“Will you relax? If I fall I’m going to fall an entire three inches…oof…two inches…ow! Got it!”
“She got it! She got it!” Oliver began a victory dance.
Jet emerged a few minutes later, fist first. Oliver took the tiny metal key case from her hand, and Uncle Per helped her up. Inside was a single sheet of paper folded many times over and a mini pencil.
“Look, Kai,” Oliver said, tugging at his arm. “Somebody from Kobe, Japan! And he wrote in secret code!”
“My kanji is limited to shipping terms,” Per said. “What does it say?” He handed over the log.
“Breathtaking,” Kai read. He handed the log to Jet. They all signed it, and Kai carefully wrote out the kanji characters for Ikata. Jet returned the cache to its hiding place. Uncle Per broke out the snacks and water bottles. Kai was content to just lean and look, imagining his father looking over the same spot decades ago. He wondered, for the first time, if his father ever missed his hometown.
After a while Uncle Per came over and leaned alongside him.
“There’s something I’ve been wanting to give you ever since you arrived,” he said. He took a wooden box out of his pocket.
“This is for you.”
Kai opened it. Inside was a round brass thing that looked like a pocket watch with a lid. Jet peered over his shoulder.
“Go on, take it,” Uncle Per said.
Kai cradled it in his palm. It was heavier than it looked. There was a cutout in the lid in the shape of a squared-off heart. U.S. ENGINEER CORPS was stamped on the rim.
“It was your great-grandpa’s compass,” Uncle Per said. “The one he brought back from the First World War. He used it to guide ships over the bar.”
The lid opened smoothly. The disk of the compass bobbled. Kai turned to the left and right, watching the north point swing into place. He turned to show Jet, but she’d stepped away. Uncle Per cupped his hand under Kai’s. He lifted the compass to eye level.
“You line it up like this, and then look through the sighting hole.”
The heart shape on the lid was upside down now, and it looked like an up-pointing arrow. It had a polished metal mirror underneath that reflected the dial.
“Then you find a way marker to guide you.” Uncle Per turned to the north and lined up the compass so Kai could see the Astoria Column through the sighting hole.
“Wow,” Kai said. “It’s so old, but it still works perfectly.”
“Do you like it?”
Without thinking, Kai nodded yes.
“It’s yours.”
JET SLIPPED AWAY from Kai and her dad and went to stand on the far side of the platform. The morning fog had burned off, but the view was lost on her.
She had seen the compass before. She’d snooped in the chest in Dad’s office last year. The chest held old woolen pilot uniforms, a brass telescope, coins from all over the world, and war medals. But the compass was the prize of them all. As soon as she’d seen it, she’d wanted it. Her cell phone had a compass app. Sure. But this was the real thing! She’d promised it to herself, promised that she’d earn the right to own it.
Across the platform Dad was taking Kai’s picture. Jet felt struck through, as if the future she’d always imagined had run aground. Did he not even think of her as a mariner? Okay, technically she hadn’t told him that she wanted to be a pilot, not since she’d made a dramatic pronouncement at Thanksgiving dinner when she was six.
Dad had laughed and acted like she was being cute. Even when she was little, cute was the last thing Jet wanted to be. She’d gone to her closet that night and thrown away everything pink, including socks and underwear. She promised herself he’d never call her cute again. She joined the swim team and won her weight in medals and trophies. She got books from the library about the weather and the ocean and every sea captain she could find. There was one book about an Irish woman sea captain that she’d loved so much, she stole it from the library and read it until the covers fell off.
All she wanted was for him to understand that she was serious about being a pilot. But maybe it was already too late. Maybe he wanted Kai. Piloting was a heritage business, and not just on the Columbia. It was the same on the Mississippi, in San Francisco Bay, on the Chesapeake, everywhere. Dads handed pilotage on to their sons like they’d done for generations.
Jet kicked at the platform railing. Kai could fix a boat. Fine. But he hadn’t set eyes on the Columbia before this summer. He didn’t know the name of a single navigation marker. If she could just get out there and win the Treasure Island Race. Dad would respect her then. Everybody would.
