First 5 Pages February Workshop - Bradley Rev 1

Name: Lisa Bradley
Genre: Young Adult Mystery
Title: Island Shadows


The tickets I’m holding are softened and creased, the text nearly rubbed off in spots. I trace their faces with the underside of my thumb.

Three tickets.

“Maybe we’ll do some fishing later, Tess,” Gramps says, looking over at me. He glances down at the tickets. His blue eyes are glassier than I remember, and the freckled brown spots on his hands seem darker too. “Like old times.”

“I’ll probably just draw in my sketchbook.” I slide the tickets back in my sweater pocket.

The Oldsmobile ‘88 is headed toward town for my morning shift at Cafferty’s General Store. For two weeks now, this has been mine and Gramps’s routine.

“Tessy, I hope you know none of this is your fault.”

I give Gramps a look that says I don’t want to talk about it. Ever since I was little, Gramps and I have a way of communicating.

He moves his lips like he might say something else, but doesn’t.

Leaning my head against the window glass, I trace the river as it hugs the highway. You can barely see across the water to the other side, which is Canada, because a dozen wooded islands crowd the view. I count five fishing boats bobbing on the water.

The boats remind me of when Dad, Gramps and I used to troll for stripers. We’d be up and Adam in time to watch the sun come up, nibbling donuts, and tossing our crumbs to the fish.

I wonder if the people in the boats are sharing their breakfast with the fish right now.

A series of flashing lights on the highway causes Gramps to press the brakes. He comes to a stop beside a young-ish looking police officer standing in the road. The cop looks hardly older than me.

Gramps lowers his window; a smell like burning leaves curls inside. “What’s all this, Officer?”

“Another fire.” The policeman leans in toward the window. “Just making sure it’s contained.

Keep your speed down the next few miles.”

Gramps nods, his face tight. He pushes the button, and the window rolls up.

We pass a ladder truck and a Fire & Rescue vehicle farther ahead on the side of the highway, their lights spinning but no sirens.

“Forest fire,” Gramps says. “Already have it under control.”

I don’t know what my face looks like, but Gramps must see something there. He smiles weakly, but his expression seems rolled up like the window.

Growing up in the city you’d think I’d be used to flashing lights, but for some reason this bothers me. Silver Head seems so untroubled. It’s hard to imagine anything bad ever happening here.  That’s one of the reasons I came back.

When my sophomore year ended, my parents agreed to let me spend the summer in Silver Head to help me “deal with things.” A part of me wanted to stay in the city, to stomp my feet and scream that they couldn’t do this to our family. But a larger part of me wanted to leave.

The police cruiser and firetruck lights continue to spin in the side-view mirror until I can’t see them anymore. My eyes stay fixed on the mirror.

The Oldsmobile crawls toward town. We finally round the bend onto Main Street, passing by the welcome sign that says population two thousand five hundred.

Gramps pulls into a parking spot across from Cafferty’s General Store. The summer job isn’t the local library like I’d hoped, but Mike Cafferty pays me decent money for helping him and his sons.

“Sorry you have to keep dropping me off,” I say.

Gramps waves his hand, like it’s no big deal. Town is too far a walk from the cottage. And even though I passed my driver’s test earlier this year, there’s only the Oldsmobile to share between me, Gran and Gramps.

After saying goodbye to Gramps, I cross the street and head toward Cafferty’s. The windows are wallpapered with yellowed ads hawking everything from housecleaning services to charter fishing guides. Paint peels along the edges of the window frames. I swing open the door, and the familiar sounds of bells rattle against the glass. Mike glances up and smiles from behind the register counter, his dark eyes crinkling at the edges. Mike smiles at everyone.

“Mornin’, Tessa.”

Mumbling hello, I stash my backpack in the staff office behind the register counter. My sketch pad and pencils go everywhere with me, even though I haven’t drawn anything in weeks. It’s not like I haven’t tried, but I end up staring at a blank sheet of paper. I won’t improve if I don’t practice. Money I earn this summer at the store is going straight in my “Art School” fund.

Cafferty’s General Store is pretty typical, though about a quarter of the size of a regular grocery store. It sells milk, meat, fruits and vegetables. My area is the gift shop, a cramped space off to one side with a wide opening facing the main part of the store. The corner stocks a treasure chest of shiny things for tourists to buy: miniature lighthouses, dream catchers, beach towels, things like that. The candy aisle’s pretty popular too.

Every morning, except weekends, I ring up Tootsie Pops and bouncy balls for frazzled parents whose children pull at the hems of their shorts. I used to be one of those kids. For ten days every summer, my t-shirts smelled of peach juice, bug spray and diesel fuel. Five years ago, when I was eleven, we stopped coming to the river. Right around the time Mom quit painting and took a job at a bank in mid-town.

“Tess,” Mike calls.

My eyes pivot from Mike to the register. Crap. The register’s jammed up again. Paper is choking out of the receipt slot. The machine starts beeping. Mike puts down the cardboard box he’s hauling and trots over.

A woman and twin toddler boys stare at me from the opposite side of counter, the twins sucking on their Tootsie Pops.

“Sorry,” Mike mutters to the mother. “Technology. I don’t know why I let my teenagers talk me into upgrading this thing.”

Bells rattle on the front door and Mike’s youngest teenager, Ryan, who’s about a year older than me, strides in the store. Ryan’s sandy-colored hair is a few shades darker this morning, probably still damp from his morning laps. Mike calls Ryan over to deal with the paper jam. Ryan slides behind the counter between me and Mike where it’s already cramped. A familiar not unpleasant whiff of spice mixes with something stringent, probably chlorine. Same scent as every morning, not that I notice. Ryan jabs a few buttons on the cash register and pulls a stream of wasted register tape off the machine. The whole thing takes about three seconds, and while Ryan’s working, I’m staring at his clipped fingernails which are unnaturally white. Mike bails from behind the counter as soon as the woman and her kids leave. Ryan leans his long torso against the counter, wadding up the register tape into a ball with his fist.  He dunks the paper ball in a nearby
 wastebasket. “So I’ve been wondering,” he says, pushing hair from his eyes, “what’s with the sweater every day?”

“I—I get cold.” I pull at a loose string along the edge of my sweater.

“It’s eighty degrees out.” He gives me a hundred-watt smile I bet all the girls fall for.

My eyes shift to the cash register.