by Kathi Appelt
And right then Keeper felt as small as a minnow, smaller. Where was her mother? she wondered. All these years, she had been sure that her mother was out here, watching her, waiting for her.
Where was she now?
84
Take a deep, dark night.
Take a small, small boat.
Take a lucky-charm girl.
Take a bent-winged seagull.
Take a rushing tide.
Take a big blue moon.
Add it all up.
What do you get?
One scared dog.
That’s what.
85
Captain was getting weary of the boat, especially since there were clearly no snacks there. He decided to take another break from the sailing life to see if he could find some small repast to replenish his stomach.
From his perch on the boat’s bench, Captain launched himself into the sky. With his wings, he pulled at the wet air above the water, higher and higher. When he looked down at BD and Keeper, they looked too small in the middle of all that water. It’s not often that seagulls wish for anything that can’t be eaten. But in that moment, Captain flew beyond his seagull self and wished the girl and the dog could fly, fly right on up here with him and wing their way home.
86
Below, Keeper wasn’t watching Captain just then. She was watching the waves. They were most definitely getting larger.
Now would be a good time for Meggie Marie to appear. A perfect time.
“Where are you?” she called. “Where are you?” She rubbed her hands worriedly on the sides of the boat. The wood was so smooth.
And once again she had that thought that she had done this before—held the sides of a boat, a boat caught in the waves. Just like this.
But it wasn’t this boat, was it?
The realization hit her hard.
It wasn’t this boat.
It was another one.
A smaller one.
A long time ago.
She held on as the boat rocked between the growing waves.
She was sure she’d done this before. But when?
She scrunched down into the belly of the boat, as close to BD as she could get. BD was shivering. The moon’s light was fading as it followed its arc across the night sky, and the boat suddenly gained speed. It felt like something was pushing her. Keeper sat back up and looked over the side.
She rubbed her eyes. Maybe it was just a trick in the moon’s light. Maybe it was her imagination. Maybe… but then she saw it again on the other side of the boat.
A huge fin.
It was moving around the boat in a circle. Keeper pressed herself flat into the bottom of the boat and hugged BD to her. With her other hand, she grabbed the charm around her neck. The cold of it bit her fingertips, but she did not let go.
87
As Signe slept, the cooling night wind slipped through her window and nestled next to her on the pillows. She pulled her sheet up under her chin. She could not feel a faint tap-tap-tap on her shoulder, if there even was one.
After all, who can feel a haint?
88
From his location in the sky above the boat, Captain called, “C’mon, c’mon.” It was such a bother that his humans, and particularly his dog, couldn’t fly. He had tried to show them how on numerous occasions, but even though Keeper flapped her arms from time to time, it was obvious that their distinct shortage of feathers was a huge impediment.
He was glad to be soaring above the rough waters, but from his vantage point, he couldn’t see the land in any direction. He felt a small twinge of worry. He had not realized how far from shore they had drifted.
Most seagulls have an innate knack for finding the beach, but Captain’s bent wing tended to throw him somewhat off course. He would have to climb a little higher to see if he could spot any lights from shore.
“C’mon, c’mon,” he called. And up he went, his white feathers dotted with starlight.
89
Keeper hugged BD tighter. She was gladder than ever that he was with her. She hoped whatever was circling them wasn’t a shark. Could it be a shark? It couldn’t be, could it? She forced herself to peek over the boat’s side again. She could most definitely see a fin. It was big. It seemed to come closer, then disappear.
BD whined. She buried her face in his broad neck, and as she did, the boat began to rise.
Up up up The Scamper raced, and then just as quickly, it charged down down down again. She held on to BD as tight as she could. And all the time, the boat rose and fell, rose and fell, rose and fell as…
. . . Keeper clung to BD.
But Keeper’s two arms wrapped around him weren’t enough to keep the boat from racing up the sides of the gigantic waves and then cascading down them. They weren’t enough against the pull of the churning sea, not enough to withstand the swirling water, which yanked him out of her embrace and carried him toward the stern of the boat.
BD gave a yelp. Frantic, Keeper reached for him, but not in time. The sea tugged BD away, away from Keeper, away from The Scamper, and hurtled him into the frenzied water, and Keeper, horrified, could only scream: “Noooo!!!! BD!!!!!!”
90
Keeper grabbed for BD. She reached and reached and reached. She leaned as far over the edge of the boat as she could, the sides of it digging into her stomach, but she could not keep her BD from flying over the side and into the water just as a huge wave lifted the boat up up up and brought it crashing back down. When she looked in every direction, the water stood above her as if she were in a deep pit. Then, just as suddenly, it lifted her again.
Up.
Down.
Up.
Down.
Up.
Down.
She slid from one side of the boat to the other, smashing first into the seat, hitting her right elbow hard, then tumbling against the stern. Smack! At last she grabbed the sides of the boat as hard as she could, held on with all her might, and looked over the edge. There was no sign of the orange life vest.
No sign of BD.
“BD!!!!!!!” she wailed. “BD!!!!!”
And all at once, it seemed like the entire Gulf of Mexico was nothing but her screaming voice sliding up and down the curved walls of cold, salty water.
