We put the groceries away, except for the pie stuff, and then went to the patio door and opened the blinds. They had never been used as much as they had this week. Every time I was done looking or leaving the house, I closed them. I felt that if I had binoculars, then the ship and raft probably did too. And I didn’t need anyone else invading my privacy. Between Long John and Jodi, I’d had enough!
The ship was still there, but the raft wasn’t near it. I looked around and noticed it pulled up on land about 100 yards to the right of my dock. What the heck? That was my property. What the hell did they think they were doing? Now I was pissed.
“Let’s go out there and take a look,” Miss Kitty said with a big smile.
My evil twin nodded for me, and I followed her out the door. Everything in me told me to stay inside … so I went out. My evil twin smiled, which showed up on my face. It was kind of fun being the bad girl. I mean, who was I kidding in the grand scheme of things? I wasn’t hurting anyone and it felt good. Well unless you counted the shoe stealing and ankle twisting. That was probably karma.
We threw on our spring jackets and made our way outside. I was focused on the raft beyond my dock as we walked, hoping pirates wouldn’t come out of the woods and approach it. The tree line around the lake went right down to the water, so just a few feet from shore they could be hiding in the underbrush. We were just passing by my dock, when at the very last second, I noticed something on my pontoon. I stopped dead in my tracks. What the fuck is that?
“MISS KITTY! WHAT DID YOU DO?” I yelled.
16
There on the side of my pontoon, in huge letters that stretched the width of the panels, was the name ‘Ella Vashow,’ in bright pink. I looked closer and noticed it was on the front, too.
“Surprise!” Miss Kitty said and threw her hands above her head. “Isn’t it great? It’s on all four sides. I ordered it last night, had it expedited and overnighted. I came out this morning and put it on quick. That’s why I was late getting to the diner.”
My mouth was hanging open. I wanted to kill her. She’d ruined my boat! I didn’t want pink lettering all over my nice neutral-colored pontoon. And that name … “Uuuuhg!” was all I could manage. I was so mad. I looked at her, and she was standing there all smiley and proud, clapping and bouncing. My evil twin already had her in a mental head lock and down on the ground, rubbing her face in the dirt. I was debating the outcome of this one.
“You ruined my boat!” She was so going to pay for this!
Her eyes turned sad. She saw I was mad and shook her head and put her hands up in defense. “No, Sara, it’s not permanent. They’re magnetic! You can take them off!”
“Phew!” I blew a sigh of relief.
“Sorry, I should have mentioned that right away! I’d never ruin your boat. I know how much you love it!” she said with a caring smile.
“Oh, good! You had me scared for a second there!”
“No worries! If you want it off, I can take it off. I just thought it would be fun for the LARP today.”
I thought about that. It was pretty cute. It would be fun! And, hey, it came right off, so why not. “Okay, well, thanks. We can leave it on for the LARP, but then it has to come off.”
“Deal! I have one other surprise, but you’ll have to wait a little bit for that one,” she said, pulling her cell out of her pocket and checking the time. I was a little worried again.
“Just as long as it doesn’t do permanent damage to my baby,” I said.
“No, no, just another fun toy for the LARP,” she assured me.
We continued on past the dock to the raft. It was bigger up close than it looked in the water from my window. It had a huge open space in the middle, no seats or anything. The flag pole wasn’t very tall and looked to be made out of PVC pipe and duct tape. “Wow, Tannya is going to fit in here with three grown men? How’s that going to work?” Miss Kitty asked.
I just shook my head. “I have no clue. I’m just glad we all didn’t sign up for that one!” We giggled. There was nothing left inside of the raft except the flags lying in the bottom. The pole was still up, though. The flags looked homemade and were designed to slide over the pole.
We started back to the house. The weather was great, sunny, no wind and sixty degrees. The high was supposed to be sixty-three and it looked like there wouldn’t be any problem reaching it. It was unseasonably warm, and I liked it. The trees were budding and the air was clean. I took a deep breath of the fresh air and relaxed as we walked. Just as we were stepping into the house, I heard a loud rumble. I turned around and noticed a truck backing down my driveway. This was an eighteen-wheeler backing down my long curvy driveway.
