“Are you kiddin’?” Craig laughed. “Ed’s the one should be worried. Where’s he coming from at this hour, driving so wild?”
We started moving towards the pier again, faster than before. In the far distance, the lighthouse periodically shot a faint flicker of light over the dark water. Now that I wasn’t alone, I realized how incredibly beautiful late night could be.
After a left turn before Miss Cogshell’s house, we groped our way through the trees to the woodshed. I used my flashlight to watch for rocks and sticks that might upset our precious load.
Shoving shrubs aside, I aimed my light high on the old padlock, so Craig could yank it off and open the heavy woodshed door, its rusty hinges too loud for this quiet night. We both grimaced, and for a second we held onto the door, waiting for the house lights to flash on, but the noise must not have been as loud as we imagined. All remained dark.
We squeezed the pool into the woodshed. Then, we lifted Pup out of the wagon, through the door and placed him into the dry pool. There was gray darkness inside, and the moonlight from outside cast strange black shadows on the strewn wood shavings that covered the floor. Craig peered at the rusty tools that lined the workbench, but I had no interest, fearing there would be a zillion spiders. Pup slid about on his plump belly, probably wondering what in the world he was doing there.
“What about water?” I said.
“If there was a jug in here I could fill it at the pier,” said Craig. He looked around and shrugged. “Hey, I can’t think of everything.”
Finally, we gave up and knew we’d have to go find a bucket.
As we were leaving, I turned to look back at Pup in the dull moonlight of the open door. His head was lifted high and cocked to one side; two bright eyes watched us. He didn’t know we were about to leave him in a dry pool in the pitch dark. I swallowed hard, and then stepped outside.
Craig pulled the big, wood door shut behind him, and hooked it with the broken padlock. I had just turned my flashlight off and was about to tell Craig I would stay and wait with Pup after all, when the light over Miss Cogshell’s back entry came on. Inch by inch, her door creaked open.
“Hello-o,” Miss Cogshell called out into the darkness.
I glanced at Craig—silent and staring. I hadn’t noticed how cold the night had become. I started to move towards her as she came outside and down the steps, until I felt Craig’s hand tighten on my arm.
Moonlight fell on Miss Cogshell’s long, loose white hair, and she appeared to be ten feet tall. She gripped her walking stick, and moved a step closer. I held my breath as her giant shadow crept towards us. The cane made a scary silhouette, like she was armed with a dangerous weapon, but then I remembered the handle was only the shape of a turtle named Clyde. My heart still raced and I wondered if Miss Cogshell was frightened, too.
I jerked my arm free of Craig. “It’s me, Amy,” I called across the yard.
“Oh, thank goodness,” she said.
Craig started to bolt.
“Is someone else with you?” she asked.
“Um.” I watched Craig disappear into the dark trees, and then turned back to Miss Cogshell. “May I talk with you?”
“Of course, come in. I am very curious to find out why you are crashing around my backyard in the dark.” Miss Cogshell went into her house and began turning lights on.
“Come on,” I said, looking to where I figured Craig must be standing.
He suddenly whispered, right in my ear. “Are you gonna tell her?”
I sucked in air and turned. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”
Craig threw up his hands. “I might as well take Pup home before she reports him.”
“Well, we’ve got to do something.”
I finally convinced him to move towards the house, but as we got nearer, Craig hung back a few steps.
“This stinks. Old Coot’s gonna ruin the whole thing,” he said.
“Trust me. Everything will be okay.” I rapped on the glass of the outside door. A moment later Miss Cogshell filled the doorway.
“Amy, what . . . ” she stopped. “Why, you have brought a friend.” I turned and saw Craig gawking up at Miss Cogshell as though he had never seen her before. The tallest kid in school suddenly looked short.
“This is Craig. He’s got . . . well, we’ve got a problem.”
“I guess you do,” she said. “Come in—even at midnight, there is nothing that can’t be solved with cookies.” I blinked my eyes in the sudden brightness, then scowled at Craig so he’d follow. You’d think we were Hansel and Gretel at the witch’s gingerbread house by the length of time it took him to get into the kitchen.
