Becca at Sea Read online

  * * *

  Over the side, Becca saw brown weed, sand through green water, the blackness of sand dollars. Then the bottom vanished.

  When she looked up, Gran had steered them around the point.

  “Where do you want to go?” Gran cried, zooming them over the March water, pale with the blue pale sky of spring.

  “Let’s go all the way around the island!” Becca shouted. “Hey, look! There’s a kayak coming out of your bay!”

  “Maybe it’s the tree-chopping man, the guy clearing for a cabin,” Gran hollered over the buzzing motor. “Okay, then, let’s rip!”

  Becca lay against the side of the Zodiac. Seawater splattered into her hair. The kayak near Gran’s bay became a speck in the distance as the Zodiac skimmed southward, hopping ripples.

  “Look, another helicopter,” Becca called. “That’s the third one I’ve seen.”

  “Maybe the pilots are practicing!”

  There went Bouldings’ cabin. There went Mayfield Point. Past Camas Island and its light. Past the sea-lion rocks — now, for some reason, empty of sea lions.

  “We used to row here when your mother was little,” Gran said, “in the days before we went modern.” She patted the motor. “Now that was a long day.”

  “Can I drive?” Becca asked suddenly.

  It didn’t look so hard.

  “I guess you can give it a go.”

  Gran showed Becca how to turn the handle to speed up and slow down, how to push the tiller to steer and where to attach the safety clip to her life jacket.

  Then she sat beside her while Becca steered along beside the cliffs.

  “Usually there are cormorants all over these cliffs,” Gran said.

  Another helicopter clattered over, and Becca motored across the mouth of Admiral’s Bay toward Sandy Point.

  “I wouldn’t mind going a bit faster!” she said.

  She sat up on her knees to see what was coming. Only sea, shore and trees, she supposed, and the snowy mountains of Vancouver Island. The blue and gold and green of a sunny day on Gran’s island.

  She turned the control, and the Zodiac shot around Sandy Point like a creature running for its life.

  * * *

  But it was a creature running into life. It burst into the sound of a million gulls, the blur of thousands of seabirds hovering like a noisy cloud above the water.

  “Not just gulls,” Gran cried. “There’s an osprey! And eagles!”

  “And look!” Becca had seen Gran’s sea many colors, but never like this. It looked like milk had spilled into its blue — and what blue! Turquoise, aquamarine, azure — there wasn’t a word for this kind of blue.

  “What is it?” Becca screamed over the sound of the gulls and the motor.

  “Milt!” Gran was kneeling right up at the bow, tugging frantically at her binoculars in the backpack.

  “Milk? Why milk?”

  “Not milk — MILT!” Gran startled Becca by grinning hugely. “Herring, Becca!”

  The Zodiac bounded across the water with great leaps. Becca sat down hard on the bottom boards, clutching the tiller.

  It wasn’t just birds screaming with frenzy that she had to look out for. Hundreds of boats were out — trawlers, skiffs, runabouts, Coast Guard and Fisheries ships. Seaplanes and helicopters buzzed overhead, whining like crazed seabirds themselves.

  “What are they doing?” Becca shouted.

  “They’re waiting to hear if the herring are ripe!”

  “Right? Right about what?”

  “Not right — RIPE,” shouted Gran.

  What would make herring ripe, Becca wondered — unless, of course, you were talking about smell. Kippered herring, rollmops... yech.

  “Cut the motor!” Gran yelled.

  “What do you mean, ripe? What’s going on?”

  “This time of year the herring come to spawn! They lay their eggs in the seaweed and then the babies hatch and you can see them break out and swim away. Just like little ghost fish! Transparent! Be careful where you’re going! Look out for that sea lion!”

  Gran cowered and shielded her head. A great swoosh of sea almost swamped them.

  With all the seals and sea lions breeching and diving, the Zodiac pitched and bucked. Sea lions’ urgent barking, gulls’ skirling, the weird, high laughter of eagles and the helicopters’ clatter filled Becca’s ears. Tails slapped. Beaks ripped and tore and sliced. Eagles stretched out knife-sharp talons and raked up their prey. Water streamed as seals and sea lions dove and surfaced, exploding out of the water with their mouths bristling with fish.

