Free The Humming Room by Ellen Potter

zigzagging with alarm. The motor sounded like it was coming from the lagoon. Roo poked her head out and craned her neck around the edge of the cave. There was Ms. Valentine, guiding her Boston Whaler beneath the stone arch and out into the river. That struck Roo as odd. It was too early for her to be collecting the mail. And anyway, she was going in the opposite direction of Choke Cherry Island. Roo watched the boat curl around Cough Rock and disappear from her line of sight.
    Abandoning her cave, Roo hurried across the lawn, which the sun had recently coaxed from its dull brown into a bright green. When she reached the semicircular patio she perched on top of the low stone wall that hedged in the patio on one side, and she tracked the Whaler as it plowed across the river toward Clayton.
    Maybe my uncle is coming back, she thought.
    She felt a rush of nervous anticipation. She wondered if he’d be happy to see that she was dressed in the clothes he’d bought for her—a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved navy blue T-shirt. She looked down at herself. The knees of the jeans had some dirt on them from the cave. She stood up to wipe it off, gave the shirt a tug to smooth it out, then sat back on the wall to watch for Ms. Valentine’s return.
    The view from the patio looked out onto the seaway, the channel between the islands and Clayton’s shores. It was here, Violet had told Roo, that the nurses had once wheeled the hospital’s children to sit and watch the ships pass while they breathed the icy air into their weak lungs. Roo wondered if the girl who owned the box under the floorboards had once sat here too, watching the boats zipping past. Speedboats, fancy wooden boats, small aluminum fishing boats. Every so often a massive freighter would lumber between channel markers like a great rust-streaked whale, making the other boats leap up and slam down in its wake.
    Finally, Roo spotted the Whaler cutting across the waves and heading back to Cough Rock. As it came closer, Roo could see that there was someone in the passenger seat. Her stomach felt an anxious twist as her eyes strained to make out her uncle’s form, but the canopy obscured her view. It was only when the Whaler was finally moored in the lagoon, and the passenger stepped out that Roo saw it was not her uncle at all. It was a woman, thin and gray haired and dressed in a girlish bottle-green jumper dress. From the back of the boat, she hauled out a large, battered suitcase. Ms. Valentine tried to take it from her but the woman waved her away. Ms. Valentine took it anyway, and the two ladies started up the path toward the house.
    Roo kept so still that Ms. Valentine might have walked by without noticing her, but the old lady saw her. She stopped in her tracks and said something to Ms. Valentine, whose head then swiveled toward the patio.
    â€œRoo!” Ms. Valentine called. “Come here, please.”
    Cautiously, Roo hopped off the wall and walked over to them. She didn’t like the look of this. Ms. Valentine’s expression was worrisomely satisfied, and the gray-haired woman stared at Roo with far too much interest.
    â€œRoo, this is Mrs. Wixton. She’s going to be your tutor. And your companion.”
    Mrs. Wixton clasped her hands in front of her dress and nodded to Roo very formally. Her hair was thin and so tightly permed that it looked like she had tiny packing peanuts glued to her scalp.
    â€œI don’t want her,” Roo said.
    â€œThis is what I was talking about,” Ms. Valentine said to Mrs. Wixton in a confidential tone.
    â€œI don’t need a tutor,” Roo insisted.
    â€œThe New York State School Board would beg to differ with you, and the local school is not an option,” Ms. Valentine retorted. “It’s an hour-and-half trip each way. And come winter you won’t be able to go in any case, once the river freezes.”
    â€œThen let Violet be my tutor,” Roo said.
    â€œShe