by M. D. Lee
“Wow, it really worked!” I say, grabbing the smoking lock then looking at it in my hand.
Tossing the blown-apart lock off to the side, I grab hold of one of the big doors and start pulling on it. It hasn’t been opened in a long, long time, and it’s almost impossible to budge, but once both Sara and Jo help, we can swing it open.
Peering into the darkness of the boat garage we see it; an old lifeboat, about twenty feet long, sitting on a little railcar. This is it—our escape plan.
Chapter 20
Rail Ride
The lifeboat has been sitting on the little railcar for many years, but the lifeboat itself looks to be in great shape. Its white paint is dull, but it’s not chipping off, and the red boot-stripe across the waterline still looks good. With a little luck it’ll float as good as it looks. When we peer over the sides of the gunnels, we can see there are still oars left in it. What stroke of luck.
The railcar is a lot like a little train car which the lifeboat rides on top down to the water. The tracks run deep into the water, so no matter how low the tide gets, the car will roll into the water launching the lifeboat.
“Throw the canvas bag in!” I yell. Jo grabs it and tosses it into the boat. While she’s doing that Sara scoops up the lobster buoys and heaves them in too. In the next second, the three of us grab hold of the boat and try to roll it down the tracks. Nothing! “Pull harder!” I shout. Still nothing. I look down at the wheels of the railcar, and see they are covered in a heavy rust. Metal things like iron don’t do well when they’re in salt air like it is in the life-saving station.
Just then we can hear Turk and Skinny Pete down near the bottom of the rail. I stop pulling for a second to take a look how close they are getting.
When Turk sees me he shouts, “When I get my hands on you kids, I’m gonna burst your heads open like a couple of watermelons!” He waves his trident in the air.
“Get in the boat!” I shout to Sara and Jo.
“But it’s not moving!” Jo protests.
“Just get in! NOW!”
While they do that, I run over to the back wall of the garage and grab a long steel bar which is hanging there. I run it back to the railcar, jam one end under the steel wheel of the car, and push on it like a big lever. The railcar moves about a foot and stops. Taking the bar I rapidly move over to the other side and do the same thing. The railcar moves more freely and I can start to push it out of the garage. I’m pushing harder and the railcar with the lifeboat on top is slowly moving faster and faster toward the opening. Just as the railcar crests the opening, it begins to move even faster without me even pushing. In a split second, I dive into the boat just as it takes off down the rails headed for the water.
Both Sara and Jo grab hold of my shoulders and pull me up from the bottom of the boat. When I sit up I can see about halfway down the tracks, Skinny Pete and Turk are standing in the middle of it, with their arms up, like they’re going to stop us with their bare hands. Not a chance because we’re flying down the rail like the log ride at the theme park! Just as we’re about to run them over like road-kill, they dive out of the way landing hard on the rocky side.
Jo stands up looking back at the two, and shouts, “Take that, suckers!”
A split second later we hit the water. SPLOOSH! Water shoots up in all directions as the boat gently comes to a rest, and we float away from the railcar.
“It worked!” I shout throwing a fist into the air. “It really worked! Wha-hoo!”
At the same moment we’re swiftly drifting away from shore, it doesn’t take long for the lifeboat to enter the outgoing current. “Uh-oh!” I say. “That’s the whole reason we couldn’t swim to our sailboat.” The tide’s running out swiftly away from our sailboat. “Start rowing!”
Because it’s an old life-saving rescue boat, it’s set up to be paddled by about four or five men, so we each take a seat on our own thwart, grab a set of oars and begin to pull hard.
Suddenly; CLUNK, THUNK. Our oars become hopelessly tangled together, and instead of moving in a straight line the boat spins in a circle.
Sara’s in the bow, Jo’s in the middle, and I’m in the stern. “We gotta do this like we’re a life-saving team,” I shout. “We have to synchronize ourselves. Sara, you’re in the front, you’re gonna call the strokes.”
“Got it!” she calls back to me. Sara calls out stroke, and we each pull on the oars at the same time. The boat begins to glide. She calls it again and we begin to move a little faster.
Because we have our backs to the direction we need to go, I turn my head to see where we’re headed. “Perfect,” I say. “We’re aimed right up the channel to our boat. Keep paddling.” The channel’s fairly long and we have a ways to go, but Turk and Skinny Pete won’t be going anywhere for a while. In fact, they may not even think to look toward the grave to see their distributor cap resting on the trap.
About fifteen minutes of hard paddling up-current we pull alongside our sailboat. While the girls hold tight to the sailboat I quickly tie the lifeboat off to the mooring ball. Jo heaves the canvas bag into the sailboat cockpit and Sara does the same with the lobster buoys she’s been carrying around. Once I’m back on board the sailboat we don’t waste any time pulling the sails up. The second that’s done, I take the tiller while Sara lies flat on the very end of the bow.
“Let us go, Sara!” I shout. A second later, she’s untied us and we’re moving swiftly in the outgoing current.
