A Possibility of Whales

by Karen Rivers

  After a few minutes the road they were on joined a much busier road. It was like a real highway, with traffic.

  “What time are we supposed to be there?” said Mr. Brasch. “I don’t want to be late.”

  “I’m hungry,” said Harry.

  “Let’s have tacos,” said Nat.

  “Do we have time?” said Mrs. Brasch.

  Nat’s dad winked at Nat in the mirror. It was a wink that said, “Traveling with other people is hard!”

  “You know it,” said Nat.

  “I don’t want you to get seasick on Hugh’s boat,” said her dad. “You can eat after.”

  “That’s a fine idea,” said Mr. Brasch. “Are you sure you know where you’re going?”

  “More or less,” said Nat’s dad. “Is any way really the wrong way?”

  Mr. Brasch gave him a funny look. “Yes,” he said. “If you end up in the wrong place, you’ve gone the wrong way.”

  “Right you are, my man.” Nat’s dad clapped Mr. Brasch on the back. Nat wondered when Mr. Brasch was going to start bracing himself for that. Not yet, apparently.

  Nat’s dad slammed on the brakes and pulled the car over to the side of the road. “I’ve got to check the map,” he said.

  “We’re in traffic!” said Mrs. Brasch. “Shouldn’t you wait until we’re in a parking lot?”

  “Nah, we’re good,” said Nat’s dad, unfolding a huge map.

  Nat and Harry made eye contact. Nat blushed and looked out the window.

  “Nat?” said Harry. “Are you OK?”

  She nodded. “Hot,” she mumbled.

  “If you end up in the wrong place, you’ve gone the wrong way,” Nat’s dad repeated. “Man, that’s a good one.”

  “Will you put it on the Twitter?” asked Mr. Brasch. “I’ve heard of that.”

  Nat’s dad chuckled. “Good man,” he said.

  “Thank you,” said Mr. Brasch, stiffly.

  “Des,” said Mrs. Brasch. “Twitter is social media.”

  “I know what it is!” said Mr. Brasch. “I pay attention.”

  Harry rolled his eyes.

  Nat’s dad pulled the car back into traffic with a screech of tires, but after only a few seconds he wheeled off down an exit.

  “Are you sure this is the right turn?” said Mr. Brasch. “On the map, it looked like you should go straight for at least another mile.”

  “Shortcut. I have a keen sense of direction,” Nat’s dad told him. He tapped his temple. “It’s all up here. Yep yep.”

  “Have you ever been here before?” Mrs. Brasch asked.

  “Not technically,” said Nat’s dad. He winked at Nat in the mirror again.

  Harry giggled. Mrs. Brasch didn’t answer directly. “Men,” she muttered, under her breath.

  They were in an empty parking lot at the top of a set of stairs that led down to a beach.

  “Here we are!” said Nat’s dad. He unfolded himself and got out of the car. He was so gigantic that he made every car look tiny. He definitely made Mr. Brasch look tiny. “For you.” Nat’s dad handed her a piece of paper from his pocket.

  WHALE EXPERIENCE FACTORY! was written on the paper. Then in parentheses, it said, (Just kidding, go down the stairs, your clue is at the bottom of the steps).

  “Like The Amazing Race!” he said. “You get it? Man, I love that show.”

  “It’s very produced,” said Mr. Brasch. “Scripted.”

  “Nah,” said Nat’s dad. “Anyway, me and Natters have a thing where we do clues when we travel.”

  “Right,” said Nat, even though it wasn’t quite true.

  They did it once before.

  That was last time they were in Mexico, right before the fan pushed her down the stairs on the pyramid. That clue had said, A gift awaits at the top of the stairs! At the top of the stairs, though, someone had stolen the gift.

  “I can’t believe it!” said her dad. She could tell he was genuinely upset. She wondered now what it was. She had never asked, because of the whole falling-down-the-stairs thing. She frowned. He probably wouldn’t even remember.

  “Go!” Nat’s dad said. “Harry’s getting ahead of you!”

  Nat looked. Harry was already disappearing from view.

