1. Seabird
“We need a better boat,” said Becca.
Gull was slow. She was cracked and she clanged in the waves because she was made of aluminum.
Even with a clumsy boat, sailing was good, but what would it be like to sail in a ship really made to fly? One in which she and Jane could sail away, have adventures and come home when they were good and ready?
“Shift to port,” she told Jane.
The sail flapped as if it hadn’t quite woken up yet, and Becca sailed Gull out of Gran’s bay.
But it was more like crawling than flying.
“What’s wrong with Gull?” Jane asked.
“Uncle Martin and Auntie Meg say she sails like a gumboot.”
“Like a gumboot chiton?” Jane laughed, because gumboot chitons were sea creatures that stuck onto rocks and never went anywhere much.
“Just a regular gumboot,” Becca said. “A wellie. A rubber boot. That’s what Auntie Meg said.”
And for a moment she remembered last summer, and Auntie Meg singing sea shanties and rowing through mountainous seas.
“Where should we go?” asked Jane. “How about Seal Rock?”
“Yes, Seal Rock!” said Becca. “The tide’s on the ebb. We’ll see if there are any seals there today.”
“We learned about sailing in school,” Jane said. “We did a play about a shipwreck. It was called The Tempest.”
Becca thought it was joyless of Jane to mention shipwreck when it was the first voyage of summer and the first time she and Jane were allowed to go to sea without an adult. Shipwreck would wreck not just Gull but everything — all their plans for sailing around the island, if only they could get permission.
“I phoned Dugald this morning —”
“Uncle Mac,” corrected Jane. Her great-uncle Dugald Macallan was a local weatherman, and it was often his voice that they heard on the recorded weather announcement. “And it must have been a substitute Dugald,” she added, “because Uncle Mac’s here.”
“He’s talking to Merlin about waterworks,” Becca said.
It was Gran who called it waterworks. But it was just plumbing, which is what Merlin did when he wasn’t in a boat, or fighting fires, or arguing with Aunt Fifi if she happened to be visiting Gran.
“Well,” said Jane. “What did substitute Dugald say?”
“Boring. Northwest winds, ten to fifteen knots.”
Diminishing to five to ten knots, Dugald had added. That was hardly any wind at all. They’d be lucky to get anywhere.
“Why don’t you let me have a go?” asked Jane. “Maybe something interesting will happen.”
“Something interesting” is just what Gran had told Becca she didn’t want to happen when she gave Becca permission to sail Gull out of the bay. Gran was remembering something Mum and Auntie Clare had done a long time ago and said she wasn’t going to go through that again and neither were the neighbors.
“You’re the skipper,” Gran had said. “You have to take responsibility for all decisions or you’ll lose your job. So put that in your pipe and smoke it.”
But Becca couldn’t see what could go wrong on a day as quiet as this.
Jane was fine at sailing, if you could call it that with the sail hanging so limp. Gull slowed to a pace so listless that Becca almost fell asleep.
Far in the hot sunny distance she could see someone trudging across the seaweedy beach to Seal Rock.
“Look!” she said. “Someone’s going to beat us there.”
You could only walk to Seal Rock at the lowest of low tides. Humans didn’t go there usually, but today the tide was almost as far out as it ever got. The seals would be bothered and swim away, Becca thought, with a human poking around.
“Gull isn’t even a gumboot,” said Jane.
“More like a geographical feature,” said Becca, remembering certain books she had read. “Like a lump, or a boulder, or an ancient Viking ship fossilized with the remains of a noble warrior because Vikings loved to fight and then get buried in their ships in a hill.”
Gull crept onwards.
“A geological pace,” said Becca. “That’s what Aunt Fifi would say. She’d hate this. She likes to move fast.”
But they were getting there. Now Becca could see Seal Rock’s special boulder, the one that looked like a tortoise from some angles. And there was a bump on it, so maybe there were still seals there.
“The tide’s turned,” she said. She could feel the change in the sea’s flow.
Such as it was.
She hung over the gunwales. She saw red and purple sea urchins waving their spines. She saw sea cucumbers, sluggish on the sea’s floor, and sun stars, bright as sunset and rosy as dawn, tiptoeing this way and that on their many legs and hundreds of tiny sucker-feet.
