The Other Side of the Island by Allegra Goodman Page B

warm wet sand felt thick and sticky. She was afraid she couldn’t get it off. She stumbled back toward the fence and stepped on something sharp. She thought it was a stone.
    Her father picked up the sharp object as they walked home. He picked up another and another. “These are broken shells,” he said. “You can dig with them, or you can just collect them and take them home.”
    They were hurrying back to their house now. With each step, Honor felt a little safer. Her heart began to calm.
    “We can’t take them home,” Honor said. “Then people would know.” She meant the Neighborhood Watch would know they had been to the shore.
    “We’ll hide them,” said her father.
    “But what if Mr. Pratt finds them?”
    “Honor.” Will pulled her to a stop and stood facing her in the artificial moonlight. “I have to tell you something important. Are you listening?”
    “Yes.”
    “Don’t ever be afraid. That’s what they’re hoping for.”

    In the evenings after school, only Pamela met Honor at the bus. Will was working extra hours because Pamela had no job. She talked about getting a letter from the Employment Bureau, but Honor knew her mother would not be chosen. How could she fit behind a desk? She was too big. When the two of them trudged home in the heat, Pamela had to stop to rest. Sometimes they took shelter in the shade of a ruined hotel called the Paradise Sands. The hotel was not submerged like the ones past the barriers on the beach, but it was marked with red tape for demolition. In front a smooth driveway and grand stone steps rose gracefully to shattered glass doors. The steps were shaded by a broken metal trellis covered with sweet-smelling vines. Pamela and Honor often rested on those steps, and Pamela played number games with Honor to pass the time. She taught Honor how to count by threes and nines and twelves. And then she taught Honor other ways to count.
    “You don’t have to count from one to ten the regular way,” said Pamela. “There are other ways of counting. For example, you could count like this: zero, one, ten, eleven, one hundred . . .”
    “Why would you want to do that?” Honor asked.
    “Why not?” asked Pamela. “It’s just notation. It’s just another way to count. You’ve learned arithmetic in base ten, but there are other bases you can try. Base two, base seven. It’s like a secret code. It’s fun.”
    Honor liked the idea of a secret code. She learned how to count in base two. She practiced until she could count quickly, higher and higher: “Zero, one, ten, eleven, one hundred, one hundred one, one hundred ten, one hundred eleven, one thousand, one thousand one, one thousand ten.” Once she knew the pattern, it was easy, but she knew better than to mention base two at school.
    One day, Honor and Pamela were sitting on the hotel steps when a cat walked past. They often saw cats in the neighborhood. The cats were small and sleek and lived wild by the shore, crawling under chain-link fences, killing rats, and sunning themselves beside empty swimming pools. This one was black with two white paws in front, and he leaped down from the stairs into a shady spot filled with trash. He disappeared quickly, but Honor noticed something bright in the litter pile of smashed-up lounge chairs and broken glass. It was a blue bag with a blue strap.
    “Don’t touch that,” warned Pamela, but Honor scrambled down anyway for a closer look. “You’ll cut yourself,” said Pamela.
    “I’m being careful,” Honor said. She reached as far as she could into the pile, snagged the strap of the bag, and brought it up to show her mother.
    Instinctively, Pamela glanced in the direction of the watchtower, but they were sheltered by the trellis covered with thick vines. Pamela looked hard at the bag. She was straining to remember something. “It’s a flight bag,” she said at last.
    “A flight bag? From when people could fly?” Honor’s voice was hushed. When she was little her father