“Now, why am I not surprised,” she said, then hugged her knees and rested her chin on them.
It seemed to Kirsty as if Miss George was having a whole conversation all by herself.
She turned around and spotted Graham holding something shiny.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing.” He hid it behind his back really fast, so she knew it was something.
“Let me see.”
“No.” He ran down the beach.
Kirsty ran after him. “What is it?”
Graham ran past her, holding up a silver bottle. “Look what I have,” he said in a singsong voice.
Kirsty tried to grab the bottle, but Graham danced away, laughing and pointing and taunting her like dumb boys always did.
She dove for his feet but missed. Graham laughed and turned to run... right into Miss George.
“What are you two fighting over?”
“Nothing,” Graham lied.
“A silver bottle,” Kirsty said at the same time.
“It’s mine!”
“No, it’s not!”
“Hand it over.” Miss George held out her hand.
Graham looked at her hand, then put the bottle in it. She held it up to the sunlight. “Doesn’t look like it’s worth anything. But if you two are going to fight over it, neither of you can have it.” She drew her arm back and flung the bottle far out into the sea, then turned back to them. “That should teach you two to stop fighting over everything.”
Kirsty and Graham looked at each other. “It was just a dumb old bottle,” she whispered to her brother. “It looked really old, probably older than Miss George. And it’s gone now.”
Graham nodded. Like most things, he probably only cared about it because she wanted to see it.
“Let’s find real live firsts!” she said.
Kirsty and Graham then ran along the water, splashing each other and seeing who could find “the first live firsts.” Kirsty found the first starfish, but Graham had found the first crab. Then Kirsty chased the first sandpipers that were teetering along the shore.
Miss George hadn’t found the first of anything, even though she had made one try.
Kirsty looked at her. She was standing near a great pine tree and she was staring off in the distance, out at the sea and beyond as if it was going to give her some important answer.
Kirsty turned away, then whipped her head back around. “Look! Graham. I have the first blue heron! Look! It’s the first blue heron! The very first!” She pointed at a huge rock covered in windflowers, and tucked into one end of the cove, right next to that rock, stood a heron that was almost four feet high.
A second later the great bird pulled his long neck in and took off, wings flapping as he climbed high into the sky, squawking, “Frahnk, frahnk, frahnk!” She watched him soar until he was only a small black dash in the sky.
When Kristy turned back around, she saw that Miss George had taken off her shoes and stockings and she was standing in the water, holding her skirt up around her knees while the waves slapped at them. She was laughing.
Kirsty stared at her, gaped at her if the truth be told. She hadn’t imagined Miss George laughing. Really laughing, anyway. She had never seen her laugh. She seemed so... not angry really, except when they had played tricks on her, but so... well, unhappy all the time. She must be lonely if she had to talk to herself.
Sometimes Kirsty had to work hard to remember that she didn’t like her. Sometimes when she looked at Miss George, all she saw was the pretty lady with the long shiny hair that was the color of night and the white skin and clear blue eyes. She knew that Miss George had tried to be nice to her and Graham.
But Graham never paid attention, because he was a boy and boys didn’t pay attention, and Kirsty didn’t want to like her. She wanted to not like her because she didn’t want a pretty woman like Miss George to take her father away from her.