“There’s a baby seal, and he’s hurt,” I began, as I helped myself to a chocolate chip cookie. I glanced over at Craig, silent for once, who stood with his hands in the pockets of his army jacket. His head was bent as though he read the stack of newspapers beside him. “We thought maybe . . . well, we don’t know where to keep him. Craig can’t keep him in his garage anymore.”
“In his garage! Well, I should say not,” said Miss Cogshell. “A garage is no place for a seal.” She pushed long, silvery strands back over her shoulder. I had never seen such hair and wondered if all old lady buns held this glory.
Craig looked defiantly at her; his blue eyes blazed. Then he glanced at me with a told you she wouldn’t help us look.
“There’s a legal problem, too,” I added, looking straight at Craig, so he’d explain.
“Yeah, there’s some law about it,” he mumbled, shoving his bangs back. “I just want to keep him ’til his flipper heals.”
“A law, you say?” Miss Cogshell scooped up bobby pins from the counter. She twisted a quick ponytail and began to insert the pins into her hair. “Bring him right over,” she said at last.
“Really?” I shrieked. “Oh, I knew you’d help us.” I, who so recently didn’t like hugs, felt like throwing my arms around her, but was too aware of Craig standing an inch away in the tiny kitchen.
Miss Cogshell made a shooing motion with her hands and before she could say scat, we rushed through the door, out to the woodshed. We grabbed Pup, stuffed him back in the wagon and bounced him across the yard, Craig ducking beneath the clothesline.
Miss Cogshell watched for us and flung the door open wide, when we arrived. Her hair was caught up now in the usual bun.
Craig lifted him out of the wagon and the three of us went inside. What would Pup think of his new home? I wondered.
“What a cunnin’ little thing you are.” Miss Cogshell looked down at Pup’s bewhiskered face. “I’ll put some nice salt in the tubbie to help your boo-boo.” She kept talking baby talk in this high, squeaky voice. I didn’t dare look at Craig because I knew he’d be making a face and I’d burst out laughing.
We got Pup settled in the tub, hung around to watch him check out his new pad for a few minutes, and then flew for home.
7
THE NEXT DAY, I stopped by to visit Pup and found Craig hanging around near Miss Cogshell’s walkway.
“Aren’t you going in?” I asked.
“Of course.” Craig shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I came to see Pup.”
After we were inside with Pup and Miss Cogshell, Craig warmed up a bit. Pup was bellying about the linoleum floor, enjoying all the attention. Craig liked to tease him by tickling his nose. Pup gave it right back and once he nipped Craig’s finger hard enough to make him wince in pain. Pup licked the wound, and Craig’s face softened.
When the cuckoo clock started cuckooing, Craig had to run to the parlor and see what that was all about.
“Hey cool, the bird pops out. Where’d ya get this thing? Looks foreign, like we should be sitting here chewing on slabs of bread covered in goat cheese, or somethin’.”
Once Craig got talking, I didn’t think he’d ever shut up. Miss Cogshell stood there grinning at him, holding her big sides, so I guess she enjoyed him. She sometimes talked a lot herself; however, when someone
else was speaking, she gathered up every word in her deep listening way.
DURING THE WEEKEND, I stopped by to see Miss Cogshell and Pup several times. Craig was there every time, trying to get Pup to eat. I wished there was something I could do to help. Already, Pup looked thinner.
Once in a while when Craig was in the other room with Pup, I’d sit at the kitchen table and help Miss Cogshell with baking or whatever she was up to.
The stories Miss Cogshell told me about the different china animals and how they came into her collection were so interesting that I often didn’t notice the growing dusk outside. One of my favorite tales was about her friend from England. Margie had been stranded on an iceberg while on a scientific expedition in Antarctica. After her safe return, she had sent the tiny penguin to Miss Cogshell.
Miss Cogshell chuckled. “Just a little souvenir. But that wee fellow started up quite an assembly now, didn’t he?”
ON SUNDAY NIGHT, Craig and I left Miss Cogshell’s at the same time. We had stayed later than usual. Darkness spilled misty shadows over the port. The harbormaster’s truck passed by as we stepped onto the road.