The sun stars were moving faster than Gull.
“We’re there,” Jane said at last. That was after they had drunk their ginger beer and Jane had laughed some of hers out her nose, and they had eaten most of Gran’s scary cheese-and-onion sandwiches.
It was after the tide had made Seal Rock back into an island.
They pulled Gull up and walked around the islet, trying not to pay attention to the person on tortoise rock. For it was a person, not a seal, they could see now that they were there.
But there were no seals. Not one.
“They were here, though,” said Jane.
There were fishy remains everywhere, and clumps of old fur all brown and tufty. There was gray crumbly stuff, too, that Becca didn’t want to know too much about.
“I think this is where seal babies hang out,” Jane said.
“Look at this hunk of fur!”
“Oh!” said Jane. “It still has skin on it.”
“Even the air is nourishing,” Becca said. She thought it must be at least as good for you as those awful fish-oil capsules they sold in vitamin stores.
“If you can stand it.”
“Take your hand off your nose. I can’t understand you,” said Becca.
There was a snorty, croaking noise from tortoise rock, and the person there sat up.
“It’s just seal and sea-lion leavings,” he said. “Old meals and a little poop.”
“Merlin!” Becca exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”
“I thought you were talking with Uncle Mac,” said Jane.
“I was,” said Merlin. “And then I went for a walk.”
“Did you come here to talk to the seals?” asked Jane.
“I came to be alone.”
“How can you be alone?” asked Becca. “Don’t you have a pager or something?”
“I turned it off,” Merlin said. “A person needs a little peace now and then.” He closed his eyes. “Feel free to ignore me.”
Becca and Jane went on exploring.
“Look! A seal tooth!” Jane exclaimed.
“I didn’t know seals lost their teeth,” Becca said. “Is there a tooth fairy for seals?”
“I can’t sleep with you girls clonking about,” Merlin declared, sitting up again.
“Come help us finish our sandwiches,” said Becca.
They sat against lumpy tortoise rock.
“Who made these?” Merlin asked, when his eyes had stopped running with onion tears. “They’re very aggressive sandwiches.”
“Gran,” said Becca. “She calls these onions sweet and says they taste like apples.”
“Apples!” Merlin blew more onion tears out his nose.
“What time is it?” he suddenly asked. “I’d better be going.”
“But you can’t,” Becca said.
For the sea had been coming in quickly and serenely, creeping up the shore. Already it felt like Seal Rock was shrinking, sinking quietly into the strait, perhaps preparing to become the seals’ nighttime bedroom once more.
Well, not really. Becca didn’t really think seals slept here, but she pointed to the water swelling up around the islet.
Merlin jumped to his feet and clambered over the cobbles and conglomerate, up over the driftwood, dried grasses and prickly plants. He leapt towards the distant beach as if — if he moved fast enough — he’d be able to soar across the widening channel between Seal Rock and the island.
But even a deer in full flight couldn’t have leapt so far.
“Ow!”
There was a tumbling, knocking sound, and a sea-lionish noise from Merlin.
“Ow!” he repeated. “That log rolled away right under my feet.”
Becca and Jane looked at him. He was sitting in a pile of smelly fur, clutching his ankle.
“Can you walk?” Becca asked.
“I don’t know,” Merlin said. “But it’s all right. It’ll be better in a while.”
“We can’t leave you marooned here,” Becca said.
“And wounded,” said Jane.
“I don’t need rescuing!”
“You can’t stay here all night,” Becca said. “And even if you could swim across, how would you get back home?”
“I’ll be fine,” Merlin said. “Ow.”
“There’s no point wiggling your ankle,” Jane said. “It won’t get better if you don’t rest it.”
“RICE,” Becca told him. “Rest, ice, compression, elevation. That’s what the aunts would say.”
“Would you really stay here all night?” Jane asked.
It seemed like a long time for Merlin to sit on a rock in the sea — all evening and all night, too, because the night tide wouldn’t be low enough for someone to get across without swimming a long way.
And swimming in the dark alone was a bad idea.
“I could work it out eventually,” Merlin sighed. “But I’m supposed to be somewhere this evening. And Mrs. Barker’s pressure pump needs attention.”
Becca and Jane lifted Gull into the sea.
