“Ain’t namin’ no names,” Deke said. “And this confab is now finito.”
Birdie and Nola both shot alarmed glances toward the cabin on Dixie Flyer.
“Wait!” Birdie said.
“What fer?”
“Um.”
“The Harley!” Nola said. “I love Harleys. Can you give us a look at the Harley?” She pointed back toward the marina parking lot.
“What in—”
“A quick one,” Birdie said.
“Real quick,” said Nola.
“You two out of your minds?” Deke said. “First off, why would I have my Harley here? I’m on the boat. Second, even if I woulda had it, why’d I wanna show it to you? Now, g’wan, scat!” He clutched the long, hard case to his chest, grabbed the rail, and swung himself on board Dixie Flyer.
Birdie and Nola looked at each other. Were they scared about something? I tried to think what. Meanwhile, Deke was casting off the bow and stern lines, pulling in the fenders—you learn all this lingo when you’re operating a business like Gaux Family Fish and Bait—and turning out to be a real fast mover on a boat. He went to the console, stuck the keys in the ignition, and—
“Hold it!” Birdie said.
Deke looked up.
“Yeah, hold it!” said Nola, adding very softly out of the side of her mouth, “For what?”
“I—I think someone’s calling you from the office!” Birdie said.
Deke paused, then glanced at the office. No one was around. In fact, it looked closed, like everybody was on a break. Deke cocked his ear. “I don’t hear nothin’.” He was right about that. Was it possible Birdie was hearing something I couldn’t? Forget it. But did that mean that Deke and I were … close, in some way? What a horrible thought! Sometimes when I’m confused, I give myself a good shake and get a fresh start, like it’s a brand-new day. I got busy with that on the dock at East Bank Marine.
Deke turned his back on us and cranked the engine. It went rumble rumble and Dixie Flyer started chugging away down the bayou, making a pretty wake, foaming and bubbling. Nice to see, and also nice that Deke was sailing out of the picture. I’ve met a lot of boat captains in my time, all of them more pleasant than Deke. So I expected Birdie and Nola to have cheerful looks on their faces.
But they did not. In fact, far from it. They were watching Dixie Flyer shrink in the distance, their faces actually sort of horrified.
“Oh my god,” Birdie said.
“What do we do now?” said Nola.
Maybe I was missing something.
WE’VE GOT TO RESCUE HIM!” BIRDIE said.
That sounded exciting. Now all I needed was the name of whoever was in trouble and we were good to go.
“But how?” Nola said. “How could Junior do anything so dumb?”
Junior? Junior was in trouble? I gazed at Dixie Flyer, now approaching the bend in the bayou. Once around that bend it would be out of sight. Hey! Was Junior on that boat? With Deke Waylon? Probably not a good idea.
“We’ll never figure that out!” Birdie said. “We’ve got to concentrate on what we can do right now!”
“Run after the boat?” Nola said.
“We’d never catch up,” Birdie said. “And the path stops at the bend. After that we’d be bushwhacking.”
Bushwhacking? When do we start? I took a step or two down the bayou, but no one seemed to be following me. How was I supposed to lead if no one followed?
“What about going after them in Bayou Girl?” Nola said.
“I can’t take Bayou Girl out by myself. So we’d have to explain to Grammy.”
“How do they get along—Junior and Grammy?”
“Don’t ask.”
“Got it.” Nola thought. I could feel her thinking. I could also feel Birdie thinking. The thoughts they were having sort of came together and mingled in the air, so much thinking going on that there was no point in me joining in. “What about the jon boat?” Nola said, the jon boat being the flat-bottomed boat we used for the smaller swamp tours.
“I could maybe take that,” Birdie said, “but even if we catch up, what then?”
“We’d have to distract Deke somehow so Junior can sneak off.”
“But how? Especially since Deke’ll be pretty suspicious when he sees it’s us. What we need is for Deke to stop the boat and get off for a few minutes.”
“What would make him do a thing like that?” Nola said. Then she snapped her fingers, a cracking sound that cut through all those tangled thoughts in the air.
We raced into Claymore’s General Store. No one was out front. Nola went behind the counter, flipped through a batch of papers. “Here we go.”
