St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves Read Online Free PDF

had the orange residue of sunset to see by. I can’t stand to think of her out here alone after nightfall.
    The last time we saw Olivia was at twilight. We’d spent all day crab-sledding down the beach. It’s the closest thing we island kids have to a winter sport. You climb into the upended exoskeleton of a giant crab, then you go yeehaw slaloming down the powdery dunes. The faster you go, the more sand whizzes around you, a fine spray on either side of your crab sled. By the time you hit the water, you’re covered in it, grit in your teeth and your eyelids, along the line of your scalp.
    Herb makes the crab sleds—he guts the crabs and blowtorches off the eyestalks and paints little racer stripes along the sides. Then he rents them down at Pier 2, for two dollars an hour, twelve dollars for a full day. The three of us had been racing down the beach all afternoon. We were sunburned, and hungry, and loused up with sea bugs. Wallow had stepped on a sea urchin and broken his fall on more urchins. I wanted Jiffy Pop and aloe vera. Wallow wanted prescription painkillers and porno. We voted to head over to Granana’s beach cottage, because she has Demerol and an illegal cable box.
    Olivia threw a fit. “But we still have half an hour on the sled rental!” A gleam came into her eyes, that transparent little-kid craftiness. “You guys don’t have to come with me, you know.”
    Legally, we did. According to official Herb’s Crab-Sledding Policy, under-twelves must be accompanied by a guardian—a rule that Herb has really cracked down on since Olivia’s death. But neither Wallow nor I felt like chaperoning. And Olivia was eight and a half, which rounds up to twelve. “Stick to the perimeter of the island,” Wallow told her. “And get that crab sled back before sundown. Any late fees are coming out of your allowance.”
    “Yeah, yeah,” she assured us, clambering into the sled. The sun was already low in the sky. “I’m just going out one last time.”
    We helped Olivia drag the sled up the white dunes. She sat Indian-style in the center of the shell, humming tunelessly. Then we gave her a final push that sent her racing down the slopes. We watched as she flew out over the rock crags and into the foamy water. By the time we’d gathered our towels and turned to go, Olivia was just a speck on the horizon. Neither of us noticed how quickly the tide was going out.
    Most people think that tides are caused by the moon alone, but that is not the case. Once a month, the sun and the moon are both on the same side of the globe. Then the Atlantic kowtows to their conglomerate gravity. It’s the earth playing tug-of-war with the sky.
    On new-moon nights, the sky is winning. The spring tide swells exceptionally high. The spring tide has teeth. It can pull a boat much farther than your average quarter-moon neap tide. When they finally found Olivia’s crab sled, it was halfway to Cuba, and empty.
             
    “What do you see, bro?”
    “Oh, not much.” I cough. I peer back under the surface of the water. There’s an aurora borealis exploding inches from my submerged face. “Probably just plankton.”
    When I come up to clear the goggles, I can barely see Wallow. He is silhouetted against the lone orange lamp, watching me from the pier. Water seeps out of my nose, my ears. It weeps down the corners of the lenses. I push the goggles up and rub my eyes with my fists, which just makes things worse. I kick to stay afloat, the snorkel digging into my cheek, and wave at my brother. Wallow doesn’t wave back.
    I don’t want to tell Wallow, but I have no idea what I just saw, although I’m sure there must be some ugly explanation for it. I tell myself that it was just cyanobacteria, or lustrous pollutants from the Bimini glue factory. Either way, I don’t want to double-check.
    I shiver in the water, letting the salt dry on my shoulders, listening to the echo of my breath in the snorkel. I fantasize about towels. But