Poppy, page 11
★ Chapter 16 ★
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When the doorbell rang, Hannah was still wearing the T-shirt she’d slept in and the faded gym class sweatpants from her old school. Her dad had been called into work early, so she’d been dragged out of bed to help her mom with the twins. Logan was flinging oatmeal all over the kitchen while Noah shrieked and giggled, egging his brother on. Everything within a three-foot radius of the table was spattered with food.
“Hannah, could you get that?” her mom asked, wiping a clump of oats off the windowsill.
Hannah was grateful to leave the chaotic breakfast table behind. She tried to run her fingers through her tangled bed head, wondering who could possibly be at the door. It was probably a package for her mom or a canvasser wanting a signature for some political cause. There seemed to be a new one every week. She opened the door and blinked at the bright sunshine framing Althea and Poppy on her porch.
“The waves are perfect today,” Althea said, ignoring Hannah’s outfit and messy hair. “You have to come with. I won’t take no for an answer.” Althea glanced down at Poppy sitting beside her. “We won’t take no for an answer.”
Poppy blinked at Hannah with her big puppy eyes. Hannah dropped to her knees, and Poppy wriggled onto her lap with a contented snort. Hannah wrapped her arms around Poppy and buried her face in the dog’s warm, soft fur. She smelled like summer and a little bit like kibble. Poppy leaned into her, then squirmed around to lick Hannah’s chin. How could Hannah say no to her?
Besides, Hannah realized, now that Althea was here, Mrs. Gilly wouldn’t need her to walk Poppy. She would have to take any chance she could get to spend time with the dog—even if that also meant spending time with Althea.
“Okay,” Hannah agreed. “I just need to grab my stuff.”
She left Althea and Poppy on the porch and hurried to her room, where she quickly changed clothes, put on sunscreen, and grabbed her beach bag. In the kitchen, her mom stood at the sink washing baby dishes. She’d given up on the twins getting more food in their mouths than they got on their clothes. Hannah stayed by the door, just in case Logan was hiding any more oatmeal in his fists.
“Mom, can I go to the beach with Mrs. Gilly’s granddaughter?” Hannah asked.
Her mom glanced at the twins, then back at Hannah, who was all ready to go. Hannah knew her mom wouldn’t want to keep her from going out with a potential new friend. But as much as she wanted to spend the day with Poppy, a small part of Hannah wouldn’t have minded if her mom said she needed to stay home and baby-sit. At least it would have been an excuse not to hang out with Althea.
Her mom dried her hands on a dishtowel. “Sure,” she said, looking frazzled. “Have fun!”
Hannah hesitated for just a second, her baby brothers watching her as if wondering what she’d do next. But Poppy was waiting for her, and that was what mattered most. “Okay, I’ll see you later,” she said, hoisting her beach bag onto her shoulder, waving at the twins, and heading out the door.
The girls started off on the walk to the beach. Poppy was already a million times more well-behaved with Althea than she had been the day before. Hannah couldn’t help feeling a little jealous, wishing she were the one holding the leash. She could practically feel it in her hand.
“You’re so lucky you live here,” Althea said. “I wish I could surf more often, but we live so much farther from the beach.”
Hannah had been so focused on Poppy, she’d almost forgotten Althea’s excitement about surfing. “Wait—where’s your board?”
“I’ll rent one,” Althea said with a shrug. “Not as cool as having my own, but it’ll still float.”
Hannah liked that Althea didn’t care whether renting a surfboard was cool or not—she just wanted to do what she loved. Poppy paused to sniff a mailbox post. While the girls waited for her to finish, Hannah lifted her face toward the sun. It was another perfect day.
“So, what’s the story with your face?” Althea asked. “Does it hurt?”
Hannah blinked in surprise. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had asked her about her birthmark. Probably in kindergarten, before the other kids were used to her or knew any better.
