Wonder at the Edge of the World

by Nicole Helget

  He pushes the cork in the bottle and lies back with the bottle on top of his chest. He’s drunk almost half of it, so I don’t have to worry about cleaning out his mouth before I start pulling.

  “Is this clean?” I ask Nova. I turn the pliers around and around. She shrugs. “I need a match, then.” The cabin boy fetches one and brings it. He lights it, and I pass the pinching end of the pliers through the flame. The cabin boy looks afraid of me, like I’m a torturer. “I’m cleaning it,” I say.

  When I’m sure it’s clean, I tell Nova to sit on the captain’s legs.

  I kneel down and use my fingers to pinch open his mouth. He’s good and drunk and isn’t so complaining anymore. I look inside, and I can see the gums swollen nearly all the way over a tooth at the back. I point and wave for Eustace to come in closer and get a good look.

  “There it is,” I say. “See it, Eustace?”

  He peers in. “Yes,” he says. “Better get it quick before the rum wears off.”

  I work the pliers into the captain’s mouth. The captain groans. Then I close the pliers around the tooth. He shifts and tries to shake loose from Eustace and Nova. “Hold him down!” I say. I pull as steady as I can in a sure but slow tug, so I don’t break off a root.

  The captain makes a high crying noise. But then there’s no resistance, and I fall back with a tooth on the end of the pliers. Blood drips from the captain’s mouth, and his eyes are beet red. He starts coughing and blood spews out of his mouth.

  “Thar she blows!” says the cabin boy, laughing. I glower at him.

  Nova stands up and grabs the boy by the shirt. She drags him to the side of the ship, reaches down, and lifts him up above her head. Then she heaves him into the ocean below.

  Everyone races to the ship’s rail. Someone throws him a rope. Now I know why they all seem to respect Nova so much. I decide I’d better get back to fixing up the captain so she doesn’t get ideas about tossing me overboard.

  “Turn him over,” I say. “So he doesn’t choke on blood.”

  Nova comes back to where Eustace and I sit with Captain Abbot. She kneels down and turns his head to the side. “He won’t choke on anything,” she says. The captain coughs and spits and takes another swig of rum. He swishes it around and spits it out and drinks some more, then sighs.

  “Could that boy swim?” I ask Nova.

  “I doubt it,” Nova says. “Few of us can swim.” Then she grins. “Someone threw him a rope. Don’t worry. He can climb back up.”

  I smile, too.

  By the time the captain sits up and is feeling better, we’re far away from shore and well on our way to the South Atlantic and to Antarctica.

  CHAPTER 26

  Captain Abbot lets me stay on the ship as long as, he says, I don’t cry for my mama all day, which I haven’t done once in the weeks I’ve been aboard the Xerxes. I guess Captain Abbot doesn’t know that Eustace is a lot more likely to cry for his mama. But he hasn’t, either. In fact, he’s not even mentioned Ruby to me once. Sometimes the names of Priss and Ruby and Mother are on the tip of my tongue when I’m with Eustace, but I haven’t talked about them or home, either. For some reason, our lives in Tolerone don’t seem real. Or maybe it’s more that talking about our old lives would somehow distract us from the work we need to do here.

  And there’s a lot of it. From sunup to sundown, everyone aboard the Xerxes works. I rarely even see Eustace, much less talk to him the way we used to. The captain has taken a real liking to him. He gives him fun jobs like climbing up the mainmast and standing lookout for any sign of whales.

  I cup my hands around my mouth and point my face up into the rigging. “How are you faring up there, Eustace?” I yell.

  He’s standing, balanced, on a circular platform about the size of a dinner plate way up on the mainmast. Around his waist is a bar to hang on to. When he sees a whale come up for air, he’s supposed to shout “Thar she blows!”

  Whales are mammals, did you know? That means they breathe air. They don’t have gills like fish do. That’s because, like I already said, whales used to live on land. They can hold their breath a long, long time, hours even, but they do have to come up to the surface to breathe. When they do, they blow sea water out of their blowholes, and it goes high into the air. That’s how whalers know where whales are.

