Eleven Kids, One Summer

  “It’s haunted,” whispered Candy. “It must be.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” said Abbie. Suddenly she had had enough of her family. Besides, the rain had stopped.

  “Mom, can I walk around outside for a while?” she asked.

  “Have you unpacked your clothes?” asked Mrs. Rosso.

  “Yes,” replied Abbie, who was sharing a room with her French twin sisters, which was another reason she needed to get out. She couldn’t stand to hear one more “za-zoo” or “oo-vray.”

  “Okay, go ahead,” said Mrs. Rosso.

  Abbie let herself out the front door of the house, over which, she noted, hung a sign that read “Sandpiper.” All of the houses seemed to be named. She had discovered that on the Rossos’ many trips to and from the ferry earlier.

  Abbie reached the end of the walk leading to her house, turned onto another, wider boardwalk, continued along it until she reached an intersection overhung with trees — and bumped smack into some kids who were laughing and talking on the adjacent boardwalk. The three of them, two girls and a boy, were about her age, and the boy looked awfully familiar.

  “Sorry!” exclaimed Abbie. “I couldn’t see you.”

  “That’s okay,” replied one of the girls with a smile. “It happens all the time at this corner. They need to cut these trees back a little.”

  The three kids were about to go when Abbie asked, “Am I heading in the right direction for the Harbor Store?” She knew she wasn’t, but she wanted to talk for a few moments longer. She wanted to figure out why the boy looked so familiar.

  And then the boy opened his mouth. “As a matter of fact, you’re not,” he told her. That was all he had to say for Abbie to realize who he was. He wasn’t just any boy. He was a movie star. He was Justin Hart.

  Abbie’s mouth dropped open. She couldn’t help it. Justin was the star of a hit TV series, and he’d made several big movies.

  The girls grinned. “You just recognized him, right?” said one.

  Abbie nodded. She couldn’t say a word.

  “Well, you can talk to him,” the girl went on. “He’s just a regular guy. Also, he’s my boyfriend. I’m Melanie Braderman. You know Justin, I guess, and this is my friend Lacey Reeder.”

  Lacey, who looked gorgeous and sophisticated to Abbie, smiled too. “Are you here for the summer?” she asked.

  Abbie nodded again. Then she managed to say, “This is our first time here. We live in New Jersey. But we used to live in New York City.”

  “Really?” said Lacey. “That’s where I live!”

  Abbie stood and talked with Melanie, Lacey, and Justin. The longer they talked, the more relaxed Abbie felt, and the more Justin really did seem like just a regular guy. It turned out that the Bradermans and the Reeders had summered in Davis Park practically forever and that Melanie had met Justin there shortly before he became a star. Now Justin was back to shoot a movie — right in Davis Park! He and his camera crew and the other actors and actresses would be there most of the summer.

  Abbie showed Melanie, Lacey, and Justin where Sandpiper House was and made plans to meet them on the beach the next day. Then she went home — happily. She’d been on Fire Island for just two and a half hours, and already she’d made three friends.

  She belonged.

  Candy woke up slowly the next morning. She was the kind of person who liked to savor things — books, warm breezes, good smells, and the feel of a soft bed in the early morning.

  It was the beginning of the Rossos’ first full day at Sandpiper House. Candy yawned and stretched and looked around her room. It was the tiniest bedroom in the house, which was why she had chosen it for herself. Of all of the Rosso kids, Candy craved solitude and privacy the most, and this little bedroom could sleep only one person. The house as a whole, like a lot of houses in Davis Park, could sleep an army. The beach houses had plenty of rooms. And in each bedroom were two or three beds or sometimes even bunk beds. The couches in the living room were usually designed for sleeping, too. All of this was because people with houses on Fire Island liked to invite guests for visits.

  The day before, when the Rosso kids were running around counting bedrooms and figuring out who would share with whom, Candy had found this tiny room and begged to have it for herself. Her brothers and sisters had let her. They knew Candy needed privacy. And so Keegan and Mr. and Mrs. Rosso had wound up in one bedroom — not even the biggest, since Mr. Rosso would be at Sandpiper House only on the weekends — Abbie and the twins were sharing another (the twins in bunk beds); Bainbridge and Woody were sharing the fourth bedroom; Hardy and Ira, the fifth; and Jan and Hannah, the sixth.