“It’s . . . it’s just a birthmark.” Hannah turned away and speed-walked ahead of Althea and Poppy. In her rush to get out of the house, she’d forgotten to put her hat on. Not that it mattered. She knew it didn’t really hide anything—it was more like a security blanket.
Althea and Poppy jogged to catch up with her. “I’m sorry,” Althea said, the strands of her purple hair glinting in the sunlight. “That was probably rude. Sometimes things just fly out of my mouth. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
No, Hannah thought. She stopped and turned to face Althea. She hadn’t expected her to ask about it, but now that she had, Hannah realized she didn’t mind. It was nice to have it out in the open, unlike all the times she was dodging uncomfortable stares. Althea was just being honest instead of playing the game where everyone pretends not to see it even when they’re looking right at her.
Hannah tucked her hair behind her ears. “No, that’s okay. I can tell you about it.”
“Only if you want to,” Althea said. “I’ve just never seen anything like it before.”
“That’s because a lot of kids who have them get treatments to make them lighter,” Hannah explained. “So by the time they’re our age, you can hardly see it.”
“Why didn’t you do that?” Althea asked. “Not that you should have—I’m just wondering.”
Hannah liked the straightforward way Althea talked to her. She was genuinely curious, but in a respectful way, not a rude one. And she was comfortable with herself, as if she had nothing to hide—and didn’t think Hannah did either.
“My parents said they tried the laser treatments when I was a baby,” Hannah said. “But they didn’t work for me.”
“Is it painful?” Althea asked.
“It doesn’t feel like anything.” Hannah started walking again. Althea and Poppy fell into step beside her. Poppy nudged Hannah’s hand and she ran her fingers over the spot on the dog’s face. “It’s just part of my skin. But it does get dry and burn easily, so I have to use a lot of sunscreen and lotion.”
“What’s it like? Having it, I mean?”
“I don’t know what it’s like not having it,” Hannah said. “But sometimes people won’t really look at me or don’t want to talk directly to me. Like they think there’s something wrong with me because of it.”
“I bet plenty of them have birthmarks, just not in places anyone can stare at them!” Althea said. They both cracked up. No one had ever made Hannah so much as smile about her birthmark, let alone laugh—Althea was definitely the first.
“When I was little, the school sent home a letter to all the parents explaining that it wasn’t contagious,” Hannah said.
“You’re kidding.” Althea shook her head. “People actually thought that?”
“Yep. They got over it, though.” Hannah looked down at the ground. “It wasn’t so bad back home. But I’m still so new here that I guess people aren’t used to it.”
“Well, you have nothing to be embarrassed about, that’s for sure.” Althea handed Hannah Poppy’s leash, then turned to walk backwards. She considered Hannah’s face for a long moment. “I think it’s cool. It makes you totally unique and unforgettable.” She sighed and spun to face forward again, her brown and purple hair whipping upward in the breeze. “I want to be unforgettable. I’m just so ordinary.”
Hannah didn’t think Althea was ordinary at all.
★ Chapter 17 ★
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“Ready to surf?” Althea asked, jamming the surfboard from the rental hut into the sand.
“It really didn’t go so well last time,” Hannah confessed.
Althea grinned. “That’s because you didn’t have me teaching you!” She laid the board flat on the sand. “Okay, lie down on your stomach.”
“Here?” Hannah nervously scanned all the other people on the beach.
“This is how everyone starts. It’s easier to practice getting up without the waves.” Althea gestured toward the board. Poppy hopped onto it. “See? Poppy isn’t embarrassed!”
Hannah rolled her eyes. “That’s because she’s a natural.”
On the way to the beach, she’d shown Althea the video of Poppy surfing. Althea had said she couldn’t wait to see Poppy’s skills for herself, but she wasn’t going to let Hannah off the hook so easily.
“You’ll get the hang of it. Come on.” Althea nudged Poppy off the board, and Hannah reluctantly stretched out on it.
