Free Jubilee by Patricia Reilly Giff

weekend.”
    “And I knew that Cora would be a wonderful mother. All she’d ever wanted was a child to love. A little girl. You.”
    She shook her head. “I’ve always been sorry. But you deserved a better mother.”
    For the first time, I was almost glad I didn’t speak. What could I say? How could I tell her how glad I was that she didn’t think it was my fault?
    We began to eat but put our forks down after a few mouthfuls. I could see she was worn out, and I was too.
    But there was something she had to know. I took out my pad and drew a school. It took up most of the page. I drew children going inside.
    “An apartment house?” she guessed.
    I wrote
school
on top. Even I knew I couldn’t wander around near the water all day. I had to go back to school.
    I saw the shock on her face. “You see what a flake I am? You see? I never thought of school.”
    I couldn’t help it. I began to laugh.
    “What’s today? Friday. Yes, Friday. The weekend’s coming. And I have to work. But I’ll be off on Monday and we’ll start you off fresh and new.”
    We walked back to Smith Street and went up to our bedrooms early.
    But I didn’t sleep. What had Ms. Quirk said? Something like
You have to know a person to appreciate him.
    Did I know my mother? Not yet. Once, she was seventeen years old and didn’t know how to take care of a baby, and then a little girl.
    Amber, who didn’t cook, who was always late for work, who didn’t remember I needed to go to school.
    I did love her. Didn’t I?
    I sat on the edge of the bed looking out. High over the streetlights, thick dark clouds moved fast across the sky. A few drops pelted the window.
    I loved the rain on the island. If it rained on Saturday, Aunt Cora and I would put on our raincoats and dash out to the garden for supper vegetables.
    It had been cozy in Mrs. Leahy’s room, with the rain pattering against the window. Ms. Quirk’s room would be different, maybe even better.
    I pictured Saturday nights with Gideon. I saw his hands, his nails thick, showing me how to make rope knots on the boat, teaching me how to run the motor, telling jokes at the supper table that made Aunt Cora’s eyes crinkle up.
    Gideon, who didn’t know how I felt about him.
    Would he take Mason out on the boat in the rain?
    But that was all right too. More than all right.
    Something else. Something I’d done. It was on the edge of my mind. What was it? I knew it was important.

B efore she left for work at the bookstore on Saturday, Amber pulled boots out of the jumble in the hall closet. “A pair for you, a pair for me.” She waved her hand. “There’s a raincoat in the closet upstairs.”
    She put her arms around me. “Be careful if you go out.” We could hear the wind and rain getting stronger. “It’s so lucky that you’re on the mainland away from that windy island.” She hugged me and went out the door.
    Upstairs, I looked through closets filled with shirts and jeans, and pulled a raincoat off the hanger. The boots were too big; I put on an extra pair of socks, and my feet still needed to grow another inch or two.
    Outside, rain spattered on the hood of my rubber raincoat and splashed up against my boots; puddles rushed along the curbs.
    No one else was in sight.
    I hurried toward the water, watching the ferry pull away in the distance, going home. “Goodbye,” I whispered, even though I knew Saturday was Gideon’s day off.
    I wandered along the cement path, went closer to the edge, and crouched down to watch the water smash against the wall.
    Seaweed waved underneath, and I could just see a school of fish and some jellyfish waving underneath. Even the sand on the bottom swirled up in angry whirlpools.
    And then I saw it.
    Imagined it?
    But it was there, swimming along, slate-gray, speckled, the largest turtle I’d ever seen. Its head was stretched out, its neck wide, its clawed feet and legs moving forward deliberately.
    Going south.
    A leatherback turtle.
    It didn’t belong