  That, and the ships follow the regular whale routes. Whales migrate from one part of an ocean to another all year round. Sometimes they even travel to other oceans. A whale can live a long life and see a lot of interesting places in that time. A whale doesn’t stay in one place for long, so if it gets bored with a territory, maybe a sea territory that’s like Kansas, it can simply swim away from there and wander somewhere more interesting, warmer or colder, a place with more squid or a place with more interesting whales to talk to. But we haven’t seen head or tail of a whale since I’ve been on the Xerxes.

  Nova walks by me. “Don’t talk to him. He needs to concentrate. One distraction and…” She gestures to the deck, closes her eyes, and hangs out her tongue. “Splat,” she says.

  Even at night, a lookout stands on the perch. Falling asleep at the post is a deadly mistake. I look up at Eustace again. He’s got his eyes peeled on the sea. He’s absentmindedly picking things off the mast and putting them in his mouth. If I know Eustace, he’s probably eating barnacles or snails that get stuck on there.

  “Now, get you to the galley,” Nova barks at me.

  “All right, all right,” I say. I hate the galley. “I don’t know the first thing about cooking, I already told you.”

  “You will learn better,” Nova says. “The captain says a woman’s place is in the galley.”

  “I’ve been trying for weeks,” I argue, “but nothing tastes good to me.”

  “Just cook,” she says.

  “What about you?” I ask. “You’re a woman. Why don’t you have to cook?”

  “I’m different,” she says. “Very different.”

  “Well, so am I,” I say. I’ve been a bit sassy with Nova, but she likes it. I mean, she likes me. I think my sass reminds her of someone: herself.

  “We’ll see,” she says. “Now get to the galley and put the coffee on.”

  I slide my way to the galley, which is mid-ship and out in the open except for a makeshift canopy draped over it. The cookstove is small and rusty, and it looks to be from the 1400s. I clank a couple of pots around. In one of them, I dump a bag of beans. In another, I throw in a sack of potatoes, skins and all. I pour some clean water into the coffee pot and scoop in a generous helping of coffee. I sure do wish I had paid more attention to Priss’s work in the kitchen in Kansas. I sure do wish I could talk to her.

  I enjoy dinnertime because it’s the one time of day I get to see Eustace for more than a minute or two. He’s taken to the whaling and sailing life mighty quickly. He’s got his sea legs.

  When he comes for dinner, he says, “Hmm. Good beans,” at me and then uses his fingers to shovel them into his mouth. All the sailors use their hands to eat. They reach over onto each other’s plates and steal food. Sometimes they wrestle over hard biscuits or a piece of salt horse. I guess if they fight over my food, at least I know it’s edible. But if Priss saw what I’m serving, I think she’d die of embarrassment.

  Eustace doesn’t seem to mind the food, and he also doesn’t seem to mind the cramped quarters and smelly sailors who snore. I don’t think I’ve had a good night’s sleep since I got on this ship. It’s stinky, noisy, lurching, and damp everywhere. It’s crowded, and no one’s got a moment of privacy except for Captain Abbot, who rarely comes out of his cabin. When I think of the wide-open spaces of Kansas, I sometimes have to stop myself from jumping overboard and swimming the long way back.

  I’d like to complain about all of this to Eustace, but he’s enjoying himself. I don’t want to ruin his grand time. He walks and talks in a way that makes him look and sound free. The crew is an assortment of skin colors and languages. Hierarchy is based on experience and hard
work, and that’s all. The whole country ought to come and see how folks get along on a whaling ship if they want to learn how to get along on land instead of starting fires and practically starting wars.

  In the first weeks, the air at sea whips cool and breezy. I work all day, cleaning things that will never be clean, much less produce a Priss-clean squeak, and preparing food that Priss wouldn’t feed to the hogs, so that by nightfall I collapse in my hammock and lie there fitfully. I’m always tired, but I can’t sleep. Sometimes I think about holding the Medicine Head in the hopes of catching a glimpse of my family or home, even if it’s a terrible moment. At least I’d get to see them. But I never have any privacy. And the Medicine Head has been stone still and silent.

