Seven Clues to Home

by Gae Polisner

  “I don’t know, kiddo,” Rand says. “I give up. What’s the best way to catch a fish?”

  I stand up again and show him my baited hook, and he nods.

  “Have someone throw it to you,” I say.

  It takes a second for the big goofy smile to crack across Rand’s lips, and the seagull squawks again like it got the joke, too, and Rand puts his head back and laughs and laughs and laughs.

  * * *

  I work my way down Main Street toward the marina and B&B’s, wishing so many things, but mostly that Joy were here with me. But of course she’s not. She can’t be. Because that would ruin everything.

  The best thing about Joy is that she’s funny, and the worst thing about these scavenger hunts is that we do this part, the setting up, alone. If she were with me, we’d be laughing and talking and she’d be skipping ahead, wrinkling her nose, and saying, “Oh no, not the bait shop, do not make me go in there! That place smells like dead fish!” And I’d kick rocks—once, the same rock all the way from our apartment to the start of the gravel path down to the marina—and my brain wouldn’t be thinking about things like Rand being father material and then leaving.

  But tomorrow, it will be worth it. I know it will. When Joy sees what I’ve done, and all the effort.

  It’ll be special. Perfect. And the heart pendant will be waiting for her at the end.

  That, and the note.

  If I leave the note.

  But I’m leaning toward probably I will.

  I think some more about tomorrow morning as I move toward the row of shops across from the harbor, walking through the steps in my head.

  I’ll get up super-early and drop the first clue under her door. Then I’ll wait for her to finish her big Fonseca Family Birthday Breakfast Bash and find it. When she figures it out and gets to Vincent’s, I’ll be waiting outside for her. Then I’ll go with her to the rest of the stops. But I won’t help her. Lips sealed. She’ll have to figure out where I hid each next clue herself.

  As for the Fonseca Family Birthday Breakfast Bash, it’s not that I’m not invited, because I could go. They tell me I should every year. But it’s a special family thing, and I like to let them have it alone. Otherwise, I’d just feel like they feel sorry for me, and that’s why they invite me to come. Joy says, “No, Lukas, not true, we like having you here,” but sometimes I remember more than she does that her family used to want her to stay away from me. That me and Mom and Justin seemed like trouble.

  “That was because of Justin, not you,” she reminds me all the time. “And you gotta admit that Justin has gotten into his fair share of trouble. But they didn’t know you back then, and now they do, and they get why you’re amazing, just like I do.”

  But Justin is still my brother and I love him, so I don’t always feel so much better about things.

  Anyway, after dinner, they’ll have me over for cake, and that will be fine, because Isabel and Davy like me a ton, and cake is the most important thing.

  Once Isabel pops into my head, it hits me where to hide the red box with the note and the pendant, because it has to be right near Joy’s apartment: in the fake potted plant outside the Fonsecas’ front door, where Isabel hides whenever she knows I’m coming over. Me and Joy laugh so hard when Isabel hides there and thinks we can’t see her, since the plant is taller than she is. She doesn’t understand that I can still see her squatting back there because we’re looking at her from above.

  I walk faster until the backs of the buildings down on Shore Road come into view, and the tall masts of the sailboats, and the tops of the trees that circle around the park and keep the gazebo in shade.

  Our local marina is much busier than the dock at the Point. It’s surrounded by a surf shop, a taco place, a restaurant that lets you sit out on the pier in the summertime, B&B’s, and a few other shops. The dock at the Point is only for fishermen, basically just a pier with some boat slips, where clammers and fishing boats leave off from. Along the beach is a series of small, mostly abandoned docks made from broken pier planks that were hauled into the marshy area and are now overgrown with grasses and cattails. People made them to keep their kayaks, and stuff that got too big for the car, but after a while the weather and water made the docks hard to get to. One of those is where we hide the Angler and the motor, the dock where Chance and Justin will have pushed off from.

  As I walk toward B&B’s, it’s that dock I’m thinking about, and about Chance and Justin and what they’re doing now. They’ve probably motored out to the middle of the bay.

  I wish I were out there, too, nothing but water, my head tipped back, pops of sunlight bouncing off the surface, twinkling all around me like sparkler bits.

  I don’t even need to be fishing to be entertained. I could just sit and watch the sea robins flick their tails, their big stupid ears flopping up out of the water like Dumbo fish. Or the goofy cormorants lined up on the floating docks, their orange beaks like a row of sideways traffic cones, a bunch of naked penguins who forgot their fancy tuxedo suits.

  Sometimes, if Mom and Rand were having a fight, I’d say I was going for a bike ride, then I’d go all those miles down the causeway and pull out the Angler by myself, and take it for a spin around the harbor. I’d get looks for sure, like the grown-ups were suspicious of me having no permission. But I always stayed close to shore and pretended Rand was watching out for me on the pier. I’d even fake-wave to him, even though no one was there. Besides, strangers would be able to tell, from the way I handled the Angler and had all the right gear, that I know what I’m doing out there. So nobody ever ratted me out or told me I needed to go back to shore.

