by Jill MacLean
The Hidden Agenda
of Sigrid Sugden
Jill MacLean
Acknowledgements:
I am very grateful to the Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage of Nova Scotia for assisting me with an Arts Nova Scotia grant. The grant was both a vote of confidence in my work and a tangible support for the first draft of The Hidden Agenda of Sigrid Sugden.
My faithful editor, Ann Featherstone, took the manuscript of this book into her capable hands and made it better. Much better! Thank you, Ann, for understanding what makes a good story, and—even more important—for knowing exactly how to implement the necessary changes.
My thanks to Christie Harkin at Fitzhenry & Whiteside, whose suggestions further improved The Hidden Agenda of Sigrid Sugden. Thank you, also, for finding the photo of three (three!) shrikes, and for your openness about the girl on the bicycle.
My gratitude to Chris Mills and his daughter, Maris, of Ketch Harbor, NS, for the photo on the lower half of the cover. It was fun working with you, Chris.
As always, thanks to my grandson, Stuart, for “techy” support.
For my granddaughter, Jessica
One
to terrify
“Show her the photo, Sigrid,” Tate says.
My nerves tighten like they always do when Tate swings into action. Trying to hide my reluctance, I hold out my smartphone. The battery’s near dead but the photo comes up anyway. Violet Dunston looks at it and wilts.
Tate smiles. When Tate smiles, her lips curve and her eyes stay empty. “You don’t want it posted online, do you, Vi?”
The photo shows Vi shoplifting in the Dollar Store; she’s tucking pink socks into her jacket pocket, looking as furtive as anyone can look. Poor Vi. She’s in grade five and skinny with wispy brown hair, and she doesn’t have one clue how to dress. Her top, for instance. If she didn’t shoplift it, she was gypped.
“Answer the question, Vi,” Mel says. She’s the muscles of our group.
“Yeah, Vi,” Tate says. “It’ll only take Sigrid two secs to post it.”
“Please don’t,” Vi quavers, her eyes swimming with tears.
Here I am, feeling sorry for her. Don’t let it show…
“Twenty bucks and Sigrid will delete the photo,” Tate says.
“Twenty bucks!” Vi lifts one hand to her mouth and starts chewing her fingernails. Nothing much left to chew by the looks of them.
“You’re getting a deal,” Tate says.
Tate’s good at figuring how much she can wring out of kids. Knows her market, you could say.
Vi wipes a ragged piece of skin down her jeans. “I can’t get the money until Monday.”
“The girls’ washroom. Five to nine.”
Vi edges away from us, then makes a dash for the mall exit.
“Let’s go,” Tate says. “McDonald’s for a bite of lunch, then we’ll hit the stores.”
So that’s what we do and it’s okay, I guess. But I’m glad when Tate wheedles a drive from Kenny Bugden after his shift ends at McDonald’s. School’s out by now, and I want to go home.
As we approach Fiddlers Cove, Tate says, “You can drop us at the wharf, Kenny.”
“The wharf?” I say, dismayed.
“You heard me,” Tate says.
You gotta watch Tate when she uses her quiet voice.
We almost never go to her place because her parents give a whole new meaning to strict. We don’t go to Mel’s because her father threw away the welcome mat after her mother died. We can’t go to my place because it’s Seal’s day off.
So ten minutes later, me, Tate, and Mel are sitting on the wharf on upended plastic barrels that stink of fish. The fog’s so thick you could open your mouth and drink it; the foghorn’s bellow is deadened to a moan. It reminds me of the sound Avery Quinn made when we posted a photo of him picking his nose.
He only came up with half the money. Tate had warned him.
I swipe at the drops of water collecting on the sleeve of my yellow jacket, watching them join together in a little river that pools at my elbow.
Mel’s chewing her way down a Mars bar. She’s a Corkum from Long Bight and never has much to say for herself, depending on her fists to get the message across. Tate’s the talker of our little group: short, wiry Tate Cody with her shiny black hair that waves to her shoulders.
You want to know what Prinny Murphy calls the three of us? The Shrikes.
Strike. Shriek. Shrike.