“Put your hands down like you’re doing a pushup. Then slide this foot here.” Althea pointed to a spot on the board. “Then the other foot comes up between your hands. Now, stand!”
Hannah felt a little silly as she popped up to a standing position. But once she was up there, she liked the feel of the board beneath her bare feet. She felt steady and confident. “I think I can do this,” she said.
“Um, yeah you can—you just did!” Althea made her practice a few more times on land before they took the board to the water. Now that Hannah felt that she’d mastered the transition from lying flat to standing up, she wasn’t even nervous as they pushed the board into the rolling surf.
“Leg,” Althea commanded as they stood in waist-high water. Hannah lifted her foot up to the surface, and Althea Velcroed the surfboard’s strap to Hannah’s ankle as she explained the different kinds of waves and how to paddle to catch each one. Althea knew so much about the ocean and surfing—it was pretty amazing that she was an expert at only eleven years old. Poppy splashed into the water after them. As Althea was talking, Poppy scrambled onto the board, her tongue out and her tail wagging.
“You have to wait your turn, cutie,” Althea said. She tipped Poppy off the board and into the water, then led her back to the beach. From the sand, she called out to Hannah, “You’ve got this!”
Hannah lay down on the board and paddled out a little farther to wait for a good wave. She let a few wash past her before she picked one that felt right. She paddled the way Althea had shown her, then started to do a pushup on the board. She was halfway to a crouch when the board rocked beneath her, and suddenly she wasn’t sure she could stand all the way. She put her knees on the board, then tried to stand, but she immediately lost her balance and plunked into the water with a splash.
When Hannah surfaced, Althea called out, “Don’t try to kneel. Just stand. Trust yourself.”
Hannah wiped the water from her eyes, nodded, and paddled back out. Poppy barked happily on the beach, chasing the waves as they crawled up the sand. On her next try, Hannah got her feet under her as the board caught the wave. She looked down to make sure her feet were in the right position before standing up completely . . . and she tipped backwards right off the board. Ouch! The water stung, and salt got into her eyes.
As Hannah popped out of the water, Althea flashed her a thumbs-up, then held her thumb and forefinger an inch apart. So close! Poppy wagged her tail and pranced around the sand, cheering Hannah on. Hannah rolled back her shoulders and told herself to try again. With Poppy and Althea cheering her on, anything felt possible.
Once again, Hannah climbed onto the board and paddled toward the waves. She realized that the swells no longer bothered her, and she didn’t even mind wiping out. She’d been so afraid of the waves when she first saw them, but it turned out that she’d just needed time to get used to them. And now it seemed like she’d been swimming in the ocean her whole life—like she was comfortable there.
Maybe one day she’d feel that way about her life in California.
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Hannah popped up over and over again on the board, trying to get her feet in the right place. It would have been easy to give up and decide that she was better off just being a beach bum, but she thought about Poppy and how it took lots of tries before she learned a new command. If Poppy was willing to keep trying until she got it right, so was Hannah.
As the next wave rose toward her, she pictured the spots on the board where Althea had taught her to put her feet. She remembered what it felt like to stand up when the board was on the beach, and she tried to recreate that steady, confident feeling. She reminded herself to keep her knees bent and not to lean over.
Hannah was so focused on the checklist that at first she didn’t realize that it had all come together, and she was standing. She was up for a few seconds—long enough to start to relax—before the wave crested over the back of her board and took her down. She let the water carry her and the board to the beach.
“You almost had it that time!” Althea said, her arms in the air. “You just need a better wave. Stay a little farther ahead of it, then pop up. Don’t wait too long.”
She held out her fist. Hannah bumped it with hers, scratched Poppy behind the ears, and headed back out one more time, the surfboard tucked under her arm.
As Hannah paddled out, she realized that now she could see herself surfing. She knew she could do it. She sat up on her board and watched the waves roll toward the beach. One passed by her that felt perfect, but she didn’t make the decision to take it in time. She promised herself she wouldn’t miss the next one—and she didn’t. She paddled hard as it swelled beneath her board, then paddled twice more. In one fluid motion, Hannah stood up, and suddenly she felt an incredible, unfamiliar sensation—somewhere among flying and sailing and riding a roller-coaster.
