by Pam Withers
The rustle of trees, the slap of waves on the nearby river, and the pip-pip of an eagle high above are my only replies. I sigh and kick a rock. It’s too quiet here. I miss the din of honking cars, squealing tires, and creaking construction cranes, the blur of yellow taxis, bicycle couriers, and cop cars.
Or do I? I guess it’s just what I was used to — the rhythms of city life. Sixteen years of it, minus our annual vacations here. And mostly what I remember of vacations in Bella Coola is same-old: trying to keep my head low as Granddad verbally slaps Mom around and alternately bosses, encourages, and shakes his head hopelessly at me. Dad is never in the line of fire, but he makes for a weak ref.
Only because he’s so patient and loves all three of us alike.
We’ve landed here like tourists trying to steer a Central Park rental boat with a broken oar, spinning, arguing, getting nowhere. We need to pull together somehow.
Yes, I miss Arlo and Koa and New York City a lot. How dare Dad tear us away with so little notice, especially in the middle of a school year? I’m totally pissed about that. But Granddad is dying, I keep reminding myself. Dad wants to be near him while he still can, and to help. He’s thoughtful and loyal that way. Besides, I don’t want to be obsessed with missing the city like Mom. Her homesickness is tearing us apart. No, this isn’t home yet. But it was, for just a moment, when Mom, Dad, and I bonded over Hank. All the more reason to find him and get him back here. If someone has kidnapped him, they haven’t killed him. I refuse to believe it.
Lifting Butterfly, I examine her sensor and shell to see if there’s any damage. “If Officer Anderson doesn’t find Hank, you will,” I tell her. I contemplate what she needs. Maybe I should resolder some of the connections. The gimbal is now damaged, so I’ll have to order a few bits to repair that. Eventually, I return to the workshop and line up my parts to repair what I can for the moment. The parts for the rest should take only a week to arrive, after which my drone fleet — Bug, Butterfly, and Skyliner — will be complete.
I set Butterfly down and rifle through the room’s warped wooden drawers. A fish hook pokes me in the thumb. A broken hammer head greets me like a two-headed slug. A jar holds corroded coins that look old enough to be worth something on eBay. A damp, ancient phone book features a photo of Bella Coola in pioneer days. In other words, pretty much like it looks now.
“If you need any parts or repairs, let us know.” Did Dorothy Dawson really say that the other day? Imagine Bella Coola having a drone chick! I page through the old phone book looking for Dawson, coughing as mouse turds spill out from the mouldy pages. It lists a MacKenzie Dawson. Her dad? I punch the number into my phone.
Holding my damaged Butterfly in one palm, my phone in the other, I feel my pulse rise. What exactly does Dorothy have in her workshop? So many parts she can actually sell stuff on the side? To whom, and why? Or was she inviting me around to get to know me better? Well, I need a gimbal, and a guy’s got to check out his local UAV supplier at some point.
“Dorothy. It’s —”
“Hi, Ray. I have call display.” It’s her same impatient school voice.
“Um, you said you had some drone parts and I was wondering if you might have a gimbal I could buy.” My hand’s sweating and I sound like I’m mumbling.
There’s a sigh, like I’m interrupting very important work. “For a custom UAV or just some toy?”
“Uh —” I’m pissed now, but I don’t dare show it. “Custom, duh.”
She utters her street address in the monotone of a bored secretary. “In the garage behind the house,” she finishes.
“Biatch,” I whisper after I think she has hung up.
“I heard that,” she says icily. With a click, the line goes dead.
My face warm, I stomp out of the workshop toward the house.
“Mom, Dad,” I call into the clinic.
But their voices are too loud for them to hear mine.
“This dog is not going to … The wound is —”
“Darling, we have to —”
“Ray, grandson,” comes Granddad’s voice from the living room, “no bear delivery yet. But I’m pretty sure you’ve put yerself on the Logan hit list, which means my ass is grass for future taxidermy orders from them. I’m inclined to mount yer head if you don’t —”
“I’m off to the Dawsons’ for a drone part,” I call out, in case any of the three care.
