Last night, we all sat around with Bompie, and we told him about our trip over on The Wanderer, and he seemed absorbed in all of it. When we finished, Bompie said, “You all are the ones who should be eating the pie. Where’s the pie? More pie!”
Uncle Mo said, “Wait a minute—I’ve got something—”
We thought he was going to bring in some pie, but instead he brought in a bunch of flat packages. He lifted one off the top and said, “This one’s for Bompie.”
Bompie tore the paper off the package, and inside was one of Mo’s drawings. It was a sketch of Bompie sitting up in bed, eating pie.
“Pie!” Bompie said. “Ha ha ha! Pie!”
At the bottom of the drawing, Uncle Mo had written Ulysses Eating Pie.
“Ulysses!” Bompie said. “Ha ha ha! That’s me!”
Uncle Mo passed out packages to Uncle Stew and Brian and Uncle Dock. The one for Uncle Stew was a drawing of Stew and Brian, using the sextant. The one for Brian was a sketch of Brian tacking up a list in the galley. The one for Uncle Dock was a watercolor of Dock’s “baby,” The Wanderer, with Captain Dock at the bow.
We were all ooh-ing and ah-ing over these drawings.
“Now, this one’s for Cody,” Uncle Mo said.
Cody ripped off the wrapping. Inside was a pen-and-ink drawing of Cody juggling. He was standing on The Wanderer, and the boat was leaning way over, but Cody was perfectly balanced, and he was juggling not pretzels—or socks—but people. Each of us was a little wee tiny person up in the air, and Cody was juggling us.
“Man!” Cody said. “This is amazing!”
“Did you notice the knots?” Uncle Mo said.
We all looked closer. And then we saw them. Cody’s hair was all tied up in little end-knots and clove hitches.
“This is the most brilliant drawing I ever saw in my whole life,” Cody said.
I think Uncle Mo was pleased by that compliment.
Then Cody said, “Wait!” and he dashed out of the room, and when he came back, he handed Uncle Mo a page that he’d torn from his dog-log. “For you,” he said. “I’ll clean up the edges—”
“For me?” Uncle Mo said.
It was a drawing of Uncle Mo, leaning back in a deck chair on The Wanderer. In his lap was his sketchbook. Underneath, Cody had written Moses, The Artist.
“Moses,” Uncle Mo said. “That’s me!”
Bompie said, “Hey! What about those other two thingys over there? Who are those for?”
Uncle Mo said, “Oh. Right. These last two were supposed to be for the newest members of the family, but—” He looked at Uncle Dock. “This one was supposed to be for Rosalie. I guess you should open it—”
Uncle Dock slowly unwrapped it. Inside was a drawing of three whales: the mother and the baby and father whales that we had seen on the ocean.
“Oh,” Uncle Dock whispered. “Oh, Rosalie—”
Bompie said, “Rosalie? Who’s this Rosalie everyone keeps talking about? Do I know Rosalie?”
Cody said, “She’s this really neat woman that Uncle Dock knows. She’s temporarily lost.”
“Send out a search party!” Bompie said.
We all looked at Uncle Dock. “I get the hint,” he said. “Now what about that last package?”
Uncle Mo said, “This one’s for Sophie.”
My fingers were trembling. A present? For me? I could hardly get the wrapping off, I was so excited. Inside was one of Mo’s drawings.
There I was, swinging high up in the air in the bosun’s chair, swinging way out over the waves, and the water was very blue, and the sky was blue, and beneath me, in the blue water, was a pair of dolphins, leaping in the air.
Underneath the drawing, Uncle Mo had written, Giddy-up, Sophie!