She was riding the wave!
Her stomach somersaulted, and she felt part bird, part dolphin. It was more than exhilarating. It was magical.
Her board sliced through the water as it carried her toward the beach. She could see Althea cheering, with Poppy leaping around her.
Hannah stood a little taller as she approached the shore . . . and then she tumbled off the board. Grinning, she wiped the water out of her eyes and saw a cluster of people cheering for her on the beach. It wasn’t just Althea and Poppy, but a small group that had been watching her try again and again. She pumped her fist in the air and laughed.
Althea splashed toward her. “That was awesome!”
“I want to go again!” Hannah said. She paddled back into the surf. While she waited on her board for a few other surfers to take their turn, she watched the sun sparkling off the waves flowing in from the horizon one after the other. With each one she saw new potential. Beyond the waves, in the distance, Hannah saw a dolphin leap out of the water, then another one—a whole pod playing out there.
Then it was Hannah’s turn. She spotted the perfect swell coming toward her and caught it. This time she stayed up, riding the wave until it flattened into water shallow enough for her to hop off the board and land upright. She walked up the sand with the board under her arm. Poppy danced around her and licked the water off her legs, making Hannah laugh.
Althea gave her a high-five. “I knew you could do it! That was major!”
“That,” Hannah said, “was incredible. I get why people love this.”
Jackie and Taylor pushed through the knot of people watching the surfers.
“We just got here and we heard people saying a newbie was about to catch her first wave,” Taylor said. “Then we saw it was you!”
“Congratulations!” Jackie added. “You looked pretty awesome.”
“Thanks,” Hannah said. At first she was too excited to remember that it was the first time she’d seen or spoken to them since the party. It wasn’t until she spotted Sophia hanging back in the crowd, her arms crossed as she watched her friends, that the painful memory of the scene in the kitchen came flooding back.
Hannah started to crumple inside like a wilting flower. But just as her smile began to fall from her face, something Althea said earlier came back to her. It floated through her mind like a refrain from a favorite song: You have nothing to be embarrassed about.
Althea was right. She didn’t. Poppy had made a mistake, and Hannah hadn’t been fast enough to stop her. That was all.
Hannah raised her head, squared her shoulders, and smiled at the girls—including Sophia. She felt like the queen of the world, and she wasn’t going to let them get her down.
★ Chapter 18 ★
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After Hannah, Althea, and Poppy took turns catching waves, the girls returned the surfboard to the rental hut and went to the boardwalk for ice cream. They licked their dripping cones while watching the other surfers. Hannah’s arms and legs were shaking from this new kind of exertion, and she could tell she was going to be sore the next day.
She couldn’t help noticing that surfing seemed to come naturally to Sophia and her friends. They were as steady on the water as they were on land. She had to remind herself that they’d been working at it a lot longer than she had.
“You up for a hike?” Althea asked as a stream of bright green pistachio ice cream melted down the side of her cone and dripped onto the asphalt. Poppy quickly licked it up and snarfled the ground, looking for more.
Hannah was up for anything. “Sure!” she said. Tired as she was, she felt energized by the ocean and her success.
Althea nodded toward the far end of the beach, where tall bluffs towered over the sand. “There’s a great spot over there that has the best view.”
“Let’s do it,” Hannah said.
Althea gave Poppy the last bite of her cone, then led the way past the boardwalk shops and the families sprawling on beach blankets to a trail that wound up into the hillside. Hannah had never noticed it. If she had, she probably wouldn’t have dared to go up it on her own. But Althea was so fearless, it didn’t surprise Hannah that she would explore every inch of the coast. Even though Hannah couldn’t see where the trail led, she marched toward it. She felt braver around Althea.
