The Wanderer

by Sharon Creech

  I couldn’t remember about the harness. I didn’t feel attached to anything. Was it on or not?

  I was going overboard; I was sure of it. Underwater forever, twisting and turning, scrunched in a little ball. Was this the ocean? Was I over the side and in the sea? Was I four years old? In my head, a child’s voice was screaming, “Mommy! Daddy!”

  And then I heard, “Sophie!”

  I think I will be sick now, writing about it.

  CHAPTER 50

  THE WAVE

  The Wave. The Wave. It blew me straight through the canvas dodger which covers the cabin, and onto the deck next to the rail. I was on my back, like a turtle, arms and legs flailing for something to grab on to. My first instinct was to do whatever it took to get out of there before another wave hit. My harness was on and it had held; if it hadn’t, I would have been far behind the boat by then.

  I saw Uncle Stew, with his yellow face sticking out of the main hatch. He looked like someone had just punched him in the stomach. His mouth was hanging open and he was staring straight ahead.

  All I could think of was Where are Cody and Uncle Dock?

  Uncle Stew grabbed at my harness and pulled me back through the dodger hole and down the hatch. Below, I slumped onto the navigation table. My legs were killing me. I thought they were both broken. I felt sick and battered and my heart seemed to be beating faster than my body knew how to keep up, and my legs couldn’t hold me even though I was sitting down.

  I slid onto the floor in at least a foot of water, trying to focus on where people were and if everyone was still on board and if everyone was okay. There were clothes and bits of food sloshing around. There was Uncle Stew. And Uncle Mo. Brian. My brain couldn’t count, couldn’t focus.

  I crawled across the floor. Who was missing? Stew. Mo. Brian. They were all here. I was scrabbling across the floor through the water and the sloshing crud. And then I was screaming, “Cody Dock Cody Dock!” I made it to the aft cabin and collapsed on top of a pile of wet clothes. “Cody Dock Cody Dock!”

  And then Brian was there, kneeling beside me. “He’s okay, Sophie. He’s okay. He’s up top.”

  “Who’s up top?”

  “Dock. He’s okay.”

  “But Cody? Where’s Cody?”

  There was a blur of people racing to and fro, scrambling to pump out the water.

  “He’s okay, Sophie,” Brian said. “He’s here. I saw him.”

  “What happened to your arm? It looks funny.”

  Brian cradled his right arm in his left. “Banged it, I guess.”

  My brain kept insisting on making sure everyone was there. I must have gone through everyone’s name twenty times, and each time I’d tell myself where each person was: Dock: he’s working the emergency bilge pump. Mo: he’s on deck, securing the hatch. Brian: he’s bailing down here. Stew: he’s bailing, too. Cody? Where’s Cody? Where’s Cody? I always got stuck on Cody. Then I’d figure it out: he’s on deck.

  And then there was Cody standing at the bottom of the ladder, his face covered in blood. The force of The Wave had blown his head right into the wheel, gashing open his nose and left eyebrow. He rushed past me into the bathroom.

  I followed him and found him sitting on the floor with a bunch of Band-Aids on his lap, looking helpless and confused.

  “Sophie?” he said. “Fix me.”

  I crawled to the forecabin to get the emergency medical bag and crawled back to Cody and started in on his face, cleaning the blood off with fresh water. The gashes were deep, and when I began cleaning them with antiseptic, he winced and started vomiting.

  I was babbling: “It’s okay, Cody, it’s okay, it’s the shock, it’s okay, Cody.”

  I recleaned the gashes and put loads of gauze over his wounds and taped him up good. He looked pretty wretched, but his face was temporarily salvaged. I found him some dry clothes and helped him onto a bunk and covered him with wool blankets.

  Pain darts are shooting up and down my legs while I’m sitting here next to Cody, keeping watch over him. All around me is the most appalling mess. The canvas dodger is lying halfway up the deck, and its metal frame, which had been bolted onto the deck, has been ripped out. The table in the cockpit is broken, our ham radio antenna gone, the hatch doors gone. The outdoor speakers are also gone, along with the bucket, a blue chair, and a bunch of cushions.

