“No, no!” he protested. “I don’t want to break anything up. Just came to say hello.” He was looking back and forth between us, smiling a little, trying to gauge the moment. “You’re from across the way?”

“New kid on the block. Norma,” she said, extending her hand. They looked comically mismatched. Norma was from fair, big-boned, northern stock, while Robin, who had a Greek grandfather, was slight of build and deeply tanned.

“Eve says you’re making a new room in the attic?”

He showed her his stained palms.

“You’ve hurt yourself,” I said, moving closer to touch his knuckle. I’d always thought Robin’s shyness was visible only to me, but maybe it was plain to everyone.

“I’m afraid there’s a long way to go.” He returned his hand to his pocket.

“My husband’s an optimist when it comes to remodeling,” said Norma. “My personal rule of thumb is to estimate how long it will take and multiply by four.”

“That’s about right.” Robin laughed. “We’ll get there in the end. Come in and see what we’re doing sometime.” The two of them had warmed to one another, I could tell.

“And you come over to ours,” said Norma, kneeling to untie her kayak. “I’m dying to get to know people.”

Together we watched her plunge in and set the thing rocking. Robin held the mooring rope until she had arranged her legs, and she shoved the dock away with her paddle and raised it to wave, like someone who was convinced that the world was a magnificent place and we were all lucky to be here.

Maddy

12

I still had a moment of amazement, when opening the front door, that a teacher was coming to my house. She wore her tan belted raincoat and large-framed glasses, and carried her cloth tote bag. I’ve missed so much school that the only hope of me going into junior year is to continue with the home tutoring. Even then, I might have to repeat a year. It depends.

“Do you know we’ve raised four hundred dollars selling your cards?” said Miss Sedge once we were downstairs. She was there to get me through biology, but the campaign was taking more and more of our time. She had a gruff way of speaking, like there were stones in her mouth she had to talk around. I hardly noticed anymore; it was just part of her, like brown was the color of her hair. If you’d told me a year ago that I would admire Miss Sedge and look forward to her visits, I would not have believed you. I guess if you’d told me a lot of things a year ago, I would not have believed you.