“Is there a number?” Birdie said.
“Yup.” Nola picked up the phone. “I’ll text him.” She started tapping away. “‘So sorry. Overcharged U. Taking refund to East Bank Marina—$200. CU there!’”
Then we waited. I wasn’t sure for what. After not very long, the phone pinged. Nola checked the screen. “He took the bait!”
This was about fishing? I’d kind of suspected that. But no more time to think. The next moment we were on the run again, back across the Lucinda Street Bridge and down the path to the East Bank Marina. Between the office and the boat slips stood some big fuel pumps. We crouched behind them.
Chug chug chug. I heard a boat coming upstream. After a few moments, Birdie and Nola heard it, too. Birdie put her finger to her lips. “Shh, Bowser. Not a peep.”
No worries there: A peep is a sound I wouldn’t even know how to make. We peeked around the corner of the last fuel pump—the three of us pressed together nice and close, me in the center of things, which always felt best—and saw Dixie Flyer come into view. Deke stood at the console, his long, stringy hair all over the place in the breeze. He steered the boat into the same slip he’d had before, came to a stop that seemed a little too hard to me, but I was used to real smooth boaters like Birdie and Grammy. Make that boat just kiss the bumpers when you come in, child, Grammy always said. Maybe Deke was in a hurry. He jumped onto the dock, whipped a rope around a cleat, then came walking quickly in our direction. We ducked back behind the fuel pumps, out of sight.
Birdie and Nola seemed to be holding their breath. I wondered why: It looked pretty uncomfortable. Deke was a very quiet walker, but I could hear him going by the pumps on the other side, moving fast. A few moments after that, I heard the office door open and close.
We tore out from behind the fuel pumps, glanced back at the office. Through the window we could see the blurry figure of Deke talking to some other blurry figure. We ran to Dixie Flyer.
No sign of anyone. The cabin door was closed.
“Junior!” Birdie said, again using that strange whispering shout.
“Junior!” Nola didn’t bother with the whispering part.
The cabin door slowly opened. Junior emerged, smoothing his Mohawk. “Hey, guys,” he said. “What’s happenin’?”
“Junior!” Birdie said. “He’s coming back!”
Junior nodded, like he was taking his time absorbing this information.
“Get off the boat, you moron,” Nola said.
“Okeydokey artichokey.” Junior swung himself over the rail and landed on the dock. Hadn’t one of his flip-flops fallen into the drink when he’d gone on board? I thought so. So how come he now had flip-flops on both feet? One was black, like the flip-flop he’d lost. The other was red. Didn’t someone I knew sometimes sport a pair of red flip-flops? I tried to remember who.
But there was no time for a real good remembering session, because things started happening fast. Junior said, “Loved when you asked him to show you the Harley, Nola. That was my favorite part, although—”
Birdie grabbed his hand and yanked him away from the boat, good and hard.
“Hey—where are we going?”
“Don’t you realize what could have happened?” Nola said.
“Like, how do you mean?” said Junior.
“Zip it!” Nola grabbe
d Junior’s other hand. They hauled him off the dock and into a clump of bushes, his feet hardly touching the ground.
Birdie glanced my way. “Bowser! Come!”
Did I have to? A snake had been in those bushes, and not too long ago. I’m not fond of snakes, especially the kinds with big heads and a certain sharp smell, a smell I was picking up now. But if Birdie says come, that’s that. I trotted into the bushes.
The kids were hunkered down low to the ground, peering through the leaves in an anxious sort of way—excepting Junior, who looked pretty relaxed—and talking in soft voices.
“I hate bushes like this,” Nola said. “What if there’s a snake?”
“It’s spiky,” said Junior. “Snakes hate spiky bushes.”
“Huh?” said Nola.
I was with her on that.
“Well, don’t you?” Junior went on. “I mean who would—”
“QUIET!” Birdie said.
