One afternoon, Lucie and Mona sat on the roof of Pearly Beetle feeding bits of fish to the storm petrels and terns as they flew by.  They were forbidden to sit on the roof, but it was so pleasant to sit so high in the air, and really feel as though they were birds surveying the ocean from the sky.  Mona lifted her arms and moved them in several sweeping motions.

​

“You look like a seagull,” said Lucie.

“I do not…you look like a coot,” said Mona, indignant at being compared to a seagull, which she regarded as a pest of the sea.

“Summer’s nearly over,” said Lucie.  Mona felt her heart skip a beat.  She waited for Lucie to continue.

“Well, Father still isn’t much of a sailor and all.  He thinks this bay’s awfully pleasant and he’s made a decision.   We’re going to travel around the world for three months, then we’re going to move to the mainland here.  Father says he can’t afford to keep living on a boat.”

They sat in silence for several minutes, and then Mona had an idea. “Why don’t you move into Pearly Beetle?”

“I’m not sure what Father would say.  Don’t really think you’d want to live with Sicily.”

“Maybe just for a few months.  And maybe Sicily can go to one of those schools you live at on the mainland,” suggested Mona.

“A boarding school,” said Lucie.

Mona nodded.  Lucie stood up.

​

“I’ll ask.  I’d be awful glad to live on Pearly Beetle and not have to move back to the mainland where the air’s not fresh and you can’t see the waves. Especially if Sicily.... Well, I’ll ask Father.”

The girls got their things together and came downstairs. They met Nanny at the foot of the stairs.

“Mr. Hurston and Lucie and Prince Edward will have to move to shore,” said Mona. “Wouldn’t that be ever so awful?”

“Were you up on the roof again?” asked Nanny as she glanced at the leaf fragments stuck to Mona’s bathing suit.  

“I’ve got to get home now,” said Lucie as she looked from Nanny to Mona and back.  Mona did not turn away from Nanny, but she heard Lucie’s footsteps and the front door open and close.  Then she continued her conversation with Nanny.

​

“Yes. I’m very sorry Nanny, but I really love it there.”

“Well, mind you don’t do it again.  And, no, Dear, it would not be ever so awful to live on the mainland.  What about Sicily?  Where will she live?”

“I…I thought maybe Mr. Hurston and Lucie and Prince Edward could live on Pearly Beetle.  We’ve got enough spare rooms and Lucie could help with chores.  Mr. Hurston keeps to his room and walks about only at queer hours…. Oh please, Nanny.”

“Oh my.  And Sicily?”

“Can’t she go to a nice boarding school on the mainland?  I know she most wishes to live on the mainland.”

“She might come visit for holidays,” Mona added as an afterthought.

“I really don’t know, Dear.  Have you asked Mr. Hurston yet?”

“Lucie’s going to ask him tonight.”

“Poor Hurstons!  If I were on the mainland, I’m sure the stationaryness of having the sea on only one side would make me awful sick.  It’d seem as if I was getting nowhere.  They will not like living on land after living at sea.  Can’t they live with us?   Please, Nanny?”

“We’re going for a boat trip.  Right now.  Get Manx,” said Nanny.  Mona was puzzled by this new development, but got Manx she did.  The three of them loaded into the Leviathan and Nanny rowed for a while.  Finally, she put the oars down and spoke.

​

“I brought you out here because I wanted to show you something.  Please turn your binoculars towards shore.”

Mona shook her head. “Nanny, is all the mainland covered in fences and fish guts?” Mona asked. The particular shore in view was a fisherman’s harbor with nets and pails and fish guts.

 “’Course not.  Turn your binoculars to the left. What do you see?”

“Oh Nanny, the most horrible smoke-filled city.”

Nanny’s spectacles fell off as her head jerked to the left at Mona’s statement.

“Why, they have gobs of poison air, just like the haunted lighthouse on the Dog Barrens,” continued Mona.

“Child, it is not all like that,” cried Nanny as she tried to collect herself and her spectacles.  “Do you see a little house just at shore?”

