Island Angels

Abenaki Island

Trapped in their attic bedroom, Brittany and Blair became hermits. Brittany stashed blankets in front of the heating vent, but Blair removed them. She wanted to spy.

Opal Mildred wasn't homebound. When, at night, Brittany heard twigs snapping, she crept to the window and spied two shadows near the cistern. Sequins sparkled; that had to be the old woman. But who was the other?

Like household mice, Brittany and Blair snuck food from the kitchen. Expired cookies, chips, and cereal tasted like cardboard, and the girls quickly tired of Tutti Fruiti Pop Tasties.

But food wasn't their only problem. Both girls craved their mother's attention. In Opal's absence, they visited; but Mom slept, and two sugar-charged girls couldn't shake her awake.

This is all she did in the trailer, Brittany remembered. Sleep, sleep, sleep. The island job had not improved her. If only they could tell Delaina!

Alas; they couldn't. So, alone in their room they sat, listening to rain drum upon the roof. Brittany wrote three letters to Daddy, painted her nails, and trimmed Blair's ragged haircut. Blair entertained the giant rat.

Then they discovered the library. Opal had filled the other attic room with books—books on shelves, books in boxes, books piled in tottering towers. Blair ran circles around them. At home, Brittany had belonged to the second-lowest reading group. Now, she tried to read grown-up books, a page here, a page there. Occasionally, she understood.

After three days, the rain stopped, and Brittany and Blair ventured outside. Knapsacks in hand, they walked across Opal Mildred's overgrown lawn, to the point where grass faded into sand. White-tipped waves crashed into shore, coughing shells and polished driftwood onto the rocky beach.

The girls held hands, watching waves roll as foam bubbled around their bare toes.

"Why can't we see the other side?" Blair asked.

"The Atlantic Ocean goes halfway around the world," Brittany explained.

"But Alfred rowed us across. Why can't we see where he started?"

"I told you, the ocean is too big"— She stopped. "Where did he dock?"

"Maybe he crashed on the rocks."

"That's crazy. The boat would have splintered into a million pieces." She ventured toward a rocky outcropping. Jagged scraps of wood lay in the sand around it.

"Let's collect shells," she said.

Along the shore they strolled. Brittany stuffed shells and rocks into her knapsack. Blair found an oversized piece of driftwood, but she struggled to carry both it and Tiffany. Finally, she laid the doll at the ocean's edge.

"Get that doll out of the water," Brittany said.

"Tiffany is learning how to swim."

"No ..." Brittany ran, but it was too late. A wave had captured the doll. Blair leapt into the ocean, but her sister pulled her back.

"No, Tiffany!" she wailed. "Swim back here! Now!"

The doll drifted, then sank.

"What a stupid thing to do!" Brittany cried. "Now she's gone forever."

"You rescued her before, so go get her"

"That was Delaina, and she almost drowned," Brittany said. "And the Atlantic is a lot bigger than the Ohio River."