The Battle of Junk Mountain

by Lauren Abbey Greenberg

  She sees me staring. “I swung by the Donohues’ house after work. They were cleaning out their garage. Look.” She pulls the bag out, rummages through it, and retrieves a sleeve of panda stickers. “Do you want them?”

  “No.”

  Unfazed, she dives back in and surfaces with a pair of high-top basketball shoes. “Barely worn,” she announces.

  “So? It’s still gross,” I say.

  Bea sighs. “Well, someone’s in a mood.” She stuffs the items back in the bag and hauls it upstairs.

  I stir the noodles in circles. What does she want me to do? Go cuckoo over every stupid thing she buys? I’m not going to pretend that this is okay.

  Minutes later, Bea returns, changed out of her Cod Café uniform into a fuzzy pink robe with matching slippers.

  “Shayne, I’ve been meaning to ask. Have you met my neighbor, Mr. Holbrook?” She joins me at the table with her own bowl of mac and cheese.

  Cranky’s real name makes the hair on my arms stand at attention. “No… why?”

  “He’s new to the area, but he’s a lobsterman like Grandpa. Anyway, we got to talking—”

  “You talked to him?”

  Her brow creases. “Of course, why wouldn’t I?”

  She then launches into some big explanation about Maine’s lobster laws, about stricter rules and regulations, and how the state has put restrictions on the number of traps a fisherman can pull in one day. Apparently, Cranky’s all cranked up about it, so he’s going to start offering lobster boat tours as a way to make more money.

  “The problem is,” Bea continues, “as he puts it—he’s not a people person.”

  I mutter under my breath, “You don’t say.”

  The chair scrapes across the floor as she returns her half-eaten portion to the sink. “He could really use an assistant—you know, someone to make small talk with the customers.”

  The word assistant causes a piece of macaroni to wedge in my throat.

  “So I said that I had a fabulous granddaughter—”

  Oh. God. No.

  “—who would be the perfect helper.”

  My fork clanks as it hits the bowl. “Why did you do that?” She whips around, surprised at my outburst. “Because you are perfect. You’re so helpful and as sweet as peach pie.” I bury my head in my hands. Visions of hanging on the beach with Poppy are so far from reality, it’s depressing. Let’s review the activity choices to date: either wallow in my grandmother’s wreck of a house, make a fool of myself in front of an entire restaurant staff, or work on a lobster boat with a raving lunatic. This is turning into the worst summer of my life.

  Bea hovers over me and gives my arm a little shake. “What’s the problem? If Grandpa were alive, no doubt you’d be working alongside him.”

  I glare at her. “He’s not Grandpa. He’s a stranger. Mom says never talk to strangers.”

  She clears my plate. “Don’t be petulant. Your mother was the one who gave me the idea. She’s still stuck on keeping you busy while I work, so when I told her about this opportunity, she thought it was a great solution.”

  My face burns. I wish everyone would stop signing me up for things without asking me first. I’m not a baby who needs to be looked after. It’s insulting.

  I don’t care what she says, or what my mom says. I don’t care if it’s the greatest idea since Instagram. I’m not going.

  I’m not.

  • CHAPTER 12 •

  GONE SAILING

  No amount of kicking and screaming did any good. I could have been first on the debate team and it wouldn’t have mattered. When Bea makes up her mind, she can be as stubborn as a jammed school locker.

  Fishing boats of all sizes chug in and out of the wharf at Gun Point Harbor. Captain Cranky Holbrook offers me a meaty hand, and I hope he doesn’t crush mine as we shake. Splintered wood planks creak under my feet as I shift from foot to foot.

  “You’re going to be my deckhand, eh?” His voice is like gravel.

  I nod.

  “You ever been on a lobster boat before?”

  I nod.

  He pokes my shoulder hard. “You talk, don’t-cha?”

  “Yes, sir,” I say, standing stiffly at attention.

  “Relax,” he says. “I ain’t gonna bite. Can’t say the same ’bout the lobsters, though.” He bares his teeth.

  I notice the name painted on the red hull of his boat. “Wh-why do you call her My Way?”