“What the hell is that?” I said out loud.
“Ahh!” Miss Kitty screeched. She was bouncing up and down again and clapping. “It’s here! It’s your other surprise!”
“In a giant truck? What is it?” Now I was really worried.
The truck continued backing up. It got up next to our cars, kept backing up and completely passed the driveway. “Ah! Where is it going?” I asked out loud.
“Stop!” I yelled and walked off the step and went towards it. It was backing up to the lake! “Stop!” I yelled again. I was chasing the front bumper of the truck as it kept going back towards the lake.
“It’s okay!” Miss Kitty yelled. “I told them to!”
“What? Why? It’s wrecking my yard!”
Finally the truck stopped and turned off. The driver climbed down and came over to us with a clip board in his hand. “Hello, ladies!” he said with a hand shake. “I’m Clive, from Nelson Trucking. I got a delivery here for Eleanore Kittsoff. Clive was in his late fifties—tall and stocky and had on jeans, and a flannel checkered shirt. He looked just like what you’d think a truck driver would look like, vented John Deer hat and all.
“That’s me!” Miss Kitty said and shook his hand. “This is my friend, Sara.”
We shook hands. My face was a combination of anger and confusion.
“Well, I have very specific delivery instructions. And let me tell you, there was a bit of a fight at the loading docks on who got to make this delivery. I won. Boy, this is a first. I have made a lot of strange deliveries but never one like this,” he told us with a laugh. “What are you ladies up to?” he asked.
“Oh, nothing, just a bunch of girls and their toys!” Miss Kitty teased.
“Well, I see the pontoon and I’ll do my best,” he said with a hat tip. “In the meanwhile, you can sign and date this.” He handed Miss Kitty the clip board and turned to the back of the truck. And for the first time he noticed the ship. “HOLY MOTHER …” he said, stunned. He was staring at the ship with his mouth hanging open. Seeing people’s reactions to a pirate ship on a little lake never got old. “What the hell is that?”
“That’s not ours,” Miss Kitty said.
He looked at her and then to me. I just smiled and shrugged. Then he lifted his hat, adjusted it back on and went back to the truck.
When he was out of sight I turned my attention back to Miss Kitty. “What did you do? And what does my pontoon have to do with it?” I asked seriously.
“You’ll see,” Miss Kitty said. She followed me as I went to the back of the truck.
Clive had the door rolled up and two ramps laid out. He disappeared inside. We moved further around to see inside. He was hauling himself up onto a fork lift. He started it up, pulled it forward and lifted a large wooden crate.
“Where’s he going with that?” I asked apprehensively.
“Wait for it …” Miss Kitty said with a smile, trying to contain her excitement.
Clive backed off the truck slowly, staying in line with the ramps, and then turned a bit at the bottom. Miss Kitty set the clipboard on the ground at my feet and ran to the dock and opened the door on the pontoon. He shifted into drive and moved forward. He drove up on my dock and I swear I thought the thing would break. I covered my mouth, waiting for the dock to snap, tip, or sink. Clive drove
surprisingly fast. The dock was a nice wide, newer, strong dock, but still! The wheels barely fit on it. One false move and a wheel would go over the side and all of it into the lake. I held my breath and watched.
Clive drove to the end, where it widened. My pontoon was parked just perfectly. It was centered so the side door was lined up with the dock. If it wasn’t, this never would have worked. He moved up to the pontoon and lowered the arms of the forklift. The beams barely fit through the door. Holy cow! I could not believe that worked. He set it down and had to tip it on the side a bit to get the legs out from under it. They were finally free and the crate slammed down flat. He then backed up perfectly and drove the forklift back up into the trailer.
