The Pacific Giants

by Jean Flitcroft

  Within minutes, Mr. Fox had started the engines and was on the radio.

  Lee turned and, to Vanessa’s surprise, took both her hands in her own. Lee might touch Vanessa’s arm or kiss her on the cheek, but in general she was not a hand-holder. This must be something very big to be having such an effect on Lee.

  “Oh, Vanessa, I’m so relieved,” she said happily.

  Vanessa smiled encouragingly. “Can you tell me now what’s going on?”

  “You know about the research lab on Brighton Island and the way they use satellite tracking tags on some of the whales so they can monitor migration patterns? Well, in the last month alone, they have lost the signal on four of their tagged whales. They have just disappeared—all humpbacks and all in the same small area.”

  “Yes,” said Vanessa. “You mentioned that whales were going missing. So you think someone is capturing them? Why would anyone do that, Lee?”

  “There is a ban on whaling, but some people don’t respect it. They hunt them anyway. They kill the baleen whales—the ones without teeth, the filter feeders—humpbacks and grays, for example.”

  “But why?” Vanessa asked again.

  “Money. Big money. Whale meat is a delicacy in some countries, so hunters kill the whales and sell the meat.”

  Vanessa made a face. She couldn’t imagine wanting to eat whale meat.

  “But now Ziggy, one we thought was missing, has turned up.” Lee waved the thing that looked like a walkie-talkie at her. “This is the whale tracker,” she said, showing Vanessa a screen with a blinking red dot. “We’ve got a signal back now and it’s showing that she is really close to a beach, so we think she may have got stranded.”

  “So the hunters haven’t got her after all?” asked Vanessa.

  “Apparently not.”

  “Are we going to help her? Am I going to see her?” Vanessa asked incredulously.

  Lee smiled. “It’s great, isn’t it? I’m glad you’re here.” The radio crackled into life beside them.

  “Lee,” Mr. Fox called, “it’s Jasper on the radio.”

  “But why did you decide to bring me?” Vanessa asked, just as Lee moved away. Obviously she hadn’t heard Vanessa’s question, but Mr. Fox had.

  “Well,” he answered, “Mrs. Bouche called to say she had to go unexpectedly to the mainland today and that she was leaving Wayne with Lettie Cuspard in the ice-cream shop. You couldn’t be found, so Lee had to come back to get you,” Mr. Fox explained. “She couldn’t leave you on your own.”

  Although he said it in a matter-of-fact sort of way, Vanessa felt as if he had just stuck her with a giant needle. Stinging tears sprang to the corners of her eyes, and she turned to look out to sea. Lee hadn’t chosen to bring her along. She was only babysitting her!

  CHAPTER 18

  Dr. C. MacLean Fraser, who was the head of the Zoology Department in the University of British Columbia from 1920 to 1940, said that “until someone gets a lasso around one of these things we will never be able to get much further. It is possible that there are such things.”

  The sea was much rougher than yesterday, and the trawler rolled heavily from side to side. Vanessa scanned the water, trying to focus on Ziggy, but her thoughts kept going back to the other creature she had seen, the enormous snakelike monster. Had she imagined it? She couldn’t have! But now was not the time to be thinking about the weird creature. She had to concentrate on Ziggy.

  “On the beach, just around that next headland!” Lee shouted over the noise of the boat and the wind.

  As they came into the bay, three pairs of eyes searched the beach. But they could see nothing.

  Lee fiddled with the tracking device.

  “We’re definitely in the right place,” she said flatly. “We’ll take the tender on to the beach. You call Jasper and tell him to hold off,” she said to Mr. Fox as she climbed into the tender. Lee beckoned to Vanessa to get in and then handed her the tracking device while she started the motor. Lee’s face was suddenly grim.

  They beached the tender and climbed out into the shallows. Lee was wearing diver’s boots, unlike Vanessa, who was wearing her runners, which were now soaking wet. But it didn’t matter. Ziggy was all that mattered.

  “It should be somewhere around here,” Lee said, pointing to the far end of the beach.

  “It? You mean Ziggy? Here?” Vanessa was confused. It was obvious to her that there was no whale on this beach.

