It was an emotional call. Zoey’s mom was ready to fly back to Dillingham to take care of them, but Zoey promised her they were fine, and Patrick said they would catch the jet in no more than a week. When he hung up, Patrick looked like Lhasa after she’d had been caught with her nose in the garbage. “Bad dog,” her mom would scold, and Lhasa would look away, hang her head, and slink off.
When Patrick fell asleep, a zillion thoughts zoomed through Zoey’s head. What if they had crashed in the water? What if the plane had exploded? What if the other plane hadn’t come by? What will Thomas think about all this? She imagined his deep brown eyes and finally closed her own.
It could have been a lot worse. At least they were safe.
Light snores came from Patrick’s bed, but Zoey still couldn’t sleep. How come she wasn’t tired? To get her mind off things she reached into her pack for her carving bag. She was almost finished with her raven. Just a couple of touches and then the eyes.
She took out the straight knife and rounded the top of the beak so it overlapped the bottom one just a tiny bit. It was an odd detail that she remembered about Midnight. Then she took out two discs, each about the size of a dime. Thomas had helped her cut them from the abalone shell with a tiny jeweler’s saw he had back at the Quonset hut. She dabbed a little of the glue Captain had given her on the back of each disc. Then she carefully placed the discs into the indentations she had chiseled to hold the bird’s eyes.
The raven was finished. Somehow, with its flashing abalone eyes, she half expected it to take flight.
She stroked the single gray feather she’d painted on the tail.
“Midnight, you’re back.”
A knock on the door startled her.
Zoey stuffed the raven carving into her pack, slid from the bed, and opened the door to a man carrying a notebook.
“Hi, sorry to bother you. I’m looking for a Zoey Morley.” His sandy hair was brushed back like a movie star, and he spoke with a slight accent Zoey couldn’t identify. “The girl who saved the pilot in the plane crash earlier today?”
“I’m Zoey. That lump in the bed is Patrick.” Patrick didn’t stir.
“No kidding. You’re the hero?”
At that, Patrick opened his eyes and groaned.
“What do you want, Mister?”
“You’re Patrick Jensen?”
“That’s me.”
“I’m Terry Holmgren from the Bristol Bay Times. Just wanted to ask you and your daughter a few questions, if you don’t mind. When we heard about it, we thought it would make a nice story, since you both got out okay.”
“What do you want to know?” Zoey asked.
Before long they had told him the whole story of their final flight in the taildragger.
“One more thing. Can I get a picture of the hero?”
Zoey couldn’t believe it. Her picture in the newspaper! She looked at Patrick.
“Sure, she’s definitely a hero. Probably saved my life.” Patrick gave Zoey a sideways grin.
After the reporter left, Zoey crawled back onto her bed. While she had been talking to him a string of questions had been bouncing around in her brain, and now she fired them at Patrick. “What now? How do we get back to Bristol Bay? What about your plane? And what about the Gambles’ fish?”
“Don’t worry, Zoey, I have a plan.”
Oh, boy. I’ve heard that before.
35
Ghosts in the Water
The next morning Patrick groaned a lot, made a few phone calls, and they were off. A call to someone at the cannery resulted in a ride back to Halfmoon Bay for Zoey on a fishing boat that was headed to Naknek. Patrick stayed behind in Dillingham to make arrangements to salvage his plane and to rent a new one, if he could, to finish out the season.
When Thomas, Carolyn, and Harold saw the gillnetter nose into their beach and deposit Zoey on the shore, they ran down to meet her with worried faces. After Carolyn gave her a big hug, they peppered her with questions.
Finally, when the initial excitement had passed, Zoey told them of Patrick’s plan to lease a plane. She knew in addition to their concern about her and Patrick, they must also be worried about how they would get their fish sold for the remainder of the season. She assured them Patrick would show up tomorrow or the next day, though she wasn’t all that convinced herself.
If Patrick couldn’t find a plane, Zoey knew they would have to ferry the fish out to a tender in the skiff, which would take a lot more trips. It would mean higher costs, less fishing time, and lower prices than they got in Dillingham. Although she had not caused the problems, Zoey knew that Patrick’s crash and the dead truck were big setbacks for the Gambles.