  These last two sets of roommates were not ideal. Jan and Ira wanted desperately to share a room, but Hannah flat-out refused to share with Hardy, so the younger kids had to make do. Candy felt a little selfish about getting her own room, but she knew it would be the best summer of her life. She’d probably never have so much privacy again.

  On that first morning in Sandpiper House, Candy was lying in bed savoring things. Her window was open slightly, and although the shade was drawn, she could smell salt water and hear the ocean beating against the shore. A moment later, she heard a gull cry, then the leaves of the trees rustling. A perfect morning.

  Candy got out of bed slowly. She padded barefoot across the room to the window, pulled up the shade, and found herself looking directly into a window of the rundown house next door. It was a typical beach house, built on stilts in case the ocean water ever came far enough up the beach to reach the house. A boardwalk led to the front door, and a railing ran around the weathered, gray deck of the house. But the house, which didn’t seem to have a name, was not nearly as nice-looking as Sandpiper House. Boards were missing here and there in the walk, a railing was leaning dangerously to one side, and several of the windows were cracked. But not the window Candy was looking into. It was intact. There were even ratty curtains hanging in it, and when Candy snapped up her shade, she thought she saw one of the curtains flutter slightly.

  Candy gasped.

  Was someone in the house? Someone must be! What else would make a curtain move — an inside curtain in a closed-up house?

  Then a chilling thought came to Candy. Someone must be in that awful house. She didn’t know if the person were living or dead — a human or a ghost — but someone must be there.

  Candy pulled her shade down again. She waited for three minutes (timing it on her stopwatch). Then she snapped up the shade again.

  Nothing.

  The curtains were not stirring.

  Maybe Candy had imagined the curtain moving. She did have a good imagination, and she liked mysteries. She decided to keep this mystery to herself, at least for awhile. It would be something else to savor.

  Candy changed into her bathing suit and put a T-shirt on over it. Then she sauntered into the kitchen area, where she found her mother feeding Keegan and her father reading his carpentry magazine.

  “Morning, early bird,” Mrs. Rosso greeted her.

  “Morning,” Candy replied.

  “Ready for the beach?” asked Mr. Rosso, dragging himself away from his magazine.

  “Yup,” replied Candy. Then she said, “Think of it. A whole summer of sand and sun and swimming.” She paused. Then she added, “Maybe since we do have a whole summer of sand and sun and swimming, I won’t go to the beach today after all. Maybe I’ll just walk around Davis Park and see what’s what.”

  Mr. Rosso nodded. “Check out the store? Go to the boat dock?”

  “Yes,” answered Candy, even though that wasn’t what she meant at all. She was thinking about her mystery and how to solve it. She supposed she could ask people about the strange house. Or she could just walk up to the front door, knock a couple of times, and see if anyone answered. Of course, if no one did, it wouldn’t mean a thing. If someone lived there, he or she might be out jogging or at the grocery store or something.

  Candy couldn’t decide what to do. By the time the rest
of her brothers and sisters had gotten up, she was just sitting in the living room, looking out the window at the ramshackle house. She had thought about spying on it for the entire day but had discarded the idea. Her mother might think she was sick if she didn’t leave the house.

  Candy was thinking up another plan when Abbie said to her, “Hey, Candy, you know those three kids I met yesterday?”

  Of course Candy knew. By then, all of the Rossos knew about Justin Hart and his friends. They couldn’t believe that Abbie had met a celebrity and was going to spend the day with him.

  “Yeah?” replied Candy.

  “Well, I’m going to watch him shoot a scene on the beach this morning. Melanie and Lacey will be there, too. Want to come with us?”

  Candy had a funny feeling that her sister felt sorry for her because she was just sitting there, staring out the window. But she was not going to pass up the opportunity to meet Justin Hart or at least to watch him work.