  “No; sorry, Vanessa. I mean the tag itself—the part that’s attached to the whale and sends the signal to the tracker that you’re holding.”

  Lee paused and put her hand to her forehead as if she was taking her own temperature.

  Vanessa waited.

  “The tag that Dr. Mitchell uses in his research is bullet-shaped and silver-colored. It’s attached to a claw that embeds into the whale muscle,” Lee explained mechanically.

  “Oh, you mean the tag has come off!” Vanessa exclaimed, understanding at last. “So that’s what we’re looking for, rather than the whale herself?”

  Lee nodded. They searched for at least twenty minutes before they found it. Vanessa was delighted to be the one to spot it first. It was partly buried in the sand, and she knelt down and began to dig with her hands.

  “Wait, Vanessa!” Lee said, running to her side. She looked as if she was about to say something more but stopped herself.

  The tag was exactly as Lee had described it: bullet-shaped and silver. The other end was attached to something that at first glance might have been a flat rock. It was about the size of a textbook, three inches thick, gray on the outside and a dirty white color inside. Vanessa didn’t know what to make of it.

  Lee crouched down beside Vanessa and stroked it gently with her hand. She had a strange look on her face.

  “It’s part of Ziggy’s dorsal fin,” she said sadly.

  Vanessa looked in horror at the piece of fin and then at Lee.

  “You mean … ?” she said uncertainly, struggling to understand.

  “She’s dead,” Lee said gently. “They killed her and cut off the tag. But this time the tag washed up and we got the signal back.”

  Vanessa covered her face. She pressed the palms of her hands into her eyes and just about managed to turn away as a wave of nausea rose in her throat. She felt Lee’s hand on her back.

  “I’m so sorry, Vanessa,” Lee said over and over.

  “Not your fault,” Vanessa said through her tears. “You’re trying to stop them.”

  “No, but I shouldn’t have let you see this. I shouldn’t have brought you along. That’s why I haven’t talked to you about it—I didn’t want to upset you.”

  “How do they kill the whales, these illegal hunters?” Vanessa demanded.

  Lee didn’t reply.

  Vanessa rubbed the back of her hand across her eyes and looked at Lee.

  “Tell me, Lee. It’s horrible, but I want to know.” Lee took Vanessa’s hand.

  “OK,” she said gently. She paused, trying to choose her words. “They harpoon them. They shoot giant arrows into the whales, some of which have explosives in the tips.” Lee watched Vanessa’s face, hating the pain she was inflicting.

  “It can take a long time, but when the whale loses enough blood, it dies.”

  “Why?” wailed Vanessa, though she knew why. Lee had already told her there was big money in whale meat.

  “We should go,” Lee said. She pointed at the piece of dorsal fin. “Do you want to carry it, Vanessa?”

  Vanessa nodded. They walked back along the beach to the tender, Vanessa cradling what was left of Ziggy’s fin in her arms.

  CHAPTER 19

  Over the years, skeptics have tried to attribute sightings of the sea monster to other known animals such as humpback whales, conger eels, elephant seals, and even basking sharks. However, none of these animals fit the eyewitnesses’ descriptions.

  True to his promise, Ronan finally rang back.

  “Ogopogo!” he yelled down the line without a
ny introduction.

  Vanessa’s heart skipped.

  “So Mum did have a file,” she whispered as loudly as she could. “Open it. Read the first line to me.”

  “Why are you whispering, Vanessa?”

  “Don’t want to wake Lee. She’s in the room next door and it’s two in the morning here.”

  Ronan chortled. “Sorry, V, I forgot. Bad timing must run in the genes.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Just tell me, Ro.”

  “He’s the most famous water monster in Canada and lives in British Columbia,” Ronan read out.

  “Fantastic. And the sightings? Where has he been seen? In the sea along the west coast?” asked Vanessa.

  “No. This monster lives in a big lake—Lake Okanagan.” Vanessa was puzzled. A lake?

  “Is Lake Okanagan on one of the gulf islands then?” she said.

  Ronan gave a loud, unpleasant snort of laughter, which seemed to be amplified by the thousands of miles between them. “You’re the one in Canada, aren’t you?” he retorted.

  “Please, Ro. Just flick through the folder and see what towns are nearby. See if you can find a map.”

