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felt so strongly about this, beyond the usual reason that if Gloria ever discovered that something was important to me, she’d mess it up if she could.
    You’d think, considering the way we feel about each other, that she’d be happy to have me in boarding school when she’s home. But it isn’t so. The only thing I can figure is that it’s some kind of power thing with her. Once, long ago, when Gloria was up to her usual bag of tricks, I asked Mother, “Why does she act like that to me? I mean—what did I ever do to her?’’
    Mother was ironing at the time and I think we were up here on the Island. I do remember she was wearing shorts and a long pink shirt abandoned by one of her husbands. With her dark hair down she looked, I swear, younger than Gloria—more like Meg after a successful diet. Anyway, she ironed for a minute, then said, “You got born, Charles, that’s what you did to her.”
    “But that’s not my fault.”
    “No. But when she was three, which is when you were born, she didn’t know that. All she knew was that somebody had arrived to take not only my attention away from her, but also her brand-new stepfather’s whom she was already flirting with.”
    “But she hated my father. She’s always telling me what a jerk he was—the way you do.”
    That was one of those minutes when I had the curious feeling that something that might have made me understand
    40
    the whole business between Mother and me almost happened but didn’t quite. For a minute she looked terribly unhappy—sort of stricken. When she looks like that a queer desire to protect her comes over me and I have to hold onto myself and remember that if I give in the gates will clang to and lock behind me. So I clenched my teeth and said nothing.
    “Charles—I never meant ... I didn’t want ...”
    I wanted to tell her everything was all right and I didn’t mean it. (Mean what? I wasn’t sure, but it didn’t matter.) I wanted to kiss her cheek and tell her I’d take care of everything. Yes, I did. It’s incredible, but I did. I remember it very well—and then the door opened and Gloria walked in. Mother’s face closed up. She turned her back to pick up something else to iron and when she turned around again she just said, “We didn’t always feel like that about him.”
    We, I thought. All of a sudden she and Gloria were a team again. They were on one side and Dad and I were on the other and never the twain would meet and all that jazz. Only it’s a little lopsided, because I can barely remember my father. I remember a big man with blond hair like mine and a smile, and his putting me on his shoulders that felt about a mile high. The sea was behind him. I remember the feeling more than the way it looked. And the feeling was being happy. Like everything was relating to everything else and making sense.
    Anyway, I knew that apart from my freaked-out sister, it would not be a good idea for me to broadcast the fact that I was going to be hobnobbing with The Man Without a Face. People were leery of him and Mother is conventional. She doesn’t like anyone going around doing oddball things. And McLeod was definitely an oddball.
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    My absence during the day needn’t cause any flutter because I was nearly always up and out before the rest of the family and down with the kids in the harbor. More often than not I wouldn't touch base again till dinnertime. So there’d be no problem there. It all looked very neat. Now all I had to do was to get the books I had brought to the Island up to McLeod’s house, and there was a hefty load of them.
    CHAPTER 3
    I arrived, sweating, at McLeod’s gate at seven thirty the next morning, lugging the books in two shopping bags I had stolen from the kitchen, after occasional rests on the way.
    After puffing a bit I pushed the gate open and started up the path. Sure enough, there was a familiar, bone-crunching growl, and my great friend Mickey bounded around the bend. I stood stock still.
    “Good