The simple green rancher, in need of a paint job, sits on a modest plot of land in need of weeding and mowing. Bypassing the house, I step along cracked, tilted slabs of pavement to the side door of a tall garage.
As I lift my hand to knock, I hear a small dog’s high-pitched barking, then a click and the sliding of a heavy bolt. The door opens a crack to reveal a Nuxalk man with squared shoulders and a fierce look. He’s wearing a white lab coat and spit-and-polish black shoes. At his knees is a well-clipped, cream-coloured miniature poodle in a pink leather collar. The dog gives a half-hearted bark accompanied by vigorous tail wagging.
I bend down to read the name tag on the poodle’s collar and pat the head of tight curls. “Hi, Pilot.” Then I stand and offer my hand to the man. “Mr. Dawson? I’m —”
“Daniel McLellan’s grandson,” he finishes for me in a suspicious tone, looking me over like I’m a faulty used drone for sale, and continuing to hold the door half-closed. “Dorothy, it’s a civilian seeking entrance to our facility.”
“It’s okay, Dad. He just needs a part,” she says in a patient tone. Over Mr. Dawson’s shoulder, I can see that she’s standing at the top of a stepladder, arranging things on a high shelf. The poodle trots to a dog basket near the foot of the ladder and lies down. “Good girl, Pilot,” Dorothy says.
“A part for what?” Mr. Dawson demands.
“A drone,” I answer. “I called before —”
“It’s okay, Dad,” Dorothy repeats in a docile voice that makes me wonder if it’s really her speaking. “He’s cleared for access.”
Cleared for access? The door opens wide enough for me to step in, and Dorothy’s dad backs away slowly, his expression wary. As he closes the door firmly behind me and pushes a black button on the wall that slides a red iron bolt back into place, I notice a beribboned military uniform hanging stiffly from a hook on the back of the door. I figure it has been a while since its brass buttons could close around Mr. Dawson’s middle.
More impressive are the high, warehouse-style surround of shelves and tool racks over several workbenches and the ceiling covered in fluorescent lights lit up like we’re in a baseball stadium. Unlike my workshop, with its organized chaos, this one is squeaky clean and stacked to capacity with oscilloscopes, battery chargers, giant gimbals, high-end thermal and zoom cameras, even a 3-D printer. In amazement, I turn to take in more: shelves of drone motors, radios, spare propellers and other parts in cellophane boxes, receivers, and a neatly organized desk with a giant computer underneath and three wall-mounted screens above it. The booming Bluetooth speakers on each side look like they could pack a punch.
“What is this, Area 51?” I try to joke. Seriously, it’s like a secret wing of a UAS. Or winglet, anyway.
“It’s our garage,” Dorothy replies dryly, finally turning from her shelving activities like a librarian who has just noticed a patron. “Dad used to work on drones for Joint Task Force 2, one of Canada’s special operations units, and we still, um —”
“— indulge in it as a hobby.” Mr. Dawson completes the sentence while giving his daughter a stern look.
“Right,” I say, sweating under the bright lights, focused on the poodle thumping her small tail. She’s a few months old, her paws still oversized compared to her tiny body.
“How big is your drone?” Dorothy asks, all businesslike, her tone beginning to feel like jabs from the tools on the bench below her. She climbs nimbly down the ladder to land on the polished cement floor. She’s wearing a black skirt and tights with a pink sweater, and her thick hair is tied back with a pink ribbon. Seriou
sly, she looks like she’s about to head off to a party.
She looks at my drone with feigned disinterest, opens and closes some drawers, and narrows it down to one part, which she presents in open palms.
“That one should work,” I say. “Want to go outside to test the drone with me, in case it might, um, need something else?” I sound like a total idiot, but the lights and lack of welcome are getting to me, like I’m a visitor to a high-security prison.
“Sure,” she answers, so quickly I’m taken aback. “Be right back, Dad,” she says gently, like a mother reassuring a child. And she strides over to press the black button that unlocks the door. Pilot leaps up and trots after us.
“High security,” I kid her as the door closes behind us and I breathe more easily in the gone-to-seed yard.
She shrugs. “He’s military.”
“Retired,” I venture.
