The Secret Life of Owen Skye

by Alan Cumyn

  In the same series:

  After Sylvia

  The sequel to The Secret Life of Owen Skye follows the life of young Owen after his true love Sylvia Tull moves away. How can one endure such a loss? By adopting a slobbering, bouncy, rock-obsessed hound named Sylvester? By running for class president? Or by joining his brothers in taking revenge against bossy cousin Eleanor?

  Dear Sylvia

  Owen Skye labors to write a series of letters to Sylvia. But will he ever find the courage to send them? Readers of all ages will easily identify with Owen as he wrestles with his poor spelling, his writer’s insecurity and his deep desire to tell Sylvia the truth about what is going on in his life, and in his heart.

  The Secret Life of Owen Skye

  Alan Cumyn

  GROUNDWOOD BOOKS

  HOUSE OF ANANSI PRESS

  TORONTO BERKELEY

  Copyright © 2002 by Alan Cumyn

  Published in Canada and the USA in 2002 by Groundwood Books

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Distribution of this electronic edition via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal. Please do not participate in electronic piracy of copyrighted material; purchase only authorized electronic editions. We appreciate your support of the author’s rights.

  This edition published in 2013 by

  Groundwood Books / House of Anansi Press Inc.

  110 Spadina Avenue, Suite 801

  Toronto, ON, M5V 2K4

  Tel. 416-363-4343

  Fax 416-363-1017

  or c/o Publishers Group West

  1700 Fourth Street, Berkeley, CA 94710

  www.groundwoodbooks.com

  LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

  Cumyn, Alan

  The secret life of Owen Skye / Alan Cumyn.

  ISBN 978-0-88899-867-5 (print) ISBN 978-1-55498-460-2 (ebook)

  I. Title.

  PS8555.U489S42 2008 jC813’.54 C2007-907133-3

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2002106835

  Cover illustration by Caroline Hamel

  Design by Michael Solomon

  We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF).

  For Gwen and Anna

  Table of Contents

  Fire and Rain

  The Bog Man’s Wife

  Valentine’s Day

  Doom Monkey the Unpredictable

  Winter Nights

  The Rail Bridge

  Cold Feet

  Death’s Pocket

  The Accident

  The Expedition

  A Thousand Years in a Dusty Tomb

  Fire and Rain

  THERE WAS A brass jar on the mantle above the fireplace in the old falling-down farmhouse where Owen Skye lived with his family years ago. Horace, Owen’s father, kept the jar polished and gleaming. It had belonged to Owen’s grandfather, who was now dead, and so it seemed to have special powers.

  Owen’s grandfather had been a sailor, and the brass jar had gone with him all around the world. If Owen held it close to his nose, he thought he could smell a thousand different places. But the lid of the jar was jammed on so tight that only the strongest individuals could open it. Even Owen’s older brother Andy wasn’t able to budge it, and he was terrifically strong.

  Of course Leonard, the youngest brother, couldn’t open it, either. He was too small and weak. Besides, he wore glasses, which tended to fall off if he tried too hard at anything.

  The jar rattled whenever you shook it. No one knew what was in there: gold coins perhaps, or emeralds, or dried pirate bones. Owen rarely passed by the mantle without pulling the jar down, grasping the brass knob and yanking as hard as he could. No matter how hard he tried, the top wouldn’t come off.

  Horace was an insurance salesman. But he didn’t sell a lot of insurance except to himself, which was why they were living in the falling-down farmhouse. Horace convinced his wife Margaret to buy the house because it looked like it would topple in the first high wind. Then the insurance company would pay them enough money to build a brand-new house. Owen and his brothers would race around like wild horses and kick chunks out of the walls trying to make the house fall down. It slouched anyway, and the roof sagged like an old bed that’s mostly been slept in in the middle.

  One day in early September Margaret gave a bridge party. For days beforehand she cleaned the house and tried to keep the three boys from messing everything up again. On the afternoon of the party she was busy running back and forth to the kitchen getting tea and coffee and wedges of cake and cheese biscuits and Jell-O with marshmallows in it, and talking to all the other ladies.

  Andy and Leonard were busy stealing sugar cubes from the delicate glass bowl that their mother only brought down from the highest cupboard for special occasions. They would stroll past the bowl on the table, humming quietly, and pull off the top with all the silence and swiftness of secret agents. Then they would dart a sugar cube, and maybe even a second, into their mouths.

  Owen liked sugar cubes too, but after the first couple he thought he would try once again to open the brass jar. He wanted it to be a secret. He wanted to take the jar away and open it all by himself and then show his brothers the treasure inside.

  It wasn’t difficult to slip away, since his brothers were hovering like hornets around the sugar bowl and his mother was so distracted looking after the details of her party.

  Owen took the brass jar to a safe hiding spot, underneath the front porch. He grabbed the knob with his right hand and held the base of the jar between his sneakers and pulled. When that didn’t work he took the knob with both hands and pulled so hard his shoes slid and he fell against a beam and smacked his head.

  Owen went back inside holding his head.

