Free The Different Girl by Gordon Dahlquist Page A

Isobel asked if she had imagined so many things could be made from her sail. May shook her head and then Irene suggested another walk, and the two of them went alone toward the dock. I wondered if May would dangle her legs off the dock, too—if Irene would let her or pull her away, or if going there at all was a test to see if May had learned. I hoped she had.
    When they returned we were already in the kitchen because that night Robbert was cooking. He didn’t do things the same as Irene, so we had to look sharp, which was what he called out whenever he caught one of us waiting without a job. “Look sharp!” he would shout, and whoever he shouted at had to be ready. Irene came in by herself, explaining before anyone could ask that May was having her own nap and might eat with us or might not, since sleep was important for her getting better. Isobel poured a cup of water for Irene from the filter. Irene took a big drink and scooted her chair to the cupboards and looked inside, nodding her chin as she counted the boxes and cans.
    “How long until the boat comes?” asked Eleanor. We knew Irene hadn’t opened the peanut butter, so for her to be counting cans seemed soon.
    “That’s a good question,” Irene replied. She shut the cupboard and held out her cup for Isobel to refill. “But who can tell me something else, something about May’s pictures?”
    “What about them?” I asked, before anyone. “Which one?”
    We all stopped what we doing and looked for the photographs. They weren’t on the table anymore. Had they been given back to May? Should we go wake her up? Caroline was two steps to the door before Robbert told her to wait. He wiped his hands and cleared a space at the table. From his satchel on the floor he took his black notebook and set it where everyone could see. He tapped a button and all seven of May’s pictures were there, each one a little box. Robbert tapped again and the entire screen was filled with the first picture, the sunny dock piled with crates and the two smiling men.
    “Those are friends of Cat,” said Eleanor. “Cat is like May’s uncle except not her real uncle. Will is her real uncle. Cat is his friend. Will’s mother was Mary, which is the name of the boat. This photograph was taken from the deck of the Mary .”
    “Very good,” said Irene. “What about the crates?”
    “There are seventy-four of them,” said Isobel. “Five main sizes make up fifty-nine crates and fifteen other sizes are one crate each.”
    “Do you see any writing?”
    The crates had all kinds of writing but the actual letters were hard to see because of the grain of the photograph.
    “I see ‘Orange,’” I said.
    “For Port Orange,” said Eleanor. “I see ‘volume’ and ‘kilo’ and ‘mhz’ and numbers. One number is 805324776.”
    She pointed at that crate. Since everyone saw numbers, we all began to call them out until Irene raised her hand.
    “Like a tree full of parrots,” she said. “One at a time. What else?”
    “Is there something we’re supposed to find first?” I asked.
    “No. But your eyes are better than ours.”
    “Because you’re old,” Isobel said to Robbert. “You say your eyes are old and then you rub them.”
    “Where is that ?” Caroline pointed to a gap between two piles of crates. Beyond the gap was a dark band, thicker than the horizon line of the ocean.
    “Isn’t it a shadow?” said Irene, looking at Robbert. He took off his glasses and leaned closer, to squint.
    “Is it?” he asked, looking at us.
    “It’s land,” said Eleanor. “Far away and high up, like our cliffs.”
    “Port Orange doesn’t have cliffs anywhere near it,” said Robbert. “Nothing like that elevation.”
    “May must have made a mistake,” Isobel suggested. “Because of her injury.”
    But Robbert wasn’t listening. He tapped the screen and we saw the second photograph, the green island across the water, wreathed with fog and clouds, and then the fourth picture, from