For now, though, there was nothing to do but keep fishing. Zoey was too sore from the accident to help much, but everyone else plugged away, and by evening, four totes lay stuffed with sockeye, layered end to end.
Mid-afternoon the following day, work stopped while they all watched a bright red Cessna circle, then touch down and taxi up the beach. The prop stopped and Patrick opened the door.
“What are you all lookin’ at?”
“Where’d you steal this rig?” Harold responded.
Patrick gingerly climbed out, wincing when the movement pulled at his ribs.
“It helps to know people. Only have it for ten days though. And they want it back with no stray fish under the seats. Think we can manage that?”
Harold grinned. Finally, some good news.
“I feel bad enough I dropped one of your loads on the tundra. Fortunately, insurance will cover all the lost fish.”
“I appreciate that, Patrick,” Harold said, “and luckily there’s more where those came from.”
Zoey still had the stitches in her forehead, but she felt mostly recovered. For the next few days, she settled into a routine of working with Thomas during the day, and eating dinner at the Gambles at night. Already Zoey could tell the sky was darkening earlier, a reminder the short Alaskan summer was beginning to slide into fall.
Patrick had resurrected their big tent, and one night Thomas walked Zoey back to their camp. Before, their conversations had been mostly about fish, fishing, and Bristol Bay. But now they talked about Zoey’s family problems. And Thomas opened up a bit about his childhood, first in a village on the other side of the Bay called Egegik, where there were less than a hundred people in the wintertime, and later in Dillingham and Naknek.
”My ancestors have lived in this part of Alaska for thousands of years,” he explained.
“Does that mean you’re an Eskimo?” Zoey asked. “I know the Alaska Natives around Juneau are not called Eskimos. Sometimes in books they call them Indians, but they’re not anything like the Indians around Colorado.”
“That’s because white people made those names up. There are lots of different Native cultures, and languages, too. And they all have their own names. I think of myself as Alutiiq, but I’m also related to some Russian fur traders, and who knows what else. There’s just one thing you really need to know, Zoey. We don’t live in igloos.” He bumped shoulders with her to show he was teasing.
Zoey laughed. “I hate to tell you this, Thomas, but the truth is, that’s what my friends in Colorado think.” Thomas just sighed.
Talking about Thomas’s life in Bristol Bay reminded Zoey her time here was almost over. What would Bethany think of Thomas? What would it be like to show him where she lived in Anchorage?
Fun, she decided.
The huge runs of salmon had thinned to a trickle. Finally one day Harold decided he needed Patrick for only one more delivery, and they would be done for the year. Carolyn insisted they celebrate the last night with a special dinner. Patrick and Zoey would take the last few totes to Dillingham the next morning and catch the jet back to Anchorage the same afternoon.
Patrick and Zoey hiked up the beach for their last dinner together at the Quonset hut. Thomas opened the door, and the delicious scent of cooked meat engulfed them. Carolyn and Harold were already
at the table.
“Grab a plate,” Carolyn gestured to the counter and gave Zoey a wink. “The restaurant’s a little crowded, but there’s room on the couch.”
Carolyn speared a big piece of meat, spooned up a couple of potatoes, and handed the plate to Zoey.
“What is it?”
“Caribou,” said Harold. “You like caribou?”
Zoey didn’t know. She thought of the beautiful animals she had seen from the plane. But she was hungry enough to try anything, and she had learned to have faith in Carolyn’s cooking.
Sitting on the couch next to Patrick with a plate balanced on her lap, she took a bite of the meat. The taste was intense—wild, like Bristol Bay—but good, too.
After dinner they played Uno until Zoey found herself nodding off.
“I better get Miss Zoey back to camp,” Patrick said, “before I have to carry her.”
As Zoey put her jacket on, Thomas asked, “Want to go for a paddle, Zoey? It’s a full moon. Your last one in Bristol Bay.”