I looked down at my feet and grabbed the clipboard. I scanned it as I listened for the fork lift to turn off. It didn’t. It backed out again and hauled another, smaller, wooden crate out to the wide part of the dock and set it down. Once again it drove back into the trailer, but this time it shut off.
I scanned the clipboard. In bold at the top of the paper was a box labeled, “Special Delivery Instructions.” Inside that box was typed and highlighted: Deliver cannon lake side, and set onto pontoon. Uncrate. Deliver cannonballs to end of dock, leave in crate but open.
My mouth hung slack. Miss Kitty was just approaching me as I looked up. “Surprise!” she yelled and again threw her arms in the air.
I was speechless. “A cannon! You bought a cannon?” I yelled. “That’s so AWESOME!” I ran up and high-fived her, hugged her and then we did a quick little happy dance.
I was pretty sure my evil twin was running the show at this point, but I didn’t care. I had a cannon! “Ahhh! I can’t believe we have a cannon! This is so cool! Now we can play pirates!”
“And our boat is bigger than Ocean’s Lie. They are no match for us girls!” Miss Kitty said.
“No doubt! This is so exciting!” I told her with a huge smile. “WE HAVE A CANNON! I can’t wait to fire it!” According to what Rex had found the other night, it was apparently perfectly legal to fire one. The only law is noise restriction, which the Nisswa police didn’t seem to care too much about. We had plenty of land and water to use it. This was fantastic! “Where did you find it?” I asked Miss Kitty.
“Online.”
“Ebay?” I winked.
“No, I just did an internet search and a few places came up. I called the closest one and had it overnighted. The cannon wasn’t very expensive at all, it was the delivery—that was super high.”
“I bet!”
“I had asked for it to be placed on the boat and uncrated. I didn’t think that the three of us could get it on there ourselves, and I didn’t know what it would take to uncrate it.”
“It takes one of these here!” Clive said as he strolled past us. In his hand was a crowbar. Miss Kitty and I followed him to the dock and watched.
“I also wasn’t sure of how much weight your boat could hold. The guy on the phone said it should be fine, just to make sure the tops of the floats were completely above water.” Miss Kitty, Clive and I all looked to the left at the front ones and then to the right at the back ones in unison.
“Looks good!” Clive said with a nod. He seemed as excited as we were to get it unwrapped.
“Eeeek! It’s like Christmas Day!” Miss Kitty exclaimed and clapped.
“I know! This is so cool! And you got cannonballs too?”
“Yup I bought six of them. I hope that’s enough.”
“Well, it should be! What are we going to shoot six cannonballs at?” I said.
“That’s what I … er, everyone at the shop was wondering, too,” Clive said. “We all wanted to come and see this Eleanor who ordered a cannon, cannonballs and requested delivery to a pontoon deck. Would someone please fill me in?”
“We would, but the then we’d have to kill you,” I told him with a serious face. He stared at me for a beat. Then I gave him a “forget about it” hand wave. “Just kidding!”
He raised his eyebrows and went to work on the crate. We watched eagerly. He finally got it open and removed all the packaging from it. It was smaller than I thought it would be. There was a lot of packing material and thick wood surrounding it.
It fit fine on the pontoon. It was on wheels, which was nice because it was blocking the front door right now. There was still room on the boat for people, too.
Clive took a phone out of his pocket. “Do you mind?” he asked holding it up for a picture.
“No, go ahead,” Miss Kitty said.
“The guys are never going to believe this.” Then he turned and took a picture of the ship, and one more of my pontoon with its new magnetic name. “What are you rednecks up to out here in the middle of nowhere?” he wondered out loud.
He looked again to us and we both did a “palms up.” shrug “Some sort of secret society out here?” he mumbled and then hauled the wood and packaging to the trailer. It took four trips, but when he was done he could get to the cannonball crate. He pried that one open and then just set the cover back on top.
“So it’s ready to go? We can just put a ball in and fire it?” Miss Kitty asked.
“Here’s the instruction packet that came with it,” he said and handed her the plastic bag with a white booklet inside.”
