Becca at Sea

by Deirdre Baker

  “It’s not really safe here!” she said fiercely. “You should tell your mum to leave you where there aren’t so many people.”

  People were coming along the beach with a pair of dogs, and she didn’t know what to say.

  “Oh, look! A baby seal!”

  “Don’t touch it!” Becca said. “You’re not supposed to touch it.”

  “Wow! Look at it, Mum!”

  The children rushed in and the seal inched toward them.

  “Don’t let it touch you,” Becca said. “Its mum will abandon it if you do.”

  She jumped off the rock. She didn’t know what to do about this friendly little seal. It seemed to think everyone was its mother.

  “We won’t. We know about that.” The woman put the dogs on the leash. “Come away, kids.”

  “But it’s so cute!”

  “They say you should phone Fisheries if it’s left longer than twenty-four hours,” the woman told Becca.

  Twenty-four hours! That was a whole day, and over-night, too. Becca looked up at the cabin desperately, but Gran was nowhere in sight.

  “Come on, kids.”

  The three of them pranced up the beach at last. Becca watched enviously. They were free to go and she was stuck here, in charge, somehow, of this baby.

  The seal turned its huge, mysterious eyes up and gazed at her helplessly.

  * * *

  “How are you doing?” Gran asked. “What would you like me to bring you for lunch?”

  “Only lunch?” Becca asked. It felt like suppertime. So far she had defended the seal baby against eight humans and three dogs. “When will its mother come back?”

  “I don’t know! You don’t have to guard it, you know,” Gran said. “You could let it take its chances, like most things in nature.”

  Becca considered. The seal mewed again and closed its eyes.

  “No. I’ll stay. When will Mum and Dad get here?”

  “Not until later. You’ve got lots of time.”

  But Becca didn’t want time. She wanted Mum to come now — the seal’s mother and her own.

  “I read a story once,” Becca said. “About a seal who swam into shore and took off her skin and turned into a woman. But then she couldn’t turn back into a seal because some man stole her skin. She was called a selkie.” She looked at the seal. “Maybe this is the opposite.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Gran.

  “I mean, maybe this is a girl who can become a seal, but someone took her girl-skin so she has to stay a seal. And now she’s here on this beach, hoping her family will recognize her.”

  * * *

  “Let’s see,” said Becca, talking to the seal since there was no one else to talk to after Gran had gone back up to the cabin. “Gran says that seals are called pinnipeds because they have fin feet.”

  The seal gazed up at her and slapped one of its fin feet on the stone.

  “I’ll call you Pinny,” Becca said. “Too bad you can’t find your girl-skin. If you did, we could go for a swim together. We could swim across the bay and prove what strong swimmers we are. Or we could go at night! Or maybe, if there was a bit more wind, we could take out Glaucous Gull and sail to Camas Island all on our own. What do you think?”

  The seal lifted itself up on its front flippers. Its wide, dark eyes seemed to be trying to tell Becca something, but she couldn’t tell what.

  “It’s all right, Pinny,” Becca said. “Our mums will come soon.”

  * * *

  It was so hot, and so late in the afternoon, that the neighbors were coming down to swim. Mrs. and Mr. Keswick spread their towels, and Gran, and Shelah from across the road, and Kay and Bill from next door. They all admired Pinny, and Becca with her black parasol, and then they went into the water. Becca stayed behind while they swam and chatted.

  When they came out, Shelah offered to babysit.

  “Really?” Becca asked.

  “Really! Go on — you need to cool off.”

  Shelah sat by Pinny, talking to her in a soft, funny voice.

  Becca plunged into the green sea, eyes open, face down. She had to stay where she could touch, but she could dive now, and see under water. She swam along looking at the sand where sunshine rippled like the marks on the seal’s skin.

  At last she poked her head out of the water, and that’s when she saw it — the round head of a grown seal, still as a mooring buoy on a calm day. It turned its face toward her, slipped under water and disappeared.

