Eleven

  He cut a piece for the base of the castle and began to work on the columns. By that time, he could smell bacon cooking at Onji's. Night Cat padded in, and overhead Mack stirred. It was time for breakfast.

  Sam's Bream

  A man with a scarf carried him over his shoulder.

  Sam looked back at his house. His old house. Gone house.

  “Don't leave the cat,” he whispered.

  “No,” the man said.

  Sam shivered.

  “It's not far.” The man wrapped his scarf around Sam. Black

  scarf, bits of red in it.

  Goodbye, oldhouse.

  Goodbye, river. Goodbye, big fish.

  Up ahead, that terrible house.

  Eleven.

  13

  Knights

  “Let me tell you—” Sam began as the class line snaked its way to the music room.

  “No, let me tell you,” Caroline whispered back, a smudge of lipstick on her braces. “Call your grandfather and tell him you're coming to my house after school today.” Before he could answer she held up her hand. “Don't ask. You'll see.”

  “All right.” There wasn't time for more, anyway.

  When the dismissal bell rang he hurried down the hall. He hoped Caroline wouldn't know he was embarrassed about going to her house. “Hanging out with girls?” Eric would joke.

  Caroline knew, though, and hung back until they reached the corner. “That Eric.” She nudged Sam. “All right, your turn to talk.”

  He gave her the clipping, and she leaned against a tree, staring at it. “No date, no name. Too bad.”

  He took the clipping back. It would have been so easy, too easy. “I have the other papers for later.” He touched his pocket, then handed her his own paper. “I took notes.”

  “Whooo. Who could read—”

  “I can.”

  “I'll tape it in the book, then.” Her eyebrows were raised over her glasses. “But you'd better translate.”

  He began with Onji telling him about Mack's temper, though Sam had never seen Mack angry once. He told her about the boat, and swimming, though he knew Mack was afraid of the water. He told her about huge fish, fish that he was too young to remember. “I was there, Caroline, where they grew up.”

  And something else. “I dreamed—” He broke off. “I think it was all nearby, all together: a river, the house where I'd lived with my mother, another place—” It was vague in his mind. “All near where Mack and Onji grew up.”

  By the time he finished, they were walking up the path to the boxy blue house where Caroline and her family were staying. Sam glanced at the windows: no curtains, but her mother was standing there, Caroline's little sister next to her, both of them waving.

  “My father's painting on the river somewhere,” Caroline said.

  Her mother opened the door. Her sneakers were untied, her hair down almost to her waist. It was about the same color as Caroline's but it looked as if she hadn't combed it in a week.

  It was easy to see why. She was running a pencil through her hair with one hand, pushing tangled strands off her face with the other, making the whole thing worse. And what was that stuff under her fingernails? Had Caroline said something about clay?

  Her mother led the way into a tiny kitchen, bending down to open cabinets, and then the refrigerator. “I was supposed to get something for you to eat—”

  “That's all right.”

  “No, I did get something. It's just a question of where I put it.” She smiled at Sam over her shoulder. “Ah, here, strawberries.” She looked a little uneasy. “You do like strawberries, right?”

  “Sure.”

  She pulled a pot out of the closet underneath the counter, and a couple of chocolate bars from a drawer. “We'll melt these, and dip—”

  She was like Caroline, just like Caroline. “Chocolate-covered strawberries,” he said. “Cool.”

  “And we have cookies, so we can dip them, too.” She swept a pile of books and papers off the table onto a chair.

  They sat at the table, chocolate dripping on the white top. Little Denise ran her finger across it, licking off the drips.

  Caroline looked happy with all this. “Just wait, Sam.”

  And all this time, her mother stared at him. “You're right,” she told Caroline. “I can do this. He has an easy face.” She turned to Sam. “Don't take forever with that. Eat fast, we have things to do.”

  They went into what was probably supposed to be a bedroom, but instead was the mother's workroom. It was a gigantic mess.

  Sam loved it.