“Beats me! I’ve never owned or fired a cannon,” Clive admitted. He turned back to the crate and lifted the cover. He moved around the packaging and balls. “I don’t see any fuses.”
“Oh, shit! We need fuses?” Miss Kitty asked.
“Yes,” Clive laughed. “You’re gonna need fuses and charge bags. This here is a muzzle-loader cannon.” He stepped past me into the pontoon and picked up what looked like a large Q-tip. “This is the ramrod. You need to put a bag of gun powder in, ram it down good with this, and then put in the cannonball.” He adjusted his hat again. “Shoot, I wish you two good luck,” he said and chortled quietly. He picked up his crowbar and clipboard and returned to his truck. We followed him and watched as he put the ramps back inside and pulled the overhead door down.
“Well, ladies, it’s been a pleasure … for real. Glad I got to come and see it. You two be careful and try to stay out of trouble.” He tipped his hat and climbed back into his truck. The engine roared, and off he went down the driveway, leaving behind long depressions in the grass.
“Shoot! I’ll be back,” Miss Kitty said as she marched towards the house.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“Well, to get gun powder and fuses of course!” she snapped.
“Wait! Let me make a call,” I told her as we neared the patio door.
“Why, do you know where to get powder and fuses around here?” she asked me.
“I might.”
“Really?”
I dug through my purse looking for my phone. “Funny story … you see, a few months ago, I was helping my friend Joan clean out her garage. Her husband has a lot of stuff and no organizational skills, and I remember digging through a pile and coming across an unopened package of cannon fuses. I asked her, ‘Joan, do you own a cannon?’ She started talking about a camera and I said, ‘Ah no, like a BOOOM cannon.’ Then I threw her the package and she started laughing hysterically. She asked her husband later, and he had no idea where they’d come from. Maybe she still has them,” I told Miss Kitty.
I had gone to high school with Joan and we had reconnected when she looked me up last year when I made the paper. She had been living up here for seven years, and we’d done coffee a couple times, and I helped her clean that one time. “She’s great. If she’s has them still, we’re good to go!”
A few minutes later I was off the phone. “She’s going to check and call me right back.” I waited about ten minutes, and the phone rang again.
“Good news,” I said as I put my phone down. “She still has them! She said they are cut-to-fit, and she has the one package with thirty feet of fuse in it. We can have them.”
“Great! I’ll run to Black Lion Tactical and ge
t powder packets,” Miss Kitty said. She grabbed her purse and headed out the door.
I put the pie stuff in the fridge and headed to Joan’s house. She only lived a few minutes away. She and her husband lived on a fifty-acre lot that was half-wooded and half-field. He was a mechanic at a shop in town and she stayed at home with their seven kids, ages two months to fourteen years. Just visiting her was great birth control. I was not really sure how she did it. The most amazing part was her energy and the fact that every time I saw her she was all smiles and giggles.
After the short drive, I parked in the driveway, walked up to the house and knocked on the door. I could hear a ruckus inside. The door swung open and a boy about four years old came flying through it with a huge frog in his hands. He shoved it up at my face and made a growling noise. It made me scream. It all happened so fast that I was in shock. I wasn’t afraid of frogs. I just wasn’t prepared for that. He bolted past me and off the front steps into the yard. A small dog followed a few steps behind him, barking, and then came Joan, jogging after him with a newborn on her breast, nursing.
“You bring that in here again, and I’ll make it into soup and feed it to you!” she yelled after him. Then she looked over at me. “Oh, hi, ha ha ha ha!” she laughed and winked at me, “I probably wouldn’t make him eat it. Come on in!” she said and waved at me to follow her.
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That was Joan, fun, loud and always full of energy. I followed her through the living room, dodging toys and small pets along the way, and into the kitchen. “Here they are,” she said and handed me the package. “We never did figure out how those got in our garage, but now I’m trying to imagine what you would need them for.” She squinted at me.
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