Sinking Deeper

by Steve Vernon

  “Hey” is usually where you begin.

  I found Granddad Angus huddled under the moose hide, working on something close to the dory’s bow.

  “Hey,” I said.

  Granddad Angus almost hung himself stepping out from under the moose hide. As he stepped away, he dropped it down behind himself as if he were trying to hide something.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Dory stuff.”

  I nodded, like that made some kind of sense.

  I wasn’t really interested in whatever last-minute carpentry he was doing. I was still trying to figure out how to tell him that I wasn’t going to be able to help him.

  “It’s great to see you,” Granddad Angus said. He was clearly excited. “I’ve been working on a few ideas to make our monster go out with a big splash.”

  That sounded great to me—except I wasn’t going to be any part of that great. I would be stuck on the shore with all the grown-ups, bored and alone.

  So I told him what Mom had already told me.

  “Mutiny and desertion,” Granddad Angus said. “First Warren, then Dulsie, and now you. That’s grounds for a flogging.”

  “Dulsie isn’t going?” I said.

  “She told me herself an hour ago,” Granddad Angus said. “She says she has a top secret idea for making some money.”

  “She’s got a job?”

  “What part of top secret don’t you understand?” Granddad Angus asked.

  I still wasn’t certain. I didn’t like the idea of Granddad Angus taking the dory monster out by himself.

  “I don’t have to do what Mom and Dad tell me,” I said. “I’m fourteen years old.”

  And then Granddad Angus surprised me.

  “It’s the prime minister of the country. You don’t always have an opportunity like that,” Granddad Angus said. “Your mother is right.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Mom is always right. That’s the problem. She’s the worst thing that ever happened to Dad and me.”

  Granddad Angus threw his wooden mallet down. It bounced two or three times, nearly landing on my foot.

  “Don’t you ever say anything like that again,” Granddad Angus told me.

  I took a step back, just in case he wanted to throw the mallet again.

  “Your mom is the best thing that ever happened to your father,” Granddad Angus said. “I don’t think I’ll ever forgive him for letting her slip away.”

  “That’s what happens though, isn’t it?” I asked. “People get married and people get divorced. It happens all the time on television.”

  “Life isn’t television,” Granddad Angus said. “Life is a big wide ocean, which is why your eyes are dory-shaped, and not square.”

  “But it still happens.”

  “It didn’t happen to me and my Marjorie,” Granddad Angus said.

  Marjorie was my grandmother. I didn’t know much about her. When you’re fourteen, people really don’t tell you much. I had seen a picture or two and heard a story about how she’d loved to dance with Granddad Angus any chance she got. But that was all I really knew about her and I’d always meant to ask him to tell me more.

  So I asked now.

  “Tell me about her, Granddad,” I asked.

  Granddad Angus chewed a bit, as if there was something stuck in his teeth. I could tell he didn’t want to talk, but I also knew I wasn’t going to let him off the hook. I had a kind of funny feeling that he’d been wanting to tell me about her for a very long time, but just hadn’t known how to begin.

  “Start with ‘hey,’” I suggested.

  Finally, he cracked.

  “Her name was Marjorie although everyone who knew her called her Madge. She was a patient woman,” he began. “She waited patiently while I went out to sea. Sometimes I’d be gone for days and yet whenever I got home there’d be a hot meal and a pot of tea.

  “She always knew,” he went on. “I swear she could hear the bump of my dory hitting the wharf. And she never got tired of waiting. I’d always tell her that one of these days I’d be done with the water, but then off I’d go again.”

  “Why didn’t you ever stay still?” I asked.

  Granddad Angus shook his head ruefully.

  “You might as well ask why the sea needs to be so deep,” he said.

  Then he looked away.

  I could see that he was sinking.

  I had to change the subject fast.

  “Are you sure you’re going to be okay out there?” I asked.

  He just snorted scornfully in reply.

  “What if there isn’t any mist in the morning?” I asked.

  “I’ve already thought of that,” he assured me. “In fact, I’ve made a few changes to the old girl that I believe are going to knock you out of your sweat socks.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Wait and see.”

  I still wasn’t so sure.

  I had a very bad feeling about letting him take the monster out alone.

  “What if they send out the navy?” I said. “What if there’s a battleship out there, waiting to sink the sea monster?”

  “Let them come,” Granddad Angus said. “I’ll be more than happy to show them how rough us old-time South Shore sailing men can be.”

  I had this sudden mental image of Granddad Angus blowing on his moose call and pedal-paddling like crazy up against a nuclear submarine.

  “I can take it out alone,” he told me. “Those pedal-paddles make for easy work. All I have to do is get out into deeper water and it’ll be clear sailing.”

  I wasn’t so certain about what Granddad Angus was telling me, but I wasn’t in any position to argue with the man.

  So I just smiled and nodded and grinned when he winked at me.

  I wish I’d winked back.

  Chapter 29

  The Long Black Limousine of Fate

  Fridays are always fun, but the morning of the Fogopogo Festival looked to be one of the biggest and most important days in the history of Deeper Harbour.