  She could hear him flipping through the pages. She imagined him sitting at the bottom of the stairs at home, the midnight blue carpet under his bare feet, the awful striped wallpaper in the hall that they had all wanted to change for years, but hadn’t, and probably never would now.

  “It’s a large deep lake in the Okanagan Valley,” Ronan read. “Oh, here we go. It’s 240 miles east of Vancouver, a five-hour drive if you take the—”

  “But that’s nowhere near the coast at all.”

  “Wait, there’s a second file for Canada,” Ronan said eagerly. “The Sasquatch—a hairy beast that lives in the mountains!”

  “Oh, I know about him,” Vanessa said dully. “OK, thanks for trying, Ro.”

  “That’s it?” Ronan said. “You’re not going to tell me what this is all about?”

  Vanessa bit her lower lip. What should she say?

  “What exactly are those files of Mum’s, Vanessa?”

  “You know what they are, Ronan. They’re Mum’s research into cryptids all over the world. Her monster stories, Luke used to call them. Remember?”

  “But they were bedtime stories, Vanessa, weren’t they? Just stories she made up?” Ronan sounded puzzled.

  Vanessa felt a sudden wave of sadness wash over her. She missed her mum so much—her stories, the wonderful big bear hugs she gave, the frown she wore when she was concentrating, her infectious laugh, and the way she used to rub Vanessa’s feet when they watched TV together. She couldn’t say anything for a moment.

  “Vanessa?” Ronan said when she didn’t answer.

  There was a sudden kerfuffle at Ronan’s end, people talking in the background, and then she heard her dad’s voice booming down the line.

  “Oh, Nessa, how great to hear from you! You’ve been away far too long.”

  Vanessa laughed.

  “It’s only been a few days, Dad.”

  “Well, the house just isn’t the same without you, love.” She could hear the warmth in his voice and pictured him beaming into the phone.

  “Tell Lee that I’ve emailed her that information she wanted—just some legal stuff she asked me about,” he explained. “That was a bit tough for you yesterday, Vanessa,” her father added.

  Vanessa froze.

  “Finding the whale fin on the beach. Lee was upset that she’d brought you along.”

  Vanessa breathed a sigh of relief. Of course he couldn’t have known about the cryptid. Nobody did. Only her.

  “It’s fine, Dad, honestly,” Vanessa said. “I’ve told Lee not to worry. I’m not a baby, you know.”

  “Good girl. That’s the spirit. That Wayne character behaving himself?” her father added sternly.

  Lee must have told her dad about Wayne and the pinching. She felt embarrassed now. What a fuss she had made!

  “He’s no problem, Dad, honestly. He’s a year younger than Ronan—a baby, really.”

  A baby monster, she felt like adding.

  CHAPTER 20

  In the 1930s Archie Wills, the editor of the Victoria Times, ran a competition to name the creature. The name Cadborosaurus was picked because the early sightings were in Cadboro Bay and the Greek root “saurus” means lizard or reptile. After that the monster became known affectionately as Caddy.

  It was another beautifully clear day and the sun streamed through Vanessa’s bedroom curtains, but when she woke up she felt far from happy. It was Tuesday already. They would be leaving this weekend and she still knew nothing at all about the cryptid she had seen.

  After talking to Ronan and her father, Vanessa had fallen back to sleep. She’d had the most vivid dreams about Ziggy—that they had found her on the beach and helped her back into the sea. Ziggy had even thanked her.

  Now she had to face the fact again that Ziggy was dead. Vanessa turned onto her side, and her eye was caught by a note propped up against the lamp on her bedside table.

  You were exhausted. Decided not to wake you. Back at usual time. Take it easy today. Love, Lee.

  Vanessa leaned over the side of the bed, opened her backpack, and took out Toddy. She held the head against her chest.

  “They murdered Ziggy,” Vanessa whispered. “It makes me sick to think about it.”

  Well, don’t, then, the shrunken head seemed to murmur.

  “I can’t stop thinking, can I?” Vanessa said impatiently. “More like they have to be stopped.”

  And you think you can do that, do you?

  “Yes. No. I don’t know, Toddy,” she said crossly, stuffing him under her pillow. “I can see you’re going to be no help at all today.”

