Refuge Cove by Lesley Choyce

Author:Lesley Choyce [Choyce, Lesley]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: JUV000000
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
Published: 2002-09-30T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

I waited until the cops got back into their car and drove off. Then I skidded down the steep slope and went inside.

My mom was sitting on the sofa wringing her hands.

“They were looking for Tamara’s family, weren’t they?”

“Yes,” she said, not wanting to look at me.

“Well, what did you tell them?”

“I’m not a very convincing liar,” she said. “I told them I had never seen any refugees. I don’t know if they believed me. Where are they?”

“Up in the fields near the bog. I think they’re scared again.”

“So am I,” she said. “I don’t think we can keep this up. That man was from immigration. He’s suspicious. We don’t know what we’ve gotten ourselves into.”

“But Tamara and her parents are happy here. They are good people. You can see that yourself.”

“I know. But we can’t hide them from the rest of the world forever.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m a bad liar. And I don’t like having to lie. And what about us? If we’re not careful, we might end up in jail. I should have told the truth. Maybe it would all be very simple. We have no reason to believe they will be made to leave the country.”

“I sort of thought that from the begining. But how are we going to convince Ravi of that?”

“And if we make contact with Immigration, they’ll know I already lied and will be wondering why we were trying to cover up for the refugees. We have a problem.”

I thought of Tamara and her folks. “I’m going to go up and tell them it’s okay to come down now.”

“Suppose my acting was so bad that the Mounties are nearby watching?”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” I was thinking just then how much Tamara meant to me. She was unlike any girl I’d ever met in Toronto. She was brave and smart and had those eyes that could see right into me—the real me.

I found the three of them sitting on the top of a bare rock, staring into the sunset.

“We’re not going back down with you,” Tamara said.

“But they’re gone. My mother told them nothing.”

“Yes,” Ravi said. “But for us … danger. You … not understand.”

“Yes, I do understand,” I said.

“We stay,” Ravi said and pointed to the spot on which he was sitting.

“Tamara, tell him. This is not necessary.”

Tamara looked at me with those big dark eyes. She led me to a ledge and made me sit down with her. We were above a sheer wall of granite that dropped off a hundred feet to the sea. The sun was setting and the world had a warm reddish glow. Gulls swooped below us along the cliffs. This strange feeling came over me. It was the most mixed-up thing that I ever felt. Sitting down with Tamara, I felt like this was the most perfect moment of my life—her, this beautiful place, the huge impossible expanse of the darkening sea beneath us. I wanted it all to stay like this forever.

But then in the backwash of this feeling was something else—it was like a dream about to shatter.

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