  The day started with a parade, the highlight of which was the dancing fishermen and their dragon. Wearing gumboots and waving the sailcloth dragon, the twelve fishermen made a fine spectacle of themselves.

  Following the parade everyone gathered down at the wharf, just waiting to see the sea monster. The fogginess of the weather seemed like a guarantee that Fogopogo would make an appearance. At least that’s what the festival planners were counting on.

  I knew that Granddad Angus would make it happen. Fogopogo was going to be out there.

  There was no way he would miss out on this.

  There were people here from all over. I had never seen so many people crowded onto the wharf. I was a little worried the whole thing would tip into the ocean and float them away.

  The prime minister showed up in a big black limousine and Mom and me and Warren and Molly piled in with him. I guess it had been Warren’s letter that had done the trick.

  The limousine was huge. In fact, I think they had to helicopter the limo into town because there was just no way I could imagine it making all the turns on the only road that led into Deeper Harbour.

  Dulsie had refused to join us. She’d had her own idea and set up a face-painting booth in the shade of a big old birch tree just beside the boat shed, so she could take care of the sea serpent egg and t-shirts. She was making money painting the faces of the kids and some of the grown-ups who had forgotten that they weren’t kids anymore. I know that might not sound like a big deal to anybody but I knew how happy Dulsie was getting a chance to use her face-painting skills for something that made sense to anyone else but herself.

  As for me, I just couldn’t stop smiling. This was exactly how things were supposed to turn out. It was like everything had come true the way I had seen it
happen in my dreams.

  It was fate.

  Warren sat there for the whole ride with his mouth hanging open and his eyes goggled wide, staring blankly, not knowing what to say. A couple of times he opened his mouth and closed it, like a mackerel flopping on the dock. I believe he actually thought words were coming out. Molly sat there next to Warren, grinning like somebody had made her the queen of everything, and I don’t think that had anything to do with the prime minister being in town.

  “I wouldn’t have missed this for the world,” Molly told me.

  As we drove along Main Street, the crowd all waved and cheered. Even those folks who had made a big deal out of bragging about how they hadn’t even voted for this prime minister were there cheering along. This was a big day for Deeper Harbour—all of these tourists and the prime minister too—and everybody in town was determined to show their appreciation.

  Personally, I didn’t really see what the big deal was. I mean, the guy didn’t look much like a prime minister ought to. He looked more like a middle-aged accountant or maybe a geography teacher. He had soft grey hair, faded into the colour of newsprint. He had heavy cheeks that sagged from his face like a pair of tired-out sails. Worse yet were his pointy nose and about three and a half chins that receded gradually into his flabby neck.

  He did have a nice smile, although I noticed it mostly came out when a camera was pointed in his direction. It was like he had a secret mutant spider sense that some how homed in on the click of a camera shutter.

  Mom gushed a bit and talked like a mayor for a while and then it was my turn. I had been sitting there thinking hard about what I would say to the prime minister of Canada, but the best I could up with was something lame.

  “So what’s Ottawa like?” I asked.

  Like I said, lame.

  “It’s a wonderful city,” the prime minister said, ignoring the fact that I had asked one of the lamest and most stupid questions in the universe. “I’m sure you will enjoy it.”

  I was beginning to think that might be true. I mean, maybe there was another world out there and maybe it would be kind of interesting to get to visit it.

  “Ottawa always reminds me of a little town that grew up to be a city,” the prime minister went on. “Everybody seems to know everybody else, just like here.”

  Mom nodded.

  Warren made another fish mouth.

  “This is really a beautiful little town,” the prime minister told me. “You’re really a lucky boy, growing up here.”

  And then he smiled. For just an instant it wasn’t a have-I-told-you-I’m-the-prime-minister kind of smile, but an actual gee-it’s-good-to-see-you kind of smile.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I guess I am kind of lucky.”

  We got out of the car and walked through the crowd to the wharf. The town had built a big platform close to Warren’s boat shed. Over the door of the shed, Warren had hung a brand new sign that Granddad Angus had carved him:

  “Boudreau’s Boat Building—Home of Fine Dories Since 1832.”

  Warren hadn’t been all that sure of the date, but Granddad Angus had assured him that eighteen-anything was historical enough for most people. As an afterthought, Warren had thumbtacked up a bristol board sign that read, “Ask Me About My Historical Stamps.”

  After he saw the second sign, the prime minister got a little excited because it turned out that he was a stamp collector as well. He asked Warren a few questions about his collection and Warren got to actually say a few words and a couple of actual sentences rather than just making fish-gawp sounds.

  We all stepped up on the platform. It was covered with enough ribbons and bows for half-a-thousand birthday parties. It was kind of neat standing up there beside the prime minister of Canada and my mom and even boring old Warren and Molly, looking at the whole town looking up at me.

  Everyone was talking about how grand it was that the prime minister of Canada had come to make a speech in our little town of Deeper Harbour, but I had the feeling that they were more worked up about the chance of somebody famous spotting the sea monster.

  Our sea monster.