When I trim in the sails the boat heels over a little and I steer us for open water. With the current carrying us and a nice breeze in the sails, we’re moving faster than I thought we would. It only takes us a minute or two before we sail past Skinny Pete’s lobster boat tied off to the old wharf. Just beyond that is the life-saving station where we just came from.
As we shoot past, with a scowl on their faces, Skinny Pete and Turk are still standing in the same spot we almost ran them over. They watch us sail away. Turk looks so mad, if he could only reach us, he’d rip us to pieces. Standing up in the cockpit, Jo flashes them a big smile and gives them a friendly wave goodbye.
Before long we’re out the entrance of the cove into open water. The boat’s sailing perfectly and the wind is in a good direction. I look over at Sara, whose brown hair is blowing back in the breeze, and she smiles warmly at me. That’s a good sign considering what has happened.
But I’m not smiling. I take a deep breath and let out a heavy sigh. “There’s no treasure, so we might as well sail back home.” It’s hard to sail away knowing there could have been all kinds of treasure just waiting for us to scoop up. But someone, probably long ago, beat us to it.
Sara says, “We should be getting back anyway. Besides, with Skinny Pete and Turk lurking around the island, we certainly don’t want to hang around there any longer.”
Jo is sitting on the cockpit bench, knees tucked up tight to her chest, and has a blank look on her face. “That money would have been really useful about now with my dad’s charter business about to fail.” I hadn’t thought of the money that way; a way to help her family out. All I really wanted was to buy a really cool car when I turn sixteen. But now, thinking about Jo’s situation, it makes me feel—well, kind of childish.
To take my mind off all the treasure we could have had, I concentrate on making sure the sails are trimmed properly and that we’re headed in the right direction to Trent Harbor. That’s what I like about sailing; it seems it can always take my mind off things; even if I’m having the worst day. The wind on my face, the smell of salt air, and the boat moving through the water like a galloping horse; it’s the best.
My good mood doesn’t last long. “So, Jo. Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” Sara asks.
Jo turns her head and looks at Sara with a scrunched face. “What do you mean?”
“You and I have known each other our whole lives. Since we were babies. Even though we live so far apart our parents always get together at least once a year.”
Jo t
urns away from her and looks out at the water rushing past. “Yeah. So?”
“So what’s going on?” Sara says. “The whole thing with you kissing Fisher?”
I can’t believe Sara just brought that up. Jeez. I thought we were past all that. I concentrate on the main sheet as if there’s a knot or something that needs to be taken care of. But Sara gives my shoulder a hard shove to get my attention back.
Sara continues, “I think I know you pretty well, and I know you’d never do anything to hurt me. So why did you do it?”
Jo looks up at the sails, takes a deep breath and lets it out. “Oh, I don’t know.” She then rests her head down between her knees and stares at her feet. “I certainly don’t want to hurt you. I’m very sorry what I did to you, Sara. And you too, Fisher. I guess I’m just angry at the whole world, and in some weird way it seemed like a way to get even.”
“Even with what?” Sara asks.
“I really don’t know exactly, it’s just, well there’s a reason my folks sent me up here for a few weeks.” She takes another deep breath. “With my dad’s charter fishing business suddenly falling apart, we have no money. Things are getting tense around our house. Mom and Dad are always arguing. I think they sent me up here because they might be getting…” She pauses.
“What?” Sara asks.
“You know. The ‘D’ word.” Jo buries her head in her hands. She hides it, but there are tears running down her face.
Sara leans over and gives her a big hug. “Are you sure—divorce?”
Between her hands, Jo says, “No. I’m not certain. But why else would they send me up here.”
I butt in trying to lighten things up, “Oh, I don’t know; maybe to have some real fun up here in Maine with real pirates and ghosts.” I put on my best smile and look at Jo. It doesn’t help. She glances back at me then puts her face back in her hands.
Sara looks deeply into Jo’s eyes. “Maybe they just needed some time to sort things out. You know, to get back on track.”
“Maybe,” Jo says doubtfully.
“I’m sure that’s it,” Sara says. “You’ll see. When we get back the first thing you’re going to do is call your dad. I’m sure they just needed some time to figure it all out.”
I look back at the island over our stern, now maybe two miles away. “What in the world is that!” I stand up and point. Sara’s quickly by my side with a hand over her brow to keep the glare out, looking to where I’m pointing. Rising from the island is a big heavy bluish cloud of smoke.
I notice Jo doesn’t seem too surprised. She just sits there as if she’s bored. “It’s just Skinny Pete’s boat. They must have found their distributor cap.”
Chapter 21
Come and Get Us
Looking back at the island, I ask, “How do you know that big blue cloud of smoke is Skinny Pete’s boat?”
Jo finally stands up in the cockpit to see where we’re looking. “Because remember when I dumped that can of oil all over their engine?”
I look back at her. “Yeah?”
“I did that because if they ever got their engine started, we’d see it.”
“I don’t get it,” I say.