  The top of the emergency fresh water container was blown off and the contents sucked out. The wood in the cockpit seems about three shades lighter now, scratched and gashed.

  Down below, everything is soaked. Water came in through the hatch like water out of a fire hose, gunning everything in sight. A huge pot of chili, which was half full before The Wave hit, now is still half full, but the chili was blown right out of the pot and replaced by saltwater.

  The GPS, ham radio, and radar are all shot, and the kerosene heater is smashed.

  It feels as if we’re riding a bull, being slammed violently by every wave, hard, like rock against rock.

  CHAPTER 51

  LIMPING

  We’re limping along by the seat of our pants. I feel completely out of it, like I’m not really here—as if I’m somewhere else and watching this strange movie. If I knew the ending it would help. If we are going to make it to land again, then I could relax, but if we aren’t going to make it, why are we wasting all these hours fixing things and talking boat-talk? Why aren’t we doing something important? But what would that be?

  CHAPTER 52

  JUMBLED

  The sea, the sea, the sea. It thunders and rolls and unsettles me; it unsettles all of us.

  We tremble as we listen to the waves pounding. When I close my eyes, all I see is that huge white wave, and all I hear is the low rumbling that grows louder and louder as the wave breaks. We are all afraid to sleep, all afraid that The Wave will return.

  When we do lie down, we jolt out of bed at the slightest rumble of a new wave. I keep running through the scene in my head, over and over, from all different angles. It was like being born: I was in my rolling little world until a huge surge of water broke on me, scrunching me into a tight, round bundle and pushing me through a small space and then I was helpless and wet on my back, attached only by a small red line until a big hand pulled me away. I couldn’t talk, only whimper and moan.

  The hatch is secured, most of the water pumped out from below. Cody is up and at it again, but now Uncle Mo has succumbed to seasickness, and so he and Uncle Stew are awfully miserable. Brian’s arm is badly sprained, and Uncle Dock wrenched his back. We’re a sad-looking group.

  My right leg is still throbbing and hurts all around my knee and down the back of my thigh. My other leg is fine except for a sprained and sore ankle. But besides that and a big bump on the back of my head, I am in one piece physically.

  Inside, though, I am in many pieces. I feel strange and raw and all jumbled up. Sometimes I feel as if one little roll of the boat or one quick movement will shatter me into a zillion pieces and all those pieces will go flinging off into the sea.

  Nearby is my safety harness, that little stainless steel clip that saved my life, and one just like it saved Dock and Cody. So far.

  Cody’s face is still a mess. Yesterday, when he finally started to wake up, he asked me if I’d made him any pie. I didn’t get it at first, but then he said, “You know, like Bompie. He always got some apple pie when he survived something.”

  “He also got a whipping,” I said, and I thought Cody would laugh at that, but instead he said, “Do you think his father was ever sorry for those whippings?” So I told him another story about Bompie, which didn’t exactly answer the question, but it seemed to fit somehow.

  CHAPTER 53

  BOMPIE AND HIS FATHER

  When I was out of it after my head got bashed, Sophie told me another Bompie story. It wasn’t like the others. Bompie didn’t fall in the water or anything. It went like this:

  When Bompie’s father was very old and very sick, Bompie went to see him. Bompie
sat by his father’s bed every day for three weeks.

  During the first week, Bompie sat there being mad at his father and was hardly able to talk to him. The second week, Bompie was even madder, and he sat there reminding his father of all the times his father had whipped him.

  “Remember when I fell off that bridge and nearly drowned in the Ohio River? Remember that whipping you gave me?” Bompie asked. “And remember when I was in the car that flipped over in the river and when I came home, you whipped me black and blue?” On and on Bompie went, while his father just lay there blinking back at him.

