CHAPTER ELEVEN

Haircuts

IT WAS TIME FOR TURRON to leave Point Mouette, and no one wanted him to go. Even Hoover and Hound were uneasy and kept tangling him in their leashes.

“Stay for just a few more days,” said Jeffrey. “Skye, tell him.”

“Why not, Turron?” she asked.

“Yes, why not?” Aunt Claire swung on her crutches. “Who will do jigsaw puzzles with me when you’re gone?”

Turron didn’t want to leave either. “Unfortunately, I have to get back to work. A recording session.”

“An important one,” added Alec, “that might lead to more work.”

“Actually, I’d leave for that, too,” said Jeffrey.

“Me too,” said Batty.

Skye shook her head at her littlest sister. “Do you even know what a recording session is?”

“Sure she does,” Turron said, and crouched down to say good-bye to Batty. “I’ll see you sometime, kiddo. Keep up your music, and good luck with you-know-what. Break a leg.”

Batty knew that you-know-what was a secret code for the concert she and Jeffrey were working on, and Turron was using code because it was going to be a surprise concert. She wasn’t sure, though, why he’d said that about breaking her leg, and she glanced nervously at Skye, who was so sensitive these days about people getting broken or blowing up. But Skye hadn’t heard. She was too busy observing Jane, whose behavior had changed once more. Last night she’d been rapturously writing odes. Now she was a mess, jiggling around like a bobble doll, her head turning this way and that, watching for someone who had to be Dominic. Skye wished him at the bottom of the ocean.

“Jane,” she said, “you haven’t even pretended to say good-bye to Turron.”

“I’m sorry.” Jane gave Turron an enthusiastic hug. “Good-bye, Turron, and thanks for rescuing me when I hurt my nose and for being funny and kind and an excellent drummer and I hope you find happiness in your life and that every minute is wonderful and perfect and that the light of love shines on you and—”

Aunt Claire cut her off, smiling apologetically at Turron. “We all hope the best for you.”

“Thanks.” And he smiled back. “It’s been a pleasure to meet you. All of you. Jeffrey, you’ve got my phone number. Let me know when you want to visit me in New York, where the best music is made.”

“Ahem,” said Alec. “Jeffrey doesn’t need New York. He’s going to be busy making music with me in Boston, right?”

Jeffrey shook his head, too overwhelmed at the offered riches to joke about it. And now it really was time for Turron to go. As Batty played a mournful tune on her harmonica, he got into his car, and out again because he’d forgotten to give Batty a few final golf balls he’d found for her, and then Hoover tried to knock him over in one last attempt to keep him there forever, but it didn’t work, and Turron drove away and left them all behind.

Despite being sad about Turron leaving, Batty was pleased with the new golf balls, not just because she loved them, but because they also gave her an excuse to go off by herself. The surprise concert wasn’t her only secret; she also knew why Jane was acting so screwy. Jane had told her all about it early that morning—how she’d dropped a node off at the inn for Dominic, that she hoped that he’d like the node enough to come see her, and how she thought she might die of grief if he didn’t. Batty had asked Jane what a node was, and Jane said never mind, but just don’t tell anyone else, especially Skye. Batty hadn’t told and wouldn’t, but it was easier not to tell when she didn’t have to see Skye staring anxiously at Jane. Plus she didn’t like thinking about Jane dying. It was too sad.

So Batty and Hound slipped back to Birches with the new golf balls, and went into Batty’s room, where she’d hidden her collection under the bed. There had been so many searches for lost balls, with so many people helping, that Batty figured she must have almost a million by now. She crawled under the bed and pushed aside the big floppy plastic duck that Hound had hidden the first night in Maine. And there was her treasure trove—three whole buckets full of golf balls. Jeffrey had bought the buckets for her at Moose Market. One was red, one yellow, and one purple, and there were three empty blue buckets, too, which Batty was sure she’d fill soon, since golfers weren’t very good at holding on to their belongings.

Using both hands, she tugged the yellow bucket, heavy with its load, out from under the bed and compared the balls Turron had given her to what she already had. What she liked most about the golf balls were all their different marks—the words on them, and the grass stains and little gouges where they’d been hit with clubs. She tried to show a few of the most interesting to Hound, but he believed that once you’d seen one golf ball, you’d seen them all. Batty decided to change games. Since the boat trip the day before, the two of them had spent a lot of time playing seals on an island, and neither of them was tired of it yet.

