Megan's Island

  They reached the door of the bedroom where Sandy slept and eased inside. “Now listen!” Sandy commanded, so softly she could barely hear him.

  At first there was nothing. Megan began to hope he had simply imagined whatever it was, or had had a bad dream. Sometimes when you woke from a nightmare, you couldn’t tell what was real and what was not.

  And then it came: from the porch outside Sandy’s open window, the unmistakable sound of breathing. When she thought her heart would stop altogether, they heard a metallic sound, as if someone had run into the trash can and shoved it against the wall.

  Sandy’s hand reached for hers, and they stood there, not daring to speak. If they could hear whoever was out there, he could also hear them.

  Why hadn’t she told Grandpa about the stranger in town, asking for redheaded kids? Why hadn’t she showed him Annie’s letter? Why wasn’t her mom here where she belonged, so they didn’t have to try to deal with this themselves?

  The metallic scraping sound came again, and then there was a clatter, a scrabbling noise, and a crash.

  A moment later, while they were still paralyzed with fright, Grandpa spoke behind them. “What in tarnation’s going on?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer but clumped noisily through to the kitchen, opened the back door, and looked out. Megan and Sandy were right behind him when he turned on the light.

  “Well, fella, where did you come from?” Grandpa asked.

  He didn’t sound scared, so Megan eased up to look past him.

  Tension began to ooze out of her, making her aware of how shaky she felt.

  There was an intruder on the porch all right, but it wasn’t the stranger from town or back home. It was a dog that had just knocked over the garbage can and clawed the lid off from it to rummage through the pork chop bones from supper.

  He was big and brownish-gray in the light from the dim bulb. He lifted a huge head to look at them, poised to run, until Grandpa spoke.

  “Hungry, are you? Where’d you come from, boy? The way your ribs are sticking out, I’d say it’s been a few days since you’ve had much to eat.”

  The dog continued to hesitate, wary yet unwilling to be driven off.

  Sandy was tremulous in his relief. “He’s starving, Grandpa. Can we give him something to eat?”

  “Well, he could have picked a better time to get acquainted than two o’clock in the morning,” Grandpa said. “But he’s hungry, all right. See if he’s interested in those leftover pancakes I was going to feed the chipmunks tomorrow.”

  The pancakes vanished in three gulps when Sandy tossed them to the dog. The animal then gave a couple of tentative wags of his tail, obviously looking for more.

  “There was a little of that cream gravy left,” Megan offered. “And a few peas.”

  “All right. Pour those over some bread, that’s the best we can do on the spur of the moment,” Grandpa agreed.

  For the next ten minutes, they rounded up every scrap that wasn’t enough for another meal, and the dog ate every morsel. By the time they came to the end of it, he was licking crumbs off Sandy’s hand.

  “Can we keep him?” Sandy demanded.

  Grandpa ran a hand through the gray hair that was standing up in tufts, making it look even worse. “That’s no decision to make in the middle of the night. Remember, once this cast comes off I have to go back to work, and I don’t have a place in the city for a big dog.”

  “Maybe Mom would let us keep him,” Sandy said eagerly.

  “And maybe she won’t, if you all wind up in an apartment,” Grandpa said dryly. “But I guess it won’t hurt to let him hang around until morning, anyway.”

  “We could use a good watchdog,” Sandy said. “Couldn’t we, Megan?”

  Now was the time, maybe, to tell Grandpa about the stranger who had asked about redheaded kids. Somehow, though, Megan’s tongue wouldn’t quite say the words, and then it was too late, at least for now. Grandpa slid the bolt on the back door, hitched up his pajamas, and headed back to bed. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” he said. “Good night again.”

  Back in her own bed, Megan took a while to warm up. Grandpa had left the dog out on the porch, but after Grandpa’s snores drifted through the cottage, there were other sounds. Surreptitious ones that Megan figured out without getting alarmed again.

  Sandy was bringing the dog in through the window, and she had no doubt that he was getting warm faster because the dog had joined him on the single bed.

  Tomorrow, she thought, she’d better tell Grandpa what they knew, and what they suspected. Just in case anyone really did come prowling around.