We lay very still in the bushes. I listened hard for the steps of a very soft walker, and soon heard them. Pat-pat, pat-pat. Deke came padding along the dock, making no more noise than … a cat? Whoa! Was there something catlike about Deke? That couldn’t be good. I watched him through a tiny space between the leaves. He was muttering to himself, mostly the kind of words Grammy never wants to hear from the mouth of any kid in her family, namely Birdie. Deke freed the line he’d tied to the cleat, boarded Dixie Flyer, cranked ’er up, and started chugging once more down the bayou.
“One thing I don’t get,” Junior said.
“Only one?” said Nola.
Junior continued on, like maybe he hadn’t even heard her. “Why did he come back here?”
Birdie and Nola went into a long and complicated explanation, hard to follow even though I’d just been through the whole thing and therefore had the inside scoop. How crazy was that!
“Good job, team,” said Junior. “I knew you’d think of something.”
“We’re not your team,” Nola said.
“Just an expression.”
“Never mind that,” Birdie said. “Was there any sign of Snoozy in the cabin?”
“That’s a strange question.”
“What do you mean? It’s the whole reason you went on board!”
Junior thought about that. “You may be right. But he wasn’t there. And then the dude came back, and I jumped under the lower bunk—he’s got bunk beds in there—and then we started moving and—”
“We know that!” Nola said. “Birdie asked if there was any sign of Snoozy—like he’d been in the cabin recently.”
“Signs like … ?” Junior said.
“Something he left behind,” Birdie said.
“Hmm,” Junior said, followed by a few more hmms, and then, “Does Snoozy have a bathrobe?”
“Huh?”
“There was a bathrobe on a hook. It said ‘Holiday Inn’ on the front.”
“How could that be Snoozy’s?” Nola said.
Junior shrugged. “Maybe he stays at Holiday Inns.”
“When Snoozy goes places, he stays with other LaChances,” Birdie said.
“And would he wear a bathrobe to the tattoo parlor?” Nola said. “Think, Junior.”
“I’m kind of too tired to think. It’s been stressful.”
“Stressful?” said Nola.
“Kidnap victim? Hello?” Birdie and Nola stared at him. “I was pretty brave, come to think of it,” Junior added.
Not long after that, we parted ways with him, Junior headed for the food truck and us on our way to Claymore’s General Store.
“Look at him,” Nola said. “His flip-flops don’t even match.”
“Maybe it’s a sign of genius,” said Birdie.
Mrs. Claymore was on the porch, opening a big, brown cardboard box. And in that cardboard box were other smaller boxes, gold with a picture of a smiling member of my tribe on the front. I knew those gold boxes. There were biscuits inside and not just biscuits, but the crunchiest, tastiest biscuits around. I went closer to Mrs. Claymore, wagging my tail in the friendliest way.
She didn’t seem to see me. Instead she looked up Nola and said, “Just had a most unpleasant call.”
“Uh, who from?”
“That charter boat captain who bought the Weatherby. Claims we owe him a refund or some such nonsense. Two hundred dollars! What gets into the minds of some people?”
“I don’t know, Mom,” Nola said.
“Um,” said Birdie, “what did you tell him?”
“What I tell every unhappy customer—as I’m sure your grammy does, too. He’s welcome to return the purchase for the full amount, no questions asked. The gentleman didn’t seem interested. He muttered something I didn’t catch and hung up on me without a good-bye.”
“Whew!” said Nola.
Mrs. Claymore’s eyebrows rose. “Whew?” she said.
Birdie jumped in quickly. “She just means whew, like no harm done.”
Mrs. Claymore gave Birdie a very close look, and then went back to unpacking the gold boxes.
“Let’s go, Bowser,” Birdie said.
Go? Now? This very moment?
“Bowser!”
“Actually,” Birdie said as the two of us headed back to Gaux Family Fish and Bait, “Grammy only gives a full return if it’s less than twenty-four hours and still in the original box.”
As soon as she said “box” my mind zoomed right back to the biscuits I hadn’t had, and just when I’d gotten my mind to move on! Some days are easier than others.
We went inside. Grammy was alone, squinting at the label on a bottle of pills.
“Everything okay, Grammy?” Birdie said.
“Just fine.” Grammy stuck the bottle in her pocket.
“Any news on Snoozy?”
“Nope. But are two days up yet?”