She knew that course like nobody else. She could win the thing. The Saga could be handled by a single sailor. It would be a challenge to reach the jib sheets from the stern, but Jet was getting taller, she could feel it. She was almost thirteen. Okay, not until September, but she felt thirteen now. Twelve was so tight on her, it itched. She had to persuade him to let her race. She lined up her best arguments. The race was only a month away. She’d need every minute of practice she could get.
Dad was still talking to Kai about the compass. Her great-grandfather’s compass. It just wasn’t right. It should be hers. She was the one who wanted to be a pilot. Kai hated the ocean.
Jet slumped against the opposite railing and studied her cousin. Oliver came over and started taking pictures of Kai and Dad together. Dad was clowning around like usual, trying to get Kai to laugh. Kai was trying to be all dignified for his father.
Jet sighed. What right did she have to complain? Kai had lost everything. His parents were making him stay a million miles away, with cousins he didn’t know. Meanwhile everybody he knew was in the thick of rescuing his hometown—one heroic inch at a time.
He’s like me, Jet thought, or like I would be if I ever came down with a case of good manners. He was only happy when he was fixing the Saga. He needed a project, something that would make him feel like he wasn’t wasting his summer playing like a little kid.
Jet turned to the northeast, where she could just make out the first few islands in the Treasure Island racecourse. Could she ask him when he was so afraid of the water? But he mended the Saga with such care. He did love to sail. Loved it and hated the ocean. It was like a curse straight out of mythology.
“WHY ME?” KAI said quietly. He turned to his uncle with the compass in his hand.
“You’re an Ellstrom, aren’t you?”
“But I don’t live here.”
“You’ll come back,” Uncle Per said confidently.
Kai found 260° west by south on the compass—the course home. He’d dreamed of going home night after night, and yet how could he face them when he’d run away? All his friends were going to remember this summer forever. They’d remember the heat, the cramped tents, the work, but more than anything, they’d remember that feeling of solidarity from overcoming something together. For the rest of Kai’s life, he’d be outside the circle of those who’d given their all when their town needed them most. No one could come back from that.
“Not so easy to be a boy between cultures, is it?” Uncle Per said.
“No.”
His friends at home never said, “You’re only half Japanese so we don’t like you.” But everything came easily to them. Kai was always in doubt. Did he laugh too loud? Answer too many things wrong and make the class look bad? Score too many soccer goals, like a show-off? He was never sure he’d said or done the right thing.
“The sea could be your country,” Uncle Per said. “Lots of mariners are like you—a foot in more than one place. Captain a ship, and you’re a citizen of the whole world. You come from way-finding people, Kai. You and I go all the way back to the Vikings.”
Kai’s father had left the navy before he was born, so Kai usually thought of him as just a nuclear engineer, but the truth was that every man in Kai’s family had been a mariner of one kind or another.
“Whichever you choose, the sea will always be a home to you,” Uncle Per said, a
nd then he left Kai alone with his thoughts.
Kai turned west. The ocean was blue and clean and still. The tsunami had been black and loud. It plowed through his town like a bulldozer, pushing cars and boats on the leading edge, dragging garbage and house frames and human bodies behind. He shuddered remembering it.
Kai knew that in the minds of his classmates he’d always be the boy who ran away. But something in him, maybe the American in him, wanted to believe in second chances. Enough to step in a boat and face the ghosts that hovered in the mists between the ocean and the air?
Yes. That much.
He felt the weight of his great-grandfather’s compass in his hand. “Generations of seafaring men,” Uncle Per had said. Ojī-san’s brother and father and grandfather were all fishermen. They’d faced the dark water before. Kai walked over to where his cousin was studying the river.
“Jet,” he said. “About that race…Do you need a crew?”
YESTERDAY IN THE clear sunshine on top of Saddle Mountain, taking Kai as her sailing partner seemed like a brilliant plan, a sure path to the glory of a championship cup. Now in the cold mist of early morning at the sailing club, Jet saw three fatal flaws in her thinking.