  “The fishermen aren’t allowed to start fishing until the herring are actually laying their eggs — when they’re ripe,” Gran hollered, her binoculars trained on ospreys and eagles. “That’s why everyone’s hanging about here. They’re waiting for the Fisheries people to tell them they can start!”

  “The sea lions aren’t waiting!” Becca yelled, pushing the tiller hard over to dodge a fat seal.

  Gran didn’t seem to hear her. Gulls flapped madly, splashed down and lifted themselves out, gullets stopped with herring. Wheeling and crying, beaks open, tongues stiff with noise-making — wings beat, throats vibrated.

  Becca’s brain buzzed. Her arm burned with the effort of holding the boat steady. The sea was full of burbling foam and shifting colors. Seals and sea lions hurled themselves around in careless frenzy and the boat heaved with the surges of their diving. Becca had to duck as an eagle whooshed right over her, so close that she could see its yellow eye, its hooked beak, and feel the wind of its flight in her hair.

  “Bonapartes,” Gran hollered. “Immature glaucous-winged. Look, there’s another osprey, and another one. Is that a common tern? Mergansers. Harlequins. And here are the cormorants, look! Ow!”

  Great lumps of sea hit Becca in the side of her head.

  “We’re going to sink!” she yelled. “A sea lion might land on us! It’s so loud! And wet! It’s time to go!”

  Suddenly, Gran was there with Becca. She cut the motor.

  “We’ll just drift! That won’t be so scary.”

  “Drift! We’re going to be swamped!”

  The hurly-burly of millions of seabirds and fish and sea mammals and boats made the Zodiac heave and tremble like a helpless herring itself.

  The sea was black with fish. Dark backs turned to Becca, so many she couldn’t see past them, rank after rank, belly to back, flank to flank.

  “It looks like the sea’s growing fur,” she yelled, leaning on the side of the Zodiac. Herring fins poked out of the water everywhere. They speared up like newly sprung grass, like a dark lawn.

  The boat lurched suddenly.

  “Don’t fall in!” Gran shouted. “We’ll never get the stink out of you! They call it finning when they gather like this!”

  Becca hung on to the edge of the Zodiac for dear life. She lay on the flotteur to peer into the water. It molded itself around her as if it was protecting her from the teeth and jaws of creatures at home in the sea.

  “Laying eggs is an agitated business,” Gran said.

  She spoke with such certainty that Becca thought maybe she’d actually laid eggs herself.

  The side of the Zodiac was really quite comfortable, if only the greedy seals and sea lions wouldn’t keep heaving the sea around and threatening to whack her with their tails.

  Slosh! There they went again, pitching from the force of another attacking sea lion. The side squished around Becca and her face almost dipped into the sea.

  In a moment, in the space of a breath, a wet whiskered face thrust into hers. Pinched nostrils and wide eyes, fur so wet — so real! — and so close! And herring in its mouth, staring up at her!

  Becca shrieked. Her head tipped into the sea, herring and all.

  The seal vanished.

  “Gran!�
�

  Becca’s heart pounded. The floor of the Zodiac buckled, Gran said, “Dear me, I think we’ve sprung a leak,” and from somewhere nearby a man said, “Can I help you?”

  Everything happened at once.

  “Help!” Becca scrambled away from the side. “We’re sinking! We’re going to drown! That seal smelled!”

  “What? What are you hollering about?” shouted Gran. “You’re not going to drown! But what’s happening to our boat?”

  “Can I help you?” Becca heard again, and at the same time she saw that parts of the Zodiac sagged. A chambre flottante sighed and collapsed before her eyes.

  “We’ve got the pump,” she said, wiping her herringy face. She didn’t want to end up among the seals and sea lions. “Quick! We have to get out of here! Did you see that seal? It practically attacked me!”

  “It was probably just curious,” Gran told her. “Look at that eagle! It must have thirty fish in its beak!”

