“Is that the best you can do?” said Mrs. MacKnockater.
He turned back to her, pulling the shirt over his head.
“Five?” she said.
His head popped out. “Seventeen,” he said.
Mrs. MacKnockater looked around her, rose, maneuvered about the rock, stooped, and picked up a stone. She steered her large self down toward the water as Matt Coffin stepped away—but he still watched.
Mrs. MacKnockater pulled her arm back and threw.
She turned to Matt Coffin. “Eight,” she said.
“Seven,” he said.
“You miscounted,” she said.
“It doesn’t count when the last one goes into the wave.”
“That is hardly charitable arithmetic,” said Mrs. MacKnockater.
Matt Coffin came down to the shore beside her, stooped, and picked up two stones. He handed one to her. Until it got too dark to count, they threw stones into the water and watched them skip over the outgoing tide, away into the lowering dark orange.
Mrs. MacKnockater was back at the next sunset.
So was Matt Coffin.
“Eleven,” he said.
“What happened to the rule about the last skip going into the wave?” she said.
“I didn’t count that one.”
“You most certainly did,” said Mrs. MacKnockater, and she threw her stone.
“One,” Matt Coffin said, “counting the skip into the wave. How’s that for charitable arithmetic?”
“Do you like franks and beans?” said Mrs. MacKnockater.
He looked at her. In the low light, she couldn’t quite tell what he was thinking—and she was good at telling what people were thinking.
“Sometimes,” he said.
“It would only take a moment to warm them up,” she said.
Matt Coffin threw his last stone into the trough.
“Three,” she said.
“Okay,” he said.
It took more than a moment to warm up the franks and beans, and to set out the brown bread with raisins, and to lay a line of cinnamon over the applesauce, and to put out the dish of dill pickles, and to pour the ice cold milk, and to light the two tall candles that threw their lovely glow up to the ceiling beams.
Matt Coffin ate everything on the table, stopping only once, then twice, to look at the rows of bookshelves that lined the walls of the parlor beyond.
“Are those reading books?” he said.
Mrs. MacKnockater nodded and moved the plate of brown bread closer to him. She scooted the plate of butter beside it.
“You read all those?”
“Every one,” she said. “Do you have a favorite writer?”
He took another slice of brown bread, dipped it into the applesauce, and ate it.
It rained the next day, and Mrs. MacKnockater did not go down to the shore. But at suppertime, when she could hear the waves at low tide, she stepped out onto the porch and Matt Coffin was standing by the rhododendrons, one hand in his pocket, one hand holding a half-full pillowcase over his shoulder, his hat drawn low and dripping.
“Eighteen,” he said.
“Meatloaf,” she said, and he came inside.
“You can leave your bag in the parlor,” she said.
He sat down, laid the pillowcase on the floor, and kicked it well underneath the sofa with his heel. He could already smell the meatloaf.
“We’re ready,” Mrs. MacKnockater called from the kitchen.
He picked out as many onions as he could, then ate almost the whole meatloaf by himself, stopping only to spread tomato ketchup over it. Mrs. MacKnockater watched him the whole time.
Later, after two apple dumplings, he walked back into the parlor and looked at the rows of books.
Mrs. MacKnockater followed. She drew out Treasure Island and showed it to him.
“What’s it about?” he said.
“A boy named Jim,” she said. “The sea. A search for buried treasure. Pirates. Captain Flint and Black Dog and Billy Bones and Long John Silver.”
He took the book and flipped through it. “The pictures look pretty good,” he said. He handed the book back to her.
“You know, Matthew, I’ve always enjoyed reading aloud. I used to do it when I was a teacher, but now I’ve no one to read to. Would you mind terribly if I read the opening chapter to you?”
Matt shrugged. “If you want to,” he said.
Later, when Dr. Livesey had stared down the Captain and Mrs. MacKnockater had finished the first chapter, Matt said, “Why do you talk so funny?”
“Funny?” said Mrs. MacKnockater.
“Yeah, funny.”
“I grew up in Edinburgh,” said Mrs. MacKnockater. “A long, long way from here, across the wide ocean.”
And Matt suddenly grew quiet, very quiet, and he looked at her, then he looked out the window into the dark, and he wondered if that would be far enough.
On sunny days after that, Mrs. MacKnockater went down to the shore and skipped stones with Matt. And when they both got hungry—that is, when Mrs. MacKnockater got hungry, since Matt was always hungry—they climbed the shore ridge to her home and ate supper, and afterward Mrs. MacKnockater read Treasure Island. On rainy days, Matt just came to her house when it was suppertime.
When he did not come, Mrs. MacKnockater understood that he was out on the water. At dusk on those days, she stood on her porch and held up her binoculars to watch the fishing boats and the lobster boats come in, and Matt would be standing on the deck of one, waving at her, and she would be surprised at the way her heart filled. Once she asked him about school.
“I thought you weren’t a teacher anymore,” he said.
“No teacher ever really stops being a teacher. I’m the headmistress at St. Elene’s Preparatory Academy for Girls.”
“What does a headmistress do?”
“I ensure that the school is run properly.”
“How do you do that?”
“With guile. Matthew, you should be in school.”
“I tried that. Twice. I’m not going again.”
“Whatever happened before, it is not inevitable that—”
“Are we going to read tonight?”
“Matthew . . .”
“Are we?”
So they ate supper together that night—slabs of white scrod with lots of tartar sauce—and then they read, and they read through the heat of July, and through the firefly nights of August, and into the first cool days of September when the maples looked as if they had tipped the edges of their leaves in pirate blood. They finished Treasure Island a few nights before St. Elene’s Preparatory Academy for Girls would open its doors to the new fall term, with the voice of Captain Flint squawking in the parlor: “Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!”
Mrs. MacKnockater looked down at the book. “Mr. Stevenson certainly knows how to tell an adventure,” she said.
Matt was quiet, and then he said, “It’s like Long John Silver is a jerk, but it’s also like he’s Jim’s father. Sort of.”
Mrs. MacKnockater looked at him. “I suppose that’s true, but Jim is certainly glad to be rid of him.”
Matt reached over and closed the book in her hands. “I guess,” he said. “But still, he hopes he’s okay at the end.”
“Perhaps,” Mrs. MacKnockater said quietly. Then, “Matthew, do you know where your father is?”