  Cranky lifts his wraparound sunglasses. Etched under his right eye is a jagged scar shaped like a teardrop. “’Cause it’s the only way.”

  Gulp.

  Something behind me catches his attention, and his face morphs back into his familiar scowl. “He insists on dressing like a blasted pirate.”

  Linc shuffles toward us wearing his navy cap and wool button coat with a stainless-steel canteen slung around his shoulder. Even though he was the biggest pain during our kayak ride, I’m glad he’s here. He might know if the bullets I bought at the flea market are worth anything.

  Cranky impatiently swipes the back of his arm across his sweaty forehead. “For the last time, take off that hat.”

  Linc reaches for his cap. The center buckle gleams in the sunlight. “It’s called a kepi.”

  “I don’t care what it’s called. This is fishin’ and we don’t wear silly costumes while we fish. I need you to pay attention, no head in the clouds. You get your leg tangled up in these ropes here and…” He slices a hand across his neck. “Understand?”

  Cranky points at me. “That goes for you, too, missy.”

  “Shayne,” I whisper.

  Linc boards the boat, removes his wool coat, and steps into an oversized pair of orange waders, which droop off his shoulders. I opt for a simple life jacket. An earlier rainstorm has turned the air thick and moist, and the thought of fog weighs heavy on my mind. I can handle any weather but that. I hate fog. Hate it, hate it, hate it.

  Cranky drags a white bucket filled with silver fish on deck and checks the water-filled tank that will house the caught lobsters. The VHF radio crackles with fishermen banter, and some of the language is a bit, uh… salty. It’s embarrassing to listen to, so I reach for the volume button to turn it down.

  “Only the captain touches that,” he barks.

  “I didn’t do anything,” I say defensively.

  “First rule of the sea,” he announces to us. “Unless you’re the captain or familiar with proper radio protocol, leave it alone. But if we start to sink, call the coast guard on channel sixteen.”

  Linc clutches the guardrail and swallows hard.

  “Here’s the drill,” Cranky says over the gurgling motor. “We’re going take people to Gunners Cove where we’ll lift some of my traps. We catch some lobsters. We bring the folks back to shore. They’re happy. They give me money. I’m happy. You two are my deckhands, my helpers. Today we’ll go on a dry run, and I’ll show you what’s what.”

  Cranky pushes the throttle, which kicks the engine into high gear. My Way seesaws over the ocean’s swells. A bolt of sunlight spears through the cloud cover, warming my body and calming my nerves. I can’t say the same about Linc. His already pale face gleams vampire white.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  “I forgot to bring something.”

  “Bring what?”

  He clutches his stomach. “Don’t worry about it.”

  We pass a craggy coastline thick with evergreens. A black cormorant soars overhead, and I follow its flight pattern until it descends upon a rocky outcropping in the center of the bay, which is covered with hundreds of harbor seals. A few bark as we sail by, but most of them stay asleep. They look so cute with their little round heads, spotted bodies, and stubby flippers.

  Cranky steers us into an inlet filled with anchored sailboats, skiffs, and dinghies. “In a few minutes, we’re going to find my lobster traps, and the way we do that is to look for my buoys. Every lobsterman has his own color scheme so he can identify his traps. So look for on
es with a blue top half and a gray bottom half.”

  Linc’s eyes finally light up. “Hey, Grandpa, it’s like the Union and Confederate armies living in perfect harmony.”

  Cranky ignores him.

  “My grandfather was a lobsterman,” I say to Linc.

  “Oh, yeah? What were his colors?”

  I start to answer, but then realize I’m not sure. Red and white? Or was it red and yellow? Yellow and orange? Ugh. I rack my brain for something, anything that would shake out the correct answer, but I can’t remember and my mind’s a jumble.

  “My great-great-great-grandfather fought in the Civil War,” Linc says, breaking the silence.

  “Really?”

  He nods. “Ogden Badger was his name. Second Lieutenant, Company C, of New York’s 124th Infantry, called the Orange Blossom Brigade.”

  “Why Orange Blossom? Did they smell nice?” I snort at my own joke.

  Linc doesn’t laugh. “Hardly. Soldiers would go for weeks without taking a bath, and sometimes they would use the same pot for boiling food as well as their lice-infested clothes.”

