by Alex Shearer
And when you think about that, it’s right I guess, and sometimes you don’t go on because you really want to, you go on for someone else’s sake. And when you do, after a while, the happiness slowly comes back into you, and you want to be alive again, just for the feeling of it, because it’s nice and you might even be happy – not that you’ll ever forget. But I don’t think he remembers or knows any of that. That’s the difference a couple of years makes. It can make all the difference sometimes, just being a little bit older.
Not that I’m getting all sentimental and dewy-eyed (that’s another of Peggy’s expressions; I sound like her sometimes and have been unduly influenced by her, which is another of her sayings). I mean, he’s my brother and all that but I have hated his guts on occasions and he can still really get on my nerves and I have even wished he would drop dead. But Peggy says that’s normal and when we get to City Island we’ll meet other girls and boys who have had similar experiences. So all because you feel like murdering your brother occasionally, there’s no call to feel bad about it, as that’s what people do.
Oh well. I don’t know. I don’t know if I really want to go to school or what I want. Life’s been so strange and sometimes so sweet and peaceful. It’s been just us for years and years, me and Martin and Peggy, and old Ben Harley across the way, making sure to come over for birthdays and other celebrations, always bringing you a small present though nothing special, just something he’d carved out of a piece of driftwood or a polished stone or a bracelet made of sky-clam shells.
And now here we are, going out into the world, and we’ve only gone a short way and it already seems full of crazies – at least if Angus the self-styled Toll Troll is anything to go by. If he’s what you meet when you go looking for an education then I can see the benefits of ignorance all right.
But anyway, I’m talking on again. Peggy says it’s lack of company that keeps me talking, as I don’t have anyone around me with something new to say that I haven’t heard before, so I just go on talking like I’m on overdrive. Stream of consciousness, she calls it. She says I’ll find out what that means when –
Yeah. You’ve got it. When we arrive at City Island and get an education.
I promise I won’t mention that again. No, well, I don’t exactly guarantee – but I promise I’ll try. Do my best. Peggy says that’s all you can do.
Anyhow again. We left big Angus behind us and we sailed on. Peggy’s boat wasn’t huge, but it was decent-sized. It had six berths down below and you could easily sleep another six or more on deck – which was where I liked to sleep most of the time. It’s cooler there and nicer, as long as the bugs don’t bite. When you get a midge bloom though, you’ve got to take cover or they’ll eat you right down to the pimples. The only thing that will keep them off is an application of old Ben Harley’s private stash. That repels most living things, so Peggy says.
There are other hazards to sleeping on deck too, of course. You can wake up and find a couple of sky-fish nibbling at your feet. They like to eat the dead skin off you, which is OK for a quick pedicure. The trouble is, they don’t know when to stop and when they run out of dead skin, they’ll start in on the bits of you that are living. But you always wake up before they get to eat much of you. And you can always keep your sandals on.
The other thing you need to sleep on deck is something to cover your eyes as it’s always daylight up there. I made myself a sleep mask out of an old piece of cloth. Martin made himself one too. Peggy said boys should be able to sew as well and she showed us both how. She said the days when girls got stuck with the sewing were long gone and she wasn’t letting them come back without a struggle.
So we left old, sad, mad, not-so-bad Angus behind us, and Peggy checked the charts and said we were sailing right, and had our bearings accurate, and so on we went.
It was a lazy sort of progress, as Peggy’s old boat was never built for speed; it’s too chubby round the middle and it sits in the air like a fat old sky-whale, solid and slow and unsinkable-looking. If it had a steam engine it would chug along, but it doesn’t, so it kind of chugs but without the chugging, if you get what I mean.
There wasn’t a whole lot by way of scenery at the beginning of our journey. We weren’t in an interesting part of the system and were still days and days from the Main Drift. It was all little islands and floating rocks and bits of junk and debris passing by on the solar wind. And there were sky-fish and jellies and all the usual, and here and there some sky-crabs clinging on, with more legs than a creature could ever reasonably have a use for, to the undersides of the islands.
‘Well, I don’t know about you two, but I’m getting hungry,’ Peggy announced in her usual way. ‘Whose turn is it?’
Well, it was Martin’s. And he was perfectly happy to get on with it.
‘I’ll throw a line over the side,’ he said. ‘See what I get.’
Because that was about all there was to eat: sky-fish. I mean, I’ve heard Peggy say about people who lived on nothing but vegetables and would never eat a fish not even to save their lives. But there’s not a great deal of choice here. It’s fish or hungry. Sure, we had a few veg and things on board that came from Peggy’s greenhouse, and there were some pots along the deck with a few herbs and basics growing in them, but it would never have kept you going. So it was fish, fish, and sometimes, for a change, fish, when you were travelling. You couldn’t change the meal, just the way it was cooked.
So Martin threw a couple of lines over and I did the same while Peggy lay down in her hammock on the deck, slung between the mast and a rigging line, as she said (as ever) that she was old bones and had to take it easy in the afternoons so as to ward off the arthritis and cramps.
