Chapter 1Chapter 1 THE ISLAND DOESN'T LOOK ALL that magical. From the way Mom's going on about this place, I expect to see fairies in the fields that flash by outside the car window. "It's like straight out of a storybook," she says, turning around in the passenger seat to smile at me. "You're gonna love it." She said the same thing when she pitched the idea of me spending my summer on Prince Edward Island. Said the island feels like magic and it would do you some good . (That's Mom code for You haven't left the apartment for anything but school since your aquarium meltdown, and I'm starting to think there's something seriously wrong with you .) So here I am, sitting in the back seat of a Canadian rental car, doing pretty much exactly what I'd be doing back in New York--taking pictures. Mom nods to the camera in my hands. "I don't want you hiding behind that thing all summer." "I'm not hiding ," I say. "You're here to have fun, Lucy." She's got a big smile on her face to demonstrate all this so-called fun I'm supposed to have. "Make some friends." "I have friends," I say. Mom raises an eyebrow at me. I scrunch down in my seat. " Had friends," I mutter. My insides suddenly feel like we're crossing that super-tall bridge from Nova Scotia again--like I'm teetering in the sky. My stomach flip-flops at the memory of Vienna and how she looked at me sitting on that aquarium floor, bawling. Or actually, how she didn't look at me. How after everyone was done laughing, she turned away like she didn't even know me. But the heat in her cheeks spread to mine anyway, and I could feel it, loud and clear: My best friend in the whole wide world was ashamed of me. My stomach flips again. It's been three weeks, and I can still feel it all so clearly. I try to push the memory away by looking out the window at the bajillionth green field we've passed since we crossed the sky-high bridge. "Growing up here was such an adventure," Mom says, looking out. If it's so great, then why haven't I been here since I was a toddler? That's what I want to ask, anyway. But I don't. I could feel from the moment Mom said a four-letter word at the Halifax airport baggage carousel that this was not a good day for questions. So I also don't explain that making scads of new friends is about as appealing as the piles of cow dung in these fields. I haven't even talked to Vienna since she decided I was an embarrassment. Because I've decided something too: Friends are seriously overrated. Whatever happens this summer, friends--or people at all, really--are not part of the plan. So far it doesn't look like people are going to be a problem. Prince Edward Island seems to be mostly cows and fields and red dirt roads, with sparkling blue water in the distance. I'm not sure about this summer being all that fun or magical, but at least it's far--far from ex -best friends and laughing classmates and crying over claustrophobic octopuses. I crane my neck to see behind us, thinking of how far away our apartment is in New York. Good. It was way too peoply there. I look down at the little screen on the back of my camera. All my pictures are coming out blurry or way too bright. Shooting a picture from the back of a moving car probably isn't helping, plus it's smack in the middle of the day. That's the worst time for light. And a good photograph is all about the light. That's what Dad says, anyway. He's an engineer, so he knows how everything works. A photograph, he says, is drawing with light . Apparently, I'm a pretty crummy artist. Or maybe it's because that guy at the pawnshop sold this camera as is , which Dad explained is shoptalk for "If it doesn't work, it's your problem." I point the lens straight at a cow who has his head hanging over a fence, facing the road. At least I got a camera that can zoom in a little. It lets me take pics without getting too close. Good for cows--and people. I check the image on the little screen. Blurry again. I'll never get the light right. I sigh and lean back against the seat. "So you're for sure, for sure that he's okay with all this?" "He who?" Mom asks. "He... your dad... my..." I try to find the right word. "What do I even call him?" "Grandpa." "I barely know the guy," I say. "He's still your grandfather." "That I haven't seen since I was five." Mom sighs. I'm exasperating her. "Well, his name's John," she says, and then shakes her head. "But don't call him that. He's pretty old-fashioned. Maybe 'Mr. Cannon'?" "Or 'Sarge'?" Dad says with a laugh. I don't get the joke. Mom twists in her seat to face me again. "Lucy, I went ahead and cut all the tags out of your shirts." Dad exhales heavily, and even though I can't