The Battle of Junk Mountain

by Lauren Abbey Greenberg

  To be fair, I had an ulterior motive. I couldn’t imagine a summer without seeing Poppy, who lives on the opposite side of the cove from Bea. We had our first playdate when we were like three years old, and I’ve spent every August with her since. The funny thing is, we’re so different that you wouldn’t even think we’d be friends. She’s loud, I’m soft. I like mustard, she’s ketchup only. Poppy’s convinced she could be a reality TV star. I hate those kinds of shows. But we both like lazy summers, making bracelets, and collecting sea glass, and two years ago at my grandpa’s funeral, she was the one who held my hand the whole time and passed me tissues when the tears wouldn’t stop.

  With a loud sigh, my eyes wander to where the mouth of the cove feeds into Casco Bay. A long-ago memory of my grandpa bubbles to the surface. He’s in his lobster boat, heading out to check on his traps. His bright orange fishing waders pop against a backdrop of misty gray skies. I’m standing on the dock with my mom, watching him. The motor gurgles as he pulls away, and I can hear Mom saying, “Wave bye-bye to Grandpa.” I do, but then out of nowhere, thick fog rolls in and he completely disappears. It totally freaks me out, like some wet, white monster swallowed him whole. I scream and cry while my mother tries to calm me down. Then the sound of a bullhorn pierces the air. Grandpa must have heard me carrying on, so he blew the horn to tell me that everything was all right. And it was… that time.

  I’m so lost in the memory that I have completely spaced on the bracelet. I must have missed a knot or something, because the pattern’s not even. Drat. I have to start over.

  As I hoist myself out of the boat, I hear loud rock music in the distance. A couple of shirtless guys in a speedboat careen into the cove like it’s the Indy 500. They’re not supposed to be going that fast, and I feel like yelling Slow down! but someone beats me to it.

  I hurry up the ramp to find Cranky screaming at the boys. Standing on his dock, he shakes his fist high in the air. I have to admit, I wouldn’t want to cross him. He’s pretty big and beefy for an old guy. The boys couldn’t care less, though. They drive their boat in a circle, creating a huge, obnoxious wake.

  Suddenly, Cranky twists as if he senses me. I duck behind a thicket of rosebushes as my heart hammers my rib cage.

  The sound of tires crunching over gravel makes me realize he’s not interested in me. A dark gray minivan pulls into Cranky’s driveway. The first thing I notice is the magnet on the back of the van that says I HEART HISTORY.

  A man with a scraggly beard steps out of the car. He looks as if he marched off a Civil War battlefield with his navy cap, black boots, and wool coat belted with a wide buckle. To be honest, the way he’s dressed isn’t all that surprising. All kinds of, let’s say, unique people reside on Cedar Island. There’s the man who travels around town on his riding mower, and the lady who wears a floral crown in her hair every day, even when it rains. What’s interesting, though, is the way Cranky’s looking at this costumed visitor: with disgust. He doesn’t say Hello or Can I help you? or Do you need directions? Which is not very Cedar Island–ish at all. I can’t make out what they’re saying, but there’s a lot of angry faces and finger pointing as the two men walk toward Cranky’s weathered, gray house. I’m so confused. This is the worst welcome wagon ever.

  A boy who looks to be my age hops out of the van. He’s wearing a scaled-down version of Beardy’s soldier outfit—same cap and boots, but instead of the coat, his white billowy shirt is untucked and rumpled. He glances at the house, then wanders in the direction of my hideout. The boy sits on the other side of the rosebush, only a few feet away from me. Trying hard not to breathe, I carefully push aside a couple branches, making the red, cherrylike flowers bounce up and down.

  The boy takes a swig from the old-fashioned canteen slung over his shoulder. I lean my face further into the foliage to spy on him.

  Owwww!

  Hot pain radiates from the center of my left cheek. Clutching my face, I stumble out from behind the bush.

  “Are you okay?” The boy hovers over me. He smells kind of ripe, like maybe it’s not a good idea to wear long sleeves and tall boots on a hot day.