  “Wait!” Becca cried. She looked up at the seal pup, now half in the water, and Shelah nearby talking to Kay and Mrs. Keswick.

  The seal mother surfaced again, this time closer to shore. She turned her dark head this way and that, silent.

  Becca held her breath. Who would tell Pinny? Why on earth had she decided to leave at this exact moment?

  But the baby seal knew. All in an instant Becca glimpsed silver, the sure beat of a strong swimming body. A shadow flitted and they were gone.

  “Goodbye, Pinny!” Becca called, and at the same moment, she knew —

  “They’re here!” she shouted to Gran, splashing out of the water and up the beach, dripping and crying and laughing, stumbling over stone and driftwood.

  There was her own mother, and her father behind, holding something in his arms, coming through the trees and on to the beach. Here was her mother’s warmth, damp now and salty with tears and the sea from Becca’s own skin, and Gran laughing and her father’s bright smile, and someone else — her very own, her very first sister, looking up into her face with dark, newborn eyes.

  “What shall we call her?” Mum asked.

  “Pinny,” Becca said.

  10. Best Garden

  Pinny was a warm, solid bundle of digestive noises and sleepiness. Her tufty hair was just the color of the shadowy marks on the seal baby.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t get here in time to see the baby seal. I would have loved that,” Mum said the next morning as she and Becca rocked baby Pin to sleep.

  “Now that Pin and your mum and dad are here, it would be helpful if you’d take over watering the garden,” Gran told Becca. “I’ll show you how to go about it, and you can be responsible.”

  “I know how to do it already,” Becca said. “I’ve watched you and I’ve watched Kay.”

  “Well, some of the neighbors don’t like having kids up there without adults, so we have to make sure you know what you’re doing just to calm their twitchiness,” said Gran. “They have this thing about their vegetables. And about their fruits and flowers, too.”

  Becca knew. Last summer, Mrs. Hughes had yelled at her for half an hour and all Becca had done was pick one of Gran’s daisies. Mrs. Hughes hadn’t recognized Becca and had accused her of being one of those wild, destructive children from across the bay. Becca had been kind of interested in the wild children, but when she asked about it Mrs. Hughes went red in the face and stormed off, swinging her hoe with such energy that she whacked the heads off all Rosses’ dahlias.

  Becca hoped Mrs. Hughes wasn’t up there today.

  This morning, in the plots that belonged to Henges, Hugheses, Rosses, Keswicks and Toninos, Becca saw poppies and larkspur, lilies and black-eyed susans, feverfew, dahlias, sea holly, bee balm and hollyhocks flowering madly. She saw hefty tomato plants, towering pole beans and bush beans as thick as shrubbery. The neighbors’ steady campaign against thistles and buttercups, against slugs, black spot, drought and rust had been a success.

  She looked longingly at Rosses’ beans. They climbed so far up their poles that even Dr. Ross couldn’t reach them. Hedges of pea vines twined upward, looking as though they’d head right into the sky like Jack’s beanstalk. Carrots swelled from the earth, just asking to be pulled and eaten.

  Becca wasn’t allowed to pull anything, of course. She was only allowed to snack from Gran�
�s garden, which meant a nibble of rosemary, maybe, but never a carrot because there weren’t any.

  “I try but I’ve no knack for carrots,” Gran said. “Between worms and carrot fly. Never mind. You can’t grow everything.”

  The Rosses had a flower patch, too, full of the red spiky dahlias that looked like sea urchins. They were growing them for the summer fair, and the Hugheses were growing raspberries. Their raspberry canes dripped with berries as big as Becca’s thumbs.

  “They won’t notice if we take one each,” Gran muttered. “Nobody’s looking.”

  “Delectable,” she said, when she’d picked the seeds from her teeth. “But you mustn’t take things when I’m not here. Only if the gardeners offer. And always, always close the gate so the deer can’t get in.”

  “I know.”

  Frank walked in front of them, leading the way. He sniffed at the roots of Kay’s sweetpeas. Becca pushed her face in among the blossoms and breathed in sweetness.

