Excerpt:

Heather looked out the window. To the right was the poplar grove that begged exploration and marked the end of her street. The house was still, Heather’s brother Michael, had gone with fiancee’s family on a two-month trip to Europe. Before Emily had entered Michael’s life, he’d been the most amazing big brother. He would take her sailing in the summers, fix her bike when it broke and had also been the one to take her to the library for the first time. A couple of years ago things had begun to change when Michael met Emily. Instead of taking Heather to the mall when he was bored, or watching a movie with her, he would go out with Emily and it never really seemed like the two of them had the time for a five year old tagging along. So, since the beginning of July Emily was inmother was writing in her basement office basement. Heather’s mother was in her basement office writing her weekly column, and as long as Heather could remember the rule had always been clear: unless it’s an EMERGENCY, nobody bothers Mommy between breakfast and three in the afternoon. Heather’s father was at the office all day, and when Heather asked him if he could stay home just one day maybe, and play with her, he told her that Accountants don’t get summer vacation. Even her brother’s were gone—this year both of them were at sleepaway camp and wouldn’t be back until the end of August.
Heather thought she saw something coming down the street, and stuck her head out the open window. In a big cloud of dust that came up off of the unpaved road was a station wagon followed by a big truck. Heather remembered her parents talking the week before at dinner. Some family from Boston had just bought the Cooper house. She remembered her mommy saying that there was something special about the family that was moving in, but she hadn’t understood the word that she’d used and she was almost done with dinner and her favorite tv program was about to start, so she hadn’t bothered asking.
Now as the new family pulled in, they seemed normal enough. The dad reminded her of the poplars at the end of the road, he seemed to unfold as he got out of the car and Heather wondered how he’d fit in the car at all. Heather was fascinated by the mother. As she stepped out of the car and into the sun, Heather couldn’t believe how shiny she was. She was wearing five or six necklaces, lots of bracelets and it seemed like a ring on each finger. Her own mommy never wore any jewelry during the day, and she definitely didn’t wear any make-up. She usually just wore jeans and a t-shirt. On days that she was working at home she would just pull her hair up in a ponytail. Sometimes if she was going into town she might leave her hair down or wear a special shirt. Heather only remembered her mommy wearing a necklace one night when her daddy had come home early with flowers and a new tie. Her mommy had put on a long black dress, and with a tight satin ribbon around her neck with a gold pendant on it. Her hair was up and she was wearing gold earrings and two thin bracelets on her right hand. Heather thought that her mother looked like a princess.
This new woman was like some kind of tropical bird. Her light brown hair had blond streaks in it, and her eyes were painted with blue and green eye shadow. Her lips looked like the tomatoes that they grew in their back yard when they were ripe. Heather wondered how she could walk on the gold heels that she was wearing and she was pretty sure that the belt, made of big gold rings linked together wasn’t there to hold her pants up. Heather forgot how bored she was for the rest of the morning as she watched this woman direct the movers, making sure that they didn’t drop anything as they carried the boxes and furniture into the house. She zipped between the car and the house and the moving van, poking her head into the truck, disappearing into the house and then scurrying out again. The dad faded into the background and only when she noticed her mother coming up the stairs did she realize that while the mom was still strutting her circuit of mover maintainance the dad must have gone inside at somepoint.
Heather turned to her Mommy who had joined her at the window. Heather could tell from her mommy’s face that she didn’t seem to much care for the colorful painted lady that was causing the most commotion and color that their street had seen as long as Heather could remember. When her Mommy saw her watching her, she wiped the expression off of her face to a more neutral one and said, “Those must be the Anderson’s. I think her name is Elise. Mrs. Walsh said that she was originally from Miami, and it doesn’t look like she’s changed her style much since moving up north. That family is definitely going to stand out here on the vineyard even more than we thought.”
Heather looked back out the window and it was then that she noticed a small face, like hers looking out from the window across the street. The Andersons must have a son, and he looked like he was her age. Maybe he’d go with explore the poplar grove with her and see if they could find any broken robin’s eggs. Heather wondered how long he’d been looking out the window. She’d been so occupied with Elise Anderson that she hadn’t even noticed the little boy coming out of the car.
Heather tapped her mom’s hand to get her attention, she’d already begun looking through the kitchen shelves to decide what to make for dinner. “Do you know the name of the little boy? How old is he? Can I ask him if he wants to go explore the poplar grove with me? Last summer Ben said he found a robin’s egg and I want to find one, but you said I’m still to young to go by myself, and…”
Heather’s mom stopped her and told her to go have fun. She didn’t know the boy’s name, but he was going to be starting first grade with her and would need friends. Her mother started saying something else, but Heather was so excited to have someone to play with that the just ignored her mother and ran out the door. It was probably just a reminder to come home before dark. Martha’s Vineyard was a small island and everyone looked out for eachother’s children so there wasn’t much else to worry about.
As she got out the door, she felt self-conscious suddenly. This was her town after all and her island. She feigned interest in the hedge in front of the house until she noticed the door open and the boy was standing outside on his lawn.
“Hi!” Heather said as she walked across the street to greet him. “I’m Heather and I live in this house.” She waited a moment but the boy didn’t say anything. “What’s your name? We can be friends and I’ll show you around and we can go looking for Robins’ eggs in the poplars over there.” The boy looked over at the Poplars and back at Heather but still didn’t say anything. All he did was make funny faces. Heather started to wonder if maybe this is what her Mother was saying when she had mentioned the family being special. This boy didn’t know how to talk at all. She frowned, he seemed nice enough, but she’d been looking forward to having a real friend. Heather was trying to decide what to do next when the boy pointed at the Poplar grove. Heather asked him again if he wanted to go explore over there and this time he smiled and nodded. Heather took him by the hand, she was going to make sure that she took careful care of this boy. If he got lost then there’d be no way for him to find his way home.
As they walked into the grove Heather pointed out the mushrooms that had come up since the last rain and she ran his hands over the bark of the trees. The textures of the leaves and the bark and the smell of the dirt in the forest made her wish that summer would never end, and she tried to explain to the boy all the things that Ben and Andrew, her brothers, had taught her. He seemed to be paying attention to her when she spoke to him and would at least look at the things that she was showing him, but she couldn’t figure out just how much he understood at all and he refused to talk at all. Heather decided to focus on her search for a Robin egg and the boy seemed content to just follow her around, so they spent the rest of the afternoon in the woods walking around. The shadows from the trees were getting longer and they hadn’t found any robin’s eggs. The Boy started making more faces at her and Heather guessed that he also had to be home before dark so she told him that she’d take him home. He made more faces, so she took him by the hand and led him back to their street.
When they left the grove, the boy smiled and ran off towards his house. Just before going into the house he turned and waved to Heather and then closed the door behind him. She started walking home more slowly. Suddenly she saw her father’s bike leaning against the house. He must be home from work, she realized and ran to the house forgetting completely the colorful woman, tall man and the very strange boy that had moved in across the street.