"And guess who I want to invite."
Anne looked back at the beaming child. "You can't be serious. I don't think it's a good idea to get you all together in one place. You might slip and be overheard by someone and--"
"I've already called for approval," Merriam said, brushing the sand off her legs. "It's okay if we meet on the island, but only for a day and a night. The date's been set, the eighteenth of this month."
"On the island?" Charles asked.
"Uh huh. The eighteenth is a Saturday. We could go over that day, spend the night, and return home on Sunday. What do you think?"
Anne grinned. "Since you have authorization and it's all arranged, I think it's a great idea!"
"Me too," Charles said, wishing he had thought of it.
***
The Livingston's arrived at mid-afternoon on the eighteenth, and were sipping iced tea in the large ultra-modern structure at one end of the island when the others appeared. After warm embraces and much chatter, the children put on their bathing suits and left together for a few hours of private time on the beach. The parents smiled approvingly as they watched the nine boys and three girls run through the dense green forest toward the water.
It was a beautiful day, a blue sky holding only the bright afternoon sun, not a cloud in sight, water lapping up on the sand in gentle waves prompted by a passing ferry. Frank Jessops reached the water first and high-stepped until knee deep, then dived under, the other children following. Playing as dolphins, someone might have thought as three boys suddenly burst forth from under water with a teammate balanced on strong shoulders, while the others took great leaps and dives in synchronous movements.
Back on the beach they stretched out on the sand side by side, laughing softly and gazing at the sky. From above, the scene could have been viewed as a canvas painted by a master artist, the children representing faultless specimens of the human family, each one proportionally perfect with exquisite features. A race of young gods from ancient mythology, such a painting might have been called.
"Let's make a circle," Carlton Matthews said as he took Merriam's hand. They quickly gathered around and began circling, the ring of happy, dancing children observed by a pleasure boat skimming across the water, the occupants waving, smiling. Faster and faster they ran, the sounds of laughter reaching a crescendo, and then fading as they collapsed on the sand and watched as their dizziness moved sky, sun, and trees in revolving patterns.
They lay there until Robert Ames thought of something else to do: tell each other about their new lives in America. He said, "My biggest problem was getting rid of the accent. It was only when I began to speak as though my nose was stopped up, like other New Yorkers, did people stop asking me where I was from."
"That wasn't my problem," Frank Jessops said as he lifted his long legs skyward. "The most difficult thing for me was to curtail my athletic abilities and appear average, at least to some extent. Many of the kids seem to be so uncoordinated. How about you, Merriam?"
She grinned, leaned over on an elbow. "It's been difficult keeping my mouth shut about the teaching methods being used. They're so crude you wonder how the children ever learn anything." She looked at Lisa Jackson. "What was your biggest hurdle?"
Lisa shook her head and frowned. "Getting used to the food, especially the weekend barbecues. The first time I was served a hot dog, I stared at it for a moment and walked away. My stomach still turns just thinking about it." She laughed. "The Sunday afternoon ritual later included hamburgers, steaks, shish kebabs, and spare ribs, with mostly casseroles served during the week. Mother said I should learn to eat everything so I'd fit in with the other neighborhood kids. I'm trying."
Merriam turned to Curtis O'Conner. The little blonde-haired boy with the tight curls looked away, then said, his voice soft, "I don't know about the rest of you, but I've been feeling lonely. I haven't made many friends and my parents are uncomfortable about me asking someone over to spend the night. All I do is go to school, read, listen to the radio, and wish I was back home. "
Claudia Andrade got up and walked across the circle to where he was sitting. She put her arms around him, said, "Curtis, call me anytime you're lonesome and we'll talk." She reached up and brushed a tear from his eye. "Believe it or not, you may be getting acclimated to conditions here faster than we are. I'm talking about the emotions, the tears. You've tapped into a collective sense of depression, which you can learn how to handle. We still have to do that. Now, if you want to cry, just go ahead and I'll hold you." She pulled the little eight-year-old boy close and let him weep openly. Finally Curtis drew back, rubbing his red eyes. "I'm okay now, feel much better. Thank you."
The other eleven softly clapped their hands, and Merriam said, "Let's go on around the circle. We can learn from each other." When the last one, Simon Ellenberg, had his say, the children discussed how helpful their adoptive parents were, the different local environments in which they were growing up, and their plans for the future. Then they fell silent once more and sat in a line together staring at the water, the late afternoon sun behind them casting warm rays on their beautifully tanned bodies.
Finally, as the sun dropped below the tree line, Carlton Matthews got up and made an imprint of his hand in the wet sand, saying, "May each one of you make your impression on mine, symbolically linking us once more as an unbreakable chain."
"Together as one,” spoke each child while pressing a palm into the sandy indentation.
***
The annual reunions on the island continued for several years, with numerous telephone contacts made during the school terms. Even though they lived in various parts of the country, the twelve were never out of touch with each other for long. When a boy asked Claudia Andrade for her first date, she delayed an answer until she could call Curtis O'Connor for advice on what would be expected. Curtis said he didn't know, to ask her parents. Soon the twelve were in coast-to-coast communication with each other on the topic of sex.
Other calls focused on how to handle IQ tests after two of them startled their teachers with supernormal scores, how to overcome periods of being homesick, and more talk about why the American people eat as they do. "It's not so much what they eat," Lisa Jackson said to Merriam on the phone from Dallas, "it's how much they eat. It is a wonder that everyone is not obese."
They also talked about the civil rights movement, hula-hoops, backyard bomb shelters, Elvis Presley, ridiculous television shows, the Beatles, and rock music.
In the summer of nineteen sixty-three, they applauded the Mercury 9 flight into space the previous May. With L. Gordon Cooper Jr. in the capsule, a 22-orbit endurance record was set while sending back the first TV pictures from space. From the wet sand Frank Jessops and Frederick Craig built a rocket and spacecraft poised for lift-off while others fashioned a large ball of sand to represent the moon.
Curtis O'Connor asked, "How long do you think it will be before the first astronaut walks on the lunar surface?"
"It will be in this decade," Merriam said, standing on the round mass of sand, "and I bet they land on the Sea of Tranquility."
"Why are they doing this?" Lisa asked. "It's going to cost billions of dollars, and probably some lives, and what will they have to show for their efforts?"
"Rocks from the moon eventually," Carlton Matthews said. "But the bottom line is to push through technological barriers and restructure scientific beliefs. Let them have their moments of glory and we'll celebrate with them. Remember what Shakespeare said, 'knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven'."
Lisa