Zoey felt her heart speed up. She glanced at Patrick, wondering what he would say, but he just raised his eyebrows like it wasn’t his decision to make.
“Sure,” Zoey answered, grinning.
Patrick grabbed his hat. “I’ll meet you at camp, Zoey. Be careful in that raft. I gotta get you home in one piece or suffer the wrath of your mother. Or more wrath anyway.”
Zoey and Thomas each carried a side of the raft down to the water. Neither had rubber boots on, so their feet got wet. The icy water tingled on Zoey’s ankles. She sat at one end of the tiny raft facing Thomas and gazed out at Bristol Bay. Even though the sun had barely set, a dusky moon reflected from the water through a thin, low mist that rose no higher than the sides of the raft. The deep silence made the splash of Thomas’s paddling seem like tiny explosions.
The mist swirled in the chilled air. Zoey was about to speak when she heard something a little like a squeaky door. She stared out over the gray water. Without thinking, she gripped Thomas’s arm.
She heard the noise again, more clearly this time: a distinct warble sound and then a whoosh of what sounded like breathing.
“Belugas,” whispered Thomas.
Minutes dragged by, the sound still present, but the maker invisible. Zoey scanned the water all around them. There! A ghostly white head rose and fell through the surface of the water, not more than three or four raft lengths away. Then another. And another. The whales swam closer, almost within reach. Zoey could hear their exhales mix with the strange warbling sound.
She felt dizzy. Belugas at last!
But what if they capsized the boat? The whales surrounded them, but not one touched their raft. Zoey relaxed.
“Looks like about twenty of them,” Thomas whispered. “People call them ‘canaries of the sea.’ You think they sound like canaries?”
“Sort of, I guess,” Zoey smiled shyly at him.
They sat, and watched until the belugas moved farther out and disappeared into the darkening mist.
“Thomas, I looked for them all summer. It’s so cool I finally saw them.” In her excitement, Zoey had risen to her knees and turned away from Thomas toward the spot where she last saw the whales.
Thomas leaned forward behind her and put a hand on each of her shoulders. Slowly and gently he eased her down until she was sitting with her back to him and leaning lightly into his knees. The little raft rocked softly.
“I better get you back now, or Patrick is not going to be happy.” But he didn’t put the oars back in the water. His hands stayed on her shoulders. He did not look at her.
“I was pretty down at the start of the season,” Thomas said quietly. “I wasn’t sure I could even get through it. When you and Eliot showed up, I just figured you’d stay at your end of the beach and we’d stay at ours. I never thought we’d spend so much time together. But I’m glad we did. I’m glad it worked out like this.”
Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, he touched her cheek to turn her head toward him just a little and kissed her.
Zoey closed her eyes and held her breath. She felt warm all over. She kissed him back for what seemed like forever.
He pulled back first. “When will I see you again? Will you come back next summer?”
“I never thought in a million years I would want to come back here, but now I hope I do. There are no belugas at the mall in Anchorage. And no one like you either.” She kissed him again, quickly and shyly. They both smiled.
The next morning, Zoey woke with that lead-line feeling inside. Leaving would be hard. While Harold helped Patrick load up the plane, Zoey and Thomas went to say good-bye to the old boat.
The first thing Zoey saw in the boat cabin was the mural she had painted. For a moment she was surprised by the feelings it brought up in her. She had forgotten how dangerously close to the water she had placed the butterfly.
“I think that butterfly is going to be okay,” she announced.
Thomas laughed, then reached in his pocket. “Something for you.”
He handed her a perfectly carved miniature replica of their boat, the Sockeye II, complete with the battered mast and a tiny version of the carving he had made on the bow. “So you won’t forget.”
She touched the sides. They were rough, just like the boat. It was perfect.
“I won’t ever forget.”
There was something Zoey wanted to give Thomas, and she was running out of time. She took an envelope from her pocket and handed it to him.
He opened it. Inside was about half the money Carolyn had given her. Zoey kept the rest for her college account. Her mom had drilled that one into her.