“Tell him that.”
“How long have you been into drones?”
She examines her pink polished fingernails. “Since my mother died two years ago.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.” I pat Pilot’s head, then lift an earflap instinctively. No dirt or wax.
Dorothy heaves a deep sigh, then glances sideways at me, evaluating me in some way. “Mom died of cancer. Her last words were to take care of Dad, and since this is where he spends all his time, it’s what I do, too.”
Her tone is soft and sad, and her chin rests on her chest. Some crazy part of me wants to reach over and touch her reassuringly. Then she lifts her head, and the moment is over. She’s all business when she points to Butterfly. “How’d you damage your gimbal?”
I hand the drone to her. “Fell into bear crap.”
Her shiny fingernails loosen their hold on Butterfly for a moment, then she bends down, wipes the drone on the straw-like lawn, and laughs. “Your pet bear’s scat? The cub I heard you nearly got shot trying to find at the Logans’?”
How did she hear that already? “His name is Hank, and my drones are going to find him if the conservation officer doesn’t.”
She shakes her head and half smiles, which is an improvement in our shaky relations, at least. “How long have you been droning?”
“According to my granddad, I’ve been droning on and on since I was born.”
Her smile widens as she cocks her head. “And that would be a compliment from Mr. McLellan.”
“I got into it through a club at school two years ago. I like designing and constructing them as much as flying them.”
She takes the piece from my hand. “Like my dad,” she mumbles. “Spends all our money on parts. Thinks he’s going to build the mother of all drones, maybe earn more chest candy from the government.”
“Chest candy?”
“Ribbons and medals,” she says a little impatiently. “You should be able to attach the camera to the gimbal without having to solder anything. If I insert it here like this, it’ll …”
She places Butterfly on the ground, grabs my remote control, and, before I can say a word, flicks the joystick. Butterfly launches off the ground, humming higher and higher into the sky. Then, without warning, Dorothy pushes the controller back into my hands, reaches into her skirt pocket, and pulls out a controller and small cherry-red custom drone of her own.
“Duel ya,” she says.
I grin.
She launches hers, and we line them up in the air to perform an acrobatic aerial show for all and none to see. Up toward the clouds, down toward the lawn, around and around, like a pair of well-coordinated dancers. Finally, I begin to slow my drone down, lining it up for a race. She sees my move and lowers her drone beside Butterfly.
“Three. Two —”
In an instant we’re off, both too excited to wait for the full countdown. Swooping and twirling through the air, our drones whirl through the valley, dipping between trees. Eventually, I let her pull ahead, watching her little guy admiringly.
“Ha! I won,” she declares.
“You did,” I agree, letting Butterfly rejoin hers as we hover near the frisky spring river.
“Second Lieutenant Dawson!” comes a shout from the garage door. “Leave the civilian and march your ass right back in here.”
“Yes, General,” she calls back effortlessly, soothingly. She turns to me. “That’ll be sixty-five dollars,” she says cheerfully.
I dig out my wallet and dish out the cash, even if the price is ridiculously steep.
“Dismissed, Civilian McLellan,” she says with a smirk, retrieving her drone and offering a mock salute.
“At ease,” are her last words, spoken lightly, teasingly, as she strides to the garage, long hair swaying, skirt ruffling in the cool breeze, her UAV held gently in her hands. Pilot follows close on her heels.
Is she flirting with me? “Later,” I say lamely.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“I MADE YOUR favourite New York bagels for you,” Mom says as I struggle to stuff the last few items into a giant canvas duffle bag Granddad has loaned me for the Outdoors Club camping trip. “Everyone will be jealous when you pull those out.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Way to help me fit in, not. I give her a quick hug and shove the wrapped onion bagels into my sack.
“Hope they don’t make you homesick,” she adds, leaning against the door frame of my bedroom, hands clasped. “They did me, just making them.”
“They will if they’re as good as the ones at Broadway Bagels.” I humour her, referring to our favourite takeout back home. No, I correct myself, not home anymore. Even though I miss my friends like crazy, and miss lots of things about New York, my mother’s over-the-top homesickness actually makes me want to try harder to like this place. Weird, but that’s the way it is. Anyway, it’s not like I had a girlfriend back there. And it would be wrong to move back while Granddad is ill. That’s where I’m totally with Dad.