  During the third week, Bompie stopped talking and just looked at his father. He looked at his hands and his feet, his arms and his legs, his face. He touched his father’s forehead and his cheeks. Then Bompie left the hospital and when he came back the next day, he said to his father, “Look what I brought you. An apple pie!”

  And his father cried and Bompie cried.

  When Sophie finished Bompie’s story, I wanted to give her a story, too. But I couldn’t think of one to tell.

  CHAPTER 54

  MR. FIX-IT

  Although Cody’s face looks bad, the rest of him seems okay, physically, that is. He’s sober and serious, though, and seems to feel he has to make up for lost time. He’s like a one-man Mr. Fix-it, very focused on exactly what needs repairing and how to do it.

  The rest of us are only able to function in short bursts, but Cody doesn’t stop, not even to sleep. Everyone wants either Cody or me at the helm because we seem to have found a way to keep the boat in tune with the waves, and they say The Wanderer rides more smoothly when we guide her. I can’t stand there very long, though, because of my legs hurting so bad.

  Everyone is grateful for Cody right now. I haven’t heard anyone say that out loud, but I know it’s true. Maybe they are even a little grateful for me, too, but it no longer seems important to worry about that.

  Uncle Dock has confirmed that the GPS, ham radio, and radar are all out. We don’t know where we are, and no one else knows where we are, and we can’t summon help if we get really desperate.

  We are still without sails, praying for the wind and seas to calm, and in the meantime, we spend all our waking moments and energy cleaning up the mess. We are all quieter than usual, thinking about being alive, and how fragile a line there is between being alive and not being alive.

  CHAPTER 55

  WET

  Wet, wet, wet. Nearly everything is soaked. Only the forecabin is partly dry, so we smoosh in there when we can grab a few hours to sleep.

  Sophie’s leg still has pain darts shooting up and down it, but she can walk. She’s very jittery, but she’s trying hard to make it seem as if she has it all under control.

  We’re all tired, tired, tired. “Poop-de-dooped! Huh, huh, huh,” Brian said a few minutes ago, with a little attempt at humor.

  But we do have sails again and are up and running. Sophie and I double-reefed the mainsail, and got the fixed storm trysail on the mizzen. The Wanderer looks a bit odd, but we’re moving, and we’ve been working hard to make the boat livable again. The canvas dodger is back in place, the heater is repaired, and the wheel (bent from my head smashing into it) is fixed.

  We might make it.

  CHAPTER 56

  USEFUL

  We’ve been trying to use the sextant for navigation, since our GPS is “toast,” as Uncle Dock says. Brian and Uncle Stew are the only ones any good with the sextant, and I heard Cody say to them, “Sure glad you guys know how to work that thing.”

  They both looked up at Cody and smiled. They didn’t even say anything snotty to him.

  Cody came and sat next to me. “You know,” he said, “maybe that’s all anybody wants, is to be useful.” He tied end-knots in each of my shoelaces. “And have somebody else notice it,” he added.

  “You’re useful, Cody,” I said.

  “So are you, Sierra-Oscar,” he said.

  I’ve had a lot of trouble being on watch ever since The Wave. The waves aren’t nearly as big now, but it’s just too frightening. I’m always looking behind me, convinced that every wave with the slightest bit of foam on it is going to be a reincarnation of The Wave.

  It seems a hundred years ago that we were lobstering and clamming on Grand Manan and trekking around Wood Island, and it seems a hundred years ago that we were eager to get under way, oblivious to what lay in wait for us.

  I feel as if I have to start all over to love sailing again, because I don’t love it now. I just want to get to Bompie and forget about the ocean for a while.

  But we’re not there yet. We’re here.

  I feel as if there were things inside me that were safely tucked away, sort of like the bilge down there, hidden under the floorboards of The Wanderer. But it feels as if the boards were blown off by The Wave and things are floating around and I don’t know where to put them.

