Island of Lost Girls - Jennifer McMahon [0]
A Novel
Jennifer McMahon
For Drea
Contents
Prologue
June 24, 2006
June 5, 2006
April 11, 1993
June 5, 2006
May 12, 1993
June 6, 2006
May 23, 1993
June 7, 2006
May 31, 1993
June 12, 13 & 14, 2006
June 12, 1993
June 14 & 15, 2006
June 16, 1993
June 15, 2006
June 20, 1993
June 15, 2006
June 30, 1993
June 16, 2006
July 4, 1993
June 16, 2006
July 4, 1993
June 17, 2006
July 21, 1993
June 17, 2006
August 10, 1993
June 17, 2006
August 10, 1993
June 17, 2006
August 10, 1993
June 17, 2006
August 15, 1993
June 18, 2006
September 3, 1993
June 25, 2006
September 4, 1993
June 25, 2006
September 4, 1993
June 25, 2006
July 5, 2006
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Other Books by Jennifer McMahon
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Prologue
JUNE 24, 2006
DIVE, DIVE, DIVE!shouted Suzy as she clutched the old Chevys cracked red-and-white steering wheel, jerking it back and forth in her hands, yanking hard on the turn signal lever to bring the ship down.
She knew it was air that made submarines rise and fall, just as she knew what she would see underwater: the octopus, the coral reef, the toothy smiles of sharks as they came in for the attack. Shed been a thousand times, and it was just like in the song her mother sang, about the octopuss garden in the shade. But on her way to the garden, there were sharks to run from, enemy subs trying to torpedo her. She knew what it was like to go down into blackness.
Suzy had these spells, like thunderstorms inside her headthats how her parents explained itwhere shed black out, thrash around, and wake up confused. Seizures. Storms in her brain. Thunder and lightning. She wore a silver bracelet with her name and a weird red picture of a twisted-up snake on one side, the wordEPILEPSY on the other. She took medicine, tiny pills each day.
Suzy was not supposed to play near the old car or the pile of rotten boards out behind her grandmas house. She knew that once people rode around in the Impala with its white stripe along the side; once the bumpers had sparkled and shown reflections of the open road. The radio had worked then too. The engine had hummed. They had pulled the white top up when it rained, some kind of fancy umbrella.
Now, her parents warned her not to play there:Its dangerous, her parents told her.You could get hurt. Dont play there . But that old car called her, the octopus called her, the mice that lived in the hole in the seat called her. The little mouse babies, pink and blind, that squeaked and lived in a nest of straw between the rusted springs, called out to her, a chorus of high-pitched voices singing through nubs of tiny orange teeth. Shed pulled back the torn red-and-white seat cover and seen them wriggle like the tips of fingers. She brought snacks for the mama mouse: pieces of American cheese, peanut butter crackers, birdseed stolen from Nana Laura Lees bird feeder.
Suzy knew what mice liked. And this was not just any mouse. This was the secret-underwater-periscope-up-first-officer mama mouse who was friends with the octopus, who told her how to outwit the sharks, who had pushed seven wormy babies out from inside her. The baby mice squeaked louder as they dove deeper into the sea, the water dark as ink around them.
Suzy pushed back her thick blond curls, the heavy ringlets, and squinted through the cracked windshield, out the side portholes. Nana Laura Lee, her moms mama, called Suzy Shirley Temple and spent hours fussing with the girls hair. She bought her ribbons and bows, sweet little dresses that Suzy promptly got caught on prickers and barbed wire, ripping them until they were only good enough for doll bandages or Indian headbands.
But this afternoons game was dive down and have tea in the octopuss garden before her daddy came looking for her. So down she dove, running from sharks the whole way.
HELLO THERE!
Suzys shoulders jerked when she heard the voice.