Tate says, smiling the way a cat smiles before it nails a sparrow, “Sigrid, your face is as long as Monday. What’s your problem?”
“I’m fine. Cold, is all. Wish I had a sweater.”
“You’re such a wimp…Okay, there’s two reasons why we’re here. First, we gotta talk about Prinny Murphy. And second, there’s a real good chance she’ll turn up. She often comes to the wharf to help her dad mend his lobster traps.”
Especially on a Friday afternoon, with school out for the weekend. I chew my lip, my ears straining to hear footsteps through the fog.
“Prinny’s getting too big for them crappy sneakers she wears,” Tate says. “Telling me on the school bus the other day—in front of all the kids—that she’s through giving us money. If we let her get away with that, we’re done. Might as well join the volleyball team.”
Mel looks puzzled. “We’re gonna play volleyball?”
Tate’s the only person I know whose sigh sounds razor-sharp. “We’re not going to play volleyball, Mel. We’re here to work on our strategy. Our game plan.”
Mel crumples the wrapper in her fist. “There’s ways of fixing Prinny Murphy.”
“It’s not that simple,” Tate says, “because she’s got friends now. Her and Laice and Travis, they’re tight as the Trinity. And if Travis Keating is on your tail, so’s the whole hockey team. But Prinny’s been a nice source of income the last while and we wants that to continue. Don’t we?”
She’s looking right at me; her eyes could strip the scales off a codfish. I roll a couple of stones around with my toe. Prinny’s been a nice source of income because we had photos of her ma drunk in a club with a guy who wasn’t Prinny’s father.
Hey, Prinny, pay up or they go online.
“Prinny’s ma is sober these days,” I say. “Maybe it’s time to put the screws to someone else.”
“And let her get away with it? Just because Mel’s short on brains, Sigrid, don’t act like you are. Prinny Murphy could bring us down.”
“So we lose face. So what?”
“We’re not gonna lose face—or money,” Tate says. “Not in my lifetime.”
Mel stands up, the plastic barrel rasping on the concrete. She’s big and pig-ugly, which is likely an insult to a decent pig.
She says, “I needs a jacket. I’ll be right back.”
One of the fishermen keeps his oilskins in a little shack near the end of the wharf. Although Mel sometimes borrows the jacket, she’s careful with it, and she always puts it back on its hook.
Right and wrong can be slippery.
She disappears into the fog. Tate’s left foot is vibrating on the concrete. Sure sign she’s irritated.
I clear my throat. “Maybe Prinny didn’t mean it. About not paying us any more money.”
“Shut up.”
The cold seeps into my bones. I count the number of seconds between the foghorn’s moans. Twelve. Who decided on that particular number? Why not eleven? Or thirteen?
Then we hear Mel speaking, her words muffled by the fog. “Lookit who’s here—Tate, we got company.”
Prinny…
Tate leaps to her feet. I follow hard on her heels.
We hurry past two longliners, their de
cks and cabins as wet as if it’s been raining. Then the foghorn blares so loud that I only catch the tag-end of what Tate’s saying.
“…now we got something better to do.”
Prinny Murphy is standing there. Red jacket, damp ponytail, her face a mask of terror.
She’s alone. We’re between her and the road to the cove. So she’s not just alone, she’s trapped.
I know all about trapped.
Prinny’s eyes dart from here to there. She whirls and sprints into the fog, heading for the end of the wharf where her father parks his truck and moors his speedboat.
Mel pounds after her, Tate on her heels. I race behind them, past piles of rope, a few lobster traps, an old killick lying on its side, and the whole way I’m praying Prinny’s dad will be sitting on a fish barrel, mending his traps.
Tate yells, “No need to rush—Prinny ain’t going nowheres.” She laughs—a laugh that grates my back teeth. “We got her where we wants her. Oh, Prinny, you’ll wish you never opened your mouth on that bus.”
Prinny’s poised at the very end of the wharf where the foghorn stands on its tall metal posts. Not a truck in sight. All the men must have gone home before we got here.
What’s she gonna do? Jump in?
She can’t do that. It’s early June, the water bone-cracking cold.
