Luanne Rice Read Free Page B

Maybe Taylor is my stepfather’s name, or maybe we decided
to name ourselves after James Taylor. We love his music.”
    “So do my
mother and I !”
    “My real
father saw him in a concert once. At Tanglewood.”
    “Your real father?” Rose asked. She wanted to ask more, but
something about the look on Jessica’s face made her hold back. Stress pulled
her eyes tight and made her jaw square. It only lasted a moment, was gone in a
flash, but Rose had seen. The words “your real father” slashed between them;
Rose felt them in her heart, like another trapped bird.
    “The air
sure is clean up here,” Jessica said, changing the subject as they started
walking again. “It’s the reason we moved to Cape Hawk, so far from pollution
and junk in the air. Or, at least, that’s what my mother tells everyone. But
maybe …”
    “Maybe what?” Rose asked.
    “Maybe the
real reason we moved here is another scary secret!” Jessica said. She tugged on
one of Rose’s braids, then pointed up at the mansion
on the hill. Deer tracks led through the thick brush, into the pine forest
surrounding the great big stone house where the oceanographer lived. “Let’s go
up there and spy on Captain Hook.”
    “I don’t
think that’s such a good idea,” Rose said, feeling the strange flutter again.
“Considering he’s our friend and my mother has her store right next to his
office.”
    “Yes, but
that’s way down at the dock,” Jessica said. “She probably has no idea what goes
on inside his big, crazy house. What if he’s a mad scientist and we have to
save her? What if he’s a real pirate, with a name like Captain Hook?”
    “His name
is Dr. Neill,” Rose said. She knew the kids called him Captain Hook, but she
never did. Rose knew that people were different, in all sorts of ways. She
loved the things she and Dr. Neill had in common, and it made her sad when kids
made fun of him. He was so tall and quiet, with that dark hair and deep-set
eyes, and a thin mouth that never smiled. Except when he was
near Rose and her mother.
    “I feel bad
that your mother’s beautiful shop has to be right next door to him,” Jessica
said. “Any one-arm guy who spends his life chasing sharks …” She shivered. “When the rest of his
family is so nice, with their whale-watch boats.”
    “My
birthday party’s going to be a whale watch,” Rose said.
    “I know, I can’t wait. Because it’s my birthday
too.”
    “No! You’re
kidding!”
    “Maybe I am
… and maybe I’m not.”
    Rose
pictured their classroom, with one bulletin board decorated with colorful
squares, showing all her classmates’ birthdays. Jessica’s was in August.
    “You are kidding,” Rose said. “Because it’s August 4—right up there on the board.”
    Jessica
smiled. “You caught me. Well, only one of us gets to celebrate on Saturday. You, lucky girl!”
    “I just
hope Nanny’s back by then. She’s always here for my birthday.”
    “Who’s
Nanny?”
    “You’ll
meet her.”
    “Will we
really see whales?”
    “Yes,” Rose
said. “They come back here every summer. This is their home, just like it’s
ours.”
    “Is that
why the Neill family is so rich? Because they have all those
whale-watching boats?”
    “I guess
so.” Rose’s fingers began to feel numb. She felt prickles race across her lips.
The road inched upward, toward the eastern curve. Once they got to the top,
they could start down. They were almost to the pinnacle.
    “My
stepfather says whales are just overgrown fish and people who pay good money to
see them are suckers. He had an ancestor who got rich from whaling.”
    “Whales are
mammals,” Rose said, concentrating on every step. “They breathe air, just like
us.”
    Tall rock
cliffs ringed the town—from behind the big white hotel out to headlands jutting
into the protected bay, which led into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The icy
Lyndhurst River flowed down, cutting a jagged path through the steep rock and
forming a fjord. Rose