Romeo Blue by Phoebe Stone Page B

trust him with anything. Derek and his father had built a wonderful Lincoln Log construction together and then they had gone outside and taken photographs. Derek’s father brought out his camera and took a number of pictures of Derek standing by the house, on the porch, in the hallway. Then Derek brought out his Brownie box camera. But his father protested. “No, no, I don’t look well in photographs. My nose is swollen from a cold I had. Another day, but not today.”
    Why was I becoming so fearful? What was it that seemed to be flying over me like a shadow of a bomber moving over a city? I stayed awake for a long time that night, listening to the waves hammering the rocks below. I kept saying over and over to myself, as the waves broke, I love Derek. I want to be loyal to him. I don’t want to hurt him. Derek had been calling me crazy as a loon recently. Perhaps he was right.
    But after visiting, Derek’s father had set off down the road on foot, walking into Bottlebay, where he said he had parked his car. As he walked along he was humming a tune. He had given Derek a great hug good-bye and he had taken my hand like a true gentleman and pretended to kiss it in a jokey way. Then he had set off down the road. Only now something came back to me. As I lay here in my bed, the tune Derek’s father was humming suddenly played in my mind. How easy itwas to miss things, to not notice things when you were smack in the middle of the soup of your life. Yes, he was clearly humming a song I had heard before. It was the German soldiers’ song called “Lily Marlene.”
    Outside the barracks by the corner light,
    I’ll always stand and wait for you at night.
    We will create a world for two.
    I’ll wait for you the whole night through,
    For you, Lily Marlene,
    For you, Lily Marlene.

I tried to talk to Derek about his father and my fears the next day but he would hear none of it. “But, Derek,” I said.
    And he said, “No. I don’t want you to say anything about my father. He’s my father and whoever or whatever he is, I stand by him.”
    “But, Derek,” I kept saying. “Please just think about this.”
    “Stop worrying,” he said. “He’s family. He’s a photographer, like me. And he’s a great photographer.”
    “No, Derek,” I said. “You must stop seeing him. I don’t like all this. There’s something wrong. Why was he humming that song?”
    “You’ve got rocks in your socks,” said Derek. “It’s a pretty tune. Even you said so. You’ve gone nutty, Fliss.”
    “Well, I haven’t gone round the twist yet,” I said.
    “Yes, you have. That’s just it. You have gone round the twist. Or the bend, as normal people say. Let’s face it, Fliss, you’re just not normal,” Derek said. He looked at me with his eyes that had turned fiery like burning coal.
    “No. Gideon won’t want him in the house here,” I said.
    “Gideon won’t know. He’ll never know unless you tell him,” said Derek.

    “Please,” I said. “Maybe we should just talk to Gideon first.”
    At the mention of Gideon, I became quiet in my heart. I knew the dance was fast approaching and I had not asked him if he would like to go as a chaperone. I certainly hadn’t mentioned Miss Elkin. He hadn’t wanted to take Miss Elkin to the Boiling Pot, so why would he want to go to the dance with her? As The Gram had said, “In case you haven’t noticed, Flissy dear, my children live in the clouds. They are not an ordinary breed. And they cannot marry everyday, regular people.”
    Oh, I felt dreadful on all counts. Everywhere I turned, I felt sorrowful. Poor Miss Elkin. Poor Derek. Poor me! I almost wished I had my old bear, Wink, back. He was always so levelheaded when I was not. He always had that steady smile I could trust, even if it was a sewn-on smile that never changed. I wished then that I wasn’t twelve. Twelve-year-olds do not believe in bears and I needed now to believe in something.

    Yes, I tried to listen to Derek and forget