  It was a long time before she stopped straining to hear sounds in the surrounding darkness and fell asleep.

  Chapter Ten

  “Going to be hot today,” Grandpa said cheerfully the following morning when Megan came into the kitchen, still buttoning her shirt. “Ought to warm up that lake water pretty fast if it stays like this.”

  The sun flooded through the kitchen windows, and there was the delicious aroma of bacon and toast; as she took her place at the table, Grandpa slid a plate of eggs toward her. “Eat up. You kids are on your own for lunch, all right? I have to drive into the city to have this foot X-rayed, make sure it’s healing the way it’s supposed to. While I’m at it, I’ll do some shopping. The way this country air is increasing your appetites, I’m having trouble keeping enough groceries on hand, and they’ll cost less in the city than they do here in the village.”

  Grandpa had already eaten. So had Sandy, apparently, because he was sitting on the back steps feeding the dog. In daylight the animal looked just as large as Megan remembered, and even homelier.

  Grandpa gave her a pat on the shoulder. “If you go out on the water, don’t forget your life jackets,” he said. “See you around suppertime.”

  There was no opportunity to tell him about the mysterious man who had been asking about them, nor about Annie’s letter. He went down the steps past Sandy and the dog, and got in the car and drove away.

  Megan carried her plate out to join her brother, lifting it out of reach when the dog would have finished it off for her. “Down! Sit!” she commanded, and was pleased when the dog obediently thumped his rear end on the porch and looked up expectantly.

  “He’s been trained,” Sandy pointed out. “He did what you wanted. Now you have to give him something.”

  “Why? He’s supposed to mind whether you feed him or not,” Megan said, but she dropped him a bit of toast. “What kind of dog is he, anyway? I don’t think I ever saw one that was uglier.”

  “Grandpa said mostly Russian wolfhound, but probably three or four other breeds besides.” Sandy ran a hand over the big head, and was licked on the ear in return. “I’m going to call him Wolf.”

  “Why? He doesn’t look much like a wolf.” Megan cleaned her plate, wishing the dog weren’t drooling as he watched her every bite. “He looks more like a tramp.”

  “I always wanted a dog I could call Wolf,” Sandy asserted. “This is as close as I’ll ever get, so he’s Wolf.”

  “You’re not going to be able to keep him,” Megan warned. “There’s no way Mom’s going to let you. We might wind up in an apartment where they won’t let you have pets, or in the city where there’s no place for him to run. And a dog that size has to be expensive to feed. You want to eat tuna-fish casseroles every day instead of twice a week?”

  “I’ll earn the money to feed him,” Sandy said. “I’ll get a paper route or something. I like him, Megan. Are you trying to spoil everything for me?”

  “No.” She stooped to lower the plate so Wolf could lick off the crumbs and the hardening egg yolk. “I’m just trying to be realistic. If we’re running away all the time, Mom isn’t going to let us drag a dog along. Especially one that looks like this one. Everybody who sees him will remember him.”

  “The way they know we have red hair,” Sandy observed. “Who is it, Megan? What do they want with us?”

  “I
don’t know.” A frown etched itself into her face, as a new thought came to her. “It’s like . . . well, if some guy is asking about redheads, it’s you and me he’s looking for. Not Mom. And we didn’t do anything.”

  “It’s crazy,” Sandy said, and she had to agree with him.

  “Hey! You guys got the boat today? I got a bunch of stuff to take over to the island!”

  Ben came walking up from the beach, stopping at the foot of the steps. “Where’d you get the ugly mutt?”

  “He’s a stray, I guess. I’m going to keep him, at least for now. I’m calling him Wolf.”

  “I’d call him Mutt,” Ben said, but he reached down a hand to stroke the brindled muzzle, and Wolf licked his hand. “I always wanted a dog. My mom wouldn’t let me have one.”

  “Your dad has a dog, doesn’t he? We’ve seen him throwing sticks for it on the beach.” Megan retrieved the licked-clean plate and hesitated before returning it to the kitchen.