  “I want you to keep your grubby fingers out of the sugar bowl, do you hear?” Margaret said to him.

  Owen said that he would. He went to the kitchen. Andy and Leonard were washing their hands in the sink and didn’t see him slip a ball of twine out of the utility drawer.

  Owen went back outside and took the brass jar and the twine to the apple tree in the backyard. He tied the twine around one of the lower branches and then fastened it to the brass knob using a bowline, which his father had taught him. A bowline knot never slips no matter how hard you yank. Owen yanked terrifically hard and the knot held.

  But the string broke. So he doubled up the string and re-tied the knot and yanked and yanked until the double string broke as well.

  After that Owen quadrupled the string and pulled so hard the branch swayed, but the lid stayed on.

  His brothers were going to come out any minute. Owen could feel it. Andy would say, “What are you doing?” and then he’d take over. He always did, because he was so tall and strong and had such wild ideas for things to do. Owen was skinny and his ears stuck out and he almost always did what Andy said. But this time he wanted it to be his idea. So he thought, what would Andy do to get this top off?

  Owen cut the brass jar down from the lower branch with his pocket knife. Then he took the jar and climbed as high as he could get in the tree. He quadrupled the twine again and carefully tied one end around the brass knob and the other around a stout limb that was far enough out to be
clear of other branches underneath.

  Andy and Leonard were going to come out any second. Owen knew it. And he so wanted to be able to show them the vials of dried vampire’s blood and other treasures. So he gripped the brass jar as hard as he could and leaped off the branch.

  He fell down, down. He felt the jerk of the twine pulling tight, the bend of the branch. Then his body snapped like a whip, and he couldn’t tell where he was or what was happening.

  The next thing he knew he was on the ground, on his back, and the tree was way above him, dark branches and leaves and scrawny apples against gray clouds. The base of the jar was still in his hands but the lid was dangling in the sky, suspended by the twine.

  It didn’t hurt at all, until Owen realized how far he’d fallen, and then it did hurt, but not too badly.

  The ground was littered with little boxes. They all said the same thing: BRYANT & MAY’S, British Made, Special Safety Matches.

  Owen collected them all quickly and put them back in the jar. Then he climbed the tree and cut down the lid and took it all back to his hiding spot under the stairs. Andy and Leonard came out but they didn’t see him, and then they went inside again.

  Many times Margaret and Horace had told the boys never to play with matches. But these were so old, Owen wasn’t sure they would light. He took one of the boxes and opened it, and drew out a single, crooked match. It looked a hundred years old. Then he struck it against the sandpaper side of the box.

  Nothing.

  So he tried another one, and another, and finally there was a bad smell and then the match lit and the fire started burning toward his fingers.

  Owen dropped the match onto some old dead leaves and in a moment the leaves were burning. He quickly kicked on some dirt and stepped on the fire with his sneaker.

  After that Owen was so relieved he almost put the matches back in the container. He could have burned down the whole house! He knew that his father was hoping for the house to fall down in a disaster so that they could get a new house with the insurance. But maybe a fire wouldn’t count for the insurance company, which was very particular about what kind of disaster it was.

  So to keep from burning down the house, Owen went out to the ditch and squatted in the tall grass and took out the matches again.

  The grass was taller than Owen and dry and hard despite all the rain that summer. Owen started just a little fire, a tiny one with a few twigs. The flames spread slowly and gently and turned the twigs into glowing, curling little pieces. Then they became black and the glow went on to other twigs.

  At that moment a little bit of wind came up. The glow went from the twigs to the tall, dry grass, and before he knew it, Owen was surrounded by a wall of flame! It happened so fast he hardly had time to think.

  Owen ran through a hole in the flames and hid under the front porch and held his breath for ten seconds. Then he peeked out and saw that the wall of flame was heading straight for the house!

  Owen ran into the house to tell his mother. But by then Margaret was sitting with her friends and they were all talking so loud that Owen had the feeling he couldn’t possibly explain.

  So he just stood in the middle of the room and yelled, “Look out the window!”

  He couldn’t bring himself to say Fire! He was too ashamed of what he’d done. And he couldn’t look himself. He just sat down where he was and put his hands over his eyes.

  “Mom! Over there!” Andy yelled. Then all the ladies got up and went to the window. They said things like, “Look at that!” and “Well, isn’t that something.” And after awhile they went back to their bridge game.

  Margaret touched Owen’s shoulder and said sweetly, “I think you can open your eyes now.”

  So Owen went over to the window and looked out in amazement at near-darkness and slashing rain. It was one of those instant thunderstorms that blow up every now and again. Andy and Leonard were glued to the glass to watch every lightning bolt. Owen stared at the black smudge in the ditch where the tall grass used to be, and he tried to think how it could have happened that in his exact moment of crisis he’d been saved.

  One of the ladies remembered that she’d left the windows open in her car, so Owen volunteered to go out and close them. He got soaked in just a few seconds. On his way back he ducked under the front porch and returned all the matchboxes to the brass jar. He stuffed the lid on so tight he hoped it would never be opened again. Then he snuck the jar back into the house and returned it to the mantle, dried himself off, and waited for his father to come home.