“Hound, let’s play seals.” With a great heave, she managed to get the yellow bucket onto the bed. “The balls can be the rocks, and my stuffed animals can be the seals.”

Maybe Hound thought that there were real seals up there on the bed, because his leap onto it was so enthusiastic that the yellow bucket flew up into the air, did a somersault, and fell to the floor, its contents clattering and banging all around it. The noise was horrific, and Batty did the only thing she could think of—yank the blanket off her bed, throw it onto the floor to hide the bucket and golf balls, and hope no one had heard.

While Batty was trying to get Hound interested in her golf balls, Skye was spying on Jane.

“Not spying exactly. More like watching over her,” she explained to Jeffrey.

“Because she can see us, too,” he said. “If we want to spy, we should be hidden.”

That was true. Skye and Jeffrey were sitting on the deck and Jane wasn’t far away at all. She was leaning against one of the birch trees, gazing fervently out at Ocean Boulevard, on the lookout for anyone who might be skateboarding along it.

“You’re not taking this seriously, Jeffrey. I’m afraid contact with Dominic has destroyed Jane’s brain,” said Skye. “What are you humming?”

“It’s a song Alec and Turron were messing around with the other night.” Jeffrey hummed another line, then quoted the lyrics. “ ‘There’s nothing sadder than a one-man woman, looking for the man that got away.’ ”

“You’re a big help.”

Then came the crash that Batty was hoping no one would hear. Skye leaped up in a panic.

“Hound’s not barking, so it can’t be too bad,” said Jeffrey. “I’ll go see what happened, and you stay here, watching over Jane.”

Skye knew he was teasing her about Jane, but she let him go anyway. And she also knew that she was being a little silly. She should probably just ask Jane face to face why she was acting like such a goofball, and Jane would give her some logical answer—but here Skye’s line of reasoning fell apart, because she knew that Jane’s answer wouldn’t be logical. It would again be all about love and Dominic and what Skye might experience someday when she met the right boy; and if Skye could keep herself from tossing Jane over the seawall and onto the rocks below, she still wouldn’t be any further ahead in understanding. If only, Skye thought, oh, if only she had no younger sisters, she would be on the beach right now with her soccer ball, happy and carefree and working on her left-foot dexterity, which had never been as good as her right.

“Instead of spying on Jane like a noodle-brain,” she said, and calmed herself down with calf-stretching exercises until Jeffrey returned.

“You know those golf balls Batty’s been collecting—she spilled some of them,” he said. “She tried to hide them with a blanket, but I am much too intelligent to be fooled by a mere blanket.”

“That loud noise was just some of her golf balls? How many does she have?”

“She says about a million. Now don’t look so disgusted.”

“I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. But I already worked it out with her. She wants to take a few home to Ben, and we’re going to have a golf ball sale tomorrow to get rid of the rest—she told me about a lady in a green skirt who gave her five dollars for some balls—and I’m donating my golf clubs.”

“Your golf clubs?” Skye was appalled. “Your mother and Dexter will be furious.”

“Maybe, but I could always stay with Alec until they calm down.” Jeffrey looked quite cheerful at the thought. “Besides, they’re my golf clubs to give away, and I promised Batty that she can save all the money we get from the sale for a piano. We’re going to the pinewood right now to collect more. Do you want to come with us?”

“No to everything—going to the pinewood, the sale tomorrow, the piano, especially the piano.”

“Skye.”

“And don’t look so trying-to-be-patient-with-Skye.”

“I don’t.” Though he really did and knew it, so he wriggled his eyebrows at her.

Skye turned her back on him. Any minute now he was going to make her lose her temper or start laughing, and she didn’t want to do either.

“I’ll make you a deal,” he said. “You come to the pinewood now, and afterward we’ll play soccer on the beach.”

She pointed to Jane, who still hadn’t moved. “What about her?”

“I’ll ask if she wants to come with us.” But Jeffrey was soon back, and without Jane. “She says she needs to stay where she is for now, and you can stop spying on her because she’s fine.”

