Trouble

by Gary D. Schmidt

  Which was the last thing they said to each other until they drove up to Sanborn's house and Sanborn's mother came out to console Henry's mother, who did not want to be consoled by Sanborn's mother but who endured it all pretty well—even Mrs. Brigham's weepy expressions of sorrow for the loss of your dear, dear Frederick.

  Until they drove away, when his mother sighed, and sighed again, and then began to wonder aloud why everyone in Blythbury-by-the-Sea thought it was their right to know every little detail about Franklin's accident and every little detail about how he died and every little detail about how they were living now and when would they all finally stop asking how she felt because it wasn't their concern, anyway, because it was a private family matter.

  Then she stopped to breathe. Henry decided that he probably didn't need to say a thing.

  He especially didn't need to say a thing, because he had already said too much. Sanborn had been right. He did sound like Franklin.

  Henry wondered why he didn't want to tell his parents about Katahdin. Maybe it was a private matter. Maybe, if he had asked himself, he wouldn't have been able to say exactly why he wanted to climb the mountain. Not entirely, anyway. To prove himself? To get ready for Trouble? Because he had been going to climb it with Franklin? Maybe. But there was something else, too. Something more.

  He decided he'd better stop thinking about the mountain and get studying for finals week, which began that next Monday with his American History class and then rushed into Language Arts, then Government, then into Pre-Algebra—so getting worse and worse as the week went on until Friday, when he'd have Life Science and then PE—where the whole class had to run a 6:25 mile, something Sanborn couldn't do if his most dreaded nightmare was careening after him. He dreamed of someday being at Longfellow Prep, where classes were already done by the end of May. If Franklin were alive, he'd be giving Henry all sorts of grief, because he'd already be packed and ready to head up to Katahdin, and couldn't his little brother hurry up and finish his little classes so they could get going?

  But Franklin was in the low swelling of the ground, and there was no one to give him grief. At least, not that grief.

  On Monday afternoon, while Henry was rowing crew practice, he figured out one cause of World War I that he had missed on the American History final, but he calculated that he'd probably get an A- anyway—especially since he did a bang-up job on Lewis and Clark, those Great American Heroes.

  Later, toward midnight on Monday, two bricks crashed simultaneously through the two first-story bedroom windows of the Chouan house in Merton.

  On Tuesday, Henry wrote an essay evaluating the role of revenge in Chaucer's "Miller's Tale." He thought his analysis was unusually perceptive, because he used the word bildungsroman, figuring that the German would impress Mrs. Delderfield—even if it didn't really have much to do with "The Miller's Tale."

  On Tuesday night, someone broke into the Chouan garage, tore off all the chrome from their pickup, and left it twisted and mangled on the front lawn.

  On Wednesday morning, Henry heard before his Government final exam about the bricks and the chrome. Then he couldn't remember the process by which a federal bill becomes a law, or how Congress goes about overriding a veto, or whether governors had any role in drawing up the shape of congressional districts in their states. Since there were only ten questions on the exam and he had to make up three answers completely out of thin air, he figured that he hadn't done as well as he might have.

  On Wednesday night, nothing happened at the Chouan house in Merton.

  On Thursday, Henry, humiliated by his Government exam, found new depths of humiliation when he couldn't remember if he had to do the operations inside the parentheses first, or if the outside operations had to be performed on the interior numbers first, or if he should just go ahead and multiply through the parentheses, after all. Never in the history of Whittier Academy had there been so many erasures on a single sheet of paper. By the time it was over, Henry was amazed that his whole Pre-Algebra test hadn't dissolved into one big hole.

  On Thursday night, nothing happened at the Chouan house in Merton. Henry checked the Blythbury-by-the-Sea Chronicle the next morning to be sure.

  On Friday, Henry decided that there would be no more humiliation. He answered Life Science questions as if he had made up the whole science himself, and he thought the way he differentiated one phylum from another and then explained the operations of photosynthesis should make his teacher cry, it was so beautiful.

