CHAPTER 21K. J.
“SO WHAT WAS GRANDPA LIKE?” I ASK, STARING AT the ceiling of our room. It’s past midnight, but Becka and I are still awake on our separate beds.
“Strange, but you already knew that.” She lets out a sigh and the bed springs creak as she moves to adjust her pillow. “He was so stuck in his ways. Never liked to do anything different.”
“What’d you guys do when you went over there?” We used to go on walks in the woods near his house when I was little, but I don’t remember doing much of anything the last time I went. Usually, he and Mom would get into an argument and then we’d jet.
“Most of the time, we watched his nature documentaries, and he’d tell me about his latest insect finds. He always made soup and sandwiches for us.”
I smile. “Chicken noodle, right?”
“Uh huh.”
We’re both quiet for a while. Voices carry through the door as people move past in the hallway outside our room, but I can’t make out what they’re saying. There’s a loud “Oh shit!” followed by a peal of laughter. We’re probably in bed early compared with some other people around here—it’s a party town, apparently—but we’ve got to be at the dive center early tomorrow morning.
“Did he ever take you bird-watching?” Becka asks, interrupting my thoughts.
“Once, I think.” Honestly, I don’t remember much about it other than having to be really quiet for a long time and pressing binoculars to my eyeballs until they gave me a headache.
“That was my favorite thing,” Becka says quietly. “The bird-watching. I didn’t really care to search for bugs, but looking for birds was fun. There was this one bird called a Yellow Warbler that I loved. I told Grandpa all the other birds were boring colors, but that one was beautiful. It looked like it belonged in the rainforest—not Siloam Springs.”
Listening to Becka talk about the bird makes me wish I had more memories of my own with Grandpa.
“He talked about you, you know,” Becka continues.
“He did?”
“Mmm hmm. Used to annoy me so much.”
My curiosity piqued, I turn her way, but in the dark I can only make out the outline of her face. “What’d he say?”
“Oh, just how you were so smart, and how he wished the two of us could be friends. He showed me a drawing you made for him once.”
“What was it?”
“A bumblebee. It was really good, and I remember I was a little jealous, actually. I’ve always sucked at drawing.”
Hearing her say this sparks a weird sensation inside me. Becka, jealous of me? How ridiculous. I’m the one who should be jealous—she’s the one who’s always had it all. “I think I remember drawing that,” I say instead, trying to mask my surprise. “I was really into art when I was younger.”
“You should have stuck with it. You were good.”
I turn to stare at the ceiling again, thinking of the Grand Canyon sketch I started but never finished after our first trip. “That was about the only thing I’ve ever been good at,” I mumble.
“Grandpa was a good artist,” Becka continues. “Did you ever see his sketches?”
I search the recesses of my memory, vaguely recalling a sketchbook full of insects and birds. I must have been pretty young when he showed it to me. “I don’t really remember.”
“Grandma was, too. I’m sure you saw that painting she did in the living room.”
“I don’t think so, no,” I admit. It’s sad, but I can’t remember anything specific from Grandpa’s house. Other than the Bug Room, anyway. I close my eyes, trying to think of the last drawing I completed. A motorcycle or a car maybe? It would have been back in middle school or freshman year at the latest.
“We should probably try to get some sleep,” Becka says, interrupting my thoughts again.
“Yeah, probably so.” I roll away from her and over onto my side. “Night.”
“Good night.”
Sleep doesn’t come easy because I’m still thinking about how fast things have changed between me and Becka. We might be getting along at the moment, but I know it isn’t likely to last. When this is all over, we’ll probably go our separate ways and never think twice about seeing the other again. We’ve made it eighteen years living completely separate lives, after all.
The sun hasn’t been up for long when we set off on a big, white catamaran to our snuba diving destination, a coral reef a few miles off the island. I yawn and gaze out at the ocean while Becka sits beside me, sipping coffee from a to-go cup from our hotel. Everyone on the boat is pretty quiet because we’re all still half asleep and it’s super peaceful being on the water like this. Unfortunately, that peace can’t last forever, though.
“Who’s ready for some fun this morning?” a male voice calls over a loudspeaker. The crowd gives a weak cheer. “I said, who’s ready for some fun?” he repeats.
Becka grimaces but I’m starting to liven up some. “Woot, woot!” I yell as the crowd cheers again, a little louder this time.
“All right,” the guy continues, “everyone meet me up on the back deck in five. We’ve got some procedures to cover before we start having the time of our lives. You guys are in for an awesome experience today!”
An overly tanned guy in red swimming trunks and a white T-shirt hurries down the steps, giving several people fist bumps as he passes. The announcer, no doubt.
Everyone makes their way toward the back deck and gathers around our guide. Aside from being the tannest white guy I’ve ever seen, he also has gleaming white teeth, which he apparently loves to show off. He goes over our equipment and some instructions for snuba diving, grinning after every other sentence. “Everyone got it?” Mr. Smiles asks,