“Welcome aboard,” said Jane. “Watch out for the boom.”
“Can you swim?” Becca asked.
“Of course I can swim!” Merlin answered.
“That’s good,” Becca said, “because we don’t have a spare life jacket.”
Gull sank a little as he climbed in.
“Ow!” he cried, and fell over the centerboard.
“Push off as hard as you can, Becca,” said Jane. “We need all the momentum we can get.”
Becca gave Gull a great shove and hopped aboard.
“Don’t you have oars?” Merlin asked.
Becca thought of the oars standing at attention against the shed, waiting for her to bring them down and put them in Gull just in case they were needed. Which they were, in this windless world, and what a pity she and Jane had forgotten them.
Or, if she was really the skipper, she had forgotten them.
And now she was allowing a life-jacketless passenger aboard as well.
But what else could she do?
The sea spread out around them, a mirror for blue sky and summer heat. Its only motion was the slow underwater surge of incoming tide.
And there was no doubt about it, Becca thought, as time drifted by. Oars would have been handy.
“We’re not so far out,” she said.
“They can probably see us with binoculars,” said Jane.
“They didn’t say anything about the naked eye,” Becca said.
“Are you in trouble?” asked Merlin.
“Not yet,” Becca said. “What if we whistle for a wind? Would that work?”
“We could sing,” Jane suggested. “It’s more breathy.”
The boom swayed with lazy twitches, and Merlin cleared his throat.
“How about a sea shanty?” he asked. “Betsy had a baby and she dressed it all in white …”
“Heave away, Johnny, all bound to go,” Jane joined in.
Becca listened.
“The tide came in one morning and it crept up to the door … It took that little baby and ’twas never seen no more … Heave away, Johnny, all bound to go …”
Becca’s skin shivered. She didn’t know why. Maybe it was Merlin — he had a clear, soaring voice. She never would have guessed that he could sound like that, looking at his dirty T-shirt and grubby jeans, his freckly face and his teeth that, she remembered, might clack at any moment because some of them were false.
The song reminded Becca of something, but she couldn’t think what while she was worried about getting her ship and crew and passenger back home to harbor.
“We’re not leaving,” she said. “There’s the whole summer! Can’t you think of an arriving song?”
Becca saw a ripple feather the water, but it vanished almost at once and the water went sleek again. Gran’s bay seemed farther off than ever.
“I really do have to be somewhere this evening,” Merlin said. “Even though Mrs. Barker can probably wait for her pressure pump. Can’t we hurry up?”
Becca waggled the tiller.
“We could be engines,” she said. “We could hang onto the stern and kick.”
She tried not to imagine what Gran would say about that, or Mum or Dad, or Mac, or Jane’s parents, or any other friend or relative.
“Can you sail?” she asked Merlin. “Could you steer, if Jane and I get out and kick?”
“We’re going to be motors?” asked Jane.
“We have life jackets and our legs work. We can push the boat.”
“I can sail,” Merlin said. “I mean, I probably can — with no wind.”
“You don’t have a life jacket, so you can’t be a man overboard,” said Becca. “And anyway, kicking would hurt your ankle. You can steer and sing. Maybe it will raise a wind.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said Merlin.
“One, two, three!”
Becca and Jane pushed Gull, and then they kicked hard to catch up to her.
Then they pushed again.
There went Mayfield Point, so slowly that Becca had time to count its trees, to think she could see where snoozing deer had flattened the grasses.
There went the pebbly beach where Becca’s baby sister, Pin, liked to throw rocks into the sea or sometimes try to eat them.
Merlin sang a song about a father lying under five fathoms of ocean. “Of his bones are coral made,” he sang. “Those are pearls that were his eyes.”
“Don’t you know any cheerful songs?” Becca panted.
There was the point that wasn’t really a point. Two eagles standing on the beach stared. And stared. Then finally, Becca couldn’t see them anymore.
“My legs are numb,” said Jane.
Becca memorized every pockmark on Gull’s stern.
Merlin sang about a cowslip’s bell and then about flying on a bat.
It was getting harder to catch up with Gull after each push.
And now Becca’s life jacket was giving her a rash, and her arms were stretching out longer and longer.
