“Robbers,” breathed Bo. She wondered what other interesting things had happened in Iditarod Creek before they came.
It was a strange feeling when the dredges shut down. They had all said they’d never stop hating the noise of the dredge, but they had. They’d stopped noticing, almost forgot to complain about it.
Now there was quiet, no train-wreck noise. A dozen times a day, Jack or Arvid would look at each other and say, “Can’t get used to it.”
But now they could hear the cold wind that seemed to have come to stay. It wasn’t the quiet wind Bo had loved at Ballard that whispered and played in the trees. It was a mean, hell-raising wind, ripping at the loose sheet iron on the old buildings, rattling in the tailing piles, quarreling around corners.
Arvid tied the seats of their wonderful swing to the uprights where they’d be safe during the winter—couldn’t bang around and get beat up.
A whole year’s worth of hay for Charlie the Tram’s horses came on the sternwheeler every summer. Charlie stored it all summer in a warehouse in Bonanza City, but in the fall before the tramline got snowed under, Charlie brought the hay to his barn in Iditarod Creek.
He’d also shipped in huge burlap bags of oats for their treats. His twelve good horses would have the winter off.
All the potatoes and onions and eggs for Iditarod Creek came on the last sternwheeler, too. They were stored underground in Hardy’s root cellar.
By the time next summer came, the eggs would taste strange, but it happened slowly, so no one noticed very much.
Almost all the men from the mines left the country when the dredges shut down.
They went to Fairbanks to jump on the train, which took them to Seward to catch the last boats leaving for Seattle, and from there they’d go wherever they wanted. They’d visit their families, live a little high on the hog for a while after a summer of hard slogging.
They’d show off the money they’d made and always carried a few nuggets in their pockets just to make people’s eyes pop.
It was a strange and lonesome place, Iditarod Creek, with most of the men gone. The boardwalks were empty, and there were not so many visitors.
But every year some of the men stayed—the ones who were in charge of getting the dredges ready for the winter or the ones who were to close up the mining camps. Some who stayed made money in the winter cutting wood or hauling freight from down on the Kuskokwim or from the mouth of the Yukon by dogsled or Cat.
Arvid and Jack were both blacksmiths by trade, and there was plenty of welding work for them in the winter.
And of course they’d stay the winter because Bo needed to start her schooling.
Now they were all together for dinner at night just like they’d been at Ballard Creek. It hadn’t seemed bad when they were working shifts, and Arvid and Jack and Bo and Graf had all said many times that it all worked out fine.
But now that the papas were not on shifts, they could all see that things had been rushed and odd with only one papa home at a time.
It was going to be a wonderful winter with all of them home at the same time.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL
THE BIG BOX from the Calvert company had come in August.
There was a strange picture on the box—a black sideways face of what looked like a curly-headed boy. Something about that boy made Bo uneasy.
Bo showed Stig the picture on the box, and Stig told them that was called a silhouette, the shadow of someone.
That’s what it had seemed like to Bo. A shadow, not a real thing.
Bo and Graf begged Jack to open the box, but he wouldn’t. “Things get scattered all over, you do that,” he said. He shoved the box under the bed in Arvid’s room and didn’t bring it out again until it was time for the first day of school.
* * *
AT LAST IT WAS the day the Calvert people said they must begin.
Buddy and Will had been groaning for days, just thinking about it.
“All that boring stuff we got to read!” Buddy complained.
“And long division,” said Will. “I can’t stand long division.”
Of course Bo was looking forward to school. The things she did with Jack and Arvid were usually fun and interesting.
“What about the boy at Willard dredge?” Bo asked. “Is he doing Calvert too?” They all shrugged their shoulders.
“He hasn’t got a ma,” said Will. They’d heard enough to know the boy’s father wasn’t the teacher type.
“And no house,” said Buddy.
So school didn’t sound like the kind of thing that boy would be doing.
The Calvert people had lists and lists of just when you must do something. Jack pinned the lists on the wall next to the map of the world. It made Bo feel rebellious to be bossed around like that.
“Well,” said Bo, “they can’t see us, and they don’t know when we do stuff.”
Jack slid his eyes sideways at her to show her that he wasn’t impressed with that argument.
Jack put the boxes from Calvert on the table with a thump and slit the strings open with his pocket knife. He sorted out what was in the boxes: pencils and crayons and pads of paper with lines on them, two folded-up maps, and a lot of books—reading and science and history.
Bo and Graf pressed close to him and didn’t even try to touch the things. They were so new and clean and uncomfortable looking. Everything had that Calvert boy on them, the maps and the books and the paper pads. Even the pencils—every single pencil.
Some of the books were for Jack and Arvid. “These here are the learning guides,” Jack said. “Tells us what to teach you and how to do it.”
He put the pencils and crayons in two clean tin cans. Finally everything was on the table and sorted into piles.
Jack told them to sit down. He sharpened three of the pencils with his pocket knife and then he opened the big teacher’s book. He flipped through its pages with his lips pursed and blew his cheeks out. Bo could see he was a bit nervous about this school business.
He unrolled a long paper with the alphabet on it. Each letter had a picture over it. It was just like the one in the school in Ballard Creek, but with different pictures for some of the letters.