“We’d better be more careful,” I said. “It will look suspicious if we’re always coming and going at odd hours.”
Craig laughed. “Suspicious?”
“If he gets wind of Pup, he’ll be looking out for strange behavior.”
“I guess.” Craig shoved his hair back. “I’m starving.” He dug through his pockets. “Crud, just an empty Charleston Chew.”
As he pulled out the candy wrapper, something else landed on the ground by my feet. A cigarette. I scrunched up my nose. “What’s with that?”
Craig looked at it a moment as though it were some alien being. “Oh, yeah, I forgot. I took that from Ma’s stash about an hour before I found Pup.”
“You were going to smoke it?” I asked, making another face.
“Well, guess you could say I considered it, but things are different now.” Craig picked up the cigarette and pointed it at me. “Grab the end and make a wish.”
I did and then we pulled, so hard I almost fell backwards. It ripped into three pieces. Craig ended up tossing the whole thing into a nearby barrel. “Don’t know what I was thinking. Last thing I wanna be is like my old lady.”
“Well, I guess we both got our wish then,” I said. “The last thing I want is to hang around with someone who smells like an old ashtray.” And then I remembered. “Uh oh, I didn’t do my math homework.”
A wide grin spread across Craig’s face as he whispered “slack-er” low and slow, close to my ear.
“I’m not! I always do my work.”
“Slaaack-er,” he repeated.
Even though I knew I’d just stay up an extra half hour to do the assignment, his teasing made me feel fun, kind of reckless and carefree.
We were moving onto the pier, when the harbor master’s truck came back from the other direction, going slow.
“Duck!” said Craig. We leaped off the side of the dock, and landed on the small beach. We shimmied over to a heap of wreckage and kept ourselves low behind it. I could hear the truck stop and the door rattle open.
The wide beam of light from Howard’s flashlight swept over, just above our heads—back and forth several times.
“Anybody out there?” Howard called.
My heart thumped. Neither Craig nor I uttered a peep. Through a slit in a slab of driftwood, I watched Howard check his boat locks and then climb back into the truck.
Howard peeled out, his tires burning rubber. Covered in sand from head to toe, I rolled onto my back and started laughing. “What are we hiding for? We don’t even have Pup with us!”
“Think of it as a Howie drill,” said Craig.
LATER THAT NIGHT, after whipping through my math, I filled four pages of my diary and then found it hard to sleep; that’s how excited I was. Spring was halfway over, although the thermometers didn’t seem to realize it. Hopefully, warmer weather would soon come. Already I worried about Pup’s release back to the ocean. I wanted to keep him forever. All I could think about was Pup and Craig and Miss Cogshell.
ON MONDAY, IN the school cafeteria, I noticed Craig with his friends at the next table. The kids who sat at the end of my table had already cleared out, so I sat alone as usual. It seemed to be a silent agreement between Craig and me to act like we didn’t even know each other. The other boys at his table jumped up. They shot lunch bags into the barrel and tossed their trays onto the counter. I took small bites out of my cookie and pretended not to notice them.
“Come on, Craig,” shouted a kid, “baseball time.”
“Catch ya later,” mumbled Craig. He sat staring at his half-eaten lunch, both elbows supporting his head. It was rare to see him down.
I stood, popped the last of my cookie into my mouth, took a few steps, and then forced myself to stop by his table. He looked half-asleep under his shag of blond hair.
“You okay?” I asked.
Craig jerked his head up, raised one eyebrow and stifled a yawn. “I’m just thinkin’ ’bout Pup,” he said. “I spent half the night trying to get him to eat something.”
“Half the night?”
“Miss C. left the door open for me. I had to sneak out of my place, then sneak back in again. Something’s gotta change.” Craig looked down at his sandwich again. “I know a tub’s no place for a seal, but if he doesn’t learn to eat fish, he’ll never survive. He was probably still nursing when I found him. Don’t know if I’m doing it wrong or if he’s homesick or what.”
“Maybe they have a book on it at the library.”
He shrugged. “Beats me, but, hey, time is running out.”
