7

Auntie Holly was late. Marley didn’t mind-it only gave him more time to practice penalty kicks in the field behind the school with his friend Marcus Coffee, the goalie on their championship Youth League soccer team. Dawn, however, sitting alone on the school steps with her backpack and Marley’s book bag beside her, grew more forlorn with every minute that passed, though it was not all that unusual for Holly to be late picking them up.

Eventually one of the other kids-the schoolyard was by no means abandoned-told Marley that his sister was bawling out front. He’d been looking to one side and shooting to the other all afternoon, so this time he looked left, faked right, and shot left, yelled Goaaaal! one more time, then foot-dribbled the soccer ball Auntie Holly had given him on his birthday (the leather was already scuffed away in patches) around the side of the school to the front steps, stopped it on a dime in front of his sister, and sat down next to her.

“Geez-an-Nate, gyirl,” he said gently, in the deep island dialect he and Dawn used at school, and sometimes among themselves. “Whatcha bawlin’ about now?”

“I’m scyared somet’in happen a’ Auntie.”

“Poppyshow,” he scoffed. “She be ’long soon.”

“You promise?”

“Sure.” He cocked his head. “I hear Daisy comin’ now.”

“Doan mek naar wit’ me,” Dawn said, shaking her tawny plaits angrily-to make naar meant to tease.

“Meyain’ mek naar-listen cyareful.”

Then she could hear it, too, the distinctive I-think-I-can-I-think-I-can putt-putt of old Daisy’s engine. Dawn slung Marley’s book bag over his neck for him, then ran to the curb as the minibus came around the corner.

“Sorry I’m late-I had to stop off to pay the rent.” Holly reached across the passenger seat to open the door. “What’s the matter, baby doll?” Dawn was still sniffling as she clambered into the back to open the sliding door for her brother.

“She’s scyared something bad happen to you,” Marley explained, while his sister closed the door and fastened his seat belt for him.

“Poppyshow,” said Holly, who’d picked up a little dialect herself, over the last couple of years. “Me so lucky, Mistah Rabbit, he want to wear my foot for luck.”

Dawn laughed in spite of herself. “You cyan’ talk Luke, Auntie-don’ even try.”

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