One: Kai had apparently never sailed in English before. He kept reverting to Japanese for sailboat parts. It was weird; he spoke English as well as she did. He didn’t even have an accent like the Japanese tourists who come off the cruise ships. But he couldn’t keep it straight that the sheet was the rope that moved the sail from side to side, and the halyard was the rope that lifted a sail up and down. Jet had known all this for so long, she couldn’t remember not knowing. Sailing in English was going to take some practice.
Problem number two: they hadn’t decided who was going to be helmsman and who was going to be crew. The helmsman did the steering and was in command. When she and Beck used to sail together, they traded halfway through the sail. That would be fair. But Beck knew these waters, and Kai didn’t. Maybe Kai would be fine with letting her take the helm. Or maybe he’d be ashamed to not be in charge. She’d taken only a quick look at the manga he’d given to Oliver, but it was pretty clear that in Japan, girls were for decoration and not command.
Problem number three: Kai was afraid of the water. What Jet hadn’t figured out or, okay, even thought about, was how she was going to help him get over his fear. The whole time they were rigging up the boat, Kai wouldn’t even look at the water. How was he going to cope with the current and waves on the Columbia? The main job of the crew, besides handling the jib sail, was to keep an eye on the water so they didn’t crash into anything.
They wheeled the Saga down from the garage. Jet would just have to help him get over all that. The thing to do with a fear was to charge right through it. The thrill of overcoming what scared you was totally worth the agony.
Jet and Kai stopped the boat trailer at the edge of the water. He untied the ropes, and Jet waded into the water behind the boat.
“Come on!” she called to Kai.
He stayed on the boat ramp.
“I need a hand here,” Jet said.
Kai stayed rooted to his spot.
“I can’t pull the boat off the trailer all by myself.”
Kai walked toward the water and stopped an inch before the spot where the water would touch his feet. He took the side rails of the Saga and shoved the boat toward Jet. She staggered a few steps backward as it slipped easily into Youngs Bay.
“Thanks!” Jet said. She took the bowline and tied it off to the dock.
“Well, are you ready?” she asked, still knee-deep in water.
Kai didn’t answer.
“I checked the tide. I swear.”
Kai stood there frozen, staring at Jet and the blue-green water around her legs.
“We’ve got two good hours left before the tide turns. Let’s get out there!” Jet reached down, scooped a handful of water, and tossed it at Kai. He flinched as though she were attacking him.
“Oh, come on, Kai. It’s just water.”
Beck would have splashed her right back. Kai was just as much an Ellstrom as her. Where was his fight? He just needed to try. Jet kicked a larger splash at him, and then another.
“Get out here!” she called.
It was hot. The water felt great. He was going to have an awesome time. All he had to do was try, but he was just standing there, not saying no, but not saying yes, either. Jet grabbed the bailer from the Saga and scooped up a whole quart of water.
“Are you chicken?”
“No.”
“Don’t you want to sail?”
“Yes.”
“Well get out here then!”
Jet heaved the water at Kai. The instant the water left the bailer, she knew she was wrong. Knew this was the cruelest thing she’d ever done. And she’d done it to the one boy who didn’t deserve it.
Kai didn’t move. He didn’t run. Didn’t even flinch, but he braced for the impact of the water like a man facing the executioner’s ax. The water flew in a sparkling blue arc and drenched Kai from head to foot. He shuddered, looked for a moment like he might throw up, and then turned away without a word.
“Kai?”
Jet dropped the bailer, flooded with shame. Roland did things like this, not her.
Kai walked away from the marina and back up to the main road. He didn’t look back.
“Kai, wait!”
He broke into a run. Jet jogged after him, but he was taller and soon left her in the dust. Stopping at the bridge, Jet leaned against the railing to catch her breath.
Kai wanted to sail. And he was refusing to get wet. A real captain would know what to say to her crew. Jet had no idea. She turned around and trudged back to the marina, where the Saga was still bobbing in the water, Kai’s patches holding beautifully.
She should practice solo. It would do her good. She pulled the jib sheet over where she could reach it easily and headed into the bay. The wind was steady. She made her first tack and then another. She trimmed the sail for maximum speed, but that lift she always felt when the wind swelled her sails just wasn’t there. She’d done the wrong thing, and her cousin was gone.