“True, and who knows when I can convince my father to drive me over to Thomaston. Well, his flipper has been looking better,” I offered.
“Yeah, it’s getting there. You going over today?”
I nodded, but Craig was taking aim at a breadcrumb. He snapped it with his index finger, to another table. “Well?” he said, turning to stare at me, like he really wanted an answer.
I cleared my throat. “I’ll be there.”
Craig stretched, dumped his sandwich in the trash, then called back over his shoulder. “See ya later, Shrimp.”
I watched him saunter out of the lunchroom. Grrr! Couldn’t he see how much I hated the name Shrimp? I guess I’d have to tell him—one of these days. Not realizing air was trapped inside, I clapped my lunch bag flat. The bang was so loud I jumped, then I looked around quick. The last few tables of kids were too busy talking to notice, but the custodian was staring at me with raised eyebrows. I tossed my bag into the barrel, and tried to keep a straight face as I, too, sauntered out of the lunchroom.
NO MATTER WHAT kind of day I’d had, there was a certain feeling that came over me the minute I walked into Miss Cogshell’s home. I don’t know if it was the cooking smells or the soothing tick-tock of the cuckoo clock, or something more. I seemed to have an ability there to think things I had never thought before. As though feelings had been stored deep inside me and were slowly being let out like air from a beach ball. I wasn’t sure anymore whether I was helping Miss Cogshell, a lonely old lady, or if she was helping me.
I found Miss Cogshell in a dither hovering over Pup and Craig. “The poor little thing doesn’t look too well.” She wrung her plump hands.
Pup was lying in the corner of the bathroom tub with the same long face that Craig had worn at lunchtime. A book about whales, dolphins, and seals was on the nearby countertop.
I glanced at Craig in amazement. “How did you get to the library and back so fast?”
“Don’t even know how to get to the big city, never mind to the library. This belongs to Miss C. Great pictures, but zippo on feeding.” Then Craig turned away and started waving a fish around. “You must be hungry by now, Pup.”
“Don’t go falling in the tub,” I said.
“Ha ha.” Craig rolled his eyes, “Why don’t you try then?”
I stuck the fish in my jacket pocket, then got on my hands and knees and inched over to Pup. “Hi Pup,” I whispered. I had read an article about an orphanage and figured all babies were basically alike when it came to needs. First it’s a matter of earning trust. I brought my hand out slowly and patted Pup’s satin head, then up and down his long, sleek back. I could feel him relax under my hand. Little by little I slid the bottom of my jacket up over the edge of the tub, while continuing to pat Pup. Craig and Miss Cogshell watched in silence from the hallway.
After a while my hand started going numb from sliding back and forth over the spotted fur. I shifted so Pup’s nose lined up in front of my jacket pocket. I kept patting with stiff fingers as I watched Pup’s whiskers start to twitch. Pup’s dark eyes seemed full of trust as he looked at me. After a few more minutes, Pup stuck his nose right in my pocket and pulled out the fish. I held my breath, and a second later, the fish was gone.
“Alright!” Craig cheered.
Pup stuck his nose back in.
“He wants more.” Craig tossed me another fish. I sneaked it into my pocket while Pup wasn’t looking. Then I draped my jacket back over the side of the tub, and he went fishing again.
“Good job, Amy,” said Miss Cogshell. She gave a long sigh as she pushed her glasses up her nose. “Now that Pup is eating, I guess I’ll go into the parlor and relax a while.” I watched her squeeze her bulky form around the corner and for the first time wondered exactly how old she was. I felt Craig’s eyes on me and glanced over at him.
“I hadn’t noticed the heart before,” I said.
“Huh?” Craig wrinkled his nose.
“The little heart shape above Pup’s left eye.” I pointed out the rough spot of white.
Craig leaned way in over my head to see. His jacket smelled like a fresh cut lawn. I held my breath. Then he straightened and shrugged one shoulder. “If you say so. Anyway, I hope Pup’ll eat from my pocket, too. You’ve got the magic touch.” Craig gave me his widest smile ever, and I thought I’d melt right on the spot.
Call Me Amy Page 4