  “Wait up!” she called. “Hang on! Harry!”

  Harry had already found the next clue by the time she caught up to him on the sand.

  “When did your dad even do all this?”

  Nat shrugged. “I have no idea! He gets really into stuff like this. He’s a little duende.”

  “I don’t know what that means,” said Harry.

  “It’s like magic,” she said. “He’s a magical elf.”

  “He’s way too big to be an elf. He must have people,” said Harry. “Does he have a secret staff? Where did he get the cake? And the balloons?”

  “I don’t know! The SUPERMARKET mercado?”

  “That just doesn’t seem like a place where you can get cake and helium balloons!”

  “He probably just drove to Costco or whatever.”

  “Maybe.” He looked dubious. “But when? Being a movie star is weird. It’s like, ‘Your wish is our command!’ stuff.”

  “Are you going to read the clue?” She peered over his shoulder. He smelled like toothpaste and sunscreen. There was a tiny ladybug sitting on the back of his T-shirt. She decided not to tell him. It was good luck. He needed it, probably.

  “OK, OK. You read it. It’s your birthday.”

  Nat took the clue out of Harry’s hand. It looked like a real Amazing Race clue. It was yellow and black. It said, Go back up to the top of the steps and find your bikes. Get on them and ride downhill until you see the flag.

  “Isn’t that dangerous?” said Harry. “That’s a terrible clue.”

  “It’s fine!” said Nat. “We wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t fine!” But the idea of riding that falling-apart bike again didn’t sound fun to her, either. She looked up to the top of the stairs. Down the end of the beach, a man beside a tiny red boat waved at them. Nat waved back.

  “Why are you waving?” said Harry. “Who is that?”

  “I’m being friendly! I have no idea who it is. A friendly fisherman.” She didn’t feel like going all the way back up the stairs. It was hot. She was starting to sweat. “Dépit,” she muttered. “De Pits.”

  “What?”

  “Dépit,” she repeated. “It’s a French word for . . . never mind. It’s too hard to explain. Let’s go find the bikes, I guess.”

  “This doesn’t seem fun,” he said.

  She shrugged. “You don’t have to come.”

  “I want to! It’s not that.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Let me look at it,” he said.

  “What are you looking for? A part that says ‘just kidding’?”

  Harry took the clue out of her hand. He flipped it over.

  On the back, it said, Just kidding! That’s your ride at the end of the beach. Happy birthday!

  “Oh, ha ha,” said Nat. “He’s hilarious.” She looked up at the top of the stairs. “VERY FUNNY, DAD!” she yelled.

  Harry laughed. “It is sort of funny,” he said. He punched her in the arm.

  “You’re getting more like my dad every day. Don’t do that. Don’t punch me!”

  “Sorry! Jeez.”

  “It’s my birthday! I just don’t want to be punched!”

  “Fine! What is the untranslatable word for ‘settle down’?”

  “It’s just ‘settle down’! It’s English!”

  “Fine!” He started tiptoeing down the beach. “Hanyauku!” he yelled.

  “Funny,” she said, sarcastically, but she laughed, too.

  It was sort of funny, after all.

  Besides, having fun with Harry was a lot
better than being mad at Harry. Nat had a choice. And she chose fun.

  “It IS my birthday,” she said.

  “Yeah,” said Harry. “I know. Duh.”

  “Duh yourself,” she said.

  The Whale

  The beach was sandy and soft and the water was a gorgeous aquamarine. Nat could tell Harry was happy now. “This is great,” he said. “I feel like we’re inside a postcard or something.”

  “Yep yep,” Nat said. They passed a family with a big, colorful beach umbrella and two little kids who were fighting over a bucket. “Gimme the shovel!” the bigger kid said, and he bonked the littler one on the head. The littler one screamed. The dad yelled at the bigger kid. The mom yelled at the dad. The whole family was yelling by the time they walked past.

  “Well,” said Nat, “that escalated quickly.” She shook her head. “Tourists are the worst.”

  “We’re tourists,” Harry pointed out.