The water had a welcoming sparkle. The wind was perfect. Gulls swooped low over her sail, cheering her on, but there was no joy. Jet turned her boat toward shore. It took her more than an hour to load the boat onto its trailer by herself. By the time she’d put the boat away and biked all the long way home, she was hot and tired and sunburned and sad. Mostly sad.
KAI’S FIRST DAY of silence was like a drink of cold water when you’re dying of thirst. It was an easy enough choice; he never wanted to talk to Jet again. He didn’t want to tattle on her. Didn’t want an apology. He shouldn’t have to explain himself. She should know that his grandparents were lost somewhere in the Pacific. How could she expect him to wade in, as if their lives meant nothing to him? No. He just wanted the peace of not having to deal with her at all.
At first Uncle Per didn’t even notice. He told one of his sea stories at dinner. Kai smiled and nodded in all the spots he was supposed to. Jet peppered Uncle Per with questions, and nobody noticed that Kai wasn’t talking—except Oliver.
Oliver stopped talking, too. After dinner he took Kai by the hand and set up the chessboard on the rug while Uncle Per read The Three Musketeers aloud. Jet made her excuses, and Aunt Karin drew comics in her work corner.
The next morning, instead of struggling to swallow the Froot Loops and Count Chocula, Kai went to the garden and picked some peas and another green leafy thing that looked tasty. Not quite what he needed for proper miso soup, but as soon as he could figure out where to buy miso and seaweed, he’d be all set. On summer days like this, Ojī-san used to meditate in Obā-san’s garden. Kai tried to remember what his grandfather had said about meditating. Sit mindfully. Breathe slowly.
Kai heard Jet come charging out of the house. She was going to demand an explanation. Kai closed his eyes, but his blood was boiling. Who did she think she was? She’d
never lost anything. He listened to her coming closer, through the little stand of pear trees. He braced himself for conflict, but Jet stopped a good ways off. Kai was determined not to answer her, no matter what she said. But instead of the flood of demands he was expecting, she just stood there, as silent as him.
And then she turned and walked away. On tiptoe. Kai didn’t think Jet knew how.
The rest of the morning was perfect. Kai tended the garden while Jet mowed the grass. She worked with her head down, not talking. When Aunt Karin asked them to go to the farmers’ market, Jet made an excuse to stay home. She didn’t even look at him.
Just by luck, he and Aunt Karin found a tiny stall in the market run by a Russian woman. She had mushrooms and daikon radishes and homemade pickles. She’d set out samples. Kai could have happily eaten every pickle on the plate. They weren’t exactly like Obā-san’s pickles, but the familiar salty sourness of them filled him up in a way ten milk shakes never would.
The silence continued at lunch. Jet pushed her macaroni around with her fork but didn’t actually swallow any of it. After lunch she went to the barn. There was peace in the house for hours. Eventually Kai decided to join Oliver, who was watching TV in the living room while Aunt Karin inked her comic-book panels. But Oliver took off the minute Kai sat down.
“Did you and Oliver have an argument?” Aunt Karin said.
Kai shook his head.
It was an honest answer. Sort of.
Outside the window they could see Oliver at the edge of the orchard. He picked up a stick and swung it like a bat at the pears. In a few minutes every pear in his reach was on the ground. It was odd. Oliver adored combat like nobody Kai had ever known, but he wasn’t destructive. Aunt Karin gave Kai a searching look, and Kai had the distinct feeling he should say something to her, but silence was easy and he was weary of trying.
THE THIRD SATURDAY in June was the annual sand-castle contest, and ever since she was seven, Jet had gone to Cannon Beach with Bridgie and Skye and all three of Bridgie’s grandmothers for a day of building stuff in the sand. After her first disastrous attempt to sail with Kai, a day at the beach would be a relief. Jet owed her cousin an apology. She wanted to apologize, but he wouldn’t talk to her, wouldn’t even look at her, and she didn’t know how to start. The minute the big blue grandma truck pulled up, Jet bolted out the door without a backward look.
The Turn of the Tide Page 9