Jack put a can of corn at each end of the strip to keep it flat.
“This teacher’s book here tells me what to have you do every day,” Jack said. “Right now, I got to show you these letters, and you got to see that there are two kinds of letters. The ones on the left are the capital letters, and the ones on the right are the—” Jack looked in the book to see what they were called. “Lowercase letters,” he read.
He pointed to the next page in the teacher’s book.
“Now they say we got to count the letters.”
Counting always made Bo feel anxious, because she kept skipping some. She began to falter after twenty-two, but under her voice was Graf’s, and he was counting in his growly voice all the way to twenty-six. Without ever stopping. Jack sat very still and looked at Graf, his eyebrows raised so high that four straight lines appeared on his forehead. Graf looked back.
“Didn’t know you could count that high,” Jack said finally. Graf’s face was deadpan.
“How far can you count?”
Graf shook his head and looked uncertain. He didn’t know.
Jack bent his head back to his teaching manual and then he led Bo and Graf in reciting the alphabet in a singsong kind of way.
“Each letter makes a different sound,” said Jack, “and here’s how Tandy taught me. He’s the one taught me to read. See, a cow don’t say its name—it makes a certain sound. Its name is cow, but it says ‘moo.’ And A don’t say ‘a,’ well, not all the time, but it makes another sound. Like the start of apple. That’s why that picture’s there. Every letter’s got a picture. You remember the picture, you’ll always know the sound of the letter.”
“Oh,” said Bo. That made sense.
Next Jack took out the alphabet book Bo was suppo
sed to work in and showed her how she was to find the things that started with the A sound.
“Like this,” said Jack. “Say just the first sound of apple.”
“A, a, a!” they all said and then laughed uproariously because “a, a, a” sounded like a steam engine when it was just starting up. When they’d finished laughing, Jack relaxed a little and didn’t look quite so serious.
After Bo had drawn a circle around all the things that started with A, she knelt on the chair and bent forward to study the letters on the strip.
“What I think,” said Bo, “is that whoever made up these letters shouldn’t have made them so much the same. How are you supposed to tell them apart?” She showed Jack the little b and the little d, and she showed him the m and n. “One hump and two humps,” she said. “That’s the only difference.”
“Used to give me fits too,” said Jack. “Used to write them all backwards at first.”
In her book she was to trace over the dotted lines to copy the big A and the little a. Over and over, so it would stick in her head.
Graf looked at Jack expectantly, so Jack made a page of letters for Graf to trace as well.
Bo held her pencil the way they showed in the instruction book, but Graf grabbed his pencil in his fist like he always did. Jack showed Graf the picture, two fingers holding the pencil, thumb and forefinger, and then he held Graf’s hand to show how he should write the new way.
But every time Jack looked up, Graf was back with the fist again. Jack sighed and gave up.
“Guess you’ll get over it before you’re grown,” he said. “Never saw a grown person holding a pencil like that.”
After they’d written the letters in their alphabet book, the teacher’s book said they were to go to the counting chart. Bo worked on counting to thirty, and then she had a page with rabbits to count, and she had to write the numbers on some dotted lines. Jack made Graf some papers so he could work along with Bo.
She was very busy with one thing following the other, and she had to sit down for all of it, so she was already getting wiggly. Sitting was not one of her best things.
“If I was you,” she said to Graf in Eskimo, “I would go outside and play. Instead of sitting here.”
Graf’s green eyes roamed around while he considered what she’d said. Then he looked at her. “I like it,” he said. “I like school.”
When the alphabet and the numbers were finished, Jack had to read her a fairy tale from the Calvert book of stories. She must listen carefully so she could tell him the story back.
So Jack opened the book and read the first story, “Little Red Riding Hood.” Graf heard it without expression, but Bo twisted and turned in her chair and looked unhappy.
When it was finished, Bo said, “Animals can’t talk.” She frowned. “And wolves don’t eat people.”
“Well,” said Jack, “stories are not supposed to be real. They’re … unreal. Pretend. Imagination stuff.”
Bo didn’t look impressed.
Jack looked hopefully at Graf.
“Was silly,” said Graf.
Jack gave him a sharp look. “I remember back when you didn’t have any opinions.” Jack straightened his shoulders and tried again. “The thing is,” he said, “you got to know these stories because they’re famous. All the kids in the world know them. Everyone does. That’s a thing about education. Everyone has to know the same things. Or they wouldn’t have nothing in common, like.”
Bo squinted at Jack. “Did you like fairy tales when you were little?”
Jack let out a whoop of laughter. “Never heard one in my life!”
Bo was not amused. Jack looked at her stern face and compromised. “Well, don’t tell it back to me—just draw a picture of it.”
Bo thought that was a fine idea. Jack said it had better be a good picture because he had to send all Bo’s work back to Calvert when she was done.
So Bo drew very carefully. To think of that Calvert boy seeing her picture! She and Graf both drew the part where the wolf was eating up Grandma.