“So she says.” But Skye was wavering. The sun was bright, there was a soft breeze off the ocean, and the tide was low. Perfect for soccer on the beach. “You mean real soccer, with no crazy stuff like dogs and Mercedes, right?”

“Right.”

Then Hound arrived, carrying one empty bucket in his mouth, and Batty came after him with another two, and without exactly agreeing to anything, Skye found herself taking one of the buckets and setting off for the pinewood to collect more stupid golf balls. She allowed herself one final glance over her shoulder at Jane, then told herself not to be ridiculous. They wouldn’t be gone longer than a half hour. What could happen to Jane in a half hour?

It was an excellent question, and one that would eventually become a Penderwick family joke, a teasing shorthand for “You haven’t thought this through properly,” and no one would laugh at it more than Skye, except for Jane. But for Skye on that morning in Maine, halfway up a pine tree and reaching into a bird nest for a golf ball pretending to be an egg, it was suddenly a very real question. Off in the distance, someone was shouting her name.

“Did you hear that?” She slid and jumped her way down the tree.

Jeffrey straightened up, his hands full of balls he’d found hiding under pine needles. “Is it Jane?”

The voice came again. “Skye, Skye, where are you?”

“It’s Mercedes,” said Batty.

Skye knew immediately that something had happened to Jane. She tossed aside the golf balls that had lured her away from her duty and sprinted off in the direction of the voice, her head full of horrifying visions of Jane broken on the rocks, bitten by sharks, hand in hand with Dominic. Down through the pinewood she dashed, ignoring the branches that whipped at her, mocking her, and slowing down only when she found Mercedes stumbling through the trees.

“Where’s Jane?” cried Skye.

“On the beach. Oh, Skye—”

But Skye was already running again, too impatient to wait for any explanations. The distress on Mercedes’s face had been enough to intensify Skye’s fears. Jane was now dead on the rocks, eaten by sharks, or eloped with Dominic, each fate worse than the others, and all of them Skye’s fault for leaving Jane alone.

And now Skye reached Birches and was throwing herself down the stone steps, and now she was on the beach, skidding to a stop beside Jane, who wasn’t dead or even dying, but upright and without any visible bloodstains. Nor was Dominic anywhere to be seen. It was a bit odd that Jane was staring fixedly into the marshmallow-fire pit while fussing with a pair of scissors, opening and closing them, snip, snip, snip, snip, but certainly that couldn’t be enough to throw Mercedes into a tizzy, right? Silly Skye, she told herself, for not bothering to ask Mercedes what was happening. Good leaders don’t jump to conclusions.

She leaned down, hands on her knees, to catch her breath. “Hello, Jane.”

“Hello,” said Jane, though still not looking at her sister. “Please don’t be furious.”

Skye straightened up so quickly she almost went over backward. The last time Jane had told her not to be furious was when she’d just smashed her nose to pieces.

“What’s going on, Jane? What are you doing with the scissors?”

“Not much, just making more wishes.”

With a jerky abruptness, Jane turned to face Skye. The curls on her left side had been chopped off almost to her ear.

Skye shrieked, just as she had with the nose, and stomped around in the sand like an enraged bear. What could happen to Jane in a half hour? What could happen to Jane in a half hour? Other than losing her mind and giving herself a haircut worthy of a two-year-old?

The others were arriving now—Mercedes panting and frantic, Jeffrey with Batty bouncing along on his back, and Hound barking TROUBLE TROUBLE because he’d heard Skye’s shriek and knew what it meant.

“What’s wrong? Who did that to Jane’s hair?” Jeffrey asked Skye, who was trying to stop stomping.

Jane answered him. “It was me. I lost my temper. Skye, you would have been impressed.”

“You got mad at your hair?” asked Batty, sliding down from Jeffrey’s back. This she understood, much better than dying for nodes.

“Not exactly.” Swiftly, before anyone could think to stop her, Jane cut off another piece of hair and tossed it into the circle of rocks, and now everyone noticed the pile of curls already there, limp and dark on the sand.

“Oh, no, we’re back to the Firegod,” said Jeffrey, because Jane was chanting:

“That’s what she keeps doing,” said Mercedes. “I tried to stop her, but she wouldn’t listen.”

“Has she gone crazy?” asked Batty, holding on to Hound for moral support.