  Afterward, he ran a 5:32 mile in PE. No surprise there, except that he had hoped to come in a little lower. Say, in under four minutes.

  But there was one surprise that afternoon. Sanborn came in at 6:23.

  "Two ... seconds to ... spare," he said to Henry after he crossed the finish line—and after he was able to breathe again.

  "Sanborn, that's amazing!" yelled Henry. "Amazing. That's, like, five times faster than you've ever run it before. How did you do that?"

  Henry had to wait a little bit for his answer. Sanborn was still trying to suck in air.

  "Practice ... and ... discipline, ... my ... boy," he said. "Practice ... and ... discipline."

  "I guess so," said Henry.

  "I want to be ... in shape ... when we climb ... Katahdin."

  "I'm climbing Katahdin alone," said Henry.

  "Why ... don't you keep ... on saying that, ... Henry, ... and then I'll grind ... your sweaty ... face ... into the ... track."

  Henry decided that he wouldn't say it anymore.

  But he was going to climb Katahdin alone.

  Friday afternoon, Coach Santori called Henry aside after crew practice. Apparently, he thought he'd waited long enough for Henry to deal with his Outrage. Regionals were coming up, Coach Santori said. He wasn't sure that Henry's recent loss wouldn't be a distraction, he said. He was replacing Henry for Regionals, and probably for State, he said. But Henry would be welcome to come and dress for the meets anyway, he said. Go take a shower.

  Friday night, two bricks went through the picture window of the Chouan house. The Merton police were waiting. After a short chase, they arrested two members of the Longfellow Prep rugby team for vandalism and trespassing, and that, according to the Blythbury-by-the-Sea Chronicle, was only the beginning of potential charges.

  When Henry read the news while standing on the stoop, the wound on his palm began to throb.

  When Louisa—who was finally coming down for some meals—looked through the thick glass of the door and saw Henry standing on the stoop, she came outside and took the paper and read the news herself. Then she ran back upstairs. She wouldn't open her door until Henry sent Black Dog upstairs, who pawed a couple of times, and whined, and then went inside when the door opened just enough.

  Henry lay in bed that night, completely alone.

  So he was awake after midnight when his father's slow slippered feet slid along the Oriental runner and down the steps toward the kitchen. He threw on a shirt and followed. He found him in the downstairs hall by the flintlocks, lit by a small lamp.

  "You're up late," his father said.

  "So are you."

  His father nodded. He pointed to two of the flintlocks in the collection. "Those were in the wreck. I took them back from the historical society—we should have something, at least. They need some work. But they've been exposed too long. They'll probably never fire again."

  "That's okay," said Henry.

  His father considered them. He ran his hand along their stocks and trailed his fingers across their worn and pitted barrels. "I never thought Trouble would come to this house," he said quietly. "Not really. Not to us." He paused. "I should have oiled these stocks better before I mounted them."

  "We can do it another time."

  "I suppose." His father took his hand down and slipped it into the pocket of his robe. His mouth worked for a bit before he spoke again. "Henry," he said. "Henry, do you think Franklin would have grown into a good man?"

  Henry was so sta
rtled, he took a step back.

  "I know," said his father. "How can anybody ask that? But lately, it's the only question I seem to be able to ask. Not: Why was Franklin taken from us? Not: What should happen to Chay Chouan? But: Would Franklin have grown into a good man? And I'm not sure I have the courage to hear a true answer."

  "Dad."

  "So I wander these halls at night, looking at old flintlocks, wondering, trying to understand, trying to figure out if all the time I thought Trouble could never come in, it was already inside, and I knew it, and I didn't want to know it. And then, Henry, then I wonder if Franklin being taken from us wasn't somehow ... if Franklin was going to grow up ... Oh, Henry."

  He held out his arms. Henry filled them.

  The flintlocks mounted on the wall in the downstairs hall of the Smith house glowed in the dimmed light. They had been in more than a few battles—at least four at Trenton, one at Lexington, two at the North Bridge, one fired as late as Antietam. But none had ever been in a battle as fierce as the one being fought that night, deep in a father and a brother whose hearts lay broken open—a battle whose outcome could never be fully decided.

