Free The Village by the Sea by Paula Fox Page B

tangerines for dessert and all the chicken. “Oh!” cried her mother, “you know how white-faced he’s been for so long? Now he looks as if he’d just taken a walk on a frosty day. You should see the color in his face!”
    The knowledge that her father was really getting well sank into her. Often, during the hours with Bertie, she never gave him a thought.
    â€œYesterday evening, I just touched a key on the piano,” she was telling Bertie. “Uncle Crispin was making supper. She was in the living room and could hardly have heard that note. But she yelled, ‘Don’t thump!’”
    â€œNever mind her,” Bertie said. The day was hot and she’d taken a quick dip in the water. Her freckled shoulders gleamed and her yellow hair was thick with salt and water. “We have to make the school today.”
    In four days, they had built eleven houses out of pebbles, shells, seaweed, and bits of wood. “Abodes,” Bertie called them. Pine boughs and oak twigs and sea lavender formed hedges; and from plants plucked from the tangle that grew along the cliff edge, they made gardens. The mayor’s house was made of sand dollars roofed with pine cones. The house of the only rich family in their village was built of oyster shells. The main street, which went from one end of the village to the other, was formed of white bubble shells. Slipper shell paths wound around the gardens. The blue and green sea glass made fish ponds and a skylight for a painter’s studio. The village center was marked by a large dried starfish—a compass of the sea, Emma said.
    â€œI like the painter’s studio best,” Bertie said, “the painter with the blazing talent.” She laughed. “As long as he doesn’t set his house on fire.”
    â€œWe don’t have any stores,” Emma noted.
    â€œLet’s not,” Bertie suggested. “And no dentist’s office.”
    â€œHow big do you think it is?” Emma asked her.
    Bertie paced along the stone wall they had built around the whole village. “About twelve feet long,” she said. She had offered to bring down some old doll’s house furniture, but Emma said they should only use things they found on the beach.
    When they knelt on the sand and saw the bits of glass shine, and a breeze touched the little trees and hedges, they agreed that their village looked more real than if it had been life-sized. All around them was the lovely debris of the beach, all the things they had turned into abodes and streets and gardens.
    â€œBut I think we have to have a doctor’s office,” Emma said, “in case someone gets sick.”
    Bertie knew about Emma’s father. She didn’t disagree. “I think we ought to have an inn, too,” she said. “Granny took me to lunch last October to a town on the Hudson River with this place that had been a revolutionary tavern. It was old-fashioned and cozy, like our houses.”
    â€œWe could have a one-room schoolhouse,” Emma said. “And we could make a jungle gym in the yard out of twigs.”
    â€œThe inn or the school first?” asked Bertie.
    â€œThe doctor’s office,” Emma said. “But it could be a house so that, when you have to have a shot, you could look out on a rose bush.”
    â€œFat chance,” remarked Bertie. “Doctors like you to stare at white walls and steel furniture—otherwise you might not be so scared.”
    They would walk down the beach, sometimes together, sometimes each girl on her own, looking for treasure. The hours flowed like the waves of the bay, unmarked each one. They never had a special thing they were looking for. It seemed to work better that way—they had better luck when they were just mooning around. Bertie had sharp eyes. She would hold her head sideways like a shorebird looking for a sand shrimp, pounce, and come up with a prize. Only the yellow or white