  I finally reach the door to B&B’s and slip in quick, deciding not to bother asking for permission to hide the clue. It’s not like I’m stealing, only touching things and leaving something, and there are five people lined up at the register. I’d have to wait my turn to ask, and it’s already later than I want it to be.

  I walk to the reel displays, casual-like, and quick-wedge the fourth clue under the shiny red Revo Rocket display model they put out last week, leaving just the tiniest bit of white corner sticking out.

  My heart pounds from nervousness.

  Head down and nonchalant, I move toward the door.

  Clue #4 is now planted.

  As I slip out the door and into the sunlight again, a hand grabs my shoulder and squeezes hard.

  “Mr. Brunetti?” its voice booms, stopping me there in my tracks.

  I have the third clue in my hands now, but instead of feeling grateful or satisfied, I just keep thinking I might be able to find the next one. I won’t let myself wish past that.

  Just one more.

  One more would be enough.

  But it’s also becoming increasingly obvious I am not going to make it home close to any reasonable time, and if my parents haven’t called the Rogers yet, they will soon. And when they do that, their next call will be to the Port Bennington Police Department.

  Out of the corner of my eye, just as I think this, I see a police car turning onto Shore Road. I swear, it’s slowing down. Any second, I’m going to hear a siren and see flashing lights, but it makes another left and disappears. Still, I need to call home.

  And I need to pee.

  And I’m really hungry.

  It’s quieter down here, and I’m calmer now. The farther down Main Street I get, the quieter it gets. It takes me another ten minutes or so of walking before I am far enough away from the Dunkin’ and Lang’s Pharmacy to really catch my breath. Right where Main Street turns into Shore Road, the marina and the bait-and-tackle shop are just ahead.

  It’s the smell that hits you first, mud and fish and worms. Low tide, I guess.

  But it is cooler here; there’s a breeze off the water.

  The “where” part of Lukas’s next clue is so easy, too easy.

&nbs
p; Head to a place

  I like more than you.

  Anybody who knew Lukas, and knew me, could guess what this clue meant.

  B&B Sport and Tackle.

  I had been there a bunch of times with Lukas so he could pick up whatever gear he said he needed, or a Tupperware of live bait for fishing, but I think he just likes taking me there. He likes scaring me with the rubbery, fake grubs.

  Everything down here by the marina is smaller: the taco shop, the place my mom and dad like to go for fried clams so they can look out on the water. It’s where the locals moor their boats or come to fish, or drop their nets for bay scallops when they don’t want to go out into the open water, when they want to get away from the noisy summer-rental people who mostly fish off Gooseneck Bridge. And there’s B&B’s.

  I feel like I might be able to pee right behind this abandoned pier and no one would see me unless they were walking along the dune over there. Maybe a few feet ahead would be better. I really have to go. But hopefully they have a bathroom inside this place. Then a phone. And then whatever it is Lukas was trying to tell me with the clue he left in the purple felt hat.

  He wrote it out so carefully:

  Look for the Rocket.

  You’ll reel in a clue.

  I can practically hear his voice reciting:

  Head to a place

  I like more than you.

  Look for the Rocket.

  You’ll reel in a clue.

  It doesn’t mean the clue is still here, but it does mean I’m in the right place. I’m sure of it, and now that I’ve started this, I have no choice. I have to see where it takes me.

  Gee, thanks, Lukas, for taking me here.

  Bait shops like this open super-early, and sometimes they close early, too, so I’m not sure when I pull on the rickety door, hung with miniature red-and-white buoys, if it will open.

  But it does.

  First things first.

  “Do you have a bathroom I could use?” I ask.

  Without looking up from the comic he’s flipping through, the boy behind the counter answers me with “Can’t you read?”

  It takes me a minute, but I figure it out before he decides to explain. “The sign. On the door,” he grunts.

  RESTROOM FOR CUSTOMERS ONLY! ! !

  There are big handwritten signs like this all over Port Bennington. They go up in storefront windows starting around May 1, and they don’t come down until well into October. I get it. They don’t want people coming in and out all day, just messing up their bathrooms, using all their soap and paper towels, and then heading off to the beach without buying anything.

  “Look,” I say. “I’m having a hard day, and I’m not some tourist. I live here, and I really need to use the bathroom. So I am just going to find it myself.”

  I don’t think I’ve ever been so mean to a stranger before. I instantly regret it, but at least the boy finally lifts his head, and I see he’s not really a kid, more like a teenager, maybe, like, Natalia’s age. He opens his mouth, probably to slam me with something much nastier than I could ever come up with, but when he sees me, he doesn’t.

  Maybe he’s surprised to see I’m not some annoying little kid.

  “It’s there.” He points to the back of the shop, to a wall of shelves, stacked with coolers of all sizes, and a door posted with another sign: STAFF ONLY. I speed-walk toward it and straight inside.

  There’s a little mirror over the sink in this tiny bathroom. There’s also an empty, upside-down bucket of what was once frozen trolling cut bait, several fishing nets hanging up to dry, and a few poles, without any reels, leaning against the wall. So when I’m done, I step over a puddle of unknown substance to wash my hands, and I look up at my reflection.