  ***

  He let his father believe that he had learned to be cold inside. With him, this was not hard. He did not show that he missed his dog. He did not speak of her to anyone. And he did not flinch when his father turned only to his brother.

  But tears wept deep at night, alone, are not cold.

  11

  DURING THE FIRST WEEKS OF JUNE, Henry couldn't help wondering why the staff of the historical society was so concerned about the ship down in Salvage Cove. Front-page articles in the Blythbury-by-the-Sea Chronicle—with headlines in bold print—made it seem as if heaven and earth depended upon unraveling the terrific mysteries of a three-century-old wreck. Today!

  Probably, the articles speculated, she had been a merchant trading ship traveling up and down the coast of New England. But, as Dr. Cavendish asked, if she had only been a trading vessel, why were so many cutlasses found? (And taken away, Henry thought.) And why so many muskets found? (And taken away.) And the cannon, which seemed much too large for a merchant ship. (Those, too.) The rings along the hull and the chains attached to them were another problem. They might, Dr. Cavendish said, suggest that this had been a slave ship, but this seemed unlikely. So what purpose did the chains and rings serve? And how had she burned? Henry wasn't surprised to see that Dr. Cavendish agreed with the bigger policeman: She was burned after she had been driven up on the shore. But who had burned her? If the crew had run her up on shore, why had they burned her? And why was there no record of her loss? And why were the cutlasses and cannon never salvaged? Or the chains, for that matter?

  It was Dr. Cavendish's hope that the ship could be excavated and put on display in a new addition to the historical society's building. (Donations were now being solicited from the society's "gold members.") Meanwhile, a display of ship's artifacts would be ready at the historical society's museum for late summer, including its cargo and armaments, as well as examples of the troublesome chains. Perhaps by that time, more would be uncovered about the ship's history. "Until then," said Dr. Cavendish, "we just don't know."

  Henry could not figure out why not knowing about a wreck mattered all that much—especially since now there was another wreck in Blythbury-by-the-Sea. And this one seemed a whole lot more important.

  One calm, warm June night, Adams Auditorium in the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Preparatory High School was, as the two Blythbury-by-the-Sea policemen put it, "devastated." Every year before the high school graduation ceremonies, banners that reached back to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow himself were hung in Adams; their gold braid and silver tassels would glisten against the high school walls. But the banners had been torn down and shredded. The deep-paneled walls had been smeared with white paint. The podium had been ripped from its moorings and toppled over into the front seats. The rich blue velvet of the auditorium chairs had been slashed, and all the footlights on the stage smashed in.

  "No human beings of any conscience could have participated in such a desecration of a historical institution," the editorial in the Blythbury-by-the-Sea Chronicle claimed. "Only those undeserving of the privileges of American citizenship could be responsible."

  Henry read the editorial while taking Black Dog down into the cove. When he came back up, he threw the paper into the garbage.

  By mid-June—after the Whittier Academy crew team had finished so poorly at Regionals that they would not be going on to State—the sea had given back most of the beach to Salvage Cove. New sand stretched from the dark boulders as it once had, and the boulders themselves, scoured clean by the storm, began to grow back their long seaweed whiskers. Dark mussel colonies took hold in the new clefts the toppled rocks provided, and the sea turned bluer and warmer as green spring yielded to yellow summer. The water was so warm that even Black Dog sometimes let the green-white froth of a wave come up to her feet—though she would never, ever go in.

  Little by little, Henry cleaned and polished all of the camping equipment—his own and Franklin's. He sorted it out, repacked it into his own backpack, hefted the thing up to his shoulders to feel its weight and balance, took it off and repacked everything, tried it on his shoulders again, and felt that everything was about right.