“Yes,” answered Skye bleakly, “and it’s all my fault. Jane, hand over the scissors.”

“No.” But before she could use them again, Jeffrey had snatched them away.

“No more cutting,” he said. “And, Skye, it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have convinced you to leave her alone.”

“I shouldn’t have listened to you. It was my responsibility.”

“I am my own responsibility, thank you. And if you won’t let me cut any more hair, I’ll make do with what I have.” Jane took a box of matches from her pocket. “You should be pleased that I didn’t light the fire while I was alone, Skye. So responsible of me, right? But now that we’re all here, I’ll do it, just a little fire—and then my wishes will be official.”

“No fire,” said Skye, and Jeffrey took away the matches, too.

Jane made a feeble attempt to get them back, but it was clear that her heart wasn’t in it, for the anger was quickly leaking away, and soon she’d sunk into Jeffrey’s arms, beaten, with tears pouring down her miserable face with its fringe of butchered hair. Batty and Hound circled protectively, and Skye turned to Mercedes.

“Now. Tell me what happened, quickly.”

“Dominic told me to give Jane back that poem she’d written—”

“Dominic! I knew it,” growled Skye.

Mercedes hung her head. “I’m ashamed to be an Orne.”

“Never mind that part. Tell me about the ode—the poem.”

“So I came over and gave it to Jane, and I didn’t know it, I swear, but Dominic had written a note on the back. When Jane read his note, she was really quiet for a while. Then she said that we should make wishes to the Firegod, and she went to get the scissors and matches and she explained to me what to do, and I cut off a tiny bit of my hair and wished—um, Jane said I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone what I wished, but it was to stop falling off my bike.” Mercedes glanced at Batty, who nodded. That was a good wish.

“Go on,” said Skye.

“Jane took the scissors and cut up her poem and threw it into the rocks, and she cut off a big chunk of her hair and threw that in, too, and she was sort of yelling, and when she did it again, I went to find you.” Mercedes stopped to gaze mournfully at Jane, still sagging in Jeffrey’s arms. “I think her heart is broken.”

“Not my heart,” sobbed Jane. “It’s my pride that’s broken. I am a fool and a chump. A dupe and a ninny and—”

Jeffrey cut in. “That’s enough of that. Can you stand up by yourself?”

“Of course I can.” And she did, with as much dignity as one can muster in such a situation. “How bad does my hair look?”

“Awful,” said Batty.

“We just need to even it out a little,” said Skye. “Well, a lot.”

Jane tentatively poked at what was remaining of her curls, and a few more tears rolled down her face. “Give me back the scissors and I’ll do it.”

“Not now. Good grief.”

What Skye wanted most in the world right then—wanted it so much she thought about wishing to the Firegod—was to knock down Dominic Orne and make him crawl and beg for forgiveness. And after the crawling and begging, he’d have to perform some specific act of contrition. Like cutting off his own hair. That was it! Skye’s fingers itched to grab the scissors and go hunt him down.

“Concentrate,” said Jeffrey warningly.

He was right, as usual. She would have to wait for revenge. Her job now was to get Jane safely to Aunt Claire. Aunt Claire knew more about hearts and hair than Skye ever would. So she and Jeffrey helped Jane away from the beach and up to Birches, where Aunt Claire was just coming out onto the deck.

“Aunt Claire, we’ve had an incident,” said Skye, following up with a series of violent faces that meant Please don’t react too much to what you’re about to see, namely Jane.

Miraculously, Aunt Claire did understand, and other than fumbling with a crutch and swaying dangerously until Jeffrey caught her and lowered her into a chair, she managed to stay calm.

“An incident,” she repeated, her voice only a little higher than usual. “Yes, I see.”

“I chopped off my hair,” said Jane. “My one beauty.”

“Your hair’s not your only beauty, but I don’t understand—” Aunt Claire stopped and looked around at the others. “Did anyone else cut their hair? Hound, even?”

“Just Jane,” said Batty, and patted Hound to reassure him that they wouldn’t cut his hair.

“And it was my fault,” added Mercedes. “Because I’m an Orne.”

Jane shook her head. “It was no one’s fault but my own. Skye tried to warn me, but I wouldn’t listen. I was a nincompoop. A moron. A block—”

“Don’t,” said Jeffrey.

