s nice of you to do that for her,” he said, looking right at me, and I stood as tall as I could, wondering how my small, barely there breasts looked in the childish one-piece bathing suit I was wearing. I needed to get a two-piece this summer, if Mom would let me.

      “She said it belonged to you,” I said.

      “Yeah, it does, actually,” he said. “Thanks for bringing it over. Tell her everything’s copacetic.”

      Why, oh why, hadn’t I remembered to bring my dictionary? I heard sounds coming from his screened porch and didn’t want to be in the Chapmans’ yard when goofy Ethan came outside, so I said goodbye to Ned and went back to our dock to see if any new crabs had appeared along the bulkhead.

      Right after lunch, Grandpop, Daddy and I towed the boat down to the marina. We gassed it up, Grandpop hopping onto the pier like a young man happy to be alive. I knew how he felt. Just the smell of the gasoline mixing with the salty scent of the water filled me up with joy. I thought to myself, I take after him. Grandpop

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