“One quick stop first.”
They had time, so Lucy wasn’t worried. She stared out the window, trying to calm her nerves. Eyes on the prize. She needed to focus. Winning wouldn’t be easy. Three days ago she’d been a guest—via satellite—on the Today show. They’d interviewed all the contestants, asking them to tell the story of how they’d run away to the island and why.
Andre Watkins had told the story of being the target of racist bullying at his New England prep school. He ran away during a school field trip. Jack called Andre’s parents, he said, and told them there was no point sending him to a fancy school if it destroyed his love of learning. He got to go home to a school where he felt safe, and Jack wrote the letter of recommendation that helped Andre get into Harvard. Now he was a successful lawyer.
Melanie Evans, the other woman playing the game, talked about moving to a new town, new school, not having any friends. Jack had sent copies of his books to all her classmates with a note in them that they were gifts from him and his dear friend Melanie. She’d been the most popular girl in the school after that, and now she owned her own children’s bookstore.
Dr. Dustin Gardner had revealed he’d been scared to come out to his parents. Jack had encouraged him to be honest with them but promised that if they didn’t take it well, they’d be answering to him. Having his favorite writer in the world on his side had given him the courage to be his real self. And Jack had been right. His parents had struggled at first but eventually they’d come around and were his biggest supporters. When the talk show hosts asked him what he’d do if he won the book, he said he’d sell it to pay off his student loans. Then he asked if there were any bidders. That got a big laugh.
When it was her turn, Lucy fudged the truth a little. She said she’d only wanted to be Jack Masterson’s sidekick. He’d joked in a letter about how he’d needed one, and she planned to apply for the job. The part about her parents neglecting her and her sister’s medical issues seemed too depressing to talk about on morning television.
“You’re too quiet, baby girl. You okay?” Theresa asked, interrupting her daydreaming.
“Fine, fine. Just nervous. Thanks, by the way.”
Theresa waved her hand dismissively. “It’s just a ride to the airport.”
“No, I mean, thank you for talking me out of telling Christopher.”
Theresa reached out and squeezed Lucy’s hand. “You’re going to win, and you’re going to be his mother. I refuse to believe anything else.”
“It’s way more likely I’ll lose.”
“Fine, then steal some of Masterson’s silverware while you’re there. We’ll sell it on eBay when you get back. Call it plan B.”
“Great idea.”
“Seriously, though, while you’re back in Maine,” Theresa said, wagging her finger at Lucy, “I want you to think about a real plan B, okay? I don’t care if it’s a new job or guilt-tripping your sister into writing you a check, but it’s time to make it happen. All right? For Christopher?”
A new job meant she wouldn’t be able to tutor Christopher after school. And she couldn’t even text her sister without wanting to vomit, much less ask her for money. Not a chance.
“Okay. I’ll think of something.”
“I know you will.” Theresa pulled into the driveway of a small bungalow with overgrown shrubs in the front yard. Where on earth were they?
The house’s front door opened, and Christopher burst out in a run toward the car.
Lucy looked at Theresa.
“You’re welcome,” she said.
Lucy got out and grabbed him in a hug, spinning him.
“Lucy, I get to go with you to the airport. Mrs. Bailey said so. I even get to be late to school!”
“That’s amazing. Let’s go!” She got into the back seat of the car with Christopher and made sure he was buckled in correctly as Theresa pulled out of the driveway.
“Great surprise.” Lucy squeezed Theresa’s shoulder.
“Thought you needed the moral support.”
“I’m your morals support, Lucy,” Christopher said.
“My morals need a lot of supporting.”
The entire way to the airport, Christopher and Theresa talked about all his favorite Clock Island books—The Ghost Machine, Skulls & Skullduggery, and especially The Secret of Clock Island.
“Why is that one so good?” Theresa asked.
“That’s the one where the Mastermind adopted a girl who came to the island. She gets to live there with him forever.”
Christopher glanced shyly at Lucy.
It was Lucy who introduced Christopher to the Clock Island books. When the social worker picked him up from the hospital after his parents were declared DOA, she asked him if there were any grown-ups he wanted to stay with for a little while since they couldn’t locate any relatives.
He told her, “Miss Lucy.”
That was how, for one week, Lucy got to be Christopher’s mother. It was summer when she received the call during an evening shift at the bar where she worked while school was out. A co-worker drove her to the police station and then drove them to Lucy’s house. Christopher, still in shock, said nothing in the car.
The bar manager was nice enough to give her paid time off while she stayed with the frightened and traumatized little boy around the clock. She’d put down a sleeping bag on the floor by her bed, and given him every extra blanket she could borrow from her roommates—who, for once in their lives, kept the noise down in the house. Desperate to get Christopher talking, she pulled a box from under her bed. When she left Maine for California, she had taken an airplane. She had two suitcases with her. One full of clothes. One full of books. The Clock Island books were the only ones that made the cut. She told him to pick a book, and she would read it to him. He chose The Moonlight Carnival, Clock Island Book Thirty-Eight. Why? Probably because the cover caught his eye—the floating Ferris wheel, the winged roller coaster, and the little boy dressed like a circus ringmaster. It was one of her favorite covers too. She tucked Christopher into bed with her, and he rested his head on her arm while she read page after page of the book, waiting for him to say something. When they got to the middle, it was bedtime. When he asked if she would read one more chapter to him, those were the first words he’d said since she’d brought him to her house. And it was the moment she knew she’d do anything for him, anything to make him happy, to keep him safe, to give him a life full of love.
The day the social worker came to collect him to take him to his first foster home, Christopher didn’t want to let her go. He clung to her neck and sobbed. That day she promised him she would get him back someday. As soon as she could, they would be a family.
As they pulled up to airport departures, she wanted to tuck him into her carry-on bag and take him with her.
Theresa got out of the car and pulled Lucy’s suitcase from the trunk.
“I got you something,” Lucy told Christopher.
“What?”
She took the bag from The Purple Turtle out of her carry-on and gave it to him. He opened the wrapped box with wide eyes and found not one, not two, but three sharks.