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In a variegated flock jabbering like wild parrots the kids roamed the
island. The locals' raucous patois mingled with the French, English, Dutch,
Arabic of the children of doctors, executives, expatriates, escaping from
Northern winter or to Caribbean isolation.
Little freckled Jen and quiet Davey were the new ones. He’d not said a word
but Jen saw it clearly: Her big brother was in love with Angelique, a
long-boned, green-eyed Lebanese-French girl who lived in a mountaintop
mansion. Her slightly-Oriental eyes seemed to mock him when she looked his
way, which was seldom…pale gangly Davey with his thick tortoiseshell
glasses.
On the western shore, well off the tourist maps, a wrecked freighter lay
careened and rusting in the sand. The locals called it the Cautious
Captain; its skipper had hove too close to shore in a hurricane. This
day the ship had a new and noisy crew; they swarmed up the flaking hull,
clattered up rickety companionways to the main deck, and looked down to a
turquoise pool, filled then emptied by saltating surf.
The game required skillful timing: Jump too soon or late, you’d hit sand and
bones would break. Leap up and out on the right moment, though, and you got
a heart-stopping long fall into azure and a glorious cannonball splash.
Angelique jumped first, running lightly to the gunwale, wavering to gauge
the tide, then springing up and out with a whoop. Davey hung back, but Jen
jostled into line to dive. She knew Davey would never do it—it was so far
down, he was scared of heights, and too abashed by his scrawny whiteness to
even take off his T-shirt.
Thinking about how to keep her brother from tattling on her, Jen climbed
back up to jump again. Giggling, a little girl pointed: “Deh, Jen, yu
brudder! He mek fe jump!” Heat from the metal deck seared her bare soles but
she stared heedless, transfixed. Davey, glasses off and squinting like a
mole, had clambered onto the gunwale. He teetered.
Angelique, below him at the rail; Jen thought she saw a fleeting moue--or
was it a somewhat-smile? Davey turned; swayed irrevocably forward. A yell
tore from his throat. Jen bit her lip—she knew he was virtually blind, could
not see the water level. He flung up his arms. On his face only pure,
soaring joy. And he jumped.
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