91
BD. BD. BD. BD. Her heart thumped.
Keeper called and called and called. No BD.
Only a fin.
Circling.
92
Too was becoming more and more worried. He scratched at the door. Dogie picked up his coffee cup and took a long drink.
Then, just as Too began to tremble, a gust of wind rattled the door.
“Yep, yep, yep!” He spun in a circle at Dogie’s feet. Surely Dogie had heard that, surely.
As if Dogie could read Too’s thoughts, he replied, “Yep, T-T-T-Too, I heard it.” Too ran back and forth from Dogie to the door. Gotta go. Gotta go. Gotta go. On his last dash to Dogie, he licked the man’s toes. Dogie laughed, then bent over to scoop Too up in his arms.
No laughing, Too thought. This wasn’t funny. Something was seriously wrong in the world unto itself.
He squirmed in Dogie’s arms until Dogie finally set him down and opened the door. Then, without waiting another minute, Too ran as fast as he could to the beach.
Dogie called out, “Too! Come back!” But the little dog did not turn around.
Instead, he ran and ran and ran, leaving Dogie well behind.
93
Keeper was drenched. Her hair hung in strands down her face and stung her eyes. She pushed it back. She’d looked for BD as long as she dared, hoping against hope to spot him. But the waves grew wilder, and she was terrified that she’d fall out too. Now she lay curled up as tightly as she could in the bottom of the shuddering boat, water sloshing over her legs. She wrapped her arms around herself, the same arms that had let go of her dog.
Lost. She had lost her BD.
The Scamper bucked in the growing waves, and each tim
e it did, Keeper felt her entire body lift up, away from the boat’s bottom.
What if it threw her out too? She peered over the side once more. A scream caught in her chest. There it was again, the large fin, just there, beside her.
And then it was gone!
She blinked. Where was it? Then the worst thought ever crashed into her, worse than the worst wave: What if it had gone after BD?
Keeper moaned and wedged her body against the rear bench, tucked herself as far beneath it as she could.
94
Dogie could see that Too was frantic. As soon as he’d opened the door, the little dog shot out of his arms. Dogie stopped for a small second to let his eyes adjust to the dark. Too was far ahead of him. Dogie could only barely hear the dog’s voice in the distance, and the waves from the shore were quickly drowning him out. What had gotten into him?
Dogie picked up his step. The night was still clear, only a few clouds in the starry sky. Was there a storm coming? Too had never missed one, not yet. But aside from the breeze feeling cooler than usual, it didn’t seem like a storm was at bay.
Still, Too was never wrong.
Dogie would go ahead and double-check everything, but first he called out for the dog.
“Too!” He paused. He could not hear the familiar, “Yep, yep, yep!” Where was he? Dogie called again, “Too!! Heeerrrree, b-b-b-buddy!”
He listened. All he could hear was the breaking of the waves against the sand. He could see that the tide was still out. In the moon’s light the sand looked as smooth as silk, brushed clean by the retreating water. The moon was in the western quadrant. She’d be setting in a few hours.
He felt a pang of regret. Blue moon. Who knew how long it would be before the moon was blue again? Months? A year? He gazed at it. And there it was again, the longing, such a longing to sing his two-word song to Signe.
He turned away from the moon. Where was Too? And then, as if in answer to his question, Too came running up. “Yep, yep, yep!” he barked.
Dogie reached for him, but Too eluded his grasp. Off he went, in the other direction.
What had gotten into that dog? Then Dogie thought he could feel the wind begin to shift. And with that, he hurried to the dark Bus. He unlocked the door and stepped up into it. The rainbow colors of the surfboards seemed subdued in the dim beam of his flashlight. He went down the aisle and checked the windows. Everything seemed shipshape.
He stepped back out of the Bus, and when he did, he noticed the silhouette of a solitary seagull skimming the water’s surface. Captain? What was Captain doing out this late? He looked again. If it was Captain, he would be able to tell by his wing. But when he looked harder, all he could see was the water.
“Yep, yep, yep!” He heard Too again.
The little dog raced right up to him and began to run around his legs in circles. Dogie reached for him, but Too shot away again, only this time he ran toward the Cut.
95
Keeper stayed curled up tight as another huge wave spun her onto its back, up up up. She burrowed harder into The Scamper’s bottom. She braced herself for the ride down the wave, and sure enough, swoosh, down she went.
Deeper and deeper and deeper the boat fell. Keeper’s whole body tensed as she waited for the bottom of the wave’s trough. How far could she fall, how deep was it?
Then, bam! the boat crashed into the wave’s well. Keeper felt the impact in every muscle, every bone, every sinew. Her legs cramped. Her arms cramped. Her stomach cramped.
Her fingers, her sore fingers, cramped as she clung to the bench of the little boat, clung as hard as she could. She felt the charm bang against her breastbone. The last thing that Meggie Marie had given her. Just before she swam away. Just before Signe grabbed her. Signe… grabbed her!
Then Keeper remembered, remembered exactly. She had done this before… ridden the waves in another small boat, a boat even smaller than The Scamper, a round boat, a boat with smooth edges, just like this one. She had been tossed about then, too. She remembered.