  I free the stray hairs that are stuck to my sweaty face and try a big smile, with lots of teeth. Nah, looks too forced. I try another, kind of a slow lift, more on the right side of my mouth, lips closed this time, to see how that looks.

  I try one more practice smile, maybe a nice mix of the two. I go back to Smile One.

  Yeah, I think that’s better.

  Or Two.

  I kind of feel like I’m Natalia, barricaded in the bathroom for a ridiculously long time every morning, taking far more than her share of the time, staring at her face in the mirror. It drives us all crazy.

  But sometimes, if I bug her enough, bang on the door, threaten to tell, she lets me sit on the side of the tub, and I watch her do her hair, sweeping it up into a ponytail that is loose and soft but somehow stays in place, high and tight. Then she paints a black line on her top eyelid, drawn to a perfectly skinny point. And she smacks pink gloss onto her lips.

  She leans down and dabs a bit on me. “Don’t tell Ma,” she whispers. “But you do look pretty.”

  And with that thought comes another rush of an unwanted feeling wrapped inside an unwanted memory. This time I hold fast, meeting my own gaze in the mirror and not letting it go.

  I close my eyes and kiss the air in front of the mirror.

  Did you hear what I said? On the phone? The last time we talked?

  Okay, okay, snap out of it, I tell myself.

  I need to concentrate on figuring out what Lukas wanted me to find, which means I need to buy myself more time in here, which means I’m going to have to call home right away. I take another deep inhale, exhale, and start to formulate a series of what-ifs.

  What if my dad answers the phone?

  What if my mom does?

  But then again, the smartest move would be if I just call Natalia’s cell phone. And if I don’t want the state troopers to find me before I find this rocket, or the Rocket, I’d better do whatever it is I have to do fast.

  I head back up front to the counter, where the boy seems not to have budged one inch, and I try Smile Two. “Thanks for letting me use the bathroom, and by the way, do you have a phone I could use?”

  He is just staring at me.

  I switch to Smile One and add, “I need to call my sister.”

  Very slowly, he reaches behind the counter, lugs out a heavy, black, old-fashioned phone, which looks like it hasn’t been used since the 1990s, and plops it on the counter. “Sure.”

  And I realize I’m not sure I know Natalia’s number.

  While my mind is working on that—what is her number?—my eyes wander around the hundreds of things for sale in here, thousands of things on the shelves, millions of things hanging on the walls, the posters for outboard motors, the local advertisements for full- and half-day fishing excursions. How will I ever know what Lukas wanted me to find?

  It’s overwhelming.

  Look for the Rocket.

  You’ll reel in a clue.

  There is so much in this place, knives and lures and nets and buckets and fishing rods and fishing reels. What did he write? Reel in a clue. A reel! Rocket with a capital R. Of course. It must be some special kind of fancy reel—the thing that goes on the fishing pole, the part you crank around when you want to bring the hook back in.

  With my hand still over the top of the phone—at least it has buttons and not a dial that you have to stick your finger in—my mouth blurts out, “Do you have a fishing reel called the Rocket?”

  The boy’s face kind of lights up, and I hope he’s not taking this as a sign that I like fishing or anything. “Oh yeah, the Revo Rocket. Great reel. Not cheap, though. You looking for one?”

  This hunt has taken on a life of its own. Every clue I find makes me want to find another. Makes me believe it might actually be possible. I can feel my heart quickening without permission, thunking, pounding on the inside of my ribs. I try to damp down my excitement and figure out the best way to go with this. I don’t want to scare this guy away with my whole long story.

  I’ve got to slow down. Be smart. />
  “Yeah, as a matter of fact, I am,” I say, as calmly as I can, and just to make it more realistic, I add, “For my dad.”

  “Oh, wait,” he says. “We had a ton of ’em at the beginning of the season—”

  “Wait?” I interrupt. “What for?”

  “Well, I can check, but we really sold a lot this year,” the boy says. “I think we have this one left in the display.” He turns around to where the wall behind him opens into a storefront window cluttered with nautical paraphernalia, and watching over it all is a carved wooden sailor with a pipe in his mouth. The boy moves some things around, then gives up pretty quickly.

  “Oh, sorry. Guess we sold that one, too.” He turns back around.

  I am beginning to wonder if his confidence in my actual ability to pay for anything has something to do with his lack of effort. He barely searched. He barely tried.

  It’s got to be here.

  “Can you just take another look around? The Revo Rocket.” I say it slower and maybe a bit louder.

  “I’m not hard of hearing,” he says. “We ain’t got ’em anymore.”

  Surely I am about to wear out my welcome. I think my smiles may have backfired completely. But this can’t be how it ends. Not here, at Lukas’s favorite place in the whole world. It doesn’t make sense, in the crazy way none of anything in the world makes sense. But especially not this.

  There has to be something here. I can feel it.

  I think I even stamp my foot a little.

  Where there’s a will, there’s a way, my dad always tells us.

  “It’s really important,” I say to this frustratingly stubborn person behind the counter, and I wonder how much I can or should or could explain.

  I’m sure he’d remember the story. Not about our scavenger hunt, of course, but it was big news, horrible news, for a while. Like a heavy hush that came over the locals and a rumor that went around with the tourists.