  I curl into a ball. “I think something bit me.”

  “Can I see?” His light eyebrows push together with concern as I remove my hand. “The stinger’s in there,” he says. In one quick motion, he brushes a fingernail against my cheek. “It’s out.”

  I sit up and pat the tender spot. “It is?”

  “Linc, get in here, your father needs you.” Up on his sagging porch, with hands on hips, Cranky looks, well… cranky.

  “Coming, Grandpa,” the boy says.

  Before I can even thank him, he runs into the house and slams the screen door.

  • CHAPTER 4 •

  LOON SANCTUARY–KEEP OUT

  I go to bed early that night, eager to put this weird day behind me and push the reset button. Besides, mornings on Thomas Cove are the best: waking up to beautiful scenery, the sounds of seabirds, and, if I’m lucky, the smell of blueberry muffins baking in the oven.

  No such luck. Instead, the telephone’s shrill ring bolts me from a deep sleep. I squint—the sheer curtains do nothing to block the rising sun. The digital clock’s glowing red numbers confirm my worst fears—it’s six o’clock in the morning.

  I rub the crusts from the corners of my eyes and drag myself into the bathroom I share with Bea. Ugh, my cheek. It’s not super swollen, but it’s puffy enough to look like a ginormous mosquito bite. Great.

  I open the mirrored cabinet, wondering if I should put something on it. All of Bea’s old-people products pack the shelves, tubes of this and jars of that. Some pills spill out from tipped bottles with caps that haven’t been put on right. I feel like I’m seeing something I shouldn’t.

  Muffled sounds seep from under Bea’s closed bedroom door. Pressing an ear against the wood, I can hear her talking on the phone. Her clipped words and strained voice give it away, not to mention only one person on earth would call this early in the morning: Mom.

  “I was going to tell you… I’ve been busy…” Bea says. “She’s fine… You didn’t have to do that… Stop worrying…”

  This is my fault. I wish I hadn’t called my mom yesterday like a crybaby, but I couldn’t help it. First ditched, then stung, I had to talk to someone. Then, without meaning to, I blurted Bea’s secret about going back to work. I have an urge to barge in and interrupt the call, but Bea has a thing about her bedroom. She calls it her private sanctuary and never lets anyone in. To drive the point home, a thin aluminum sign hangs from the door that says LOON SANCTUARY KEEP OUT. (Even though a loon is an aquatic bird, my mother would beg to differ.)

  The stairs creak as I head to the kitchen to find breakfast. A bowl of cinnamon oat cereal seems to be the only option. My vision of eating in front of the TV is quickly dashed—Bea’s dark green plush couch, which was halfway clean yesterday, is now covered with piles of random stuff. I lean against the wall and wonder what this new day holds for me. I have no freaking idea.

  A soft clinking noise draws me to the window. Under an electric sky of pink and orange streaks, that boy from yesterday—Linc, I guess—is already outside, setting up what looks like some kind of canvas tent. Wild theories pop into my mind. Maybe Cranky never invited him in the first place, so he kicked him out, making him sleep in the yard with the chipmunks. Linc was probably so excited to see his long-lost grandfather, but Cranky couldn’t care less. Wow, what a jerk.

  Bea enters the room in her pale blue nightgown, her lips pressed together in an irritated mash. She hands me the phone before heading to the kitchen.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “You sound tired,” she says.

  “I just woke up. In normal-people land, this is really early.”

  A keyboard clicks on the other end of the line. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve been up for hours working.”

  Mom recently left the real estate company she was with for fifteen years to strike out on her own. It’s great that she g
ets to be her own boss, but it also turned her into a sleepless, stressed-out pain in the butt, so it kind of sucks for the rest of us.

  “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since our call yesterday,” she says, slurping what’s probably her third cup of coffee. “Bea put me in a weird spot. I had no idea that you’d be unsupervised for most of the day.”

  “Mom, I’m not a baby. It’s no big deal,” I say with a mouth full of cereal.