  “Missy. Yeah. She’s a purebred Irish setter. I guess he got her to keep him company after he wasn’t part of the family anymore. She’s okay, but she’s his dog, not mine, and she’s not used to kids. All she wants to do is chase sticks. When I talk to her, tell her to do anything, she looks as me as if I’m speaking Swahili.”

  “What’s that?” Sandy wanted to know.

  “A language they speak in Africa. Hey, can we use the boat? I want to haul a bunch of groceries over there, so we can have whole meals. I may even stay there tonight.”

  “Alone?” Sandy asked.

  “Unless you want to come along.” Ben spoke as if it didn’t matter, one way or the other. Megan remembered how frightened she had been last night, when they’d thought there was a prowler on the porch; would she be afraid to be out on the island at night? But why should she be? It would probably be safer than staying here, if that stranger came looking for them.

  What did he want? If he was the one they kept running away from, her mom must think he was dangerous, but why would he want to harm a couple of kids who didn’t even know him?

  Ben was staring at her. “Is something wrong? Can’t we take the boat today?”

  Megan moistened her lips. “It’s not the boat. Grandpa went to the city to have X-rays done and to shop, so he won’t be here to use it. It’s . . .” She hesitated, and then the words burst out as if she could no longer hold them. “Did your dad say what that guy looked like, the one who claimed to be our uncle, that was asking about us?”

  “No, just said a guy. You want me to ask him what the man looked like? When he’s not writing, I mean. When he is, I don’t interrupt him unless the house is on fire, or something like that. He’s okay when he isn’t trying to finish a book by a deadline, but right now . . .” Ben shrugged expressively. “What’s the deal? Who do you think this guy is?”

  “Well, he isn’t our uncle, because we don’t have one.” She knew, quite suddenly, that even if she didn’t like Ben all that well, even if he was bossy and acted as if they were his servants, she was going to tell him everything. Sandy was too young to help very much, but maybe Ben with his know-it-all attitude could figure out more than she’d been able to do.

  They stood there in the warm morning sunshine while she told him. She brought out the letter from Annie and showed him that, too. Her heart was pounding as she waited for his reaction to it.

  Ben read without speaking, then handed the letter back. “What do you think’s going on?”

  “We don’t know, only it’s scary,” Megan said.

  “You don’t want him to find you? Maybe you’ve inherited a million dollars or something, and that’s why he’s asking about you.”

  Sandy’s face lit up. “It could be something like that, Megan!”

  “Oh, sure. That’s why Mom keeps moving us around so he can’t find us. She knows, and she doesn’t want us to be able to afford a roast more than once a month,” Megan said. She’d intended to sound sarcastic, but all she did was sound scared.

  “How long’s she been doing that?” Ben wanted to know. “Moving around a lot?”

  Sandy and Megan exchanged glances. “As long as we can remember, I guess. Since we were little kids, anyway.”

  “And you don’t have any clues why.” Ben was thoughtful, and to Megan’s chagrin he picked up at once on the thing that had taken her much longer to recognize. “Well, it sounds like it’s you kids this guy is looking for, not your mom, so it can’t be for anything she did.”

  Sandy was indignant. “We didn’t do anything, either!”

  “Certainly not when we were practically babies,” Megan added.

  “There’s one sure way to find out,” Ben stated. “Talk to the guy and ask him what he wants with you.”

  The idea hit Megan like a blow to the chest. “But what if he . . . if he’s dangerous?”

  “Besides, we don’t know who he is,” Sandy pointed out. “And we don’t know where.”

  “If he’s looking for you around here, he’s probably still in town. There aren’t many places to stay . . . one motel, one rooming house, from what Dad said. He looked at them before he rented the log cabin we’re in now. You want me to tell my dad about this, ask him to help us, when I can catch him willing to listen for a few minutes?”

  Megan hesitated. She didn’t know Mr. Jamison, and after what Ben had said she wasn’t sure they could expect much help from him. If he wasn’t supportive of his own son, if he made Ben feel unwanted, how likely was he to respond to the needs of a couple of kids he didn’t even know?