That was their only favorite part of the story.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
THE PACKAGE
BACK IN THE EARLY SUMMER, Bo and Graf had been at the hotel, both squished up together in one of the armchairs. They were almost mesmerized by the pictures in a story in National Geographic about snakes. Slim Carlson from Donal Sather’s mine came in, and he stopped by the chair when he saw the looks on their faces.
“What’s got you kids so interested?”
They showed him the pictures they’d been staring at. Huge snakes that took ten people to hold up, stretched out. Snakes of every color. A shining green one with a wicked-looking forked tongue.
There was no such thing as a snake in Alaska. Nothing that lived in Alaska had fangs. Or poison! So of all the animals they’d ever heard of, snakes seemed the most shocking.
“Well, don’t get any funny ideas about snakes,” Slim said. “Most is just harmless. Silly people get scared of them.”
“Have you seen a snake?”
“Seen a snake? Hundreds! Thousands! Got all kinds where I come from. Used to catch ’em and keep ’em for pets. Recognize you just like a dog, rush over to the side of the cage when you come in the room, tongue out, saying howdy.”
“Aren’t they scary?”
“Nah,” Slim said. “Don’t know why people always make such a blankety fuss over them. I’ve got no patience for them people. Don’t even have any legs, snakes. Now, a crocodile or something could chase you, that’s another proposition, but a snake ain’t gonna run you down and ain’t going to eat you.”
“But what about those fangs?”
“Ain’t gonna bite you neither, ’less you scare him. Besides, most snakes don’t do nothing. Just mind their business and catch bugs and that.”
“Did you hold one?”
“Well, I hope to shout. Lots of times. Like to look at them up close. People call them slimy. But they’re dry as a bone and real pretty. Look like they’re made of beads or something. Got nice patterns.”
Bo and Graf blinked at Slim. Everything they thought about snakes was wrong.
“I wish we could see one,” said Graf.
Slim laughed. “I’ll bring you one when I come back in the spring.”
* * *
AFTER THE SEASON ENDED and most of the boys had left Iditarod Creek, a month into winter, Jack sent them to the post office to get the mail.
Maggie gave Yoshihiro his mail, and then she gave Bo the papas’ mail. Bo was putting it in the burlap sack Jack had given her when she saw that there was a little box with their mail, tied with thick string. Their names were on it! Bo and Graf!
“Maggie, who sent us this?” Bo asked.
Maggie looked at the writing on the box and smiled. “From Slim,” she said. “All the way from Oregon.”
“Good to get a package,” said Yoshihiro. “No such thing as bad package,” and then he went out the door.
Bo couldn’t wait till she got home to see what Slim had sent them. “Let’s open it,” she said. She borrowed scissors from Maggie and was so excited she just cut the string, didn’t save it for Jack.
They pulled the top off the box and looked in. It was a toy snake.
“Probably he sent it because he was telling us all about snakes,” Bo explained to Maggie. “Slim really likes snakes.”
Bo was just about to take it out of the box when the toy snake suddenly moved, and with a quick twist, it was out of the box and on the table. It was alive! It was real!
Maggie screamed such a terrible scream that Bo’s and Graf’s hearts nearly stopped. She ran into the back room, still hollering. The snake froze, and for a minute Bo thought Maggie’s scream had killed it.
Suddenly the door was flung open, and there was Yoshihiro again, looking horrified. Bo could tell he’d heard Maggie screaming. He took in everything in a second—Maggie on the chair in the back room, screaming her head off, the snake curled on the table—an
d fast as a flash, he scooped the snake into his hand and put it carefully back in the box. Yoshihiro wasn’t the least afraid of snakes.
He put the top on the box, and then he went in back to deal with Maggie.
“Maggie, Maggie, just a little snake. Can’t hurt you. Just eats flies.” He patted Maggie comfortingly on the arm, but Maggie didn’t get off the chair. She still looked paralyzed. She’d stopped screaming, but she was making little helpless squeaks.
Yoshihiro started to laugh, a high and funny laugh, “He he he!” He tried to stop laughing, but he’d start up again. “He he he he!”
Finally he quieted down and looked at Bo and Graf. “Where snake come from?”
Bo told him about Slim and how they’d thought it was a toy until it moved.
“It was cold, come in the mail like that in winter. Come into hot room, and he’s okay again. You not afraid?”
Bo and Graf looked at him uncertainly. “Slim said not to be afraid of snakes.”
“That good,” said Yoshihiro.
Maggie was still making funny noises on the chair.
“Maggie, Maggie,” Yoshihiro said. “Two big men you beat at wrestling—you strong woman. And here you screaming for a tiny snake.”
“Put it away somewhere,” Maggie said crossly. She came off the chair but stayed hiding in the back room.
“Put box in your jacket, keep it warm. Carry it careful,” Yoshihiro told them. “It’s good luck, snake, in Japan. Good to have in garden.”
Bo put the rest of the mail in the burlap bag and gave it to Graf to carry. “I’ll carry him,” she said, and tucked him inside her parka.
Then she beamed at Graf. “Won’t Jack and Arvid be surprised!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHARLIE HOOTCH
EVERY MORNING after the dishes were done and the floor mopped, Bo and Graf and Jack—and Arvid if he didn’t have a welding job—sat down and rolled back the oilcloth to begin school.
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