  A part of me felt pleased and proud that we had actually gone and done it. Granddad Angus and Warren and Dulsie and me, we had gone and built ourselves a legend. The whole country would be talking about Deeper Harbour.

  This was our monster.

  Deeper Harbour’s monster.

  I looked at the crowd. I could see Dad down there, standing at the edge of the crowd. I knew he was watching to make sure nobody got trampled.

  I also knew he was watching for me.

  I waved, thinking that he couldn’t see me.

  Except he waved back.

  And then a hush fell over the crowd as if a giant wave of silence had swept over them and we finally saw the Deeper Harbour sea monster, slowly pedal-paddling its way into the mouth of the harbour.

  I grinned so hard I thought my teeth might break.

  Things couldn’t get any better than they were.

  And then things got worse.

  Chapter 30

  London Bridge is Falling Down

  “There he is,” somebody shouted. Like a wave, everybody pushed closer to the edge of the wharf.

  There were a lot of people cramming themselves onto that tired old wharf.

  I could see my dad out there waving his arms, trying to hold them back.

  The truth was, nobody had been sure they’d see Fogopogo today, foggy or not. He had only put in an appearance once or twice a week. A lot of people were worried about what the visitors might think if the monster didn’t show up. I think that’s why they had gone to so much effort to put on a show that would be worth it even if the Fogopogo hadn’t appeared.

  But here he was.

  It was weird and exciting seeing Fogopogo out there.

  I had never seen the monster from this angle before. I was used to seeing him from the inside.

  It was a little like hearing a recording of my own voice and thinking, “Gosh, do I really sound like a squeaky, high-pitched, steamrollered mouse?”

  That’s sort of how I felt right now.

  Now, standing beside my mom and the prime minister of Canada watching the sea monster that me and Warren and Dulsie and Granddad Angus had built, without the stink of the nine-hundred-year-old moose hide and the creaking of the pedal-paddles and the reek of the mopped paint, it looked a whole lot different than what I was used to.

  “Now that’s really cool,” the prime minister said.

  And then he whistled in genuine appreciation.

  I almost broke out laughing.

  How many people in the world can actually say that they’ve heard the prime minister of Canada say “cool” before?

  I bet no one.

  Nobody says “cool” these days but Dad and me, and even then Granddad Angus always laughed at us for it.

  But that sorry old sea monster sure did look cool. In fact, it looked super-cool. Super-ultra-deep-fried-grilled-cheesy-cool to the maximum-squared-eternity-cool times cool.

  It looked freaking near amazing.

  Somehow Granddad Angus had created a cloud of smoke around it. It didn’t look like woodsmoke to me, which was good, because starting a fire in a dory is a surefire way to sink yourself. It looked more like a weird kind of mist, like it was seeping out of Fogopogo’s belly. And then all at once, Fogopogo’s nostrils lit up like the trail of sparks from a skate sharpener. I heard people saying “ooh” and “ahh,” like they were looking at a display of Canada Day fireworks going off.

  “Well now,” I heard the prime minister say to my mom, “that sure is something.”

  Warren kept gawking, his mouth hanging open. I was worried a fly was going to land in it. But he was grinning while he gawked. He was grinning like somebody had turned on a time machine and sent him back to whe
n he was five years old and at his very first Santa Claus parade. And Molly was grinning right along with him.

  Everything was super-duper-uber-cool.

  People kept pushing and cramming excitedly onto the wharf.

  SNAP!

  Suddenly, a supporting timber broke loose and the wharf sort of tilted and leaned and then began to slide down towards the harbour.

  I saw Dad waving his arms—half in panic, half in an attempt to keep order—as the crowd slowly slid towards him. Some people fell right in, while others managed to hang on by their fingernails. The whole wharf just sort of hung there for a minute, rocking in the tide, dangling like a broken trap door.

  Everything was on a tilt and the old wood was slick with the salt spray. It didn’t help that the morning mist had coated everything with a soft, wet, slickery dew.

  A CBC cameraperson skidded and fell backwards with the weight of his camera and slid like an enormous curling stone, giving television viewers an amazing twenty-three second panoramic view of the Deeper Harbour sky before he hit the water, frantically working the buckles of his camera straps.

  A hot dog cart rolled down into the harbour, wieners and buns flying in every direction. The seagulls were going to have themselves a fine old feast. The cart knocked at least a half a dozen tourists into the Atlantic.

  People were yelling and screaming.

  I wasn’t sure if I should scream too or just break out laughing. It was scary and funny and goofy all at the same time. I stared in amazement as the dancing fishermen, oars sticking out in all directions, snowplowed another dozen or so festival-goers into the waiting harbour water.

  Things got crowded and confusing.

  I lost sight of Dad.

  I heard Mom yelling Dad’s name.

  I didn’t stop to think. My feet said run and I went with it. I wasn’t certain if I was running towards Granddad Angus, towards my Dad, or towards whatever lay there in front of me.

  I leaped off of the podium, nearly breaking my leg as I sprawled butt-first onto the concrete.

  I’m not saying it was pretty.