Summer of the War by Gloria Whelan Page B

path. Then I saw the runabout come out of the boathouse. You have to go after her in the Chris-Craft. She doesn’t know the channel.”
    â€œThere’s no gas in the Chris-Craft. I left the can in the boathouse. I was going to take the runabout in tomorrow and get some.” Grandpa looked at me. “When did Caroline learn to use the runabout?”
    I was too upset not to tell the truth. “I taught her.”
    Grandfather was staring hard at me. “Without my permission!”
    I nodded.
    Everything had fallen apart. Grandpa couldn’t go after Carrie. She was alone out there in the dark. It was all my fault. “I think she was going to see Brad,” I mumbled. “Maybe they were going to the Shanty.”
    Grandpa was still looking at me. “If you knew allthis, why didn’t you say something, Mirabelle?”
    â€œI wasn’t sure.” One word stuck to the other.
    â€œOh, Belle,” Grandma said, but her look said a lot more.
    I ran into my room and threw myself onto my bed, sobbing. Nothing Carrie had done was as bad as what I had done. I saw the runabout crashing into a boulder or running aground on a shoal. I saw her alone on the channel in the dark, the boat sinking.
    Grandpa pounded down the steps. Grandma came into my room and sat down beside me on the bed.
    â€œIt’s my fault. I could have stopped her. What if she drowns?”
    â€œYour grandfather’s got the canoe out. He’s going to paddle over to the clubhouse and use their phone to call Mr. Norkin. Mr. Norkin will come and pick your grandfather up. They’re certain to find Carrie. I’m sure she’ll be all right—she’s a resourceful young woman—but Belle, whatever were you thinking of to teach her to use the boat and then to let her go out at night alone?”
    â€œShe’s changed all of us,” I blurted out. “I would never have done something like that before Carrie came.”
    Grandma spoke in a quiet voice. “Carrie doesn’t have the power to change any of us. Carrie didn’t make you behave in this thoughtless way. You have to take responsibility for your own actions, Belle. Carrie did a foolish and dangerous thing, but you not onlylet Carrie do it, you made it possible for her to do it.” Grandma went out of the room and closed the door behind her. It was as if she had shut me away from the whole human race.
    From the same window I had watched Carrie take off in the runabout, I watched Grandpa maneuver the canoe out into the channel. The pale light of the moon turned Grandpa and the canoe into something vague and blurred, something that might melt right before my eyes.
    Downstairs I heard everyone moving around and talking. I didn’t want to face them, but I had to know what was happening. I went slowly down the stairway. Emily and Tommy were in chairs, their feet drawn up under them. Nancy, half asleep, was on the davenport leaning against Polo. I could hear Grandma in the kitchen. She appeared with glasses of milk and a plate of cookies.
    Grandma passed around the glasses of milk. Her hand was shaking. When she came to me, I said, “no thanks,” but she held a glass out to me anyhow. “It may be a long wait, Belle; you’ll feel better with something in your stomach.” Half to herself she said, “I don’t know what Howard will say when he hears about this business.”
    I knew Grandma was thinking that Uncle Howard had sent Carrie to us to be safe from the bombs in England. Now, because of what I had let happen, she was in danger. I put my glass of milk down on thetable. I couldn’t choke a drop down my throat.
    Grandma tried to get Nancy and Tommy and Emily to go back to bed, but they refused. “I wouldn’t feel right,” Emily said. “I haven’t been very nice to her.”
    I stared at a framed map of the islands that had hung on the wall as long as I could remember. One summer