  “You’re not a baby, but what if something happens while she’s gone? You told me yourself that Poppy’s not around as much. The thought of you cooped up alone in that house—don’t even tell me what condition it’s in; I don’t want to know. I’ve been having nightmares about mold spores.”

  I remove the phone from my ear, all slack-mouthed. While her wah-wah-wahs float into the air, I tackle the messy couch. I can’t help it—I love to organize stuff. I take all the scattered DVDs (why Bea has five copies of Toy Story 3, I’ll never know) and stack them next to the box of record albums stored underneath Junk Mountain. The plastic Easter eggs go to the holiday pile, the old tennis racket goes with the sports stuff, and these leopard ballet slippers… how about I start a new pile called Unknown.

  There, just enough space to stretch my legs. When I rejoin the conversation, Mom is still going strong.

  “… I’ve known Ray for years and he said it’s okay.”

  “Said what’s okay?”

  She huffs. “Shayne, have you been listening at all? The manager at the Cod Café said you could work there during Bea’s shifts.”

  My shoulders tighten. “Work? Why do I have to work? I’m old enough to stay by myself. Nothing will happen, I promise.”

  “It’s not you I’m worried about, honey, it’s…” She pauses. “I’d feel better if I knew you had a place to go to every day. Think of it like camp.”

  “Without the fun part,” I add.

  Her voice softens. “Could you do this for me? I’ve got one chronically indecisive client, paperwork up to my eyeballs, and Dad just informed me that filming will probably last four weeks instead of three. You said you wanted to help Bea. Well, this would help her and it would help me from mentally imploding. Please?”

  When we hang up, the effects of Mom’s energy-draining zapper kick in.

  Bea returns from the kitchen with a piece of toast in her hand. “What’s the saying? Loose lips sink ships.”

  I look at her sideways. “Sorry. I hope I didn’t get you in trouble.”

  She sits next to me and nudges my arm. “You didn’t. Anyhow, it’ll be fun, you and me, a couple of working gals. You’ll love it there. It’s the best restaurant in town.”

  I lean my head on her bony shoulder. That’s what I like about Bea. She never gets mad at me, and she always finds the sunny side in a bad situation. I’ve heard my mom complain to my dad that the problem with Bea is her glass is “impossibly half full” all the time. I don’t understand what’s wrong with that.

  Bea’s forehead creases as she realizes her couch is clean. “Where’d all my stuff go?”

  “Oh, I thought I’d organize it for you.” I show her my neat stacks and categorized piles.

  “Uh-huh,” she says evenly. “Hey, why don’t you hop in the shower first, and then we’ll figure out what you’re going to wear to work.”

  “Okay.”

  Before I go upstairs, I rinse out my bowl and load it in the dishwasher. It bothers me that my mom always sticks her nose into everything, but at the same time, maybe working at the Cod Café won’t be so bad. I mean, I’ve never had a job before. What’s so wrong about a few extra dollars in my pocket?

  “You know what, Bea?” I call over my shoulder. “You’re right. This will be fun.”

  “Bea?”

  She’s gone. And all the junk I cleared off has returned right back to where it was.

  • CHAPTER 5 •

  WORK WITH ME, PEOPLE

  The Cod Café has always been a local hangout for fishermen, a place where they swap stories over morning coffee or get a hot meal after a long day at sea. But in summer, the tourists take over, and the adjoining gift shop opens to sell fish-print hoodies, fridge magnets, and rainbow geodes.

  A blackboard at the entrance greets us with the lunch specials written in block letters: $12–FRIED CLAMS SPECIAL. $14.99–LOBSTER ROLL. Ship wheels and fish nets decorate the walls, along with framed photographs of some of the locals posing with their biggest catches. There’s even one of my grandpa showing off the huge striper he caught in a fishing tournament.

  Bea and I hustle into the kitchen so she can clock in. I take a moment to smooth out my light blue T-shirt and tan Chino shorts, the closest thing I have to the Cod Café uniform of navy collared shirt and khaki pants. My friend Zoe once told me that her older sister makes crazy money waiting tables, so I made sure to wear something with roomy pockets for all the dollars I’ll be stuffing in there.

