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 shook her head. "They're flying the wrong way if they want to get there."
"Have patience, Lisa," Simon Ellenberg said, "they're learning. Maybe one of these days they'll even move past the idea of the absolute existence of matter."
Claudia laughed. "And solve the quantum measurement problem."
"All things are possible," Simon said.
***
In November of that year they were shocked by the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas. They wondered if their people would someday be mentioned in connection with a government cover-up.
Chapter 3
In the summer of nineteen sixty-five, after graduating from high school, all twelve as valedictorians, the young people came back to the island without their parents. A meeting had been scheduled with the group's director, a time for decisions about their college education and careers. But play came first for the teenagers.
They built a bonfire on the beach in the late afternoon, frolicked in the water, teased each other about the hippie look-the long hair and the mod clothes they had grown accustomed to wearing. There was talk about love-ins, rock festivals, and the drug scene. With a battery operated radio they danced to the Beatles' She Loves You, drank Cokes and munched on chicken and chips, and laughingly reflected on their lives growing up in America. It was another happy gathering of beautiful young men and women who had volunteered to be a part of an operation called Sigma.
Later they assembled in small groups preparing for the interview scheduled for eight o'clock that night with Alexandria Day who lived on the island. "I don't know about the others," Julius Andrews said, "but I'm going to be a rancher."
"Too isolated a life for me," Curtis O'Connor said. "I'd rather live in a big city, but I have no idea what I'll be doing. I'll leave that up to Alexandria."
"What if she tells you to enter medical school and become a doctor?" Julius asked with a smile.
"Then that would be her decision, but you know as well as I do that she wouldn't choose a medical career for any of us, not if the original plan is to be followed."
Lisa overheard him, leaned back on her elbows, and said, "Curtis, do you really think we can accomplish all that Alexandria has in mind?"
He nodded. "With a little help from the others around the country. I've heard our people are everywhere, in just about every walk of life. They're looking to the twelve of us as the future strategic policy team, to be in position shortly after the turn of the century. We've got our work cut out for us, and I'm excited about the role I'm going to play, whatever that may be."