see his face, I feel his eyes roll. "She's not five anymore, Laura," he says. "I know that ," Mom says. Her skin is all pushed together between her eyebrows. "I didn't want the tags to set her off." Mom says this last part kind of quiet, like I'm not meant to hear. Like we don't all remember how I used to cry about shirt tags and socks lining up and things feeling, I don't know, like a lot. And then Mom's saying something about how she's always the one who has to deal with it (it = me), and Dad's saying how he'd help more if she'd let him, and I don't even know why they're fighting about my stupid tags, because Dad's right, I'm twelve now, and I don't get upset about stuff like that anymore. Well, I'm a lot better about hiding it, anyway. "I'm fine ," I say, not because this is true but because they're fighting about me (like always). So it's my job to stop it. "That was a great idea about the tags, Mom." They don't hear me. They just keep on snapping at each other, and their sharp words slice into my stomach. If I were at home, I'd stop their feelings from getting to me by closing my bedroom door and smashing my head down deep into my pillow. But I'm not home. I'm here, in the middle of nowhere. At least I have my camera. Dad says it's like my own personal firewall, which is something computer people use to block hackers from stealing all their information. I guess he's right: My camera stops all the big feelings from hacking into me. Maybe if Mom had let me take it to the aquarium, I would have focused on taking pictures instead of on that octopus and his scared eyes. I look through the viewfinder and focus on the green grass and blue sky and reddish dirt instead of the fighting. I wave to the cows as we get back on the main road. They look bored, plodding along, no overthinking or overfeeling. They probably never need a firewall. After a while Mom's and Dad's lips aren't moving anymore. I notice other things too: Dad's knuckles, white as they grip the steering wheel. His jaw, clenched tight. It makes me feel tight. Mom's staring straight ahead. She picks at a hangnail. The buzzy feeling coming off her buzzes right into me. Mom says I notice too much. After the aquarium she said, "Lucy, noticing every little thing is what gets you all tangled up inside." Maybe she's right, because right now my stomach suddenly feels like I'm on a roller coaster. And the buzz inside me has made my brain buzz. What if this summer-on-the-island plan is a big fat mistake? Or what if this Grandpa character doesn't like me? Or worse, what if he does ? What if... he's a hugger? Talk about a violation of my no-people policy. Mom stops picking her nails and turns back to me with a smile that doesn't reach her eyes. For a second I think maybe she sees, maybe she notices what's going on inside me, how the fighting and the feelings bouncing around in this car make my body feels like it's two sizes too small. Just like at the aquarium. But she just says, "Let's go over your strategies one last time." (Okay, so clearly I didn't get my powers of observation from her .) I recite my strategies : deep breaths; counting to ten; oh, and not letting anyone close enough to make me feel anything. (I don't say that last one out loud.) "It's only six weeks," she adds. "And you can always call me." I nod. Except, if she doesn't get me when we're two feet apart, she's definitely not going to across eight hundred miles. "It would be different if my mom were still around--" Mom cuts herself short, adjusts her blouse, and shakes her head. "But it's just him now, and he can't handle it. He doesn't do meltdowns." "Laura," Dad says. "Lucy's told you she doesn't like--" Mom waves her hand in the air. "Whatever you want to call them. It would be too much for him." Too much . That's me, Lucy Sinclair: too much. That's probably why my parents are sending me here this summer, no matter what Mom says about me needing to get out or having a magical summer break. The truth is, my parents need a break... from me. But what if I'm too much for me ? How do you take a break from yourself? I don't say that, of course, because Dad's pulling onto a red dirt road, and Mom's straightening her blouse again and checking her lipstick in the mirror and saying "This is it," and the buzzy feeling coming off her is reaching a new, frenzied high inside me. So I just point my camera at the forest-green house in front of me and push the words and the feelings down deep, where they belong. Excerpted from The Mysterious Magic of Lighthouse Lane by Erin Stewart All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. 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