The foghorn blasts. Because we’re standing plumb underneath it, I nearly jump out of my jacket. Mel surges toward Prinny, who drops her backpack near the creosoted boards and before you know it she’s over the top and down the metal ladder. I run to the edge of the wharf. Prinny’s on the bottom rung, untying the hawser on her father’s wooden dory. She jumps in, gripping the gunwales for balance as the dory dips and sways.
Tate shrieks a cussword, throwing herself down the ladder. Mel picks up a rock and fires it at Prinny. But Prinny’s already grabbed the oars, using one of them to push off from the wharf, and the rock plops into the slow, black heave of the sea. She plunks down on the thwart and takes a hard stroke with the other oar. The bow turns away from the pilings.
Tate lunges for the stern.
Prinny takes another stroke, both oars this time, putting her back into it, rowing as if her life depends on it. Mel snags an old gaff off the wharf, takes aim, and tosses it like it’s an Olympic javelin. The rusty prongs scrape Prinny’s arm, the long wooden handle tangling with an oar. The dory yaws.
The gaff slides into the sea and floats away, bobbing on the waves. As Prinny digs in the oars again, Mel flings a rock that grazes Prinny’s cheek.
Then the dory’s swallowed by the fog, leaving small, flat circles on the swell where the oars dipped in. Tate’s still clinging to the bottom of the ladder. A wave sloshes over her sneakers but I’m not sure she even feels it. Savage, that’s how she looks. Like she could throttle Prinny with her bare hands.
I notice something else. The tide’s turned. From high to low.
A lump of ice lodges itself in my chest.
Seal, my stepdad, taught me about the tides in the cove; when the tide’s going out, the current can pull you past the rocks at the entrance to the cove and out to sea. Out to the offshore reef we call Knucklebones that can tear open the boards of a dory like it’s made of paper.
I sidle backwards, quiet-like so Mel won’t notice. For the first time that afternoon, I’m glad of the fog. I slide into it, and as soon as Mel blurs into nothing, I whirl like Prinny and run fast as I can. Past ropes and barrels, past the old fish shack where Danny Grimsby used to store his gear and no one with the heart to pull it down, until I come to the big building with its Government of Canada sign and its list of regulations longer than any list at school. Fingers shaking, I pull out my smartphone.
It’s shut down. Battery’s zapped.
Home. I gotta go home.
Up the slope, dodging the potholes. Thud of my steps. Clap of my heartbeat. Daren’t stop to listen for Tate and Mel.
What’ll I do if Seal’s home?
Keeping to the shoulder of the road, I pound past Cole’s house, then Buck’s with its pretty pink petunias in wooden pots at the end of his driveway. Scruffy spruce trees and a tangle of alders between me and the sea.
Our bungalow looms out of the fog. No vehicles in the driveway. With a sob of relief I run up the path and unlock the front door. Through the living room into the kitchen, take out the phone book and flip through the pages for St. Fabien because Ratchet, where Prinny lives, is too small to have its own section.
Murphy, a whole row of Murphys, and there’s Thomas Murphy. I block Call Display and punch in the numbers. One ring, two, then a man says, “Yeah?”
Prinny’s father. Gasping for air, I say in a high-pitched voice I hope sounds like a little kid’s, “You gotta go to the wharf. Prinny’s in a dory rowing out to sea and the tide’s turned. Go rescue her—hurry!” Then I slam the phone down.
Tate and Mel will be wondering where I am.
Out the door, down the path and back the way I came, fear nipping at my heels.
What am I more afraid of? Prinny drowning on the reef? Or Tate and Mel?
Two
to deceive
My sneakers rasp in the gravel at the edge of the road. I should try out for Track and Field next year. Only three weeks left of being in grade six.
Prinny, stay in the cove, don’t get pulled out to Knucklebones…
Down the slope, past the government building, everything in reverse. I slow down, trying to control my breathing. Act cool, Sigrid. You had to go home and use the washroom, that’ll be your excuse.
All of a sudden—too sudden—Tate’s right in front of me. “Where you been?”