  “Sure!” exclaimed Candy. She was also pleased that her big sister was going to include her in an activity with her new friends. Not that she and Abbie didn’t get along; it was just that Candy was flattered when her older sister offered to include her.

  Candy resolved then and there to act as grown-up and as sophisticated as Abbie. She didn’t want to let her sister down.

  Near ten o’clock, Abbie said, “Ready to go, Candy? I’m supposed to meet Mel and Lacey now.”

  “Yup, I’m ready,” replied Candy. She was glad that, at least on this first day, her other sisters and brothers were too eager to explore the island or do beach things rather than spend the morning hanging around a movie star. Bainbridge was already settled on a chair on the Rossos’ deck, facing the ocean with a pair of binoculars. He said he was “chick-watching,” which Abbie told him was a sexist comment. Jan and Ira were in the ocean under the watchful eye of Mr. Rosso. The twins, the nature-lovers in the family, had decided to walk through the wildlife sanctuary, and Hardy, Woody, and Hannah were going to walk with them and then go on to a place called Watch Hill where, they’d heard, there was a snack bar that served pizza. (Mrs. Rosso was still organizing the beach house. It was a big job, but Keegan took long naps, and Mrs. Rosso loved to organize, so that was a fine arrangement.)

  Candy set off proudly with her older sister.

  “Where are we going to meet your friends?” she asked.

  “A little farther down the beach, where it’s really deserted. That’s where they’re shooting today’s scene.”

  “What’s the movie about?” asked Candy.

  “I’m not sure,” replied Abbie. “We’ll find out when we get there.”

  They didn’t have to walk far. From the front of Sandpiper House, Candy could see all of the movie equipment down the beach — trailers and tents and cameras and directors’ chairs and lots of people. How had the trailers gotten across the bay to the island? Candy wondered. Oh well. Movie people had ways of getting things done.

  When Candy and her sister reached the site of the shoot, Candy turned around to see how far they’d walked. She could see Sandpiper House clearly and the house next door even more clearly, since it was closer. She thought she could see her father and Jan and Ira, but she wasn’t sure.

  Candy paused to enjoy that particular moment. There she was on the set of a movie and on the beach, too. The morning sun was growing hot, and it warmed her shoulders. She thought about taking her T-shirt off, but no one on the set except Justin Hart was wearing only a bathing suit. Everyone else was either dressed or was wearing a cover-up over his bathing suit. Candy sank her toes into the warm sand and wiggled them down until she reached the damp, cool sand underneath. A small wave rolled in and lapped at her ankles.

  “Candy? Hey, Candy!”

  Abbie was calling her. Candy looked up. She pulled her feet out of the sand. Abbie was standing nearby with two girls, a thin, dark-haired one and sophisticated-looking one. Candy ran to them.

  “You guys,” said Abbie to the girls, “this is my sister Candy.”

  “Hi,” said Candy. “My real name’s Calandra.” Lately, she felt she had to say that. Candy was a nice enough name, but it was sort of babyish.

  “Hello,” the dark-haired girl replied. “I’m Melanie Braderman. Most people call me Mel.”

  “And I’m Lacey Reeder,” said the other girl. “Most people call me Lacey.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “How do you like Fire Island so far?” Mel asked Candy.

  “It’s great. I have my own room.”

  “Well, in that huge house, I’d think so,” said Lacey.

  Candy and Abbie looked at each other. For some reason, it was hard for them to tell people about the size of their family. Bainbridge never had any trouble with it. He never had any trouble telling people his name, either. He’d come right out and say that he was Bainbridge and he had ten brothers and sisters, a mother with a system for everything from folding clothes to naming her kids, and an amazingly absentminded father.

  Abbie cleared her throat. “Well,” she said to her new friends, “the house is big, but not for us. There are thirteen people in our family.”

  “Plus Zsa-Zsa,” added Candy. “She’s our cat.”

  “Thirteen people!” exclaimed Lacey. “Wow. Mel and I only have five people in our families.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Mel. “We each have our parents, a stuck-up older sister, and a pesty younger brother.” She paused. “So you’ve got ten brothers and sisters?” she said to Abbie.

  Abbie nodded. Then she began the countdown, and Candy could feel her face flush.

