Moonpenny Island by Tricia Springstubb

Author:Tricia Springstubb
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

Chapter Fifteen

Cecilia still isn’t home at suppertime. Never, ever has she been late without calling. “What kind of teenager is so good?” Mama always teased. “Just once, be bad! ¡Vaya, sea malita! Break some rules! Have a little fun!”

People should be careful what they wish for.

The three of them are staring glumly at their meatballs, which to tell the truth taste of freezer burn. Thomas puts one on the floor for his dog, and Dad doesn’t even notice. When the phone rings, Flor races to answer.

“Tell him I’m studying with Lauren Long.” Click. Cecilia’s gone.

“Cele’s studying with Lauren Long.”

“See?” Dad gets up to clear the table. “Nothing to worry about. Not with our Saint Cele.”

Could he be more aggravating? Doesn’t he notice who cooked the spaghetti? Who, when Cecilia still doesn’t appear, forces Thomas to peel off his clothes, only to discover that he’s wearing three sets of underpants on top of each other, his translation of “put on clean underwear”? Who makes him get in a tub that immediately turns the color of ditch water? Does their father have eyes in his head? If he isn’t careful, Flor will begin to yell at him, just like Mama did.

Does.

It’s raining, but when Cecilia finally comes home, she’s dry as dry can be. Beyond dry—she’s a pile of kindling that will burst into flame at the hint of a match. Studying with Lauren must have been very stimulating. Dad asks if she’s hungry, further proof he has no clue, because when was the last time he saw Cecilia eat, really eat? He actually looks sympathetic when she groans that she still has a ton of homework, heads for her closet, and shuts the door.

Only Flor seems to notice that it’s Friday night. Or that her backpack full of books still sits on the kitchen floor.

The rain is mean. Mean like cruel and mean like this means change is coming. Flor’s still awake, listening to it throw itself against the windows, when Dad climbs the stairs. Within minutes, the ffft ffft of his snoring blends with the sound of the rain.

For once Thomas is in his own bed, and her room’s so lonesome it’s like even she isn’t there. Dragging her pillow and covers out onto the landing, she opens her book. Anne Shirley’s having trouble with one of her boy students, but it breaks her heart to discipline him. Anne makes so many mistakes herself! She’s always rushing headlong, and feeling things with trembling intensity, and letting her imagination run completely, insanely wild. She reads her students fairy tales and takes them rambling through the woods. Mrs. Defoe could take a lesson here.

“De foe,” Joe called her today. “De opposite of de friend.”

The rain is on a mission to soak every inch of the island. Flor thinks of Joe and Jocelyn and the many Hawkinses crammed into their falling-down house. She thinks of Mrs. Defoe, asleep between brown sheets. Thinks of Jasper and Dr. Fife in their room with the slanted roof, their beds like islands in a sea of fossils.

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