  “Why can’t we grow stuff like this?”” she mumbled, her head in the flowers.

  She knew the answer. Seaweed — that’s why Kay’s garden was so terrific. Plump, sweet carrots and beets, lettuces bigger than Becca’s head and all curly grew in neat plots. Tomatoes were staked like young trees and ripening fruit cascaded from them.

  “What we have is lovely,” Gran retorted. “I’ve never tasted rosemary as good as mine!”

  “It’s the seaweed mulch that makes Kay’s garden so good,” Becca said.

  “I don’t believe in all that seaweed,” Gran said sharply. “Too much salt! It’s bad for the garden.”

  “But — ”

  Becca stood staring at Gran’s plot and wondered what she could say.

  “It’s better than last year,” she said finally. “Some of the plants are still alive.”

  “You’re getting more like your Aunt Fifi every day,” Gran said. “And I don’t say that as a compliment. What’s wrong with the nasturtiums? They look pretty good, don’t they?”

  Nasturtium leaves as big as dinner plates surged up among the spindly tomato plants like a green, swelling sea. Maybe that’s what had stunted the tomatoes.

  “Do you think our tomato will ever ripen?” Becca asked, but Gran just went on to point out, for the tenth time that summer, her eight different kinds of lavender.

  “It’s drought resistant,” she boasted.

  Becca didn’t know what her gardening father would say after all his hard work. And hers, too, and Alicia’s and Lucy’s. One tomato, possibly the smallest in the world, no peas at all, bush beans brown and crotchety-looking. Carrots as thin as pins. A healthy crop of thistles and those giant dandelions with prickly leaves. Beets struggling out of the hard earth. It made you want to cry just to look at them.

  “I don’t have the knack for beets,” Gran said. “But we’ll keep watering them and hope they come along. The greens are delicious on their own.”

  Beet greens? thought Becca. More like beet yellows.

  “The rosemary does look good,” she said, trying to find something nice to say without actually lying.

  Gran beamed. “It’s massive, isn’t it? And look!” She pointed to the climbing beans. “Painted ladies and scarlet emperors.”

  “Good names,” Becca said. She peeked under the leaves, but not a bean did she see.

  “They’re still developing,” Gran explained quickly, and dribbled water at the roots.

  Kay’s garden was a good bet for the summer fair’s Best Garden, but Gran’s couldn’t compete in any of the usual categories — fruit, flower or vegetable.

  “I won Biggest Slug once,” Gran said. “Now, do you think you have enough instruction to take over the watering?”

  She had told Becca about the plants, explained how to refill the water barrel by connecting the hose at the community well, and described what she called the neighbors’ “anxieties.” Becca wasn’t to go near the Toninos’ or the Keswicks’ plots, or even breathe on the Hugheses’. But Kay wouldn’t mind if Becca went in to smell the sweetpeas now and then.

  “I’ll do fine by myself,” Becca said. She dipped the watering can into the barrel.

  Gran left. “Don’t forget to bring Frank back,” she said. “I think he’s chasing snakes in the Keswicks’ plot.”

  Becca sloshed water on the tomatoes. She knew from watching Dad that they needed a lot. She sloshed it on the beans, and tried to thin the desperate, wormy carrots after she gave them a long drink.

  When she’d finished watering, she found the clippers and dead-headed Gran’s daisies, enjoying the snip-snip of the clippers and the way dried-up flower heads fell to the earth. She’d always wanted to use the snips, but no one would let her. Now that she was chief gardener, she could do what she liked. And that might mean putting a little seaweed here and there, no matter what Gran said.

  When she’d finished her chores she looked for Frank. She even looked for him in the plots where she wasn’t supposed to go, but she couldn’t find him anywhere.

  She put the clippers away and made sure the lid was on the water barrel. She collected the weeds she’d pulled and the dead daisies and thinned carrots and took them with her. She opened the gate, let it thump closed behind her, and threw the weeds on the weed pile. That was that. And she would do it all again tomorrow.

  When she got home, Frank was in his favorite place by the stove. He must have come home with Gran after all.