  Becca didn’t know what to do. The foot pump was there, but she didn’t see how she could use it. The floorboards were too loose to stand on and anyway, you weren’t supposed to stand up in a boat. Gran was watching eagles, not even thinking about how to get a flabby Zodiac out of danger. Even now the boat’s droopy side tilted toward the sea. Water sloshed over it and right there, all around them, wild creatures gorged and argued, snatched and tore with no care for Becca or Gran or their limp little boat.

  “Gran?!”

  “Excuse me.” Again Becca heard the friendly voice. It was the man in the kayak. “Are you having trouble?” he asked.

  “How do you do?” Gran said, lowering her binoculars. “Can I help you?”

  “Actually, I was wondering if I could help you,” the man said. “I don’t suppose you have a pump with you...?”

  “We do,” Becca said quickly. She rummaged under the backpacks and extra life jackets until she found it. Her hair was dripping from her unexpected face wash. Her heart was thumping too hard.

  Mr. Kayak paddled around to the valve nearest Becca and unscrewed it.

  “It’s a new boat,” Becca told him. “It can’t have a leak.”

  “This is new?” asked Mr. Kayak.

  “New to us. Second hand, really.”

  “Well, it may not have a real leak,” he said. “Maybe you got something stuck in the valve. It isn’t screwed on properly. Hey!” He had to clutch on to the side as a seal surfaced right by his kayak.

  “Maybe there’s a problem with the capet et buchon,” Gran suggested. “Or the membrane fixé.”

  Now that she’d made her contribution, Gran went back to her binoculars — as though nothing was wrong with the boat at all, as though they were not in danger of slithering in among herring and seals, terrifying sea lions and birds berserk with plenty.

  “There’s a problem with the gasket,” Mr. Kayak said, looking at Gran with wonder. “Not the membrane fixé — although that’s got old seaweed on it, which isn’t too swift. Never mind, I’ve cleaned it off. This is a very mature new boat, if you don’t mind my saying so. The gasket — anybody got any gum?”

  “Would soggy Kleenex do?” Becca asked. “I mean, it’s just seawater, not, you know — ”

  Mr. Kayak didn’t seem to mind the damp tissue. He stuck a bit in the leaky valve. “There, that should fix the seal for now. Where’s the pump?”

  “How are you going to work it?”

  “Special exercises,” Mr. Kayak said. He fit the nozzle into the valve. “By the way, how do you do? My name’s Macallan. Mac for short. What’s yours? You look about the same age as someone I know. Whoops!”

  Another sudden tilt almost had Becca and Mac tipped into the sea.

  “Help! Becca. And Gran’s Isobel. She’s …”

  She didn’t know quite what to say.

  “She doesn’t have a strong sense of self-preservation?” asked Mac. “Why isn’t she terrified? Or a little anxious, at least?”

  “How do you do?” Gran said abruptly, swinging her binoculars to take in Mac.

  “Pleased to meet you. Bird dung is a real hazard,” he replied, and wiped his arm. “Although in some cultures, getting pooped on is considered fortunate. And now — ”

  He held the foot pump between his hands and squeezed. Muscles jumped in his chest. Becca could see them moving under his T-shirt. The pump snorted and gusted rhythmically, one-two-three.

  “It’s kind of you to help us,” Gran said, finally paying attention to something besides wildlife. “Thank you.”

  Becca prodded the side of the Zodiac. It was already firmer.

  “What if we’d sunk!” she exclaimed.

  “Well,” said Gran, “there are two other chambres flottantes intact. That’s why I didn’t let it distract me from what’s important!”

  What could be more important than staying alive? Becca didn’t think the two other air chambers would have saved them. Even now a fisherman was zooming right near them, his wake splattering into the boat. If Mac hadn’t pumped up that side, they’d be swimming right now.

  If she hadn’t been stuck in the boat with Gran, Becca would have stomped off.

  Mac screwed the cap on the valve, clutching at the Zodiac to keep himself steady.

  “You’ll have to fix it properly,” he said like a boat doctor, “but that should last until you get home. Not that I know anything about boats, of course.”

  “They’re going nuts!” Becca exclaimed, as a sea lion choked on its enormous mouthful.