  It was nearly half past ten by the time Vanessa finally came down to breakfast. She planned to grab some of the fruit that was always in a bowl on the kitchen table and go off alone to the beach, but it was not to be.

  “Good morning, Vanessa. I hope you had a refreshing sleep. I hear you had a very tough day yesterday,” Frankie called out as Vanessa picked an apple out of the fruit bowl. She grimaced in sympathy and Vanessa’s heart sank. Why did Lee have to tell Frankie Bouche? Now she wouldn’t stop talking about it all day.

  But Vanessa was wrong. Without another word, Mrs. Bouche produced toast, two fried eggs, and a glass of orange juice and then disappeared into the pantry. Vanessa could see the top of her mousy brown hair as she arranged the shelves. There were enough tins in there to feed an entire regiment of Canadian Mounties, rather than just a couple of guests, Vanessa reckoned.

  She couldn’t help sighing heavily when Wayne slipped into the chair beside her. She had assumed that by now he’d have eaten his breakfast and be gone somewhere. Anywhere.

  “I want my eggs like that,” Wayne said loudly.

  Frankie shot out of the pantry. The look of pleasure on her face pained Vanessa.

  “Are you still hungry, my poor pet?” said Frankie, ruffling her son’s hair affectionately.

  So this was Wayne’s second breakfast.

  “Of course you are,” Frankie went on proudly. “You’re a growing boy.”

  Greedy pig, Vanessa thought, keeping her head down and eating steadily.

  When she lifted her head to take a sip of orange juice she spotted a piece of paper in Wayne’s hand. He caught her eye and grinned. Then he ran his hand repeatedly over it, smoothing out the creases. What was he up to? Well, she wouldn’t give the little monster the satisfaction of looking at it.

  “That’s a really good drawing, Wayne,” his mother said, putting down his breakfast plate and peering at the page.

  Vanessa looked up despite herself. She let out a gasp at what she saw.

  “Yes. It is very good, isn’t it?” Frankie said, assuming Vanessa’s gasp was one of admiration. “I never knew you were so talented at drawing, Pickles.”

  Vanessa stared at the page in disbelief. It was her drawing, the one of the cryptid. The heat began in h
er neck and she felt it spread across her face.

  Vanessa bit her lip hard. He must have fished it out from between the rocks.

  “It certainly does look just like Caddy. Although I have to say I’ve never actually seen it myself.”

  Vanessa stared up at Frankie, searching her face for signs of humor. Perhaps she was making a joke?

  “Caddy?” Vanessa echoed. A thousand butterflies began to flutter in her chest.

  “Wayne’s father, Nigel—he saw Caddy once,” Frankie explained, “and he described him just like this—the coils, the funny head. Although I think he also said that Caddy had a kind of hairy ridge along the back of its head and neck too.”

  She picked up the page and looked closely at the drawing.

  “Did you forget that part, Wayne?”

  Wayne was grinning too hard at Vanessa to answer his mother.

  “Caddy?” Vanessa repeated lamely.

  “Cadborosaurus willsi,” Wayne said, leaning back in his chair. He was enjoying every moment of Vanessa’s torment.

  Vanessa opened her mouth to speak, but Wayne folded up the drawing, pushed his chair back noisily and disappeared with a cheery wave.

  Vanessa finally found her voice. “Cad-what?” she said too loudly.

  Frankie looked startled for a second and then her face cleared.

  “Oh, you wouldn’t have heard of it, dear,” she said. “It’s just our local sea monster.” She gave a little laugh.

  Vanessa dropped her fork and it clanked noisily onto the table, but she barely registered it. Here she was being handed really important information on a plate and she couldn’t even take in the name.

  “What’s it called again? The long name that Wayne used,” she said urgently.

  She could see that Mrs. Bouche was looking at her strangely.

  “I think it’s Cadiss or Cadissorus—something like that. I’m not great with names, honey. Ask Wayne—he’ll tell you lots more about it.”

  Tell her? It would be like getting blood from a stone, Vanessa knew. Wayne would make her beg for every morsel of information. Hadn’t he just deliberately cleared off as soon as he saw she wanted to talk to him?