Free Timothy of the Cay by Theodore Taylor

Decision
    We left his office at Columbia Presbyterian and talked about what Dr. Pohl had said the rest of the day and into the night.
    I'm not sure when I went to sleep or when my parents did, but I remember thinking that what I wanted to do in life required vision. Even more than that: I never wanted to question myself when I was older about not accepting the challenge of risky surgery.
    Scared that I'd lose my life on the operating table, I also thought of those seven adults who'd survived without brain damage. Four were still blind, but they'd tried to do something about it. Should I?
    I awakened early that morning and lay there trying to go over everything Dr. Pohl had said. The traffic noises from Forty-second Street were faint.
    I finally asked Timothy, "What should I do?"
    "No rain, no rainbow," he replied.
    I remember him also saying, "Night bring day." Sorrow during darkness, joy in the morning.
    Finally, I asked my parents, "Are you awake?"
    They were.
    I took a deep breath. "I'm going ahead with the operation," I said.
    "Are you certain?" my father asked.
    "Yes, I want to go back to the cay."
    "Oh, Phillip, you said that the other night. You have to have more than that for a reason," my mother said. "
You have to!
..." I could tell she was almost in tears.
    "He has to have a goal, Grace," Father said, quietly but firmly. The decision was made.
    He called Dr. Pohl just after nine o'clock and the pneumo-encephalogram X rays were taken that afternoon.

14. Bark
Gertrude Theismann
    APRIL 1886 —In sultry late spring, Timothy was rowing Charlie Bottle's boat, laden with the grass they'd cut on Thatch Cay—which wasn't really a cay at all; fresh water was beneath its soil. The grass was for Charlie's livestock.
    A sheen of sweat coated Timothy's supple body, making it look oiled. As he pulled the oars, his arm and belly muscles flowed like warm molasses. He'd filled out since the
Amager,
had added two inches in height.
    He said, "Almost two year I 'ave tried. Dey say, 'Grow up, boy...'"
    "Tell de mates an' coptins you be sixteen. Den yuh may git de job." Charlie Bottle's bloodshot eyes were locked on Hannah Gumbs's foster son.
    Timothy frowned. Tante Hannah had always said, "Talk d'truth an' shame de debbil."
    "Long's yuh tell 'em yuh fo'teen, dey say, 'Grow up, boy,' an' yuh got no wark."
    Timothy nodded. Charlie Bottle was known for his wisdom, like Tante Hannah and Wobert Avril.
    "An' yuh look sixteen, yuh do. Yuh a big boy now," said Charlie Bottle.
    There was no breeze to fill sail this day. The knock of the oarlocks, the slap of water against the bow, were the only sounds as they went south toward Coki Bay, where Charlie's donkey cart awaited.
    Timothy nodded again. That was true, he thought. Big as most men. Strong as most men.
    Six days later, he announced to Tante Hannah that he was finally going to sea, on a bark bound for Rio de Janeiro. He'd heard of that place down in Brazil. He'd seen ships from there. He'd heard their Portuguese-speaking sailors.
    Tante Hannah congratulated him with a sad face.
    ***
    Even though he'd signed an official-looking paper with his
X
(all the words on the document meaningless to him), Timothy still wasn't sure that he was finally going to sea in the four-masted
Gertrude Theismann,
a ship that called Philadelphia home port. She was square-rigged, except for fore-and-aft sails on her aftermast, some jibs and headsails forward. She was the color of milk; pretty as a giant butterfly.
    He remembered Mama Geeches saying two years ago he'd get a goat-mout' ship, a bad-luck ship, unless he or Tante Hannah paid her two
kroner.
They'd talked about it and decided that was an idle threat. How could Mama Geeches know one ship from another, which was a bad-luck or a good-luck ship? Mama Geeches had gone too far that time. But he thought about her as he signed his
X.
    Because of what had happened with the
Amager,
Timothy didn't actually believe he was going out in the
Gertrude