“I don’t know. No one knows.”
As much as Isabelle loved her grandmother, the lack of information drove her crazy. A person has the right to know where she comes from. It’s a perfectly reasonable request, not like asking for a new rain slicker when the old one only has a couple of holes. Gwen knew about her parents. She knew that her mother had died giving birth to her and that her father had died from a fever. It didn’t make being an orphan any easier but at least Gwen knew. Isabelle knew nothing.
“You’ve got to know something, Grandma. Think harder and you’ll remember.”
“It’s no use asking me so many questions, Isabelle. All I know is that I found you one stormy morning. Nothing else. Just you, lying on the doorstep without a stitch of clothing, screaming so loud you drowned out the wind and rain. It seemed like you just appeared out of thin air.”
“But I must have come from somewhere.”
“As far as I can tell you came from nowhere, so please stop asking.”
A girl who begins her life on a doorstep, without a note or clue of any kind, has a choice. She can believe that she was abandoned because no one wanted her, and she can feel like the most unimportant person in the world. Or she can believe, as Isabelle did, that because her origins were shrouded in mystery, that she must be an extra important person. A special person. A person like no other person.
For a secret birth is like a secret errand—sure to yield something interesting.
Isabelle reached the edge of the driftwood forest and, with a graceful jump, landed in the hard, wet sand that lay at the water’s edge. The cove formed a crescent as gray as the sky above, littered with the hulls of long-abandoned fishing boats. Creosote-covered pilings poked out of the water, all that remained of the docks that used to line the beach. Grandma Maxine had told her that the boats used to go out each morning and return each evening, overflowing with fish. But no one fished the cove anymore, not since the fish had gone away.
Isabelle twisted the cap off the empty bottle and waded into the water. As she submerged the bottle, air bubbles rose to the surface, bobbing between raindrops. When the bottle had filled, she recapped it and shoved it into her pocket. Her stomach growled. Mama Lu would be serving supper soon.
Her errand completed, Isabelle was about to start home when a roar rose above the rain’s drumming—a roar far too loud to be her stomach.
Something moved in the water where the cove met the sea. Isabelle pushed off her hood, trying to get a better view. The something was much bigger than she, and swimming toward her. She took a few steps backward as it moved closer. She’d never seen anything like it. Could it be dangerous?
She ran up the beach to the edge of the driftwood forest, where she watched, open-mouthed, as the large thing emerged from the shallow water. It was a creature of some sort, and it pulled its enormous, blubbery body onto the sand with a pair of front flippers. The strangest nose hung from the middle of its face, swaying back and forth as it heaved itself up the beach. She couldn’t see its mouth but imagined a vast row of sharp teeth. If it didn’t eat her alive, surely it would flatten her like a skipping stone. Terrified, she scrambled up some driftwood but lost her footing and fell back onto the sand.
ROARRRRR!
With a burst of speed, the creature galloped up the beach and parked itself at Isabelle’s feet. She froze, remembering that the fishermen who had fished the cove long ago had believed in sea monsters that sank ships and ate the crew.
Hot breath seared Isabelle’s face. Large black eyes, surrounded by folds of skin, stared down at her. “Please don’t eat me,” she begged, squeezing her eyes shut. Being eaten alive wasn’t something she wanted to watch. She waited for deep, horrible pain. But a few moments passed and nothing happened. Slowly, she opened her eyes.
Still staring, the monster cocked its head. Raindrops rolled down skin that looked like rubber. It sniffed her hair with its long nose.
“Please, please don’t eat me,” Isabelle whimpered, scooting back against the driftwood pile.
It raised its nose and opened its mouth. Isabelle squealed and pushed against the wood, hoping to find a spot where she could disappear. But she was trapped. She was going to die without having said goodbye to her grandmother or to Gwen. She was about to become supper! “Help!” she cried, though she knew no one would hear.
The sea monster took a great breath, then sneezed. The force of the sneeze knocked Isabelle sideways. Slime shot out the end of the dangly nose and landed in Isabelle’s short hair. Disgusting! “Cover your nose when you sneeze,” Grandma Maxine always said. But Isabelle wasn’t about to correct a sea monster’s manners.
“You can sneeze on me as much as you’d like. Just please don’t eat me.” She pulled on her hood as the creature took another breath and sneezed again. This time, something else flew out of its nose and landed with a thunk in Isabelle’s lap.
The creature tapped its flipper impatiently and grunted, as if waiting for something. The rain beat harder. Isabelle peered out from under her hood. She didn’t know what to do. What could it possibly be waiting for?
“Bless you?” she whispered.
It continued to stare.
“Bless you two times?”
The nose reached forward and pointed at Isabelle’s lap. She grimaced, expecting to find a giant booger, but found, instead, a slime-covered red apple.
A real, honest-to-goodness apple.
No apples grew in Runny Cove or in the wetlands that lay outside the village. Apples occasionally showed up at the factory’s grocery store, but only Mr. Supreme’s assistants could afford to buy them. Isabelle had never tasted one. She had never even held one. She picked
