the circus is special, nothing is special? If I could walk on a tightrope, even a little, you’d think I was the most amazing boy you knew. Even if I was only two feet off the ground. But if I walked on a tightrope in the circus and I was only two feet off the ground, people would shout for their money back.”
It was the most she had ever heard him say at one go. She wanted to tell him he was already the most amazing boy she knew but felt it might embarrass him.
He reached for her hand, and her heart quickened, but he only wanted the chalk.
He took it from her and began to write on the side of the poor thing. She opened her mouth to say they shouldn’t but then closed her mouth when she saw he was writing her name on the pebbly turtle skin. He wrote his name beneath hers.
“In case anyone else tries to say they found it,” he told her. Then he said, “Your name ought to be on a plaque here. Our names ought to be together forever. I’m glad I found him with you. There isn’t no one I’d rather have been with.”
“That’s a double negative,” she said.
He kissed her. Just on the cheek.
“Yes, dear,” he said, like he was forty years old and not ten. He gave her back the chalk.
Joel looked past her, down the beach, into the mist. Gail turned her head to see what he was staring at.
She saw a series of those Russian-doll shadows, collapsing toward them, just like someone folding a telescope shut. They were mother-shaped, flanked by Miriam and Mindy shapes, and Gail opened her mouth to call out, but then that large central shadow suddenly shrank and became Heather. Ben Quarrel was right behind her, looking smug.
Heather stalked out of the mist, her drawing pad under one arm. Coils of blond hair hung in her face. She pursed her lips and blew at them to get them out of her eyes, something she only ever did when she was mad.
“Mother wants to see you. She said right now.”
Gail said, “Isn’t she coming?”
“She has egg pancake in the oven.”
“Go and tell her—”
“Go and tell her yourself. You can give Mindy her chalk before you go.”
Mindy held out one hand, palm up.
Miriam sang, “Gail, Gail, she bosses everyone around. Gail, Gail, she is really stupid.” The melody was just as good as the lyrics.
Gail said to Heather, “We found a dinosaur. You have to run and get Mom. We’re going to give it to a museum and be in the paper. Joel and I are going to be in a photo together.”
Heather took Gail’s ear and twisted it, and Gail screamed. Mindy lunged and grabbed the chalk out of Gail’s hand. Miriam wailed in a long, girlish pretend scream, mocking her.
Heather dropped her hand and grabbed the back of Gail’s arm between thumb and index finger and twisted. Gail cried out again and struggled to get free. Her hand flailed out and swatted Heather’s drawing pad into the sand. Heather didn’t give it any mind, her bloodlust up. She began to march her little sister away into the mist.
“I was drawing my best pony,” Heather said. “I worked on it really hard. And Mom wouldn’t even look at it because Mindy and Miriam and Ben keep bothering her about your stupid dinosaur. She yelled at me to get you, and I didn’t even do anything. I just wanted to draw, and she said if I didn’t go get you, she’d take my colored pencils away. The colored pencils! I got! For my birthday!” Twisting the back of Gail’s arm for emphasis, until Gail’s eyes stung with tears.
Ben Quarrel hurried to keep alongside her. “You better still buy me my cowboys. You promised.”
“Mom says you aren’t getting any egg pancake,” Miriam said. “Because of all the trouble you’ve caused this morning.”
Mindy said, “Gail? Do you mind if I eat the piece of egg pancake that would’ve been yours?”
Gail looked over her shoulder at Joel. He was already a ghost, twenty feet back in the mist. He had climbed up to sit on the carcass.
“I’ll stay right here, Gail!” he shouted. “Don’t worry! You’ve got your name on it! Your name and mine, right together! Everyone is going to know we found it! Just come back as soon as you can! I’ll be waiting!”
“All right,” she said, her voice wavering with emotion. “I’ll be right back,