  “Not yet,” she decided finally. “I’ll tell Grandpa when he comes home.”

  It didn’t make her feel any better to have made up her mind to do that. She was glad Ben knew, though, so it wasn’t just she and Sandy keeping an eye out for the mysterious stranger, although how much good another kid could do she didn’t know.

  “If we can use the boat,” Ben said, “let’s get going. I’ve got a whole pile of stuff on the beach in front of our cabin to haul over to the island.” He was off at a trot, Sandy and Wolf right behind him. Megan stared after them.

  So much for feeling better because someone else knew as much as she did. All they could think of was playing around. She wished desperately that she’d showed Annie’s letter to Grandpa last night; he would have put down his book and listened to her, she knew he would have. And maybe if he’d known about the man asking after them in the village, he wouldn’t have gone away and left them here alone for the day.

  Ordinarily the prospect of being on their own from breakfast to suppertime would have been great. Now the day stretched ahead of her, endless hours of it, when there would be no adult around in case anything bad happened. The fear was like icy teeth, gnawing at Megan’s stomach.

  The boys had shoved the boat almost free of the beach. Sandy jumped in, and they were both laughing as Wolf, afraid of being left behind, scrambled wildly after him, nearly overturning the boat, which Ben was holding for Megan.

  “Come on, hurry up, before that idiot of a dog swamps us and we have to bail,” Ben called. “Maybe you’d better leave him here,” he added to Sandy, as Wolf rocked the boat again in his frantic effort to reach the bow where Sandy was seated. “I don’t want to dump a load of groceries in the lake.”

  “Sit, Wolf! Sit!” Sandy commanded. “Wait a minute, Ben. If I can get him to stay in one place, he’ll be all right! We can’t leave him here, he’d probably try to swim after us, and he might not be able to swim as far as the island.”

  Megan rolled up her pant legs and stepped in, wishing she could feel as carefree as the boys. The sound of an engine brought her head around so quickly that she rocked the boat, though it was in no danger of capsizing. A sleek black car showed through the trees, and for a moment panic overwhelmed her, until she realized that it was going out, toward the main road, rather than coming in.

  Ben looked, too. “My dad. He said he was having trouble with his typewriter. He’s been grumbling about it, and he said if it got any worse he
’d have to take it to the city to get it fixed. Boy, I hope they’ve got a loaner, or they can fix it right away, so he can go on working, or he’ll be miserable to live with.” Ben took a few steps, soaking the legs of his jeans, and hopped into the boat as he shoved it off. “I’ll row,” he said, as if the decision were his to make.

  Megan didn’t care about that. Let him make his muscles ache and get slivers in his hands from the old oars. She was thinking about Mr. Jamison going to town. That left the three of them—Sandy, Ben, and herself—completely unprotected here at the lake.

  Megan had taken the seat at the stern, facing Ben as he rowed. Wolf had settled down, holding still with Sandy’s hand on his collar, and they were about twenty yards from shore when Ben looked directly at Megan, and she saw that he hadn’t put their situation out of mind, after all.

  “You know what you did when you wrote to your friend Annie, don’t you?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?” Megan demanded. Even before he replied, though, her heart had taken on that almost painfully rapid beat. The uneasiness she had been feeling ever since she had put the letter to Annie in the mailbox suddenly congealed in a great guilty lump in her chest. Because she did know, even if she hadn’t put it into words, even in her own mind. Because she didn’t want to be the one responsible for making a bad situation worse.

  “You told them where you are. Back there where you used to live.”

  The rapid beating in her chest became a thunderous clamor. Megan’s fingers curled over the edges of the seat, gripping it so tightly that her knuckles turned white. “Annie won’t tell, if that man comes back.”

  “No? Not even if he convinces her he’s your uncle?” Ben persisted, dealing more expertly with the oars, sending the boat skimming over the surface of the water. “Besides, she’s probably not the only one who saw your letter. Saw the postmark. If they track you as far as Lakewood, they’ll find you here. The mail carrier delivered the letter from Annie to your grandpa’s mailbox, so that means the next time anybody asks in the village, the postmaster will probably tell them where you are.”