  A wiry, bald man with beady eyes approaches us. Bea grabs him by the arm before he passes. “Ray, this is my granddaughter, Shayne.”

  “Thank you for hiring me, sir,” I say in my most grown-up voice.

  Ray’s eyes flicker between his clipboard and me. “Right… to be clear, I can’t put you on payroll. You’re not old enough—child labor laws and all. I don’t want to get in any trouble. Think of this more like community service.”

  My ego deflates just like my empty pockets.

  He snaps his fingers at a nearby waitress. “Shadow Katie,” he says to me. “Do whatever she says, and don’t get in anyone’s way.”

  Katie’s ponytail swings in time with her bouncy step. I quicken my pace to keep up with her as we make our way to the hostess stand at the front of the restaurant.

  “Love your bracelets,” she says.

  “Thanks, I made them myself,” I say, picking at the loose ends of the knots.

  She nods with approval, and my shoulders relax for the first time today.

  “Do you live around here?” I ask.

  “I go to college nearby, but I grew up in Boston,” Katie says as she pulls out a shoebox from the top shelf of the hostess stand. She leads me to a nearby empty booth and dumps a mess of lobster bibs, cracker packets, hand wipes, loose crayons, and a spool of twine onto the table. “If you could arrange this neatly somehow, that would be huge.”

  “No problem. I can do this in my sleep.”

  She winks at me. “Great. I’ll be back to check on you in a few.”

  I settle into the booth and jump into my assignment, ready to do it right and make Katie like me. I separate everything into piles and use pieces of twine to tie sets of three crayons together in tidy packages. Each crayon bunch has different colors in it. I remember how it stunk when you were given a coloring mat but all you had to draw with was brown.

  I look around for Bea. She’s at one of the tables, writing furiously on a little notepad. Then she disappears into the kitchen and comes out minutes later with a large tray perched on her shoulder. Steam rises off the red boiled lobsters and baked potatoes oozing with butter. Bea tilts to one side to keep her balance, and I’m scared she’s going to tip over. Katie trails close behind as a spotter. She helps Bea remove the tray from her shoulder onto a folding stand. Bea looks frazzled, her usual smile wiped off her face. She said she was excited to waitress again, but this doesn’t look like excitement to me.

  “I’m done,” I say to Katie when she passes by. She claps her hands, which makes me feel like a preschooler.

  “You are awe-some,” she sings. “Would you want to bus tables for me?”

  I shrug. “Sure, why not?”

  “Perfect.” She hands me a glass of water. “Give this to table four.”

  My blank stare gives me away.

  Katie points to a corner table by the window. “See the little girl with blond braids? That one.”

  The glass sweats cold water, making me grip it even tighter. Great, now my hand is trembling. Why am I so nervous?

  When I reach th
e table, I clear my throat. “Did someone order water?” My voice sounds like I need more air.

  The parents cock their heads to the side to give me that aww, isn’t she cute look. The braided toddler raises her hand. “Meeee!”

  Her chubby cheeks and button eyes make me smile. “Here you go,” I say, sounding at least like a human being this time. I place the glass onto the coloring mat in front of her. I so got this. But instead of saying thank you, the girl’s lip quivers and fat tears spring out of her eyes.

  “My picture!” she cries to her mom.

  I look at her mat. Wetness from the bottom of the water glass seeps onto a few of her scribbles. I mean, honestly, calling this a picture is a stretch. But it appears I ruined the little Picasso-in-training’s life, because now she is flat-out wailing.

  The parents try to calm the little girl while the eyes of the entire restaurant drill into my back.

  Katie rushes over with a stressed-out smile plastered on her face. “Everything okay, here?”

  “Sorry,” I whisper before rushing for the kitchen.

  Little did I know that a kitchen during the lunch rush is like a pirate’s den. It’s full of fire, bubbling pots, and sweaty men wearing bandanas barking orders at each other. A cook with a sharp knife in his hand almost crashes into me. “Get the kid out of here,” he yells. I back up into the dishwasher.