“Oh yes, Nanny.  I am glad you pointed that out.  It is positively the ugliest little house—not at all like Pearly Beetle.  How dreadfully ugly the shore is.  Why must people live there?”

​

“How unfortunate the view is from here,” whispered Nanny. “And in particular, your view, Mona.  That is the house where I grew up.  It may be plain, but—well, some beautiful things are plain.  Look at Manx.”

“Manx is not plain,” shouted Mona.

“I may not have been to shore often.  Trying to keep up Pearly Beetle and all doesn’t give one a great deal of leisure time, but I have wonderful memories of the mainland.  You are past the age when I should have taken you.  I would like to take you soon.  There are mountains, like you’ve never seen.  You can walk up and feel as though you will never come to a stop.  The fields and forests are green, not like the haunted lighthouse…”

“Just like the Blackberry Isles,” interrupted Mona. “Why don’t I go there instead?”  The conversation in the boat had taken an unpleasant plunge in the wrong direction.  It made Mona queasy to think about the mainland so much.  Landsickness again, thought Mona.

​

“No, I am going to take you to the mainland,” said Nanny.  Mona felt herself turn a pale olive.

“Just to the very tip edge that you can’t see from here.  You live on land too, remember,” said Nanny.  Mona shifted and looked around.  She could see no way out of this conversation.

“But the Hurstons, Nanny. What about…”

 “What if we make an agreement?  You must agree to go to school on the mainland, and in exchange I will offer the Hurstons rooms at Pearly Beetle,” said Nanny. 

Mona’s eyes widened.  Her skin deepened its current shade of green, and she turned to look at Nanny in horror.  Surely Nanny couldn’t be serious.  Nanny was not looking at Mona; she had a sort of frown on her face.

​

“Surely you don’t mean live on the mainland and go to boarding school like Sicily?” said Mona.

“No, dear.  I mean you and Lucie would row every morning to school.  It’s but a twenty-minute row for good strong girls, like yourselves.”

“Oh Nanny, how could you?” cried Mona.  Tears ran down her cheeks.

“You don’t have to decide yet.  I meant to take you to the mainland in a few days anyway.  You can decide if you want to go to school there and, if so, I will make an offer of rooms to the Hurstons on that condition.  If not, by golly, I’ll have satisfied myself that I tried all I could to get you to see reason.  I’ll still teach you here.  And I do hope, then, you’ll marry a rich sea captain so you never have to leave the ocean, but, if that happens, I may be of the opinion that you are an awfully silly girl,” said Nanny.  Mona continued to cry.

“We’d best head back,” said Nanny.  They ate their lunch in silence.  Lucie came over soon after to catch skimmers.  They leaned out the door of the kitchen and captured the insects in a bucket full of water.

“Father said he’d think it over.  What did Nanny say?”

“Well,” said Mona, “she did say you could all live here, on the condition I go to school on the mainland.” 

​

Lucie raised her eyebrows, "She didn’t."

Mona nodded.  It was simply too horrible for words.  Either the Hurstons and the dreadful mainland, or happiness and no Hurstons.  What could she do?  Oh, what a horrid Nanny, thought Mona.

“Well,” said Lucie, toying with her shirt sleeve, “you could try it.”

“Not you, too,” cried Mona.

“We used to live there, you know, and it’s not so bad as you think.” “I mean it’s nothing special like Pearly Beetle or the ocean or anything,” Lucie continued quickly, “but it’s not like an atrocious, foggy place with trash and fences everywhere like how you imagine it.  Eternal gloom doesn’t hang over it like the Dog Barrens.  Besides, I’d go with you.   Then we could all live on Pearly Beetle. Well, except for Sicily, hopefully.”

“I don’t know,” said Mona.  She shook her head.  Her heart had fallen again off its shelf and felt as though it had shattered into a thousand pieces.  “I’ll think about it.”

 “We’re still going to travel around the world so you have some time to make your decision.  You can send me what you decide on by jam jar,” said Lucie.

