He glared at Becca.
Becca pressed her lips together and went to look for Frank. Maybe he was eating the vegetables, but it didn’t seem likely. Becca had offered him spinach once and he had turned around and mooned her.
He wasn’t to be found in the garden — again.
“Have you seen Frank?” she asked Kay. “I brought him in with me and he’s disappeared.”
“Probably chewing at Mr. Hughes’ heels,” said Kay sympathetically. “Don’t listen to him, Becca. You’re doing a wonderful job. And the garden has really perked up since you took over. There are no more thistles and it’s just possible that your gran’ll get a carrot that’s thicker than a knitting needle. Here are some rosebuds to take down for you and Pin.”
* * *
But the next day, all the buds had been eaten off Kay’s rosebush. Every single one.
“I don’t see why they blame me,” Becca said after Gran hung up the phone.
Mum put Pin in Becca’s arms and Pin snuggled there as if she couldn’t care less about chewed rosebuds or bean plants gnawed down to nubs.
“We know you’re careful,” Mum said. “But maybe Dad or I should do the watering for a couple of days. Mistakes happen, you know.”
“Mistakes don’t ‘happen,’” Becca said. “People make them.”
“That’s true,” said Gran.
Becca looked into Gran’s face. Here we go again, she thought. She looked down at Pin instead. Folded up tight in sleep, Pin’s face looked like a flower bud itself. It looked like it belonged to a person who wouldn’t dream of blaming her sister for something she never would have done.
“Becca —” Mum said.
“Hilary,” Gran commanded.
“Well, she’s a kid after all,” Mum said. “At least the neighbors would stop blaming her. And you.”
“Hilary,” Gran repeated sternly. “Don’t you know your own daughter?”
For a moment she looked dangerous. Now she was actually sticking up for Becca! What would she say when she found out about the seaweed?
“I have to go out,” blurted Becca, pushing Pin back into Mum’s arms so suddenly that Pin gave a surprised squeak. “I’ve got something to do.”
* * *
She stood in a quiet place under some cedar boughs. After a while, Frank came.
“What do you know?” she asked, as he purred and pushed against her. It was nice to have someone on her side. “What do you know about the garden? That nobody else knows? That grumpy, roaring old Mr. Hughes with his horrible broccoli doesn’t know? That even Kay doesn’t know? Or the Keswicks or Toninos or even Gran?”
She sat down, hidden by the branches, thinking.
She remembered Frank leading her through the salal to the oaks. Well, she’d just follow him again.
“Lead me there,” she muttered into his fur. He shivered all over.
* * *
Frank walked ahead of her as if everything were ordinary. He waited for her to open the gate, and then to stop and breathe in the comforting scent of Gran’s scabby Gravenstein apples.
He sat by her as she dipped the watering can into the barrel and watched as she began to water Gran’s beanless scarlet emperors and painted ladies.
But in a moment he had disappeared.
Becca put the watering can down. She looked around. There was Frank’s tail, twitching slowly in the shrubbery of Mr. Keswick’s purple bush beans — or at least, they used to be bush beans. Now they looked like they’d lost a fight. They were lying mauled and broken in the dirt.
“I see you,” she whispered to Frank. Maybe he was the one eating the garden.
She sneaked up, treading carefully along the path between the half-pulled stumps of Mrs. Tonino’s radishes and her still-flourishing lettuces.
Frank’s tail twitched once more and disappeared. This time Becca spotted his ears, sharp and upright in the Henges’ pea patch. But by the time she got there he was gone. And so were some of Henges’ peas, and the vines and leaves, too.
“Oh, Frank! What have you done?”
But even as she said that, her eye found him again. His tail was sticking up straight now, a black brush in the middle of the Keswicks’ blue sea holly.
And now he was sniffing about in Mr. Hughes’ half-eaten broccoli, right up against the fence at the foot of the garden.
With a few stealthy strides, Becca gained on him. If she skirted the tomato plants climbing up their frames near the back fence, she’d be able to catch him.
