tall and skinny cat, hunched over the keyboard, staring.
Finally she looked up from the screen. “You’re not going to Marina’s?”
“No,” said Willa. “You know what? We had a substitute teacher today. Her name is Miss Green-Wart — that’s how it sounds! I couldn’t see any warts, but Marina says she’s a witch.”
Her mother gave a quick laugh. “Did she cast a spell on you?”
“No, but she made me sit beside Rex Stockwell! And she didn’t like my pictures of . . . Mom, what does my father look like?”
“Willa, you don’t have a father.” Her mother’s voice was firm and final.
Willa sighed. That’s what her mother always said. And that’s where the conversation always ended. But not this time, because Willa went on, not satisfied and still asking questions. “Mom, I had to have a father to start with. What did he look like?”
“I don’t remember. I’ve totally forgotten,” came the brief reply.
“How could you forget?” Willa asked in disbelief. “Don’t you have a photograph?”
“No.”
“You have to. Everyone has a photograph of their father.”
“Not everyone. Not you.”
“How come you don’t have a photograph of my father?”
“Willa, I don’t take photographs.”
This was true. Willa’s mother was not the kind of person who brought out a camera whenever a cake was lit up with birthday candles or the sky was lit up by a sunset. She didn’t even have a camera. The only photographs they had were those from Willa’s grandmother.
But Willa was not ready to give up. She was too curious about her father. “What happened to my father? Where is he?”
“Willa, as far as we are concerned, he doesn’t exist.”
“Oh, come on!” Willa was getting frustrated. “You always say that! He has to be somewhere, unless he’s dead. So where is he?”
Willa’s mother sighed. Then she just sat still, looking at Willa. “Willa,” she sighed again, “I really don’t know where your father is. The last time I saw him, you were just a baby. It was on an island down south. When I left the island, I had only little baby you and an overnight bag. And that’s all! I never heard from him again. And he doesn’t matter anymore. Other things do matter. Like getting supper ready before we starve to death!” Mrs. Everett smiled at her daughter. “Do you want to help me?”
Actually, Willa wanted to know more about her father, but she didn’t think her mother would tell her any more right then, so she went with her into the kitchen.
Willa put on her frilly purple dress for supper. She pretended she was a princess and her mother pretended she was the queen. Her mother played servant, too, using different voices for queen and servant. But sometimes she got mixed up, and it was the queen who was serving the feast and the servant who was eating it.
If I had a father, thought Willa, he could play with us, too. He could be the king.
Alone in bed that night, Willa thought some more about her father. What did he look like, really? Where did he live? On an island, her mother had said. A desert island? Maybe she and her mother and father had been shipwrecked on that island when she was a baby. Mrs. Everett and Willa made it back home, but not her father. He was stranded on a desert island. How did he survive? What did he eat? Was he even still alive?
THREE
The next day, Miss Grunwort was back at school. This time, Willa and Marina waited very quietly at their seats for her to start. They knew now not to expect a warning whistle.
“Today,” said Miss Grunwort, “we’re going to write letters to our fathers. Nice long letters, not just ‘Dear Daddy, I love you’ — the way you did when you were in kindergarten. Then we’ll take our pictures and letters and paste them onto construction paper to make Father’s Day cards.”
Willa liked writing letters. She often typed letters to her mother on the computer at home. But how do you write a letter to a father you’ve never met?
Willa did her best. She wrote:
Dear Daddy, Dad, father,
How are you? I am fine. I’m eight now, you know.
I hope you have enough food to eat on the desert island.
Are you all alone? Are you lonely?
Happy father’s Day!
From your daughter,
Willa Evertt
But she had no way to send him the letter. Except maybe in a bottle.
Miss Grunwort passed by and read Willa’s letter. Once again, she didn’t approve. “Willa, I meant a real letter. Do you think your father will want to read this pretend one?”
Willa felt hurt. It was a real letter, as real as she could make it. She didn’t know what to say to the teacher, how to explain about her father.
And she didn’t get a chance to because the teacher went on: “Try to write another letter, telling your father about real things.” Then she left to check someone else’s work.
Marina, who had read Willa’s letter, whispered to her, “Tell her you have to pretend because you don’t have a real father!”
“But this is a real card,” Willa insisted. “I do too have a father! My mother told me.”
Marina looked at her in astonishment. But Willa didn’t get a chance to explain further because Miss Grunwort interrupted with: “Willa, pay attention to your work, not your friend, or you’ll have to sit somewhere else!”
Willa was very careful not to talk with Marina again — she didn’t want to have to sit beside Rex. She didn’t even say anything when Marina showed her a picture she had drawn of a lady with yellow hair and covered with green spots. Underneath Marina had written, “Miss Green Wart has them! She’s a witch!”
Not until recess could Willa explain. “My mother finally told me something about my father. You know what? She said she left him on a desert island when I was a baby. We were shipwrecked. My Mom and I got away, but he didn’t.”
“That’s what she told you?” Marina stared at Willa in disbelief. “I’ve never heard of anybody being shipwrecked. What else did she say? Did your father drown?”
“I hope not,” Willa replied. “And you don’t know my mother. I had a hard enough time getting that much information out of her. She hates talking about my father.”
“Shipwrecked,” Marina repeated. “I can hardly believe it. Maybe your mother was just telling you a story. Maybe she’s hiding the truth.”
“Well,”
