Surfside Sisters(6)

“Wow, Keely. This is amazing!” Isabelle said. “But we don’t have a Glenda on the island. Isn’t that the name of the good witch in the Wizard of Oz?”

“Silly, this is only a prototype.” Keely nearly fainted with pleasure at using the word prototype. “I wrote the letter. I made everything up. So I get to be the editor and you can be the assistant editor and since you have your cool camera, you can be the photographer.”

“But how can we make copies?”

Keely flicked Isabelle’s leg. “We’ll talk to the school about making hard copies on their printer.”

Isabelle squinted her eyes, conveying deep thought. “If the school makes the copies, they’ll know what we’re writing and they’ll be able to edit it.”

“Well, Isabelle, it’s not like we’ll have a lot of scurrilous material.”

Isabelle’s eyes widened. “Scurrilous.”

“It means scandalous. Outrageous.” Keely grinned. Isabelle might have gone far away in physical space, but Keely had traveled far in her mind, and brought back souvenirs.

Isabelle tapped her index finger on her lower lip. “Okay. I see the potential. But it needs something else. Maybe a logo? A cartoon? I don’t know, something graphic.”

“Good idea, but you know I can’t draw.”

“Maybe we could use a sticker?”

Keely shrugged. “I guess.”

    The girls felt a gust of icy air as Mrs. Maxwell entered the house.

“Kids! Come help with the groceries!”

Keely jumped up and followed Isabelle. The number of bags Mrs. Maxwell filled at the Stop & Shop always astonished Keely. She made three trips to the SUV and back, lugging a bag in each hand.

“Mom,” Isabelle complained, “I don’t see Sebastian helping. He and his friends eat most of the fruit.”

“He shovels the walk and the drive,” Mrs. Maxwell reminded her daughter.

In the kitchen, they made a kind of game of putting away the zillion items. Huge bundles of toilet paper, paper towels, tissues. Mountains of fruit. Gallons of milk, pounds of butter, acres of bread.

“Take that toilet paper upstairs, Isabelle,” Mrs. Maxwell said. “Then you’re done. Thanks, girls.”

Keely returned to the dining room table while Isabelle stomped up the stairs.

At her spot, next to the first page of The Buzz, was a piece of paper with a loosely but cleverly drawn bee. It was very fat. It had a huge face with a mischievous smile.

“Sebastian.” Keely scanned the room, as if he could be hiding behind the mahogany sideboard.

She studied the bee more closely. Under one of its wings were the initials KG. Keely’s letters. So he wanted people to think Keely had drawn this.

Okay. She could do that. Quickly she picked up a pencil and drew her own versions of the bee on fresh sheets of paper. They weren’t as good as Sebastian’s bee, but they weren’t that different, especially because Sebastian’s bee had a slightly wavy outline.

So. Sebastian had been aware of her. Okay, of her and Isabelle. Still. It made her fingers tingle to think that he had overheard and tried to help. As if Sebastian even knew she existed. That thought was overwhelming.

    She wondered how she could thank him.

“Done!” Isabelle rushed into the room and pulled her chair close to Keely. “Hey, what’s that? It’s so cute!”

“Do you think so?” Keely cocked her head, giving the smiling bee a serious evaluation. She waited for Isabelle to say that the drawing looked like something Sebastian would do. “I don’t know.”

“Well, I do! It’s adorable, Keely. Definitely it has to be on our masthead. You are so talented! Now. We need reporters. Then we’ll have more news.”

They leaned shoulder to shoulder, scribbling lists, chattering away, thrilled with their plans. For a moment, Keely felt—something—so she looked up. Sebastian was standing in the doorway watching her. Keely smiled at him. He smiled at her.

Sebastian smiled at her.



* * *



—

One afternoon when they were twelve, Keely and Isabelle sat on the rug of the screened porch, designing and cutting out the figures and the clothes for their Women in History paper doll project.

Keely had labored over an extremely fancy ball gown and was cutting it when it tore.

“Rats!” Keely cried. “It took me forever to make that dress!”

“Silly, just tape it together. On the back. No one will notice.”

“Where’s the tape?”

“You know, in the kitchen by Mom’s address book.”

Keely jumped up and went into the living room and through to the kitchen.

“Can’t find it!”

“Sebastian probably took it.”

Keely headed up the stairs to Sebastian’s room. She assumed he wasn’t home—he was seldom home, except for dinner—so she hurried down the carpeted hall, threw open the door of Sebastian’s bedroom, and stepped inside.

    Sebastian was at his desk, a big fourteen-year-old boy with long hairy legs sticking out of his soccer shorts.

“Oh.” She scrunched up her shoulders. “Sorry. I need the tape.”

“Fine.” Sebastian found it on the far side of his desk. “Here.”