Moonpenny Island Read Online Free

The chicory fades and the Queen Anne’s lace folds itself into spindly little baskets. Fewer fishing boats go out—fewer than ever, since the algae was bad again this year, and the walleye and pike aren’t what they used to be. Two Sisters quits stocking fancy food. And at Sunday Mass, lots of empty pews. Father Park heaves a sigh when he sees the collection basket.
    Flor always used to love this time of year. It’s her island, after all—hers and Sylvie’s and their families’. They just let the summer people borrow it for a while. The pulling back, the dwindling down and burrowing in—she’s always loved it. Dad says that proves she’s a born and bred islander. Who needs the rest of the world? That’s his philosophy.
    Still. Late last winter, when the lake was good and frozen, Flor stepped out on the ice and found herselfhaving a peculiar thought. She could walk to the mainland if she wanted. That made her remember a show she’d seen, about the first creatures to haul themselves out of the goopy prehistoric water and live on land. They resembled a cross between a fish and a lizard, neither this nor that, with beady eyes and stumpy fin legs. Not what anyone would call attractive. Yet Flor was impressed. It wasn’t every day a creature did something that dramatic. That risky.
    Standing on the ice that afternoon, she wondered what it’d be like to walk out and stand in the middle of the lake, equal distances from the island and the mainland, the familiar and the untried new. Like a lizard-fish deciding, Should I go for it? She slid a little farther out, testing, but suddenly the ice groaned and she freaked and raced back to shore.
    Anyway. This coming winter, one major thing will be different. For third, fourth, and fifth grade, she and Sylvie have sat in the same classroom, first as the youngest kids, then the middle, finally the oldest. This year, they’ll move into the sixth, seventh, eighth grade, taught by the infamous, the dreaded, Mrs. Defoe. Mrs. Defoe wears brown. Exclusively. Sheassigns six-hundred-word book reports and makes you memorize the Gettsyburg Address, though who lives there remains a mystery. She is so old, both Sylvie’s and Flor’s fathers had her, and Dad still pretends to shiver in fear whenever he sees her. Sylvie, who never does well in school, refuses to even speak Mrs. Defoe’s name. All summer, school has been banished as a topic of conversation.
    And then, wham-bam, pin to the balloon. All of a sudden, school is all they talk about.
    Because it turns out Sylvie is going away. To private school on the mainland. She’s going to live with her aunt and uncle, whose kids are in college now.
    How can it be? It can’t be.
    â€œYou know my parents have talked about it forever,” says Sylvie. “They think I’d do better in private school.”
    â€œParents talk about all kinds of stuff they’ll never really do!”
    â€œI know, but—”
    â€œSylvie! You didn’t even tell me you applied!”
    â€œIt happened so fast. After Perry cracked up the car . . .” Sylvie pushes her purple glasses up her nose.She folds her hands in her purple lap. They’re sitting on the Pinches’ private beach, a crescent of sand across the road from the house, and they’re wearing matching T-shirts they got years ago, with pictures of wild horses. Sylvie’s voice is flat, as if she’s reciting the times tables. Which she was always terrible at. “My mother says if only Perry had gone to a better school, he would’ve realized his . . . what do you call it?”
    â€œPotential?”
    â€œUmm-hmm.”
    Their T-shirts are too small, especially for Sylvie, who is growing in ways Flor’s not. She keeps tugging hers down in front. Flor flops backward on the sand, catapults up.
    â€œI don’t see what Perry’s got to do with you.” She’s refusing