  “There’s me, I’m the oldest. Then there’re Bainbridge, Calandra, Dagwood, Eberhard, Faustine and Gardenia — they’re twins — Hannah, Ira, Janthina, and Keegan. Keegan’s the baby.”

  Candy caught the amazed expressions on the faces of Mel and Lacey. She looked down at her feet. She hoped her sister wasn’t going to start in on the explanation of how the kids had been named.

  But if Abbie was, she didn’t have a chance because at that moment an absolutely gorgeous boy walked over to them. Candy knew right away that he was Justin Hart, America’s Hart-throb. She couldn’t believe she was seeing him in person. He looked much, much cuter in real life than he did on TV or on the movie screen. His brown eyes were wide set, a few freckles were scattered over his nose, his legs were long, and he grinned at Candy from under a mop of dark curls.

  “You’ve got to be Abbie’s sister,” he said. “You two look so much alike. It’s unbelievable. How old are you?”

  “Thirteen,” Candy mumbled. She felt terribly shy. What had happened to her resolve to act grown-up in front of Abbie? She might as well have stuck her head in the sand.

  But Abbie took over. “We all look alike,” she told Justin. “There are eleven of us. Kids, I mean, and we all have brown hair and freckles.”

  “Eleven?” cried Justin, and Abbie had to explain about their family again.

  “Justin?” a voice boomed a few minutes later.

  “I’m wanted on the set,” said Justin with a grin, and he ran over to talk to three men while a woman combed his hair and another one rubbed something from a jar across his cheeks.

  Candy had almost forgotten that a movie was being shot just ten feet away from her. Suddenly, she found her voice. “What’s the movie about?” she asked Mel.

  “Oh, it’s going to be really fun. It’s called Summer Blues, and it’s about this boy, played by Justin, who goes to Fire Island for the summer while his parents are getting divorced. His family is really rich, and they rent this huge old house, and his mom and dad take turns coming out to stay with him and his housekeeper. Meanwhile, Justin is trying to get his parents back together, plus he gets caught between two girls — one who has a crush on him but whom he doesn’t like much, and another whom he loves but who has a crush on a boy that Justin has gotten to be friends with.”

  “Oh,” said Candy. “It does sound fun — but complicated.”

  “It’s
supposed to be complicated,” said Mel. “That’s part of what makes it a good movie. I mean, not too complicated, but you have to have a plot and some subplots and stuff.”

  Candy nodded. She knew about those things. She loved to read. She guessed that if you needed plots and subplots in books, you needed them in movies, too. A movie was just another way of telling a story.

  “You should see the things the special effects people can do,” Mel went on. “They’re really amazing. See that trailer over there? That’s where the equipment is kept. And see that man and woman? The ones talking to Justin now? They’re Nate and Maxie, and they can do almost anything. They can make lightning flash — I mean, not really. It just looks like it —”

  “And they can make the weirdest, scariest sounds,” Lacey added, just as someone shouted, “Places, everyone!”

  The shooting of the scene was about to begin. For the next hour or so, the movie crew worked hard. Candy was surprised at how often Justin and the other actors had to say their lines. Sometimes they said them over and over and over before the director decided they were just right.

  Candy was interested at first, but after a while her attention began to wander. She gazed behind her at the rundown old house. She couldn’t stop looking at it and wondering about it. When the director finally called for a break, Candy said to Mel, “You know the house next door to ours?”

  Mel looked where Candy was pointing. “Yeah?” she said.

  “How old is it? Does anyone live there?”

  “How old?” Mel repeated. “Gosh, I’m not sure. It can’t be too old. This community isn’t very old. I bet it’s maybe fifty years.”

  “At most,” spoke up Lacey, who’d been listening. “Probably a lot less.”

  “And no one lives there,” said Mel. “It’s been deserted for as long as my parents have been spending the summers here, which is about twenty years now. I don’t even remember —”

  “Places, everyone!” yelled the director again.

  Abbie, Mel, and Lacey turned to watch Justin in action, but Candy couldn’t take her eyes off the old house. She felt drawn to it.