  “I didn't have time to set up my kiln,” she said. “I guess Caroline told you we'll be leaving soon.”

  He didn't want to think about that. Instead he looked at the things taped to the walls: paint swatches, a shamrock, an old paper fan, and on a table, jars filled with brushes and sharp little knives. In the center was a mound of clay.

  “Sit there, right in front of me.” Caroline's mother pointed.

  She pulled a chair up in front of him and closed her eyes. “Excuse me.” She ran her fingers, a little sticky, over his face, his nose, his chin.

  He didn't move; he knew his face was red.

  She opened her eyes, sat back. “A snap.” She reached behind her for bits of clay, and began to shape the clay into a figure.

  “She's going to make knights for the castle,” Caroline said, “with your face. She'll make one or two with those things over their heads—”

  “Helmets?”

  “Yes. So you won't see that it's you, but the rest—”

  Caroline's mother held up the figure and tilted her head. “Almost.” She smoothed the head and shoulders. “Would it be too nerdy,” she asked, “to have one lady? And young knights?”

  “Squires,” he said. “Why not?”

  Moments later, she set the finished figure on the table. “A bold knight,” she said.

  Caroline peered over Sam's shoulder. “You have to look closely to see that it's you, but it really is, isn't it? Even the little scar above the eyebrow.”

  He raised his hand to his face and ran his fingers over his forehead, his nose, as she had done. She had captured him exactly. “How did you do that?” He stopped. He thought of something else. “What did you say?”

  “A bold knight,” she said.

  Had he dreamed that? A bold knight? A bold castle?

  But he had no time to think about it. Caroline was dragging him into their family room. There was a television at one end, a couch, a table, and a couple of chairs at the other. Boxes were piled against the wall.

  Caroline waved her hand at them. “We never unpacked, only the things we absolutely needed.”

  They sat on the couch with the small table in front of it. “Let's see what you have,” Caroline said.

  He pulled the papers out of his pocket, messy now, the rubber bands broken. They went through the driver's license, the ferry schedule, the scrap of paper: Children's Home, 11th Street.

  Next was a picture of Mack. He stood stiffly next to a woman, probably Lydia. They were leaning against the glass window of a hardware store, Clayton's. Last was a picture of a young girl sitting against a tree with water in the background. He'd seen that one before. “Julia, your mother,” Mack had said.

  Sam wondered who she really was.

  And that was all.

  14

  Anima's Restaurant

  On Tuesday morning Sam was awake early again. Downstairs, he cut little pieces of glass and began to fit them into the small spaces he'd cut into the castle walls. He hurried now, anxious to join the walls together.

  The tiny windows were longer than they were wide, almost slits. He ran glue along the edges, his hands sticky with it, the rectangles so small it took forever to put in each one. He just finished before it was time to get ready for school.

  That afternoon, Mack had varnished the cabinet he'd made for Anima, and the four of them stood there in the empty restaurant, looking at it. “The bes
t you've ever done, Mack,” Anima said.

  Mack ran his hand along the wood, testing its smoothness. He and Mack did that with everything, always feeling for the last rough spots. Mack glanced over at him, and his eyes crinkled the way they did when he was about to smile. Sam smiled back and nodded. They were thinking the same thing. The wood would be smooth as glass.

  Onji clapped his hand on Mack's shoulder. “Perfect, like everything you've ever done.”

  Mack shook his head, a movement so quick Sam would have missed it ordinarily. If only he knew what Mack was thinking.

  But then Anima said, “We'll have a celebration, all of us. And isn't your friend Caroline coming tomorrow? Ask her to stay for dinner.” She was laughing. “She hasn't lived until she's tasted my chicken curry.”

  “As long as she doesn't know the ingredients.”

  Anima had an innocent look on her face. “Everyone likes chicken.” Her delicate hands waved. “Onions and lemons—”

  “It's the coriander, the cumin.”

  “Good. I'll make an Indian cook out of you one of these days.”