Who would have guessed? A fruit- and vegetable-eating cat! One who even ate broccoli!
She squeezed around the end of the tomato stakes. Right up near Becca’s shoulders, broken tomato blossoms dangled and the raw wounds of torn branches showed pale among the green.
How had Frank managed that?
There he was, peering down the row of jungly plants. She could nab him if she was quiet and fast. His hindquarters were high, his eyes intent, and his tail switched back and forth, the way it did when he was stalking.
And he was stalking. Before Becca could step out from behind the tomatoes, something happened.
A head appeared.
And it wasn’t the head of a cat.
It was a deer! A full-grown one, with antlers branching beautifully and a long, delicate face.
Beautiful, delicate, and a marauder.
Becca stood stock still and the deer snaked through a gap in the fence, pushing the wire back from the post as it went. Watched by Becca on one side and Frank on the other, it unfolded itself, lifted its head of antlers high, twitched its ears and stepped up to lunch on Mr. Hughes’ tomatoes.
* * *
After the fence had been mended, all the neighbors stopped by to thank Becca. Some even apologized.
Mr. Hughes gave Becca a big bunch of beets in thanks.
“It would have been broccoli, but it’s chewed to bits,” he said, and Becca looked at Gran.
“A victim of the deer smorgasbord!” Gran said cheerfully. She knew how Becca felt about broccoli.
“I knew it couldn’t have been your fault, really,” said Kay, offering Becca a bouquet of sweetpeas. “But I did just doubt for a moment and I’m sorry. I should have known you’d never leave the gate open, just from seeing the way you took care of your gran’s garden.”
“Our garden.” Gran smiled.
“The Best Garden,” said Kay, “as it turns out! What do you think, Isobel? It’s an historic occasion. Not having a thing that interested the deer, you triumphed. And it was thanks to Becca. And the seaweed!”
“Seaweed!” Gran exclaimed. “What seaweed?”
11. The Chimney
The garden affair died down, but people continued to bring Becca vegetables and flowers. As she lugged yet another basket overflowing with zucchini, carrots and bright dahlias down from the garden, she had to stop in Gran’s driveway to rest her arms.
Suddenly, with a swish and a crunch on the stones, there was Aunt Fifi, pulling up in her sporty car.
“I’m back!” she announced, jumping out to give Becca a hug. “Here for the grand celebrations. How are things going? How’s Mac’s cabin coming along? What’s with the good-looking garden stuff? That’s surely not Mum’s!”
Becca told her everything, including not just the rampaging deer and the whole seaweed standoff, but also the situation with Mr. Hughes’ broccoli. It had somehow revived in the days since the fence had been fixed.
“He keeps bringing bunches of it over,” she complained. “And Gran cooks it and Mum keeps saying I should eat it and it smells like — well, you know! I hate it.”
“Hmm,” said Aunt Fifi, looking at her for a long while.
“There are too many adults around,” said Becca. “And now there are going to be even more. Along with cousins who only want to be grouchy or read.”
“Well, as adults and cousins go they could be worse, believe me!” Aunt Fifi consoled her, as they headed down the path to the cabin.
“Aunt Fifi’s the vanguard,” said Gran gloomily. “I don’t know how we’re going to manage for water when everyone gets here. And the island’s dry as tinder. It could go up in smoke any time.”
The combination of seaweed in the garden and having to prepare the house for so many visitors had sent Gran into a funk.
Fifi gave her a great hug. “Don’t worry, Mum! It’ll be okay. And look at Becca! She’s changed since I last saw her — definitely looks like a sister! And Hilary!” she cried, dropping her pack. “And baby Pin!”
For a moment Aunt Fifi’s face became tender and wondering as she held the bundle that was Pin, and looked for the first time into Pin’s face.
“Is it true you sang her out of the sea?” she asked Becca.
“Not really,” said Becca, “but the seal pup and Pin arrived the same day. And I took care of them both.”