“I learned so much this summer, and your family took such good care of me. I really was a city girl when I got here. Now that I’m not wasting a whole bunch of money on a ticket to Colorado, I don’t need all this anymore. Your mom and Harold can use it to get the truck fixed, because I’m not picking any more fish at Halfmoon Bay until they do!” She laughed. “Will you give it to them after I leave?”
Thomas closed the envelope and handed it back to her. “No way, Zoey. You earned this. We’ll be all right. It wasn’t such a bad season, and I’m going to skip school and go hunting in the fall like my dad would have.”
“Sorry, Thomas, but I hate that plan. If you don’t take it, so help me, I’ll just sprinkle it all over Bristol Bay as we take off.”
Zoey crammed the envelope inside Thomas’s coat, dodged out the door, and took off running back toward camp. Thomas chased her as she zigzagged between the ridge of high grass at the edge of the tundra and the tongues of the waves that surged onto the shore. They reached the plane laughing and out of breath.
Patrick was waiting. “Time to go home, Zoey.”
36
Home Again
And just like that, Zoey’s summer in Bristol Bay was over. For the last time, the Gambles’ Quonset hut shrank below her. Carolyn and Harold each shaded their eyes with one hand and waved with the other. Thomas stood apart. At the last second he raised one hand in a kind of salute. Then they were gone.
In the Anchorage terminal, Eliot nearly knocked Zoey over when he leaped on her. Her mom moved in behind him, a look of concern on her face. She hugged Zoey hard and whispered, “I’m so glad you’re safe. We were so worried.”
Next she was in Patrick’s arms, but just as quickly, he backed away with clenched teeth.
“I’m afraid we’ll have to just hold hands for a while.” He rubbed his chest gently.
“Oh, Patrick. I’m sorry.” She put her fingers to her lips, kissed them, then touched his chest. “I’m just so happy to have my family back.”
Zoey realized then and there that her mom was right. Patrick, Eliot, Lhasa, and her mom were as close to a real family as she had. And the truth was, things could be a lot worse.
Zoey’s mom reached in her bag and pulled out a newspaper. It was the Bristol Bay Times. There on the front page was a picture of Zoey at the hospital, a
bandage over her eye, and Patrick in the background.
“GIRL SAVES PILOT IN FISHY CRASH!” blared the headline.
“Everyone’s talking about you, Zoey. You’re a hero!” Zoey’s mom handed her the paper. “This came out the day after the crash, and the Associated Press picked it up. It’s all over the country now. They’ve been reading about the Amazing Zoey Morley in Kansas City!”
“My sister’s a star!” said Eliot with a grin.
Later that night, she felt strange back in her old bed. No waves, or seagulls, or eagles, no popping canvas or drumming rain. Just an occasional car driving by.
Zoey reached over to her bedside table for her stationery. She knew where to send this letter. Her Uncle Ron would make sure it got delivered.
August 5
Dear Dad,
I’m finally back home again. It has been an amazing summer. There was a Japanese typhoon, and a plane crash, and beluga whales and lots more. I can’t wait to see you and tell you all about it. I am excited to come visit and meet my new baby sister. But that will have to wait until after the wedding. Mom and Patrick are getting married! I don’t know when yet, but there will be a lot of planning and they’re going to need my help. It seems like so long since we left Colorado. I feel like I’m kind of different, and that’s OK. Pretty good, actually.
Your Bristol Bay Girl,
Zoey
PS I was in the newspaper. I’ll send you a copy.
The next morning, after breakfast, Zoey found Eliot playing with his Legos.
“Hey, Eliot, I’ve got something for you.”
She opened her backpack and pulled out a tattered paper bag.
“Close your eyes and hold out your arms.” Zoey pulled the carving out and laid it in his hands.
Eliot opened his eyes. “Wow! Zoey. Did you make this?”
“Of course!”
Eliot ran to the bottom of the stairs and hollered up. “Mom, Patrick, come look at what Zoey made.”
By the time they arrived, Eliot was galloping around the room holding up the sleek wooden raven with the flashing blue abalone eyes. “Kraak! Kraak!”
Bristol Bay Summer Page 19