She watched a knot of kelp rise and fall, rise and fall. It passed by glittering with sun and sea, splattering drops that bounced up, then flew out over the water. Right behind it came a piece of driftwood, bobbing cheerfully like a tiny boat, much more lively than Gull.
There was something funny about that, but Becca was too tired to wonder.
Kick, kick, kick. Push, push, push.
Merlin’s voice flew out above them, all about how there was a lover and his lass that through the green corn fields did pass.
“The water’s green-looking,” Jane said.
That’s when Becca saw that the sea had changed.
“And it’s sticking up like — like waves!”
But before Becca could say how puffs of wind were whipping up bits of sea, Merlin sang a sudden, great “Hey!” and Gull bounded ahead with a rush and a clang, surged forward like she could hardly wait to get home.
The sail flapped and snapped and bellied out, and the wind pushed, and Gull slammed on in the now-bouncing waves of the strait.
Merlin shouted, and Becca could feel Gull pulling away, galloping out from under her cramped hands. And there were Jane’s fingers, stretching, stretching so that they had gone white and bloodless, because she could hardly hold onto Gull’s stern.
“I’m going to have to let go!” shouted Jane. “She’s going too fast!”
“Kick!” Becca yelled. “Let out the sheet! Spill the wind!”
“Sheet?” asked Merlin. “What sheet?”
Gull tore herself from Becca’s fingers. Becca swam frantically. The bulky life jacket dragged at her arms.
All Becca could see was Gull’s wake, the small turmoil of sea gurgling behind her. And Gull’s stern, speeding farther and farther away from Becca’s reaching arms.
Then, quite by accident, Merlin shifted the tiller. The sail emptied and Gull lost momentum.
“Get in,” Becca said, and she shoved Jane over the stern.
“Take my hand,” Merlin said, and in a moment, Becca was safe by the tiller.
“It happened so fast!” said Jane.
“We weren’t paying attention,” said Merlin.
“I wasn’t,” Becca said. And she should have been, she thought. She was the skipper.
She thought of the feel of her fingers, of Gull slipping away from them.
She thought of Jane’s hand hooked onto Gull by its fingertips. She thought of the great broad strait with its muscular flow.
It wasn’t even very windy. Just a little frisk, really, enough to get them to Jane’s point in time for dinner maybe.
But for a moment, Gull had been about to sail off without them.
What would be worse than wrecking Gull?
Becca and Jane, lost at sea.
“Muscles on them like Olympic swimmers!”
That was Mac’s greeting as Gull was hauled ashore by Gran, Mac, Jane’s mum, Jane’s dad and even Bill-and-Kay-next-door who happened to be standing on the point with their binoculars when Becca finally sailed Gull up to the sandstone.
“And who’s this?” asked Gran. “Merlin! Where’s your life jacket?”
“Why didn’t you row?” asked Mac.
“What were you doing out there?” Jane’s mum asked.
“What’s wrong with your foot?” asked Mac.
“You know better than to go to sea without a life jacket,” said Gran. “Don’t you?”
“They saved me,” Merlin said. “I didn’t mean to go to sea.”
“He was marooned,” Becca said.
“And wounded,” said Jane.
“We could barely spot you,” said Mac. “I had to get out the telescope.”
“Why were you overboard in the middle of the strait?” asked Jane’s dad.
“Don’t you realize Gull could have sailed off and left you?” Gran asked.
“We were becalmed,” said Becca.
“It wasn’t our fault,” said Jane.
But it was, Becca knew. She was the skipper and she forgot the oars, and then she didn’t stay close enough to shore to get home easily without them. And she took on a passenger she didn’t have a life jacket for, and she let Gull drift way out into the current. And then she jumped out of the boat and left it under the control of a person who didn’t know a thing about sailing.
She thought about that moment when Gull had been about to escape them.
Those are pearls that were his eyes, Merlin had sung. Full fathom five thy father lies.
At least it wasn’t us full fathom five, she thought.
“This is not good,” said Jane’s mum.
“Yes, it’s serious,” said Gran. “What an escapade! Becca, I think you’d better be beached for the time being unless you’re with an adult.”
“Merlin’s an adult!” Becca said.
“Yes, well, someone who knows something about boats. You did well in some ways, but you and Jane aren’t ready to sail on your own.”
So that was that. The first day of summer. Beached.