“It’s like Shakespeare,” said Aunt Fifi, “when a sister and a brother both wash up on to the shore of a fantastical country. Which reminds me…”
“Have you seen Merlin?” Becca whispered.
“Utterly not,” Aunt Fifi whispered back. “Anyway, he’s a confirmed — ”
“What?” Becca asked.
“A confirmed… plumber. Which is a good thing!” she added quickly. “But he lives on the island. And…”
“You don’t,” said Becca. “Oh, too bad. But why couldn’t you — ”
But Aunt Fifi rushed on with her greetings.
“How are you, Hill?” she asked Mum and Dad, and they both said, “Tired!” at the same time.
“Well, Becca and I will take over now,” Aunt Fifi promised. She hugged Becca and Pin, both together in her sun-browned arms.
Everything was lively now that Aunt Fifi was back. Becca watched Gran and saw that she was smiling despite all her dire talk about water and fire hazards.
* * *
“Fifi will probably want to involve you in something dangerous,” Gran warned Becca very early the next morning. “She might get it into her head to make another batch of jelly.”
“Nothing more dangerous than swimming!” said Aunt Fifi, as she yawned into view and seized a mug of tea. “Did you make this, Becca? It’s perfect morning tea.”
“Thick enough to stand a spoon in,” agreed Gran, coughing.
“That’s how I like it,” Becca said. “And I like the way the sugar cakes on the bottom, too. I make it this way for Mum when she gets up early to nurse Pin. Pin always wakes us up way before we’re ready.”
“Well, I’m going back to bed,” Gran said. “It’s one thing to keep Hilary and Pin company at dawn but I feel a visitation of sleep coming upon me. I think you’re a hero to look after your mum in the mornings, Becca. Fifi, watch the fire and make sure it’s low before you and Becca head off to swim.”
Gran disappeared into her bedroom and Becca and Aunt Fifi sat and drank tea as the sky lightened.
“Are you ready, Becca?” Aunt Fifi asked.
Becca sat on her cold toes. The sun wasn’t even really up yet. Plunging into the sea wasn’t the first thing on her mind, but swimming before the sun came up might be as interesting as swimming at night.
“I’ll build up the fire so we can warm up when we get out,” Aunt Fifi said, jumping up to rummage in the woodbox.
“I thought Gran said to leave it low,” Becca said.
“Well, she’s a little overly cautious, I sometimes think,” said Aunt Fifi, grunting as she threw wood about. “Ah, here we go. A nice pitchy log to go in with a piece of alder. That’ll give us a fire we could bake bread on.”
“But we don’t want to bake bread,” Becca said.
“We might change our minds,” said Aunt Fifi. “Hurry up! Or we won’t beat the sun.”
* * *
There wasn’t a soul on the beach.
“The sand is cold,” Becca said.
“Yep! The sun hasn’t warmed it up yet,” Aunt Fifi answered.
“Look at the water! It’s so gray! It’s the color of nails.”
“Pewter,” said Aunt Fifi.
But she strode into the frisky, forbidding waves as if it were a sunny afternoon.
“Come on, darling Beck,” she said, and threw herself into the sea.
“I’m coming,” Becca muttered. She let her feet into the water bit by bit, and the waves splashed up to her shins. When it reached the back of her knees she had to pause, and then finally she made it up to her waist.
“The cabin will be warm when we get back,” Aunt Fifi called as she floated. “It’s okay if we’re a bit chilly now.”
Becca looked back at the smoke coming out of Gran’s chimney and ducked under the gray sea.
* * *
When she came up, the sun was a spot of fire on the margin of the mountains.
“Look!” she cried. Aunt Fifi stopped swimming and together they watched golden sunshine pour forth from an ever-widening round. The sea turned yellow and pink and, in moments, blue and sparkling with light. The day was born.
“Isn’t it grand!” Aunt Fifi exclaimed.
And Becca threw handfuls of water into the air and watched it fall back into the sea, sharp with the sun’s brilliance.