  He bought a new tarp—always useful—and then splurged on a new Buck knife—also always useful—as well as a new short hatchet. This represented only a small drain on his savings account—and anyway, he needed all three. Late at night he studied Franklin's maps of Katahdin's trails, imagining himself hiking upward, catching his breath when the lines drew close together and the climbing steep, and then finally coming to the top of Katahdin and turning around full circle and finding that there was nothing between him and outer space but the blue atmosphere—and not so much of that—and then looking down at hawks shredding the clouds with their rigid wings.

  There were times when Henry wondered if he should ask his father to climb the mountain with him—which would, of course, eliminate the problem of going to Katahdin without telling his parents, since there was no way in this entire green and yellow world that his mother was going to say, "Sure, go ahead. Have a good time."

  As for his father—well, his father hadn't been to his accounting firm in Boston for weeks. He hadn't seen a single one of his Beacon Hill colleagues. He wouldn't go to St. Anne's anymore. He didn't drive into Manchester, or even into Blythbury-by-the-Sea. When he came to dinner, he hardly spoke. During the day, he stayed in the library. At night, his slippered feet stalked the halls. It seemed as if all that remained between his life now and the brooding stone was to wait for more Trouble.

  Once, Henry almost did ask his father to climb the mountain. He came into the library and saw that there was no work on his father's desk. His pipe was cold and unsmoked, and he was sitting alone in the bay window, looking across Salvage Cove and the wrecked ship with his hands on his knees. Henry almost asked him then. But he wasn't sure that his father could even answer, because the other question was so fierce. Would Franklin have grown into a good man? Henry watched him brooding on this, and the other questions that went with it: What could have been different? Why had he not done something about the Trouble within?

  So Henry did not ask him, but on some days he would stand beside him at the bay window, and together they would look out on the wreck. Then Henry would feel the fire of Katahdin grow stronger and hotter within his guts. He would climb it alone; he would handle it himself. But his father would be quiet and still, and when Henry left the library, he would leave him sitting silently in the fierce battle, looking out the window like a lonely ghost in an ancient house understanding his life too late, and now helplessly watching what he could not change.

  Which was pretty much what Louisa was doing, too. Alone.

  One late night when Louisa came downstairs—and when Henry and Black Dog were watching a Buster Keaton movie—Henry surprised her in the kitchen. She told hi
m that she thought that everyone was asleep because she didn't hear anything downstairs. He reminded her that Buster Keaton made silent movies. And then Henry told her something that he had never told her before. He told her that he missed her when she wasn't around. She almost began to cry. Henry said that he knew what she was feeling, because he felt it, too. Real crying, Louisa's head low. And then Henry said that he was going to Maine and he was going to climb Katahdin.

  She looked up at him as though he was abandoning her.

  "Why go now?" she said.

  "Because I was going to climb Katahdin with Franklin."

  "That's not an answer."

  "I'm not asking your permission, Louisa. I'm just telling you that I'm going to go."

  "With who?"

  "With no one. By myself."

  "They won't let you go," she said. "Especially by yourself."

  "Maybe."

  "And that's not why you're going," she said. "You're going because he said you wouldn't make it."

  Henry looked at her.

  "Frank is gone, Henry. He's gone. But he was also wrong. Henry, he did things to hurt people. He did. He told you that you couldn't make it to ... hurt you. Doing something crazy like this all by yourself isn't going to fix that."

  "Oh, and you're the expert on doing something crazy. Like not going to his funeral is going to fix that." Henry was breathing hard. He could hardly believe that he was saying what he was saying. "Like dropping out of your life is going to fix that."

  Louisa stared at him. Her eyes filled again. Then she slapped Henry hard and abruptly across his face. "You don't know anything," she said.

  She ran upstairs to her room.

  And since that had gone so well, Henry decided that he would wait a few days before he told his parents he was going to climb Katahdin.

  He figured that he would wait until after they had had a really good supper. Probably he'd tell them when they were in the kitchen, cleaning up, when Black Dog was sitting patiently near his mother, who would be feeding her leftover scraps of marinated flank steak.