“I—I had to run home. Must’ve been the hamburger I reheated for supper last night. Thought it tasted off at the time but I was hungry and—”
“Who’s at your place?”
“No one. But Seal could be home anytime. I told you it’s his day off.”
“Poor little Sigrid, aren’t you allowed to invite your friends in?”
“Yes! But—”
“My feet are wet. You can loan me dry socks. And Prinny will hang out in the cove for a while…we’ll check back in half an hour.”
“Yeah,” Mel says, “we’ll fix Prinny’s clock once we’ve warmed up.”
Does she have to make it so obvious she’s looking forward to it?
We climb the slope, Tate, then Mel, then me. Did I leave the phone book open on the table, or did I shove it back in the drawer? I can’t remember, dread so heavy on my shoulders I stumble into a pothole and have to grab Mel’s windbreaker for support.
She gives me a nasty look over her shoulder. “Quit it.”
“Sorry.”
Seal’s not home. They walk in my front door and into the living room. Mel leaves her sneakers on. Tate kicks hers off and slops across the floor in her wet socks. I know the place is a mess, but still.
I say brightly, “Make yourselves at home. I’ll bring in some chips.”
I hear the creak of springs as Mel settles on the couch. In the kitchen, the phone book is open on the table. I jam it back into the drawer just as Tate stations herself in the doorway. “Dry socks,” she says, snappy-like.
“Sorry. Forgot.”
I find an old brown pair in my drawer and pass them to her. She peels off the wet ones, dropping them on my bedroom floor. Then she follows me back to the kitchen, and watches as I take a bag of chips out of the cupboard.
“Sour cream and onion?” she says. “My least favorite.”
“It’s all there is. Seal does groceries tomorrow.”
My mother isn’t into buying groceries. Or doing anything else that smacks of the kind of housework normal mothers do.
“No nachos?” Tate says, right snarky.
The TV’s blaring in the living room; Mel likes the kids’ channels.
“You want to check the pantry?” I say. “I’ll pour some pop.”
Tate marches into the pantry, shoving stuff around with maximum noise. I take a
bottle of Pepsi out of the fridge. It’s not that far from Ratchet to Fiddlers Cove, and Prinny’s father knows how treacherous the waters off the cove can be. He’ll hurry. I know he will.
Tate snaps, “Not a single thing that’s edible in here.”
“Crackers,” I say. “There’s some Cheez Whiz in the fridge. Open the crackers, Tate, and I’ll whip us up a snack.”
So that’s what I do, chattering away about the new spandex jeans I bought last weekend. Tate watches me, drumming her fingers on the counter. Only time you see Tate relaxed is when some poor sucker’s just handed over her life’s savings. Or his life’s savings. Either way is fine with her.
Mel’s surfing with the remote to dodge the commercials. I pass Tate the crackers. Mel chows down on the chips. Last thing she should be eating, given her weight.
What if Prinny’s already been swept out to sea?
I spring up from the couch and march into Lorne’s room. Lorne’s my big brother and messy is his middle name. In the clutter on his bureau are two unopened bags of nachos.
“Here, Tate,” I say, passing them to her.
“Great!” She glances up and smiles at me, a real smile, like a 100-watt bulb came on. I wish she’d do that more often.
The minutes creep by. Tate checks her watch, paid for by Prinny, Vi, and Avery. “We’ll leave Prinny for another day. I better go home.”
Tate lives two doors up from me. Her parents belong to The Congregation of the Sacred Brotherhood. Her mother works at the religious bookstore in town. Her father sells life insurance, which seems strange for a guy who, according to gossip, talks to God on an hourly basis. His eyes make me think of icebergs, that cold, pale blue.
Mel says, “So I gotta hoof it home? Or hitch?”
“Guess so,” Tate says.
Standing by the window, I watch them walk down the path. As Tate heads east and Mel west, they vanish into the fog.
Please, Prinny, be safe.…
Three
to fret
Seal and Lorne don’t come home for supper, although at least Seal calls to tell me; my mother doesn’t turn up, big surprise. Even though I’m not hungry—my gut’s in a knot—I microwave a small double-cheese pizza, and chew on it, gazing through the living-room window at the road.