  “It’s different,” she said, but she hoped he wouldn’t ask in what way it was different, because she didn’t know. Maybe, like her dad, she existed on a different plane. Everything was different when you were famous. She had always thought she hated being famous, but maybe she didn’t hate it so much after all.

  Complicated, she thought. She took the word “complicated” apart in her head. It looked like sharp colorful triangles cut from plastic that you were meant to arrange into a pattern. If you held up one of the triangles to the light, you could see through it.

  They were close enough to the man with the red boat now to see his hat. On the brim were two words. “Yep yep.”

  “Where did he get the hat?” Harry said.

  “XAN GALLAGHER is everywhere,” Nat answered. “There is no escape. Anyway, I think that’s our clue.”

  “Oh!” said Harry. “Dude.”

  As they got closer, they could see that the paint on the boat was badly chipped. “I have a sinking feeling,” said Nat.

  “You’ll probably have more of one soon,” said Harry. “That boat is two hundred years old.” Then, louder, he said, “HOLA, SEñOR.”

  The man in the hat smiled slowly and nodded.

  “HARRY,” said Harry, pointing at himself. “NAT.”

  “Harry, don’t,” said Nat. “He probably speaks English! Do you speak English?” she said to the fisherman.

  The fisherman shook his head. “Lo siento,” he said.

  “He doesn’t understand,” Nat told Harry.

  “This feels dangerous,” said Harry, in his normal voice.

  “Harry!” mouthed Nat. “He’ll hear you!”

  “So what? He doesn’t understand! What if this is the wrong guy?”

  “He’s wearing the hat,” Nat pointed out. “Dad must have given him the hat.”

  The fisherman tapped the hat. “Hugh,” he said. He smiled again.

  “HOLA, HUGH,” said Harry.

  “I don’t think Hugh is a Mexican name,” said Nat. “That might not be his name.”

  Hugh pointed at the boat and then at the kids. Nat and Harry looked at each other. “It’s my birthday,” said Nat. “Being kidnapped on your birthday would be terrible.”

  “We’ll probably see some really cool whales,” said Harry, but neither of them moved.

  The fisherman said something in Spanish and pointed to the boat again.

  “Is this a good idea?” said Harry.

  “No,” said Nat. She looked at Hugh from the side. He didn’t look like a kidnapper. But what did kidnappers look like? She suspected successful kidnappers didn’t look like kidnappers at all. They looked like regular guys. Regular guys who drove windowless vans and could throw kids into them without being caught.

  “HEY, GUYS!” Nat turned around. Her dad was sitting cross-legged in a lean-to of logs that he’d built above the tide line. He winked hugely and then closed his eyes as though he were meditating.

  “Get on the boat!” he yelled. “You’re gonna love it! Authentic!” He raised his hands in some kind of victory salute.

  Harry rolled his eyes, but he waded into the water and got into the boat. Nat followed him, forgetting about her sneakers, which got wet. “My sneakers!” she said. “I hope the hearts don’t wash off.”

  “Why didn’t you take them off?”

  “I don’t know!” Nat swallowed her tears. She didn’t want to be dépit on her birthday. She didn’t want to be plain, old-fashioned sad either. She tried to concentrate on the whales. The potential whales. “Potential whales are everywhere,” she said out loud. “Mostly sunny, with a possibility of whales.” At some point, the clouds had begun fading from the sky. Only a few white wisps remained, like someone had swiped a paintbrush across the blue that had some white left on it from something else.

  “Duh,” said Harry. He’d put his sunglasses on. In the reflection on the lenses, she could see the stripe of zinc sunscreen on her nose. Harry’s whole face was covered in it, but he had that thin kind of white skin that burned like crazy.

  The fisherman said something else to Nat in Spanish. “Lo siento,” she said. “No hablo español.”

  He gave her a quizzical look. “I’m not Mexican!” she said in English. “American! Me!”

  The boat smelled like seaweed and gasoline. The engine roared to life.

  Nat waved to her dad. He waved back.