  Gran lowered the binoculars and smiled.

  “Be careful in that kayak,” she said to Mac. “Winds variable, five to ten knots.”

  Mac laughed. “Right-o,” he agreed. “It’s a nice day. If you’re into zoological turbulence.”

  He saluted with his paddle and moved away.

  “I’m sure I’ve met that man before,” Gran said, looking after him. “His voice sounds familiar. And what a wonderful name! Macallan is one of my favorite single malts.”

  “What’s single malt? My hair’s all wet,” Becca said. “My face tastes of herring. Do you think that seal was trying to kiss me or bite my head off?”

  “Let’s say it kissed you,” Gran said, putting her binoculars away at last. “And we should go now, I think. It’s going to get dark and we don’t have lights.”

  “I don’t want to go,” Becca said. It was the last afternoon of her seventeen days. Now that they had drifted to the margins of the herring madness, she didn’t want to leave the sea, or the hollering birds, or the eggs that Gran said would hatch like little ghost fish. She didn’t want to leave the Zodiac, or even Gran herself.

  But she steered them back around Sandy Point. Clamor and clatter were suddenly silenced and she headed past sandstone cliffs, across Admiral’s Bay, past Camas Island light.

  “The seals will probably be too stuffed to swim back here tonight,” she said. “Their mums will be up with them in the night.”

  She steered, and as she watched the island slip past, she thought. She thought about the seventeen pearls she had found in the moonlight, and Frank looking out of the fog, and her boots filled with seawater. She thought of swimming in March, and flying over the sea in the Zodiac. She thought of Mac’s muscles jumping as he pumped up the Zodiac, and the smell of trees’ blood, and the sound of her own blood rushing in her ears.

  There had been no Mum and Dad, no aunts or cousins or friends. It had just been Becca and Gran for seventeen days, and none of it had been sad or boring. Annoying sometimes, but never dull.

  She headed the Zodiac into Gran’s bay. The setting sun flashed, reflected from windows on cabins across the water. Gran moved to the stern and turned off the motor. The Zodiac drifted up to the sandstone in the twilight, and Becca dipped her hand in the cold sea.

  “If you count my pearls as days, this is the last one,” Becca said. “But
if you count them as adventures, I still have lots to go.”

  3. The Hike

  When Becca returned to Gran’s island in May, she came with Dad and her cousins Lucy and Alicia.

  “I have too much to do before summer,” said Mum, kissing her goodbye. “I’ll come then. I love you.”

  Becca made the I-love-you sign with her fingers and Dad drove away.

  “No way am I spending the whole weekend sweating in a garden,” Lucy declared as soon as she got in the car.

  “Life is too short,” Alicia agreed.

  Becca sighed.

  Alicia was fourteen and Lucy was twelve. Becca admired how definite they were, but she couldn’t help hoping that Mac would be around, or someone, anyway, who would be better company than her cousins. She imagined someone certain but not bossy. A person who had good ideas for excursions, but who didn’t mind listening to someone else once in a while. A friend.

  On the other hand, Lucy and Alicia could help turn the compost.

  “I mean, I don’t mind digging for a while but this is supposed to be a holiday,” Lucy went on.

  “There are lots of other things to do,” Becca reminded them.

  “We know,” Alicia said. “We’ve been going there longer than you.”

  Maybe, Becca thought. But you’ve never found seventeen pearls.

  She thought about her pearls as Dad drove them on to the first ferry, and the second ferry, and the third ferry. And when they arrived there was Gran, threatening to serve them kippered herring for dinner because it was Frank’s favorite.

  * * *

  Frank came up to the communal garden with them the next morning. Gran opened the deer gate, Frank strutted through and everyone followed him.

  “Never leave the gate open,” Gran warned, pushing it closed. “The deer would eat everything in sight and my neighbors would have fits.”

  “I know!” said Lucy and Alicia, as if they were one person.

  The garden was an oasis in a field of sedge and brambles. All the neighbors had their own plots and the whole area was fenced with barbed wire, criss-crossed wire and netting to keep deer out.