  Owen was certain his father would see the burnt grass in the ditch and know exactly what had happened. Then Horace would go to the cupboard in the kitchen and take out the warped ruler that he used for disciplining the boys.

  Horace had told them many times about the ruler. He had stolen it when he was in grade three, and had kept it all these years as a reminder of how important it was to stay straight in life. Most of the lines and numbers had worn off and really it was only good for one thing anymore.

  But when Horace got home the rain was still falling so hard and fast it seemed to be hitting the house like ocean waves. If he did notice the smudge in the ditch, he didn’t say anything.

  By then the bridge ladies had gone home and Margaret and the boys were running around like crazy with pots trying to catch all the leaks in the roof. The boys’ attic bedroom was the worst. There was a terrible leak right over the big bed where the boys slept. Margaret had brought up the corn pot to put on the bed, and that’s exactly where Horace fell through the roof when he went up in the storm with a bucket of tar to try to fix the leak.

  Luckily Horace didn’t fall all the way. Just his foot and leg went through. Owen looked up in wonder at the wiggling leg. Little bits of wood splinter and shingle and spurts of rain were falling down onto the bed. Then Horace’s boot came off and shot across the room. It bounced off the dresser and left a tarry print.

  Margaret yelled up at her husband to get his leg out of the ceiling, but he couldn’t. He was wedged in tight at the thigh, with his other leg splayed across the roof at an awkward angle. He couldn’t push himself up. The rain was pouring down and he said some things only reserved for the most difficult moments.

  While their mother was yelling up instructions, Owen was thinking it was all his fault. If he hadn’t opened the jar and started the fire then the rain wouldn’t have come so hard and so fast. He knew by now this all had something to do with his dead grandfather, whose spirit must have been trapped in the jar, and who must have brought the rain to try to protect them. But now there was too much rain and Horace was trapped. It was all because of Owen.

  “We need to get a hammer,” he said.

  “What? To hammer his leg out?” Andy said. He could corkscrew his voice to make anything sound ridiculous.

  “No. To hammer a bigger hole in the ceiling.”

  “But the hammer’s down in the basement,” Leonard said.

  The basement was the darkest, scariest part of that old farmhouse. There was no door to it from inside. You had to go outside to the old, creaky double doors of the coal chute. And there were no lights. It smelled of mold, and water dripping down limestone, and in the corners there were snakes, and rats, and worse.

  “I’ll go,” Owen said weakly. It was the thought of the fire that made him say it. What if he did nothing brave and important to make up for causing this disaster?

  “We’ll all go,” Andy insisted.

  Outside, the rain was slashing down harder than ever. Owen’s Indian Brave flashlight worked for only a few seconds in the moisture, then went dark. The boys carried on anyway. They went in through the coal chute, sliding down on the seats of their trousers. It was so black and cold and creepy that Owen could hardly breathe.

  “Shhh!” Andy said, and they froze in the darkness.

  “What is it?” Leonard asked. He started crying
before Andy could answer.

  “It’s nothing. Just the wind.” But the way Andy said it made it sound like it could be the Bog Man.

  The Bog Man had been stealing cattle all summer. At night he came out of the bog by the Ridge Road and slimed across the fields making slow gurgling noises. Then he chose the weakest of the cows — a calf, preferably, but he was strong enough to bring down a bull — and squeezed it by the neck with his long Bog Man fingers, injecting poison through his fingernails until the cow’s bones were soup. Finally he would sink his terrible teeth into the base of the skull and drink out the animal, brain first, leaving only a shriveled sack of cowhide in the morning.

  If the Bog Man got you there was no escape. It was better to just hold your breath and hope that he ate you quickly.

  Leonard turned and ran up the coal chute screaming. Owen tried to turn and run, but his feet wouldn’t move. Then Andy took a few more steps into the gloom.

  “Andy — be careful!” Owen said. There was a gurgling noise then. It sounded like it was coming from the blackness underneath the work bench.

  Andy didn’t say anything, which was exactly what happened when the Bog Man got you. Those long Bog Man fingers choked the words right out of you. Owen wondered whether he should try to save his big brother or run away and save himself.

  Horace had told them that if you stand up to bullies they’ll run away — most of the time. So Owen wondered if maybe the Bog Man was like a bully, and if he jumped on top of him then maybe the Bog Man would be so surprised he’d let go of Andy for a moment and forget about injecting the poison.

  But Owen also knew the Bog Man was mostly made of bog, which was something you sank into like quicksand and never got out of. The more you struggled the worse it got. You sank and sank until your legs were covered, then your waist. If you held up your hands to keep them free, that just made you sink faster — right into the Bog Man.

  “Andy?” Owen said, but there was more silence and he knew he should run, because now the Bog Man knew where he was. Owen turned around but everything was black. He couldn’t remember which way he’d come in. He heard more gurgling and tried to think what to do.