It didn’t take us long to wind in a couple of sky-fish and soon we had ingredients aplenty. (Which is a word a little like apace.)
‘That should do it, Martin,’ I said. But no. He wouldn’t listen.
‘Couple more,’ he said. ‘Don’t have enough yet.’
Well, the fact is, when it comes to the cooking, that Martin has one problem – he always makes too much. He can cook all right. For his age he’s a pretty fine chef. But his eyes are bigger than his stomach, and my stomach, and Peggy’s stomach. So there’s always leftovers and it’s always getting wasted and ends up going off or getting thrown away.
Now, back on Peggy’s island, that didn’t matter. All the waste went into the composter and she’d use it for growing her fruit and veg. But out here in the middle of the sky, there was nowhere for it to go except over the side. Which shouldn’t have been a problem – you might think. But you’d think wrong, just like we did. And wrong thinking brings consequences, every time.
6
sky-shark
GEMMA CONTINUES:
I left him to it. That’s the rule. When you’re stuck with the cooking you get on with it and no interference. There’s not really the space in the galley for two cooks anyway, and besides, according to Peggy, they spoil the broth. Although, on the other side of the coin, two heads are better than one and many hands make light work. Peggy says it doesn’t matter what any one proverb says, there’s always another to contradict it. She says proverbs are like people and their opinions – they seldom agree with each other.
So Martin got on with the sky-fish – all the gutting and scraping and the rest – while I checked the sails and the course we were taking. It looked OK so I lay in the other hammock up on deck and watched the blue sky overhead, and when some clouds appeared I tried to work out what they looked like. But most of them just looked like clouds, and I couldn’t decide if it was they who lacked the imagin-ation or me.
I must have dozed off, for when I woke again it was to the odour of cooking rising up from the galley and it didn’t smell bad either. Then Martin appeared, shouting, ‘It’s ready!’ and carrying a pot, and some bowls and cutlery, so we could eat up on deck.
‘Smells good, Martin,’ Peggy said, and she waved at me to help her out of her hammock, as she ha
d trouble doing that on her own, due to the old bones situation.
I got her up and then went and poured us a glass of water each from storage. We were still good for water and had enough for a long while yet. Then we sat down to eat. It was sky-fish, oven-baked, with herbs and greens and rice and seasoning. But never mind three, there was enough for six.
‘Martin –’
‘Better too much than not enough.’
‘It’s all going to be wasted.’
‘I’ll feed it to the fish. They like leftovers.’
‘I guess.’
There was no pudding. You don’t get much pudding here. You can go weeks and months without pudding. Peggy said that when we got to City Island it would be pudding every day. But I wasn’t bothered. You don’t miss what you never have. I told Peggy that as far as I was concerned, pudding was just theoretical and academic – which was another of her sayings, and which my using made her smile. Maybe I didn’t use it right but she didn’t correct me, just smiled.
As Martin had been stuck with the cooking I was stuck with the washing-up. Peggy offered to do it, as she believes in democracy, to which age is no barrier. But I said no, I would do it, as she was stuck with us and that was worse than the dishes. Which made her smile again. And she said no, she wasn’t stuck with us, but that the years she’d had us had been among the best.
And that was the first time it crossed my mind that when we got to City Island to begin a new life, Peggy wouldn’t be starting one with us. She would be going back to her island, all on her own, and she might be lonely. And even old Ben Harley across the divide wouldn’t keep that loneliness away, as we’d been with her every moment of our lives for such a long time, and suddenly we wouldn’t be there any more.
I felt sad and sorry then. It’s not nice to be old and lonely – or young and lonely either, come to that. And I thought that I would miss her. Or worse, I wouldn’t, as I’d have this new exciting life on City Island with proper boys (not just brothers) around the place, who might be distracting, and I’d never think of Peggy at all – which would be awful, after everything she’d done.
There’d be other girls there too, my own age, who might be my friends, as I’d never even seen another girl, not for a long time, let alone made a friend of one. Martin and I hadn’t seen another living boy or girl for years.
I tried to put all that out of my mind. But before I did, I vowed I wouldn’t forget Peggy, and I’d not let her be lonely, if I could prevent it somehow.
I gathered up the dirty plates and bowls.
‘What do you want to do with all these leftovers, Martin?’
‘I’m going to feed them to the sky-fish.’
So I handed him the pot and he scraped it out over the side.
Which was a big mistake.
See, you shouldn’t feed the sky-fish.
Oh, you can feed them raw titbits, that’s fine, that’s no problem at all. But cooked – that’s different.
I suppose that sky-fish are kind of cannibals really. If a fish eats a fish then it’s eating its own species – which makes it a cannibal, right? Fish are predators. But when they eat each other, they eat each other raw. They don’t get the griddle out, or put the oven on to warm up, as they leaf through the recipe books.
The little sky-fish are no problem when you throw them scraps, raw or cooked. They turn up in their reeling shoals and gulp down what you’ve tossed over the side. Then they maybe hang around a while to see if there’s any more forthcoming, and when there isn’t, they scoot off.