  The next afternoon, Caroline came, and they went into the workroom. She'd brought a box of carefully wrapped knights with her. She opened the one on top.

  “The medieval lady.” He held it up. “She looks just like you.”

  They perched on chairs in front of the table, and she held the wall pieces as he glued them together and set them on the base. They stood back. “It's a castle,” she said. “It's really a castle. We should name it.”

  He was surprised; he'd thought they'd talked about it. “Bold,” he said. “Bold Castle.”

  “Just right,” she said, nodding.

  “It fits, doesn't it?” He leaned over to show her where the surrounding wall would be, and she pulled a mirror out of her bag. “Guess I can do without this. You can use it for a moat.”

  Why not? “Neat.”

  Caroline wrote it all down, but then she glanced up, twisting her bracelets anxiously. “We have to hurry.”

  “We have plenty of time. Anima said six o'clock. Onji's going to close early—”

  “I don't mean that. My father's going to meet someone tonight about teaching art in a college. Can you imagine? He says he wants to settle down. My mother said it would be permanent; she was dancing around the kitchen.” She raised her hand. “Not here. It won't be here.”

  Caroline stopped and went on in a voice so low he could hardly hear her. “One more school. I'll have to stand at the classroom door and all the faces will be strange, staring at me—”

  She ran her hand over the castle wall. “But this is going to be the most perfect thing, Sam. If only I could live inside, hidden away with my family forever.”

  “I'll build you a room and put the medieval lady inside.

  No one will know you're in there, but you'll be there forever.”

  He saw a quick flash of tears in her eyes. “And you can remember it when you go away.” He tried to think of something else to say, something easy, something that would take them away from her leaving. “Just a few rough spots here and there. Look.” He picked up the sandpaper and handed it to her. “If you rub lightly—”

  She began to work with the sandpaper, her head tilted, her hair covering the side of her face. She brushed it back impatiently and looked out at the parking lot. “There's gravel out there. Maybe we could put a little of that around the edge and make a path.”

  He nodded. Did they have gravel in the days of castles? They might have had crushed stone. And if not, it was their castle, after all.

  And then it was time to go to Anima's. They walked around in front of the building with Mack, circling Night Cat, who was washing one paw. A sign on the door said

  CLOSED TONIGHT FOR A PRIVATE PARTY.

  “That's us,” Sam said.

  Inside the restaurant, one table had been set up in the middle of the room for all of them. Even Onji's daughter, Ellie, was there.

  Anima, her face red from the heat of the oven, brought out one tray after another, nodding at Caroline. “I love the cabinet Mack made for me, and someday Sam will be able to do the same thing.”

  Sam looked toward the side of the room. Mack had used pine; he'd carved figures of birds into it, the birds they saw out back. He'd used antique brass for the handles and hinges.

  Sam thought about what Anima had said. He couldn't do something like this cabinet yet, but someday he would. Mack's words: “You have a gift.”

  Could you have only one gift? He needed more. He needed Caroline to stay; he needed to know more about himself, Sam Bell. And suppose he could read? Thinking about having all of it was almost like telling himself the fairy tales Anima read, with genies and godmothers granting wishes.

  Onji spread his hands wide. “Pretty sad when my greatest accomplishment is a hot pastrami sandwich.”

  Sam looked across the table at Caroline. She was grinning at him. She remembered the first day in the cafeteria with the pastrami sandwich and the Gummi Bears. “Your sandwiches are the best,” she told Onji. “Sam is so lucky.”

  Anima sat, and they began to eat, crunchy vegetables in a thick, spicy coating. “Will you stay and listen to me read tonight?” Anima asked Caroline.

  “Of course,” Mack said. “Sam and I will drive her home afterward.”

  “Good,” Anima said, going to the kitchen for more food.

  “I'll stay too,” Ellie said. “A great dinner, then reading afterward. Anima's stories.” She tapped Onji's shoulder. “Remember that one about the old Iroquois legend? The islands the Creator dropped in the river, thousands of them?