  * * *

  In the morning she went off to borrow Kay’s wheelbarrow.

  “I don’t want to use Gran’s,” she said. “I don’t want to have to explain.”

  “I won’t say a word,” said Kay. “You’ll find there’s a good drift of seaweed on the beach near Mac’s place. I suggest you start there.”

  It didn’t take as long as Becca thought it would, and Mac helped her get the wheelbarrow up off the beach and on to the road.

  “You could do with a little help,” he said. “Although I don’t know any other kid your age who is so into gardening.”

  “It doesn’t matter anyway,” said Becca. “There aren’t any kids my age around here, into gardening or not into gardening. Anyway, it’s not the gardening so much, it’s the plants. They deserve a chance, don’t you think?”

  “I guess they do,” Mac said, looking thoughtful.

  Becca turned and pushed the wheelbarrow up the road, sweating all the way.

  * * *

  “Mr. Keswick stopped by,” Gran said later. “He brought a posy of sweetpeas for Pin and your mum, and he said something has been nibbling his lettuce plants. Did you see anything when you were up there? He said someone has been barrowing, and he thought the gate might have been open for a while.”

  Becca stopped still between bites of tomato sandwich.

  “No. No, I didn’t see any deer. Just slugs.”

  “Did you squish them?”

  “No.” She had done it once, but watching the guts come out was disgusting. It reminded her of what it was like to have a very, very bad cold. Besides, she felt awful murdering slugs, even if they were garden pests.

  “Anyway, why shouldn’t they eat, too?” she asked. “It doesn’t seem fair.”

  * * *

  The carrots liked Becca thinning and watering them. Some of them started to grow. And the beet yellows were on their way to becoming greens, suddenly. The clumps of seaweed Becca had put around the plants were keeping the moisture in the earth, at least.

  “See? I followed your advice,” Becca told Kay. “But don’t tell Gran. She doesn’t approve.”

  “It’s looking much better,” Kay said on her way home from picking tomatoes. “Here, have a tomato.”

  Becca continued her watering. When she left she let the deer gate bang closed and dumped her weeds on the pile outside. Then she went off to get another load of seaweed.

 
* * *

  In the evening Gran came to her with a troubled face.

  “Mrs. Tonino says something ate her beans down to nubs,” she said. “Nothing but sticks left, poking out. Her prize beans! Becca, are you sure you remembered to close the gate?”

  “I know I did,” Becca said. “I heard it thump, and I looked at it, too.”

  “Did you see anything?” asked Gran.

  “Nope.”

  For a moment, Gran’s face wavered.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure! Why do you have to keep asking? I’m sure! I’m sure! I’m sure I closed the gate!”

  “Did it thump? Did you check it?”

  Becca didn’t know what to say. Why had Gran asked her to look after the garden in the first place if she didn’t think she was able to close the gate, even?

  “It’s just — ” Gran began.

  Becca had to leave the room then. She went down to the beach and kicked a piece of driftwood. Was she going crazy? But she remembered closing the gate quite clearly.

  * * *

  After that she was even more hugely careful. But in the next few days Mrs. Tonino lost half her radishes and Mr. Hughes was ranting about his cosmos being chewed up, along with his broccoli. But that, Becca thought, hadn’t been doing so well in the first place, being all leaves and stalks and almost none of the broccoli-ish bits. And anyway, who would want to grow something that tasted like — well, she wasn’t even going to bother to think it. It made oyster stew look really good.

  “I don’t approve of children having gardening responsibilities,” Mr. Hughes growled at Becca when he saw her working on Gran’s plot. She was on the fourth load of seaweed by then. “I don’t think they should be in here at all.”

  “Becca’s as careful as you are,” said Kay as she tended her lilies. “Maybe it’s a possum. Or a rare aggressive plant disease.”

  “Humpf,” said Mr. Hughes. “Possums don’t eat broccoli. It has the chew marks of a rampaging deer. And that could only be because someone didn’t close the gate!”