It’s the bigger fish that are the trouble. Not that we knew that then. Maybe Peggy did, and she forgot to tell us. But if a big fish gets the taste for cooked food, it doesn’t go away. It hangs around wanting more. And there’s one fish in particular that’s very fond of a little variety to its diet. It’s the sky-shark. And of all the varieties of sky-shark, the worst is the Great Blue. It’s got teeth like chisels, and jaws that can snap a mast in half.
But we weren’t thinking of anything like that as Martin scraped the cooked leftovers out of the boat and let them float away, as the little sky-fish got the scent of them and gave chase.
I carried the plates and bowls down below and got on with the washing-up. I took my time and did a thorough job and put everything back in its place – as you have to keep a boat shipshape or everything’ll be under your feet.
I was just admiring my handiwork and thinking how tidy the galley looked, when the boat suddenly rocked, as if we’d bashed into a jetty, or collided with some massive piece of driftwood.
‘What the –! Martin! What are you doing up there?’
When there’s trouble, and when you have a younger brother, your first instinct is to assume that he’s the one responsible for it. And you’re generally right.
‘Martin! What have you done?’
I hurried out of the galley and clambered up on deck. The first thing I saw was Martin, standing like he’d been turned to stone; the second thing I saw was Peggy, staring like she’d never seen anything to compare to this before, not in all her one hundred and twenty years.
The third thing I saw was a creature about half the size of the boat, hovering no more than a couple of metres above the deck; its side-fins pulsating like the wings of some gigantic hummingbird. It had the blackest, beadiest eyes I had ever seen, and from its open mouth dripped beads of what had to be saliva, falling from teeth that had tips like razors and were the size of swords.
‘What the – what is that?’
Well, I knew what it was, but it wasn’t a definition I was after, more a reason for its being there.
‘Martin –’
‘I wouldn’t come any nearer if I were you, Gemma …’
‘Peggy … ?’
‘Gemma – just move really slowly and get over towards the mast and see if you can pick up that boathook – but slowly …’
‘OK … I …’
I started to move, and very slowly.
‘What does it want?’ I said.
‘It wants more,’ Martin said. ‘I think. More leftovers.’
‘So give it some and it might go away.’
‘There aren’t any.’
I was halfway across the deck. The two black beads of those eyes swivelled towards me.
‘Don’t move, Gemma. Just stop a while.’
Which wasn’t easy, as my every instinct was to run. Not that there was anywhere to run to.
‘When it realises there’s no more leftovers, it might go,’ I said, with a sort of hopeful naivety.
‘I don’t think so, Gem,’ Peggy said. ‘I think it’s got the taste now.’
‘Taste for what?’
‘Warm flesh,’ Peggy said.
I felt my heart thudding in my chest, and try as I did, somehow I just couldn’t swallow. My mouth filled with saliva. I’d soon be dribbling, like a sky-shark, if I wasn’t careful. That, or I’d be its dinner.
There’s always a problem with ‘right here’. You ever noticed that? Other places suddenly seem to have their unsurpassable advantages, and where you’re actually at right now doesn’t look so great any more.
‘Gemma … don’t worry … just don’t move quickly …’
Peggy didn’t need to say that. I wasn’t going anywhere.
‘Just wait …’
I did.
In the old world – so Peggy told us once – the planet was mainly water. Bits of land, but mostly water, and the fish were happy to stay in the sea. They swam under you or alongside you. But they couldn’t come out of the ocean and swim right next to you or swoop down on you from above, or decide to follow you home. I could now see all the pluses of a place like that.
‘Wait and see what it’s going to do …’
The Great Blue hovered there, fins beating. It flicked its tail and spun around. If I’d reached up, I could have touched it, leathery skin and all. It could move so fast it was like it hadn’t moved at all, just changed position by willpower alone.
‘Don’t bother it and it might go …’
I had the boathook in both hands now. I’d slowly reached out and got it. But those teeth could have crunched it into pieces. Peggy was standing as still as a rock, and Martin was staring at the Great Blue, watching the balls of saliva drip from its gaping mouth and splash onto the deck, landing with a kind of sizzle, as if they were acid.
‘It’ll go. Just leave it and it’ll go …’ he said.
It might have done too, if it hadn’t been for your friend and mine. He’d been down below sniffing around in the galley, looking for titbits, but now here he came, up the steps, fat-faced, lazy-eyed, good – as usual – for nothing. Botcher. Botcher the sky-cat. A nice, warm-blooded snack.
He saw the sky-shark hovering two metres above him, froze solid, and then decided he needed the toilet. He had my sympathy. I felt the same.
‘Botcher, not on the …’ Peggy began, but she trailed off.
Funny how things that don’t really matter – given the circumstances – still seem to matter somehow. Standards, Peggy was fond of saying, have to be maintained.
The Great Blue saw him. Fat, friendly-looking sky-puss. Good old Botcher. A nice little lap-warmer and a tasty morsel too.
The sky-shark’s eyes appeared to work independently of each other. One swivelled to look down at Botcher; the other kept on staring directly at me.
‘Gem … he’s going to eat Botcher …’