  I cover my ears. “Gross!”

  He continues. “Anyhow, Ogden Badger fought in over twenty battles, including Appomattox and Gettysburg. Remember how I told you about Devil’s Den? Well, it was there where he took a bad hit. A bullet hit his arm and smashed it to pieces. Back then, of course, the way you treated a bullet wound was to amputate.”

  “Wait a minute. He got his arm cut off?”

  “Yup,” Linc says with pride. “But he survived. He was even awarded the Medal of Honor for his role in that battle.” He gazes at the horizon. “I wish I’d known him.” He sighs before facing me. “Why are you frowning?”

  “I’m not.”

  I look the other way. I don’t know why I was frowning. Maybe it’s because he’s babbling about someone he’s never met and who was born over a hundred and fifty years ago. Maybe it’s because he knows all these details, but I can’t even come up with the colors of my grandfather’s lobster buoys. And maybe it’s because…

  “My grandfather died a couple years ago,” I say.

  Linc studies his feet. “How’d he die?”

  I swallow down the lump. “Boating accident. He drowned.”

  Linc’s eyes moisten as he blinks rapidly. His mouth quivers. Then he barfs all over my shoes.

  • CHAPTER 13 •

  SEAS THE DAY

  And then there were two.

  With Linc laid out like a freshly caught tuna, Cranky and I eyeball each other. I suspect he doesn’t know what to make of me. He looked surprised when I didn’t freak out over my vomit-covered Keens. Did I want to scream? Definitely. I died a little inside when Linc’s puke touched parts of my bare foot. But something told me to stay calm, grab the hose like it was no big deal, and power wash myself knee-down.

  Cranky cuts the engine. With a long rod, he lifts a blue-and-gray buoy out of the water, threads its rope through a pulley, and wraps it around a winch. He presses a button, and the winch automatically spools the rope until the lobster trap surfaces from the dark sea, strands of seaweed twisted into its wire frame. Only a tiny crab and an empty soda can are inside. Cranky removes them from the trap. He throws the crab back into the ocean and tosses the can into the garbage bin.

  “I keep the traps in the water for about three nights before I haul them up,” he explains. “Now we’re going to remove the old bait bag and put in a new one.”

  Cranky unties a mesh bag hanging inside the trap and dumps stinky, decomposed fish into the sea. Hovering seagulls dive-bomb onto their newfound snack. “I’ll need you to grab some herring and fill the bait bag for me.”

  I eye the white plastic bucket filled nearly to the rim with silvery fish, each about six inches long. They look like sardines on steroids.

  “Do you have gloves or something?” I ask. The herring smells like cat food left out in the sun.

  Cranky slaps me on the back. “Be tough. Your hands won’t melt.”

  I count to three in my head, hold my breath, and stick my hand in the bucket, a pool of slippery, scaly slime. I grab a couple of fish and shove them in the bait bag. A small cry of disgust slips out of my mouth, and Cranky laughs at me. I have an urge to wipe that smirk off his face with my oily hands.

  We move to the next trap, and I’m excited to see what he’ll pull up. I’ve been on my grandpa’s boat a bunch of times, but whenever he gave my parents and me a ride, it was never to catch lobsters. Afternoons with him were more like wildlife cruises, searching for osprey nests (easy to find), bald eagles (once in a while), or even whales (never seen one, but still hopeful).

  In trap number two, a baby lobster hangs on tight. Even though it’s cute, Cranky has to throw it back. He tells me the lobsters’ bodies have to be three and a quarter inches long for us to keep them. He tosses the trap back into the water, and the coiled rope shoots over the side as if it were spring-loaded.

  We motor over to the third trap. “Being a lobsterman is hard work,” Cranky says over the low purr of the engine’s constant gurgle. “Sometimes I catch a lot, but sometimes I don’t. It ain’t easy, but at least I don’t have to answer to anybody.”

  “When’s the best time to catch lobsters?” I ask.

  “I start my day before the sun rises. By the time most people wake up, I may have already pulled more than a hundred traps.”

  I peer over the side of the boat, waiting for trap number three. Anticipation hangs in the air. That and Linc’s moans from the other end of the boat.