“Right,” said Mona, “I’ll need to know your ’proximate location.” 

“You and Nanny can come over tonight, if you’d like,” said Lucie, “and say bye to Prince Edward, Father, and me.  And Sicily, I guess.” 

“We will,” said Mona. 

They had a sad dinner the next night on the houseboat.  Even Nanny’s delicious wild strawberry tarts could not brighten the mood.

​

“So, I guess we may need to talk matters over with you, Miss Nanny, if we are going to, er—possibly live at Pearly Beetle,” said Mr. Hurston as he cleared their plates.

“Yes, we’ll see how things go,” said Nanny. She pursed her lips.  She told Mr. Hurston about the deal she had made with Mona. 

Then something very odd happened.  Something Mona never suspected she would ever see happen.  Mona heard a strange, hoarse noise from across the table.  She looked up and saw that it had come from Sicily. 

Everyone else had also turned their attention to Sicily.  Sicily let out a sob and then a cough to try and hide it.

​

“What’s the matter?” asked Lucie. 

Mr. Hurston glared at Lucie and turned back to Sicily.

“Sicily, what is it?”  Mr. Hurston asked.  At this question, a thought occurred to Mona. Mr. Hurston must be a good father. He had a way of turning his voice into several different tones of bells.

“It’s not fair.”

“What’s not fair?” asked her father.

“Why must I go to boarding school and everyone else get to live on Pearly Beetle?” 

The table was silent.  Nanny glared at Mona this time.

“See, Mona?” Nanny said.

She turned to Sicily and continued in a gentler voice.

​

“Sicily, dear girl, if your family moves to Pearly Beetle you are welcome, too,” said Nanny, “and it was very rude for anyone to make you feel as if you weren’t.” 

Mona turned red.

“But, Sicily, you’ve said yourself our house is falling apart and that our paintings are horrid and you hate staying here.  I thought you wanted to move back to the mainland.  Why would you want to live on Pearly Beetle?”

“It’s nice on Pearly Beetle.”

“But why...?”

“I was upset.  Our mother died and we left our house.  Our house and our swamp, ugly nasty swamp that it was, it was still our swamp.  You and Lucie are always together and never want to hear anything I say or invite me along on adventures.”

“Why didn’t you just say something?” asked Lucie. 

Sicily shrugged.

​

Nanny nodded her head. “See girls, I told you to be nicer.” 

Mona could not recall Nanny ever mentioning her treatment of Sicily, but she let the matter pass.

“I am sorry, Sicily, but you were awfully hard to get along with,” said Mona. 

“Well, you aren’t the easiest either, Mona Burg,” said Sicily between tears. 

Mona took a deep breath.  She remembered how she had been the reason Sicily had gotten lost and contracted poison ivy.  She resolved to be kinder to Sicily from now on, no matter how Sicily acted towards her.

“I’m very glad that you like Pearly Beetle and when you return, we’ll have all the adventures we can,” Mona said. 

Sicily smiled.  Mona shook hands with Sicily and Mr. Hurston.  Prince Edward hugged Mona tightly round the neck and wouldn’t let go until his father pulled him off.  Mr. Hurston gave Mona a sheet of paper with several scribbles on it. 

​

“What’s this?” asked Mona.

“World,” he said, and smiled. 

Mona was not sure what he meant.  Nanny was already in the Leviathan when Mona solemnly hugged Lucie goodbye.  Lucie ran towards the dark waves and the small boat below.  

They waved the Hurstons off early the next morning.  Mona sighed.  Lucie was gone, and the next day, Nanny had said, they were headed to the mainland.

​

Mona fell asleep that night, but had nightmare after nightmare about going to mainland.  In each dream, when she returned from the stormy and dismal shore, Pearly Beetle and the Blackberry Isles were gone.

Mona awoke suddenly and sobbed into her pillow. She tossed and turned over as her damp pillow rubbed against her cold face.  Exhausted, she finally fell back asleep and into more unsettling dreams.