Free Summer of Lost and Found by Rebecca Behrens Page B

sunny day, I felt cold and uneasy. How was I going to convince him that there was a story to write about Roanoke if he wasn’t here to see this history for himself ? But when I noticed that I no longer had any bars, I didn’t feel so bad that he hadn’t responded yet.
    â€œLook!” Ambrose stopped in front of a tall and gnarled tree.
    I gazed up at it. “That’s a nice-looking tree.”
    Ambrose pointed at a plaque. “This is an ancient live oak. It’s been here since before the colonists first arrived in 1585.”
    â€œWhoa!” I ran over and touched the bark, just because. “I had no idea trees could live that long.”
    â€œIt’s super interesting,” Ambrose said. He looked kind of proud of himself when I nodded. We stared at it appreciatively for a few minutes, and I took a picture.
    We emerged from the manicured gardens at the start of another walkway, lined with spiky saw palmettos and a few loblolly pines. I loved how that tree’s name rolled off my tongue. The sign said we were on the Colony Walk, and at the end was a large wooden gate; beyond that, the blended edge of the island and the sea. Silvery calm water lapped at the patch of beach—it wasn’t really a beach beach, like the one I’d been to at Corolla, but there was a sliver of rocky sand circling the marshy coast.
    Once we were up at the gate, I saw that it was padlocked. “How are we supposed to get to the beach?”
    Ambrose grinned. “Like this!” He shinnied up and over the gate fast as a squirrel scaling a tree. When I tried to follow his lead, it didn’t work out as well.
    â€œCan you give me a hand?” I was stopped precariously at the top, one leg on the beach side, one still dangling garden-side. Ambrose nervously spotted me as I heaved myself all the way over and down, dropping onto the dirt.
    Overgrown with beach grasses and piled with fallen branches, it wasn’t the easiest beach to walk on. Tufts of sharp plants popped up among the sandy pools of water and stone. I swatted away a pesky mosquito near my elbow. Thanks to all that soggy grass, it was bug heaven. Even the breeze wouldn’t keep them all away.
    â€œThe weather was like this the day my father left,” Ambrose said, kicking at a stone. “Windy.” I noticed, for the first time, that today his feet were bare. Was that part of his reenacting thing? His clothes were still colonial-looking: a frayed white long-sleeve shirt and dark, rough-looking pants. Or maybe he was like the barefoot runners I sometimes saw in the park. Personally, I like shoes—especially out in nature, where there is plenty of scat and insects.
    â€œYou saw him off?” I didn’t know whether it would be harder to miss someone if you saw him leave, or if he sneaked away at a time when he wouldn’t have to say good-bye. “Did he take a ship?” There weren’t many passenger boats in the area. Mom’s guidebook had said that many of the fishing tours left from Wanchese, the town on the southern half of the island.
    Ambrose shaded his eyes and stared across the sound. “He left on a pinnace.” I had no idea what a pinnace was, but I didn’t want to sound like an idiot, so I simply nodded. “How I miss him,” he added softly.
    All this talk was starting to depress me, big-time, and I couldn’t think of a thing to say to make Ambrose feel better, despite my similar situation. I leaned toward him, wanting to put my palm on his shoulder in a friendly squeeze. But as my outstretched arm moved closer to him, he shifted and bent to pick a blade of grass. I dropped my arm, both surprised that I’d had the guts to, literally, reach out and also kind of relieved that I hadn’t succeeded. I was too shy to even stand next to most of the boys at my school, and they were a lot less cute than Ambrose, with his curls and bright eyes. I definitely had to get a