She sighs and strolls over to help me cram a pair of newly purchased wool socks into the overflowing bag. Her wedding ring catches on the bag, and her bracelets jangle as she struggles to pull it free.
“If I go back to New York for a visit in a few weeks, would you like to come with me?” She’s twisting her ring with her fingers now.
I straighten up and study my fit, fashionably dressed mother, whose heavily made-up eyes won’t quite meet mine. “In a few weeks? We only just got here, and I’m in school, Mom.”
She lifts a manicured fingernail to her mouth and chews on it for a second. “You’re right, Ray, of course. I just thought … Well, be careful on this trip, Ray. It’s awfully cold and I know you hate camping, and I worry about …”
She walks over and smothers me in a hug, almost like she’s clinging to me. Is her face slightly damp on my neck? I give her a dutiful squeeze back. “Got to close this duffle somehow,” I mumble, trying to pull the drawstring tight. “Do you think I’m taking too much?”
“Ask your granddad,” she suggests, pulling back and peering at me, her mascara slightly smudged.
“No way,” I say, and we both laugh.
* * *
“Are you serious?” Vice-President Cole greets me when Mom discharges me in the school parking lot beside the lineup of Outdoors Club members and the waiting minibus. “You moving into the mountains for a month or something?”
Guess I brought too much. “Always prepared,” I try to joke.
“As long as you’re prepared to carry it,” Mr. Mussett says, shaking his head.
“Min-jun here yet?” I ask, embarrassed. Great start.
“He’ll be here,” Cole says, glancing at his watch.
Dorothy appears and points to my duffle bag. “Brought your own log to sit on around the campfire?” A high-tech pink-and-purple pack hangs lightly off her shoulder. My face goes sunstroke hot.
“And marshmallows,” I say. Crap. What kind of comeback is that?
She leans in, bringing with her a fruity scent of gum that makes me breathless. “Hope you didn’t bring a drone,” she says in a hushed voice, “or Mr. Muss
ett will chop you into fish bait.”
“Then again, if disaster hits and we need a rescue, it might save the day,” I reply, smiling.
I climb aboard the minibus and, because everyone else is sitting in chattering pairs, plunk down on a vinyl seat near the back. The second Dorothy sits down in front of me, Cole swings in beside her, though judging from her deep sigh, it isn’t exactly by invitation. Club members continue to pile in, looking at the empty seat beside me like it has feces on it, no one saying a word to me. I’m not disliked, I tell myself. Just temporarily untested.
Finally, a pair of well-worn leather hiking boots stops beside my silver running shoes. “This taken?” asks a familiar voice. “Hope not, ’cause it’s the last free seat.”
“Min-jun! You made it!” I say with relief.
“Of course I made it. I’m president. By the way, your granddad said I need to keep an eye on you, but just so we’re agreed, I’m not in the babysitting business.”
“Affirmative,” I say lightly, hoping Cole and Dorothy didn’t hear him.
“No luck with the bear?” he asks as the driver starts up the bus.
I lower my voice. “The conservation officer says there was no sign of Hank and that he had full co-operation from the Logan brothers, who send their condolences for my loss.” I roll my eyes.
“Yeah, right. Maybe your pet will wander into our camp this weekend,” Min-jun jokes, elbowing me.
I push his elbow away. “I will find where they’ve put Hank, and I will rescue him,” I say in a firm voice. And I will not indulge in darker thoughts about Hank’s possible fate.
Min-jun shakes his head. “He hasn’t been kidnapped, Ray, and that thing wouldn’t survive a night in the wild on his own, even without a broken paw. Drop it, dude.”
I feel a pain in my stomach, because I know he could be right. “Whatever,” I say stiffly, as the bus pulls out onto the valley’s only highway. “So, what’s the plan?”
“Bus takes us up into the mountains, we walk in a few kilometres, set up our tents, and do campfire singalongs.
Tomorrow we hike for eight hours and climb back on the bus.”