“—head.” She started to cry again.

Aunt Claire held out her arms. “Jane, come sit on my lap, sweetheart. Tell me what you’ve been a nincompoop about.”

Jane went to her, sobbing, and kept sobbing until Aunt Claire looked up to Skye for a hint.

Skye made a few awkward dance moves and said, “Shin guard.”

Somehow Aunt Claire understood that, too—at which Skye decided she was the most brilliant aunt who had ever lived—and stroked Jane’s hair and murmured to her.

“Honey, do you remember all those Bills I told you about? The ones I fell in love with? What I didn’t tell you was how badly one of them hurt me.”

Jane’s sobbing slowed down a little. “I thought my heart was singing, Aunt Claire, I really did. But it was humming, or maybe it was just speaking. And all the time that treacherous Dominic … Oh, I can’t stand it!”

“You know what’s best for this kind of situation, Jane, is to tell the story from the beginning. Like one of your books.” Aunt Claire looked up at Skye and cocked her head toward the seawall.

This time it was Skye who understood. Jane would more easily tell her tale if they weren’t all there, hovering. She led Hound and the others off the deck and to the seawall, where they perched in a row, thinking various unhappy thoughts. Occasionally a spurt of talking would break out—like when Batty asked Jeffrey about nodes and he tried to explain, and when Jeffrey asked about the dancing shin guard and Skye tried to explain, but mostly there was pained silence. So it was a relief when Alec arrived, because he wasn’t miserable, and because he was inviting them over for a movie that evening—which sounded pleasantly normal, not at all like when people chopped at their own hair. But after they’d thanked him about the movie, he couldn’t help noticing Jane and Aunt Claire in a huddle on the deck. He asked what was wrong, and Skye and Jeffrey gave him a brief explanation, leaving out the ode, only hinting at Dominic’s role, and shushing Mercedes and Batty whenever they tried to add anything.

“How bad is Jane’s hair now?” asked Alec when they finished.

“Nightmare bad, like she lost a fight with a lawn mower,” said Skye. “It should look better after we even it out.”

“Do you know how to cut hair?” asked Alec. “Or does your aunt?”

“Not exactly.”

“Because it just so happens that I need a haircut myself. I could take Jane along for repairs.”

“To a real hair salon?” This seemed like an excellent idea to Skye. “But you don’t actually need a haircut.”

“No?” Alec ran his hand over his hair, which looked fine.

“No,” said Jeffrey.

“Then I’ll get my beard shaved off. I’ve been meaning to.”

“Good,” said Batty. “I don’t like beards.”

Alec laughed. “There, it’s settled.”

Much cheered, Skye waited until she was certain that Jane had finished telling Aunt Claire the whole gruesome tale, then ran up to the deck to tell them about Alec’s offer. Aunt Claire gratefully accepted, and Skye bundled Jane into a big hat, plus a pair of sunglasses for added moral support.

“I’m sorry,” Jane said to Skye from under her disguise. “I haven’t been much of a backup OAP.”

“That’s okay.” It was true that since Jane had fallen for Dominic, she had been about the worst backup OAP imaginable. But that didn’t let Skye off the hook. She should have stayed with Jane, not deserted her in her hour of need. No good leader would. Would Caesar have gone off looking for golf balls when his soldiers were at their breaking point? No.

And neither would he let a wounded soldier be carried off the field alone.

“Funny,” she told Jane. “I’m suddenly in the mood for a haircut myself.”

“No, Skye, you don’t have to.”

But Skye did have to—it was the very least she could do, she realized—and it turned out that Batty and Mercedes were suddenly in the mood for haircuts, too. While everyone agreed about Batty, especially those who’d tried to brush her hair lately, they explained to Mercedes that she couldn’t just get a haircut without permission, so she called her grandmother, who said yes. After making certain that Jeffrey and Aunt Claire didn’t need haircuts, too, Alec herded the four girls over to his house and into his car.

As they drove away, Jane whispered to Skye, “Promise me you won’t do anything crazy like beat up Dominic.”

“May I cut off his hair?”

“No, please, no. Promise you’ll leave him alone. I’m humiliated enough without that.”

Although Skye reluctantly promised, just thinking about humiliation made Jane start crying again, and she cried all the way to the hair salon.