  Brilliant Cody spotted and contacted a Canadian warship, which verified our position. We’re near the shipping lanes now, so if we can spot at least one ship a day, Cody will be able to call them on the VHF radio and ask for their position.

  We’re 500 miles from Ireland, less than a week away, with luck, and then on to England.

  Oh, Bompie!

  CHAPTER 57

  THINKING

  I am thinking about Bompie. At last I will see Bompie. Why am I scared?

  CHAPTER 58

  LITTLE KID: PUSH AND PULL

  When I sleep, I dream of Sophie. In the dreams, she is talking in radio code, and I am trying to transcribe what she is saying, but the words I write down make no sense. She talks louder, and I write faster, but still I can’t make sense of the words I’m putting on the page.

  Yesterday, Sophie told me another story, but this one was not a Bompie story. I’d asked her if she could remember things from when she was little.

  She said, “Why do people always ask that?” And then, when I thought she was going to turn around and leave, she started telling me about the little kid again. She told it like this:

  There’s a little kid. And the little kid doesn’t know what is going on. The little kid is just cold or hungry or scared and wants Mommy and Daddy. And when other people tell the little kid that Mommy and Daddy have gone to heaven, which is such a beautiful place, all warm and sunny with no troubles and no woes, the little kid feels bad and wonders why they didn’t take their little kid with them to that beautiful place.

  And everywhere the little kid goes, people ask what the little kid remembers about the grown-ups who have gone away to the beautiful place, but the little kid doesn’t want to remember that painful thing. The little kid has enough to deal with every day. The little kid wants to be right here, right now, and wants to look at now and at things ahead, on that horizon over there, not back at those times the little kid got left behind.

  But no matter what the little kid might want, something inside pushes the little kid ahead while something or someone pulls the little kid back.

  When Sophie finished, I didn’t know what to say. All I could think of was, “Don’t you wish we had some pie?”

  She said, “Yes.”

  She’s been very quiet ever since, as if she is listening to something or someone only she can hear. And at other times, she stands very close to me, as if she is hoping I will speak for her. Then I feel as if I am in my dream again, because I don’t know what words she wants me to say for her.

  CHAPTER 59

  NEW DREAMS

  You can tell that Uncle Mo is trying to be nicer to Cody. He’s not barking at him anymore, and he’s not calling him a knuckleheaded doofus. Cody doesn’t seem to know how to take this. He stares at his father, as if he is studying him.

  Cody’s face is looking much better. We found the adhesive sutures and were better able to close up the cuts on his eye and nose. When we get to England, Cody can go to a real doctor and get checked out. Uncle Stew says Brian should get his arm looked at, and I should get my leg checked, too, but my le
g is a lot better, not as sore, with only one nasty bruise left around my knee.

  It’s a funny thing about Uncle Stew. Now, when you’d think he’d have so many more things to worry about, he seems calmer and kinder.

  When Uncle Stew was asking me about my leg, he said, “It’s odd being a parent. You feel responsible for everything, and you’re so protective of your children and so worried about them that you can hardly think straight sometimes. But then sometimes you realize that you don’t have control over a lot of things and sometimes you have to just hope that everything will be okay.”

  He glanced over at Brian, who was tacking up a list in the galley. “And sometimes,” Uncle Stew said, “you have to let go and pray that the children will be okay on their own.”

  I could understand what he was saying, but I wondered if the same was true of children, that sometimes you can’t control things and sometimes you have to let go. Maybe you even have to let go of your parents. But then I was all muddled in my head and I couldn’t make sense of anything, not even where I was or why I was there.

  Now that Cody and I have been on watch together again, we’ve started to talk about what happened. I don’t know if anyone else understands how The Wave affected the two of us, because—except for Uncle Dock—they didn’t see it, or feel the first power of it crushing us like nuts in a nutcracker.

  And I keep thinking about the wave dream I used to have. What seems especially eerie is that the wave in all of those dreams was The Wave—exactly the same: the same height, the same shape. The only difference is that the wave in my dreams was black, and this one was white.