“No.”
“What did I tell you about worrying?”
“Not to.”
“We’re good then,” Grammy said. “Worrying takes it out of you. What you need are things that put it into you.”
“Like what, Grammy?”
Was this important? I didn’t know and I never found out, because at that moment the door opened. There’d been a lot of that lately, but were any actual paying customers coming in? Not that I remembered. How about this guy, tall and old, with thick white hair and an eagle nose? A paying customer or not? Maybe—whoa! An eagle nose? Hey! I knew this guy. It was Mr. Longstreet. Did we like him, me and Birdie? I kind of thought we didn’t.
He walked into the store, glanced around, saw me and Birdie, and blinked in a confused sort of way. Then Grammy said, “Help you, sir?”
Mr. Longstreet turned his faded brown eyes on her. He looked more closely—this was full-on staring, no doubt about it—and his face went from old and tired and crabby to something like wonder, one of best human expressions there is.
“Claire?” he said. “Claire Landry?”
“That was my maiden name,” Grammy said. “Now it’s Gaux. How do you—” She gazed at him. “Not Henry Longstreet?”
“The same,” he said, and then he grinned a small grin, almost like a shy kid, and looked for second or two like a completely different person. “Well, not the same, of course. So much water under the bridge. Call it an ancient version of what was.”
“Well, for heaven’s sake,” Grammy said. She held out her hand. Mr. Longstreet shook it, the kind of handshake where his other hand got involved, making a sort of sandwich of hers.
“Summer after freshman year in high school,” he said.
“I remember.”
“I ran away!”
“I remember that, too,” Grammy said.
“That was how much I didn’t want to leave.”
Grammy shook her head at the memory of whatever they were talking about—at least that’s how I understood that particular head shake.
“Like Romeo and Juliet!” Mr. Longstreet said.
Grammy’s eyes shifted toward Birdie. Birdie’s own eyes were ope
n wider than I’d ever seen them. What was going on? I had no idea, although Mr. Longstreet was certainly right about lots of water going under the bridge—if he was talking about the Lucinda Street Bridge. I’d gazed down from the bridge many times—there happens to be a convenient lamppost halfway across—and watched that wide bayou flowing and flowing, never stopping day or night. It had to add up.
“I wouldn’t go quite that far,” Grammy said. She motioned Birdie in a little closer. “Henry, I’d like you to meet my granddaughter, Birdie Gaux.”
“We’ve already met,” said Mr. Longstreet, his old and crabby expression making a comeback.
OH?” SAID GRAMMY.
Meanwhile, no hand-shaking was taking place between Birdie and Mr. Longstreet. Grammy turned to Birdie.
“When was this?”
“Yesterday,” Birdie said. “When we went to pick up Snoozy.”
“You and Lem?”
“And Bowser.”
Yes, and Bowser! Had that somehow slipped Grammy’s mind? No problem—I’m the forgiving kind.
“… in Baie LaRouche,” Birdie was saying. “We were on this beach and then Mr. Longstreet came up in a pirogue, and … and he had Snoozy’s sunglasses.”
“Snoozy’s sunglasses?” said Grammy. “The sheriff told me they were in that stone hut on Little Flamingo Island.”
“That’s where I found them, Claire,” Mr. Longstreet said. “Not knowing they belonged to this Snoozy character, of course. Up until last week I hadn’t set foot in the state for more than half a century.”
“Where have you been, Henry?” Grammy said.
“A long story,” said Mr. Longstreet. He smiled at Grammy, his eyes brightening. “Which I’d love to regale you with. Anywhere nice I could take you for coffee?”
“Trixie’s is all right,” Grammy said. “Nothing fancy.”
“Sounds perfect.”
He extended his hand.
“Birdie?” Grammy said. “You’ll watch the store? Won’t be long.”
“Uh, sure.”
Grammy, moving kind of smoothly for her, almost light on her feet, approached Mr. Longstreet. He touched her shoulder. They walked together out of the store and into the parking lot.
Very slowly, like something was dragging her along, Birdie followed them as far as the door. I followed Birdie. Almost always I do my following from in front, but not this time for some reason.
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