* * *
“The chimney’s smoking nicely now,” Becca said as they dripped up from the sea.
“It’ll be good and toasty in there,” Aunt Fifi said. “I’m just going to have a rinse in the outdoor shower, but you go ahead in.”
Becca washed her feet at the back door, then wiped them on the foot towel. She opened the door, and she heard crackling.
“Gran?”
The front room was empty, and warm as toast as Aunt Fifi had predicted.
“Toast,” Becca said. “Crackling.” She was trying to describe for herself the noises now tickling her eardrums.
She looked at the stove. It wasn’t smoking, but it was hot. Really hot. The kettle on the back of it was boiling madly.
But what was crackling? She didn’t dare lift the lid to look in the firebox.
The whole stove seemed to vibrate with heat.
“Gran?” she asked again. She walked around to the woodbox behind the stove.
The stovepipe was red and angry-looking. Where it should have been black, it glowed with a dull, fiery seriousness. It sounded as if it were alive, as if it were about to rise up and step into the world.
“Something is wrong,” she said out loud.
She couldn’t believe what was happening. She had heard about this, from school and her parents. And now here it was — fire!
And she was the only one to know.
Although she couldn’t see flames, she could feel them. She could hear them inside the stove and its stovepipe licking away — grasping, whispering in their upward rush. Up at the top of the pipe were the dry cedar planks of Gran’s ceiling, perfect kindling. The metal shield that protected them from the hot chimney pipe suddenly looked flimsy and useless.
For a moment it seemed as if the world was still. Aunt Fifi was in the outdoor shower, too far to call. The cabin was full of sleeping family — Mum and Dad, Pin and Gran, all sleeping peacefully, thinking that today Mollie and Ardeth, Auntie Clare and Uncle Clarence would arrive, and Lucy and Alicia and Aunt Meg and Uncle Martin, and that tomorrow they would all celebrate Pin’s birthday.
But inside the stovepipe, inside the very cabin where they slept, fire was raging.
What should she do?
“911,” she thought, picking up Gran’s phone. She looked at her fingers punching in the numbers as if they belonged to someone else — a girl in a movie, perhaps. This couldn�
�t be real.
“Police, fire or ambulance,” snapped a voice.
“A fire,” Becca said. “It’s at Gran’s house.”
But they didn’t want directions about “the third house on Bosun’s Bay” and “big tree,” which were the only ones Becca could think of.
“Is the fire at the address you’re calling from?” the lady interrupted.
“Yes!” And almost before she’d hung up Becca heard the siren soaring faintly from the middle of the island and the firehall.
“Gran!” she called, running into the bedroom. “Get up!”
Her voice was a squeak, as if she couldn’t get any air into herself, but even so Gran sat up abruptly and knocked over the glass of water by her bed.
“Darn!” she shouted, still half asleep.
Afterwards Becca remembered that “Darn!” and it made her laugh — Gran’s strongest language. But now she just said, “Fire!” and Gran was out of bed in a second. Becca didn’t wait to tell her more, but rushed upstairs to the back bedroom, to Mum and Dad.
“Get up!” she said. “The fire guys are coming! Gran’s stove is burning up! Get up! Get Pin!”
She rushed to Pin’s basket and lifted her out, cuddling her as she stormed downstairs, Mum and Dad close behind her, grabbing up their clothes as they ran.
“We have to take her outside,” she cried. “We all have to go outside!”
“Glory, glory,” muttered Gran. “And the island’s dry as tinder!” She sat on the back steps and pulled on her shoes, then stepped out to look up at where the chimney pipe rose red from the roof.
“What are you doing?” Aunt Fifi asked, appearing wrapped in a towel and dripping from her shower. “Are we eating breakfast outside?”
“It’s a fire!” Becca shouted, clutching Pin. “It’s a fire!”
The siren rose to a painful shriek. Seconds later, Merlin and his fire fighters came pouring down the trail.
Becca at Sea Page 10