  Wasn't it where you and Mack grew up, where all of us were born?”

  Mack said, “I'll go help Anima,” and Ellie said, “I will too,” and by the time they came back with almond pudding in small flowered bowls, the story was forgotten.

  Except that it was all Sam thought about for the rest of the meal. “… where all of us were born.” It was the place he wanted to know about.

  15

  The Media Center

  It rained the next morning, with thunder rolling across the sky, and even though Sam and Eric ran from the bus across the schoolyard, their shirts were soaked.

  Sam went into the classroom, stamping the water out of his sneakers. Caroline was standing at her desk, squeezing the ends of her hair, drops of water spraying the desk in front of her.

  A sub was there today. Caroline motioned to Sam and whispered, “Let's go down to the Media Center.”

  They slipped out and went down the hall. “Great to have a sub,” Sam said. “She'll never miss us.” He jumped up to touch the ceiling light. “Ellie was talking last night—” he began.

  “Yes. She said something about thousands of islands. Maybe ten thousand.”

  They pushed open the doors. A kindergarten class was having a story hour, and Mrs. Hurd, the librarian, glanced up absently. “You might have dried yourselves off.”

  “Just using the computer,” Caroline said. “We'll be careful.”

  They sat next to each other, Caroline's notebook between them. “You know how to use the computer?” she asked.

  “Anyone can press a button.” He grinned at her, but he was shivering. Maybe it was because his shirt was still wet, sticking to him, or maybe it was because of what might be there on the computer.

  Caroline tapped his arm. “Punch in ‘ten thousand islands.’ ”

  Easy to punch in 10,000. He hesitated, but how to spell islands7.

  She didn't wait; she leaned over to type it in for him, and instantly, a page of blue came up with numbers that stood out and were repeated over and over among the words.

  “Florida,” she said.

  He whispered it, closing his eyes. Florida?

  Mack's driver's license.

  Caroline began to read. “Everglades, vacation paradise, boating. There are pictures here too, Sam.” She pointed with the mouse to bring the pictures up: mossy green trees reflected in swampy
water, fishing boats under blue skies, and sails on the horizon.

  Could he remember any of that? Could he picture sailing that little toy boat there, holding the string as it bobbed along on the edge of the water? “Big fish,” he said. “Game fish, I think you call them. Do you see anything—”

  She scrolled down and clicked. Immediately there was a photo of a huge fish coming up out of the water, glinting silver, its tail a fan. The fisherman, back arched, at the stern of a sailboat—it even had a double mast—strained to bring in the fish.

  Florida.

  The kindergarten class moved out of the Media Center and Mrs. Hurd wandered over to them. “What are you working on?”

  Caroline's face flushed. “We have a project on the Middle Ages in Mrs. Stanek's room. We have to build a castle, knights…” Her voice trailed off. Her fingers were crossed.

  Mrs. Hurd squinted at the screen. “I don't think Florida had anything to do with the Middle Ages. I'm not sure the Europeans had even gotten to the Everglades yet.”

  “We just—” Sam said.

  “I think you'd better go back to your classroom. And find some towels, dry yourselves off.”

  They went out and stopped at the fountain for water. “Wet inside and out,” Caroline said.

  “It's not right.”

  “What? Walking out of the classroom without permission? Getting the library floor wet? Mrs. Hurd sending us back? What, Sam-I-Am?”

  He ran his hands over his arms. He was still cold. “Florida doesn't feel right.”

  She wiped her mouth. “But Mack's license—”

  “I dream of cold. The water is gray, not blue; it's almost black.”

  She nodded uncertainly.

  He raised one shoulder. “Dreams aren't always right, I guess, but still—”

  She sighed. “So maybe the legend doesn't fit.”

  The door of their classroom opened and the kids barreled out, the sub in back of them.

  “Art,” Caroline said. “I forgot.”

  “Do you two belong to this class?” the sub said as they fell into line.