Liberty Island

Part One

Late in the afternoon, the girls were on the beach—a bit grubby and tired, but the good kind that comes after a long, merry day.

At first, they had been so terrified that Aunt Phillipa would discover that they didn’t have a chaperone after all, they thought every passing boat was coming to fetch them.

To ward off the possibility, they tried holding their breath until the boats went by, like one does when passing a cemetery, but it turned out that a carriage passes a cemetery a good deal faster than boats passed islands, so they had to give that up.

Audrey came up with an incantation to use instead: “Please make that boat go another way, for on this island we wish to stay.” It worked like a charm.

(Well, it was a charm. So it worked like it was supposed to.)

Now that it had been a whole week, they were finally comfortable.

“I used to want to grow up,” Sally said, as she watched the gulls wheeling overhead. “Not anymore.”

“Me neither. You have to get married or be a spinster,” Audrey replied. “If you marry, you have to be domesticated, and your husband might not even keep his hair. And nobody wants to be a spinster like Aunt Phillipa.”

“Not all spinsters are crotchety,” Victoria said. “Some are young and wear smart hats. Of course they go to committees all the time.”

“Well, if it’s going to committees, or doing chores and watching your husband’s hair fall out, I’d rather stay here on this island where I have some liberty,” Sally said.

Lucy, who was making sand angels with her arms and legs, said, rather idly, “I suppose that’s what we should call it. ‘Liberty Island.’”

They’d been trying to settle on a name for days, but four girls with lots of ideas can’t always agree. This felt like a fact, though, not an idea. So “Liberty Island” it was.

From Liberty Island, by Miss Crane