  In the beginning of this voyage, my stomach was sick every day, but it’s getting a little better. I thought I’d acclimate to sea life more quickly, since I was born next to the ocean. But to be honest, there’s not much about it that I like. Sometimes I get that hot rock feeling in my neck like I’m about to cry. Then I try to focus on the matter at hand, which is getting the Medicine Head to Antarctica and leaving it there. I swallow down that hot rock in my neck and try to be strong and courageous like my father was.

  Sometimes I wonder if he ever thought about us longingly when he was out here on the ocean. On days like today, when the sun doesn’t shine, the sky stays gray, the ocean lurches and bobs us to and fro, and Nova and Eustace and even Fob act like they’re too busy to be with me for five minutes, bad feelings wash over me. I get an angry feeling toward everyone. My heart feels empty and hollow. That’s when I wonder about Father. That’s when I start to think maybe he liked the ocean better than he liked us. That’s when I start to wonder if his scientific explorations were more important to him than his family. I feel angry that he left the Medicine Head. I get mad that I’m the one who has to clean up the mess he created.

  On days like today, I go down into the hold and lie in the hammock and close my eyes until a new day comes.

  One morning, before dawn, I open my eyes to someone yelling, “Thar she blows!”

  Thar she blows, I think. Thar she blows. I blink. I hear feet racing and ropes dropping and noisy commotion above. Over all that racket, Nova is shouting instructions to the men. “Prepare the whaleboats!” she shouts. “Start the fire!” she yells. “Eustace, you’re with me,” she calls. “Let’s bring the beast in!” she roars. The men cheer.

  A whale. That’s what it means. We’ve finally spotted a whale. To be honest, I forgot about whale hunting. All I’ve been thinking about is Antarctica, and it’s escaped me that the Xerxes and its crew have a job to do.

  I roll out of my hammock and go up the hatch to see what’s happening. All the crew, twenty men plus Nova, have sprung to life. I try to stay out of the way. I stand next to my cookstove and watch. I see Fob scrambling here and there and call to him and slap my thigh. He lies down at my feet and whimpers a little. He’s scared of all the commotion.

  “Ready the whaleboats!” Nova shouts. She gestures for Eustace to follow her to the harpoons. She grabs one and tosses it to Eustace, who catches it expertly, like he’s used to having razor-sharp weapons thrown at him.

  While the seamen work the pulleys to lower the whaleboats, Nova and Eustace stand at the ship’s rail and look out to where the whale was spotted. Suddenly, Eustace is pointing and shaking his head. Nova is listening to him as though he’s saying something important. Then she’s nodding. She takes Eustace’s harpoon and puts it, along with hers, back in the harpoon rack.

  “Boats back up!” she shouts. “Boats back up!” She gestures with her arms in the motion of boats rising.

  The men yell at her. “What?” “No!” “An easy kill!” “Oil!”

  Nova points out at the whale. “She’s got a calf,” she says. “We won’t take her.”

  I squint out into the ocean. I see the huge spray of a whale breathing, and then next to it, a softer spray. A baby whale. The men look, too.

  “So what?” some of them say. “We’ll take them both!” they argue.

  “No, we won’t,” says Nova. “Get back to your regular work. Now!” The men scatter like rats and return to their posts.

  Eustace sees me, and he comes over. I’m happy he’s paying attention to me for once. He scratches Fob behind the ear.

  “You got coffee?” he asks, as though I’m in charge of feeding him.

  “Uh,” I say. “I guess. From yesterday, there’s still some.” I point to the pot I didn’t wash last night.

  “You should make some more,” he says. “The men will want it with breakfast.” He takes the cold pot and pours himself a tin cup full of old coffee. He drinks it.

  I sure don’t like the way he’s bossing me and acting like he knows my job better than I do, so I take the pot back from him.

  “What was that all about?” I ask. I pour fresh water into the pot. Then I scoop a bunch of coffee into it. I spoon in a little molasses, too, for flavor.

  “The whale wasn’t that big, for one,” says Eustace, who must have been learning all about whales and whaling from his crew mates. “Also, she’s nursing a calf. It’s not a good idea to kill mothers and calves. The whole whale population could be wiped out if whalers keep that up.”

  “And you told Nova that?” I ask.

  “Yes,” he says.

  “There’ll be others. Older ones without needy calves.”