  She wondered where the Brasches had gone. Maybe he had dropped them off at one of those places that sold tourist stuff. They seemed like the kind of people who would want to buy a sombrero to take home and hang on the wall next to the creepy deer head.

  Nat rolled her eyes.

  The Airstream did not have wall space for hanging huge Mexican hats, or anything else, for that matter. They only had one thing on the wall, which was a map of the world. It had a lot of pins in it from places they’d been. It had even more pins in it of places they wanted to go. Nat had stuck pins in the Arctic and the Antarctic and also Vietnam and New Orleans.

  Hugh had one wandering eye and a short beard that Nat could see skin through, and that skin was puckered and shiny white, like scar tissue. Her dad always assumed that people who had crummy jobs were good people. “Salt of the Earth,” he’d say. “Every one of ’em!” But Nat didn’t know why her dad thought that. There was always a possibility that someone was bad.

  There was always a possibility they were kidnappers, or worse, paparazzi.

  “What kind of car do you drive?” she wanted to ask him. “Is it a windowless van?” She tried to arrange the Spanish words she knew in the right order. “What” was que. “Car” was probably auto, she reasoned. “Que auto?” she tried.

  Hugh held his hand to his ear like he couldn’t hear her.

  “QUE AUTO?” she said, more loudly. She thought that if it was a van of any kind, she might dive right off the boat. The water was turquoise and looked warm and deep. She peered over the side. She couldn’t see the bottom, but she did see a school of colorful fish.

  “Look!” Nat poked Harry.

  His hair had come out of its fastener and was blowing toward her. He turned around. “WHAT?” His hair whipped into his mouth and eyes.

  “Nothing,” she said. “Do you see any whales?”

  But he’d turned around again and he didn’t hear her. The little boat pounded up and down on the chop of the sea, and the bench she was sitting on vibrated. The whole boat felt very splintery. She ran her finger along the edge, and flakes of paint came off.

  Hugh caught her eye and winked at her. When her dad winked, that was one thing, but when other people did it, it made her nervous. She wished she’d worn sunglasses to have something to hide behind. Her dad wore sunglasses all the time, even inside, when they were in public. “Eyes are the windows to the soul,” he’d said when she asked him about it. “You don’t want just anybody stealin’ yours.”

  “My eyes?�
�� she’d said.

  “Your soul, Natters,” he’d said.

  The sun glinted and glimmered off the waves in sharp dots. The Whale Experience Factory boat in the brochure looked like it had a roof. Nat guessed that the Whale Experience Factory boat probably also didn’t have an inch of water in the bottom. She turned sideways and put her feet up on the bench to protect her shoes, even though they were already soaked. The hearts were definitely getting blurry. She wished Solly had used a Sharpie so it wouldn’t have come off like this.

  Then the boat hit a wave and she nearly fell, grabbing the side with both hands.

  Harry turned to look at her. “This is awesome!”

  Nat gave him a thumbs-up, even though she was surprised. That wasn’t exactly what she was thinking, but she felt like she should be. It was awesome. Right? There were going to be whales! She didn’t understand why she didn’t feel happy. Lately, it felt like her moods were skidding in the opposite direction of her thoughts, making her feel as pulled apart as a whole roasted chicken being prepped for dinner.

  Her stomach growled.

  “Did you bring any food?” she said to Harry, but he’d turned away again. She patted the pockets of her jeans just to see if anything was hiding in there, like a granola bar or even a pack of gum.

  Her phone.

  Her phone wasn’t in her pocket.

  For a second, she panicked. Then she realized that she must have left it in her room. She hoped she wouldn’t have a reason to need to call 911. Without her phone in her pocket, she felt untethered, unsafe, alone.

  She waved at the dot on the beach, which she knew to be her dad. The wave meant, “GOODBYE FOREVER PROBABLY.”

  Nat breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth. Then she decided to hold her breath instead. One, she counted. Two, three, four, five. She was on one hundred and fourteen when she heard the long, slow, familiar huffing exhalation of a whale.

  The whale was right beside the boat.

  Hugh cut the engine.

  “Whale!” yelled Harry, who was in charge of saying obvious stuff.