Remembered. Remembered. Remembered. The small boat. The crashing waves. The cold water.
Alone.
But not alone.
No. She had not been alone that night. She had been with Meggie Marie.
96
A large wooden bowl.
Large enough for a little girl to sit in…
while her mother spun her around on the
kitchen floor.
A beautiful wooden bowl.
Large enough for another little girl to ride in…
while her mother set her afloat on the
waves of the sea.
Suddenly, the terrible memory washed
over her, a blue memory, so blue that it
ached. Her birthday night.
She was only three.
As Keeper crouched down in The Scamper, the memory wound itself around her like a rope.
• • •
She was in a wooden boat. But it was round and deep, with no bow or stern. It had no port or starboard, and no sail, either. And she was far from the shore, right beside the sandbar, De Vaca’s Rock. Her little boat bumped against it. Tapped against the old rock.
From where she was in the water, she could barely see the flickering campfire on the beach a hundred yards away. Signe was back there, sleeping beside the fire. “Three’s a charm,” that’s what Signe said. Instead of a cake, Signe had made Keeper’s favorite, sweet potato pie, which she served with Reddi-wip, which turned out to be Sinbad’s favorite too.
Everyone from Oyster Ridge Road had walked from their houses to the beach to roast wieners and marshmallows. Dogie played his ukulele, and Signe curled up on a beach towel and fell asleep to his funny song about “the little girl from the sea, who just turned three, little Sweet Pea.” BD curled up next to the fire, too. He was tired from chasing Sinbad all afternoon, up and down the beach. Sinbad was tired from eating so much Reddi-wip.
Keeper wanted them to wake up and see her out there, on top of the waves. Her boat was bobbing, bobbing up and down. It was cold. All she had on was her bathing suit bottom and a new cotton T-shirt from Dogie. The bottom of the shirt was soaking up the water from the bottom of the boat.
She started to cry, but then a beautiful face popped out of the water just beside her. Meggie Marie, her mother. A tiny vein of relief entered her. Meggie Marie shook her long hair, and a spray of water flew into the air, shimmery drops above the waves’ surface. At last Keeper wasn’t alone. But why wasn’t Signe out here with them, out here on the waves? She looked toward the campfire growing smaller. Meggie Marie smiled and looked at her. “Don’t worry,” she said, “we’re going to ride the waves back to shore.”
Then she added, “You’ll see. It’ll be easy peasy.”
She wanted to believe her mermaid mother, but instead, she bit her lower lip. Mermaids were unreliable. Here one moment, gone the next. Meggie Marie hummed a familiar tune: You are my little mergirl, and I’m your mermaid mama.
The tune. Keeper remembered.
She remembered reaching for Meggie Marie, but when she let go of the round boat, it began to rock. She grabbed the round sides again and swallowed hard. Her mermaid mama kissed the top of her head.
Then she saw the charm around her mother’s neck, aglow against her soft skin. She’d never seen it before. She reached for it. “A gift from a seagull,” said Meggie Marie, then she laughed and ducked under the water again. Where did she go?
All of a sudden, Meggie Marie emerged from the water, still laughing. She removed the charm from around her neck and placed it around Keeper’s. “Happy birthday,” she said. The cold of it startled Keeper.
The tiny boat rocked; Meggie Marie laughed. That was the thing with Meggie Marie, she was always laughing. Keeper wanted to laugh too, but she was too afraid. She was drenched and scared and wanted to go back to the beach, wanted to find her beach towel with the red and blue fish on it, the one that Signe gave her for her birthday. She wanted to find Signe
and curl up on her lap.
Suddenly, Meggie Marie swam up beneath her, bumping the wooden craft with her shoulder.
“Ride the waves,” she called. She said this over and over. “Just let go, little mergirl.”
Meggie Marie laughed again, then grabbed the bowl and, with both of her hands, spun it hard, then ducked beneath the waves. It felt like a mean spin, not a gentle spin. Like it was meant to scare her. Above Keeper’s head, the stars made a dizzy circle. She looked down and the water rushed up. It filled her tiny spinning boat. She was soaking wet and cold and alone. The campfire grew smaller and smaller.
At last Meggie Marie slipped up beside her again and gave the boat a push toward the beach. “Ride the wave ponies!” she shouted again. The boat rocked. The waves galloped beneath it and over it, filling it up. Keeper tried to scream, but her throat was too scared to utter a sound. She was surrounded by waves, their foamy manes curling all around her.
The next thing she knew, Signe was there, yanking her out of the round boat. Signe had found her! She pulled Keeper into her arms. The wave ponies crashed into the sand. At last, the sob rushed out of Keeper, her chest and stomach ached from it. And Signe was shaking. She was holding her and shaking while the waves bumped against them. Signe was furious. There was nothing like Signe’s fury, except maybe lightning, hot and sizzling. “Don’t ever do that again!” she shouted.
Keeper nodded, up and down. It was a solemn promise that she made when she was three. A promise about going out in the waves.
Then laughter surrounded them, silky and sharp at the same time.