  The trap holds three grown lobsters. Jackpot! Cranky grasps one firmly in his hand to show me. It flaps its tail and snaps its claws like castanets, like it can smell fear.

  “Go ahead and measure it.” He hands me a metal measuring gauge.

  I dangle the tool over the lobster.

  “Measure it from its eye socket to the end of its back,” Cranky instructs. “Come closer. I won’t let it bite-cha.”

  I do as he tells me. It measures at three and a half inches.

  “It’s long enough,” I say breathlessly.

  “She’s a keep-ah,” Cranky says with his thick Maine accent. “Now, before I put her in the holding tank, I have to put rubber bands on the claws so the lobsters won’t attack each other.”

  “Can I do it, Grandpa?”

  Linc squints at us with fever-flushed cheeks, but at least he’s vertical.

  “That’s the spirit,” Cranky says. “Here, grab its back, the carapace—the part just above where the tail connects to its body. That way he can’t reach you with his claws. The huge one is called the crusher claw.”

  “No kidding,” I say.

  “Yup, it’s a beast of a crustacean tool. The lobster crushes its prey with the crusher claw and then uses its other one—the pincher claw—to tear food apart. That’s why we have to band these suckers as soon as possible.” Cranky reaches for his back pocket then frowns. “Who took my bander?”

  “I didn’t,” Linc and I say at the same time.

  “Where’d I put that dang thing?” Cranky mutters as he heads to the bow to retrieve his toolbox.

  “You got him?” I ask Linc. The crusher claw is large and in charge.

  “Company… attention!” Linc jabs the lobster in the air, making its eight spindly legs wave like crazy. “Forward, march!” He bounces the lobster toward me like it’s his own Civil War puppet.

  “Stop it,” I hiss. “Quit messing around.”

  “Quiet in the ranks,” he says.

  I shield my face with my hands. “You’ll get us in trouble!”

  “Hey!” booms Cranky from the bow.

  We both flinch at the sound of his voice. Linc’s grandfather barrels toward us, his crank-o-meter dialed up to ten. Instinctively, Linc hides his hands behind his back as if caught with an extra cookie. Problem is, in his hand is no cookie. It’s a lobster, one whose cruncher claw brushes against my hand.

  And clamps down on my finger.

 
• CHAPTER 14 •

  PINKY PROMISE

  Everything unraveled after that. Me screaming, Linc yelling something about the wounded, and Cranky telling him to shut his trap.

  Thanks for the memories, people.

  I wiggle my pinky finger to test it out. It’s not broken, but the V-shaped scratch stings when the knuckle bends.

  Wrapped in a towel after a superhot shower, I lie on my bed and spy on Linc. He’s been ducking in and out of his tent for the last fifteen minutes, sometimes running into Cranky’s house to gather supplies, sometimes scoping the cove with a pair of binoculars. Knowing him, he’s probably pretending he’s a sentry, protecting his troops from the enemy. Too bad there’s nobody around to indulge him in this fantasy.

  Then again, if I provide him company, maybe he’ll be willing to talk about my secret bullets.

  I quickly throw on some fresh clothes and stuff the package of bullets in my back pocket. As I slip on some flip-flops, I hear a clinking sound coming from Bea’s bedroom. Then a crash.

  “Bea?” I tap at her closed door.

  She doesn’t open it. “All is well. Nothing to worry about.”

  “Okay.” I turn to leave, but then I hear her cough, a dry rat-a-tat sound that seems to last forever.

  I tap again. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine. Why don’t you go outside and find something to do.”

  “I am. I’m going next door.” I stare at the Loon Sanctuary sign. “Sorry for caring,” I say under my breath.

  “Anybody home?” I knock on the canvas flap of Linc’s tent.

  His head appears between the folds, eyes bugging out before he scrambles to his feet.

  “Who sent you?” he asks.

  I roll my eyes. “Nobody. I need to talk to you.”

  “Is this about your finger? You’re not going to sue me, are you?”

  My forehead creases. “You almost maimed me for life, you know, but for now you’re off the hook. There’s a private matter we need to discuss.”