  I admit I’m a little disappointed that the action was over before it started. The days go by so slowly on the ship. Having something else to do would have been interesting. I would have been able to study something scientific again. I would have been able to see that whale leg bone Father told me about. Maybe I would even have been allowed to keep one. But I understand that Eustace is right. Letting the mother whale and her calf go so the calf could grow was right. That Eustace. He sure has a good knot in his skull.

  I begin to prepare other things for breakfast besides the coffee. Eustace is right again. The seamen will be hungry soon. Suddenly, Eustace seems so much older to me. All the other men and Nova respect him. Even the white men, of which there are about ten.

  Only about half the men speak any kind of English I can understand. When they’re hungry, they might say a number of words to me to let me know: “eat,” “food,” “grub,” “spuds,” “hurk,” “slop,” “glob,” “num,” “bobo,” “suya,” “sush,” “pack,” or “hack.” Some of them do little more than grunt at me. Eustace acts a little bit like the rest of them right now and dunks his finger into my tub of molasses, then licks it off his finger. “Mm,” he says. Then he drinks his coffee.

  “That was good thinking, Eustace,” I say. And I mean it. “My father would have liked that.” I mean that, too.

  “Thanks, Lu,” he says. He grins. “And thanks for the coffee. It’s good.”

  I know it isn’t, but I appreciate that he said it was. Then he’s off again, doing the work of a whaler on a whaling ship, as though he’s been doing it his whole life. Fob sticks with me for the rest of the day.

  That night, I wake from a bad dream about a cyclone to Eustace shaking my foot.

  “Lu,” he’s whispering. “Lu, come on.” Fob licks my cheek.

  I’m warm and cozy in my hammock, and I don’t want to move. I know as soon as I do, I’ll feel cold. “Stop that, Fob,” I say.

  Eustace shakes my foot again. “Come on,” he says.

  My eyelids are heavy. I’m still thinking about the dream I was having. A big brown tornado was whipping across Kansas. I was on the road trying to run home to warn Priss and Mother. I was lifting my arms and telling the tornado to stop. I don’t know why.

  “Leave me alone, Eustace,” I whisper. “I’m tired.”

  “You have to come with me,” he says. “You must see this.”

  All the remnants of my dream are gone now. I remember them, but I’m not seeing the dream visions anymore. Did you know that dreams and even nightmares are good for you? Well, they are. Father said
so. He said the reason we dream is because our mind prepares us for all kinds of outlandish situations in our sleep so that someday, if we encounter such a situation in our waking life, we’re better able to deal with it. Dreams are like practice for life. I don’t remember ever having a dream about getting chased by Captain Greeney or the Medicine Head or meeting a strange old ship captain, but maybe I did. Maybe that’s why I’ve survived this hare-brained adventure so far.

  I try to sit up but practically fall out of my hammock instead. Eustace steadies it for me and helps me up.

  “Where are we going?” I ask. I’m groggy and cold now. All I want to do is curl back up under the blanket in my hammock. “What’s going on?” I ask. I wipe crust from my eyes and stretch my arms.

  “Just be quiet and come on,” he insists. “You’ll want to see this.”

  I listen and go along because even though he’s waking me up from a dream that could maybe one day save my life, I am happy to see him. Maybe he misses me, too, and he wants to talk. Maybe he realizes he should be paying more attention to me. Maybe he remembers that the only reason he’s out here on a whaling ship in the middle of the ocean where he seems to be having a bully time is because of me.

  We’re already drifting away from each other, even though we’re closer in proximity than we’ve ever been. It’s strange how that happens. In the past few weeks, Eustace has grown up. His muscles have sharpened. His jaw line has grown taut. He’s even grown the beginnings of a beard. I wonder if I look more grown-up, too. I wonder if Mother and Priss and Ruby will recognize me when I get back home. I touch the back of my head. My hair’s grown a little. It doesn’t poke out quite so cockeyed anymore.

  We climb the ladder and emerge through the hatch onto the deck. It’s still dark, but the sky is lighted with moon glow and its reflection off the water. Eustace leads me over to the rail of the ship. I don’t see anything but waves and sky and stars and clouds and moon. The air is cool, but not cold. Still, I shiver. There’s something eerie out there on the water.