Chapter 35
Three days later Dad lugged an old trolling motor out of the garage.
“It’s time,” he said.
And so it was.
We walked down to the harbour where the dory monster still stood, moored next to Warren’s boat shed. People had already begun to tear down and cart away the ruins of the wharf. They would rebuild and restore it and Deeper Harbour would go on.
Most of the town stood around, quietly watching and waiting for what they knew was to come. Nora deep-fried some sandwiches, but no one seemed the least bit hungry. A lot of them were firmly convinced that Granddad Angus had built that sea monster dory as part of the Fogopogo Festival celebration.
People are funny that way. It was like they had come to believe so deeply in Fogopogo that they didn’t want to let go of the dream. Of course it might have been that they were thinking with their wallets and trying to make sure that the tourists kept on coming, but a part of me believes that there was a lot more to it than that.
Which makes me glad.
“Wasn’t he worried that Fogopogo would get after him?” some wanted to know.
“It looks just like the real thing,” others said.
“How do you think he ran it all by himself?” somebody asked me.
I just shook my head.
I think more than a few of them suspected that Granddad Angus had some extra help and that our dory monster was actually what had caused all the trouble in the first place—but if they did, they were keeping their mouths tightly shut.
The twelve fishermen had dried out their dragon and danced up a gumbooted storm in tribute to Granddad Angus.
“I bet you he would have liked to have seen this,” I said.
“I bet you he’s watching us right now,” Dulsie said.
Warren had brewed up some tea and Dad and I stood and sipped and blew. Dad was wearing Granddad Angus’s magic fishing vest of many pockets. I hadn’t seen Dad take it, but I guessed it was only right.
“I want to keep this,” Dad said.
I didn’t argue.
After the tea, Dad strapped the trolling motor to the dory monster. I had one last look inside the moose hide. I wanted to see it one more time. I wanted to take it all in and store it in a deep part of my memory. I wanted to memorize every joint and nail and sliver.
Which was when I saw what Granddad Angus had been working on the night before the last ride of the dory monster. I felt it first, touching with my fingertips something gouged in the oak of the dory’s walls. A word, carefully carved.
I pulled the edge of the moose hide away and read the word that Granddad Angus had carved there.
A single name.
Marjorie.
A part of me wondered just why he’d carved it there.
Had he known he was going to die like he did?
Or maybe he just that proud of all that he and Dulsie and Warren and I had done this summer.
I didn’t know the answer.
I didn’t know if I ever would.
So I just let the moose hide fall back to cover that name.
Some stories are told better without words.
Some stories are meant to be whispered in the dark.
“It’s time,” Dad said again.
Just before I stepped back I grabbed hold of the amethyst eyes and pulled them off the dory monster, from where Granddad Angus had stuck them.
“I want to keep these,” I said. “One for me and one for Warren.”
Dad just nodded.
Then he poured a can of kerosene into the belly of the sea monster dory and lit the lantern and set it on my purple glitter banana seat.
He turned on the engine and the monster chugged into the harbour.
Chumma-chumma-chumma.
Warren stepped out of his shed, dressed in a kilt and full Highland regalia, carrying a set of bagpipes.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.
People can surprise you.
Mom and Molly and Dulsie stood just a little behind Warren.
Dulsie had a surprise for me as well. She wasn’t wearing one bit of a today tattoo. For the first time in as long as I could remember, Dulsie Jane Boudreau looked just like herself.
Warren played a pibroch as the dory monster chumma-chumma-chummed out into the harbour. About halfway out the motion of the waves must have tipped the lantern over. I saw a brief flash of light, like a shooting star falling out of the sky.
The sea monster dory burned, raising a large cloud of smoke that I was certain would be seen far out at sea.
I reached into my pockets and squeezed the amethyst eyes that I had taken from Fogopogo.
There are things you hang on to and things you have to learn to let go.
“Ottawa will be a big change,” Dad said. “You’ll be in deep water for sure.”
I thought about that.
“I know how to swim,” I said. “You and Granddad Angus taught me how.”
Dad looked at me.
“Ottawa won’t be so bad,” I said.
And it isn’t.