“When the engine heats up it gets really hot,” she says. “Then the oil starts to burn. And when the oil burns it’ll turn to blue smoke—a lot of blue smoke.” She points to it matter-of-factly. “So that means they found their distributor cap and started up their engine.”
“Why didn’t you just drop the distributor cap in the water? Then they’d never get their engine started?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” Jo says. “Somehow this just seemed like more fun.”
“More fun?” Sara says. “They had us tied to a barrel ready to float out to sea. I think they were pretty serious about getting rid of us. And you wanted to have fun?”
Jo is grinning ear to ear. “Can’t you just imagine big ugly Turk stepping onto the grave and falling in? Think how funny that would be to see that.”
“I don’t know about that,” I say. “I think it’s just going to make them even more demented than they already are.”
“Nothing we can’t handle,” Jo says as she sits back down as if she’s just out for an afternoon sail. I look at Sara and she looks at me with both hands upwards; she doesn’t get it either.
Calmly, Jo says, “Sara. Can you grab those buoys we brought with us.” Sara doesn’t reply but climbs down the ladder into the cabin. A few seconds later she heaves the buoys into the cockpit.
“And while you’re down there,” Jo says, “grab the coil of rope from the canvas bag. Thanks.”
Sara tosses the rope up too. “Is that it?”
Jo nods her head yes and starts uncoiling the rope.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
Not looking up, Jo says, “You’ll see.”
Once she has the rope uncoiled, she begins to pull off lengths with her arms while she’s counting. “Sixty feet. That should do the trick.” Leaning down to her leg, she hikes up her pant-leg where she keeps the large blade knife, and slowly slides it out of the sheath. The blade glimmers in the sunlight.
“And what’s the deal with that?” Sara questions. “Why do you keep a knife strapped to your leg?”
Jo shrugs her shoulders. “What? A girl needs to be prepared for anything.” With the knife in her hand, she cleanly slices through the length of rope then puts it back into the sheath on her leg. Next she repeats the process cutting off a second length of rope at sixty feet. While she’s doing that, I try and keep my attention to sailing the boat.
Next, Jo takes one end of the rope and ties it on to the bottom of a lobster buoy then ties the other end to a second buoy. She does the same thing with the other length of rope and two remaining buoys. “That should do the trick,” she says.
I still don’t get it, but Jo always seems to have a plan so I don’t ask.
When I look behind us toward the island, I can see the trail of big blue cloud of smoke has moved to the south end of the island; the entrance. “Now we got a problem,” I say. “Here they come!”
Even if I sail the boat as fast as it will go—it’s very top speed, it will never be able to go as fast as a boat with a motor. And even though lobster boats aren’t the fastest thing on the water, they’re still faster than us on our best day. Our lead is pretty good, and it’ll take a while for them to catch us, but they will without a doubt be able to catch us.
“When they get closer,” Jo says. “Do exactly as I say. Got it, Fisher?”
She called me Fisher—by my name—what’s with that?
Spray is flying off the bow, and occasionally gets us slightly wet even back in the cockpit. I’m doing my best to keep the sailboat moving as fast as it will go. Luckily, there’s been great wind in the right direction, and for the size of the boat, we are actually moving fast…for a sailboat. But within a half hour Skinny Pete has gotten much closer. There’s no chance, even with the huge lead we had, that we’re going to out-run them back to Trent Harbor.
They’re not far behind us now. “Jo, what’s your plan?”
“Just do as I say,” she says calmly.
“Okay. Whatever you’ve got better work! I’m sure they’re pretty ticked off, and they aren’t going to be very easy on us if they catch us. And if they do, you can bet money we won’t escape this time.”
Jo’s now standing up in the cockpit watching intently as they slowly gain on us. She’s carefully laid out the rope in a neat coil in the cockpit, and has one of the lobster buoys with the attached rope in her hands. “Fisher,” she says. “Without making any sudden moves, slowly steer the boat to starboard.”
I do as she asks and steer toward the starboard side while she carefully watches the position of both our boats. “When I tell you, steer the opposite direction to the port side.”
Without warning she tosses one of the lobster buoys overboard and feeds the rope to it. “NOW!”
I give the tiller a hard shove to the right and the b
oat turns in the opposite direction. The whole time she continues to feed the rope overboard. “When I tell you, steer back to our original course.” As she’s feeding the rope overboard it quickly comes to the end becoming tight in her hand. When that happens she throws the second lobster buoy, tied to the opposite end, overboard. “NOW!” she yells.
Quickly I steer us back to our original course which seems to be about halfway between the two buoys now bobbing in the water.
“Cross your fingers,” Jo says. I’m still not sure what’s going on. Jo keeps watching the lobster boat gaining on us. “Wait for it…” she says still with a keen eye looking behind us. “…And here we go!”
I look behind us and see Skinny Pete’s boat about to go between the two buoys we just tossed overboard. Then it all becomes crystal clear what Jo is trying to do. When they go between the two buoys, their prop will get tangled up in the rope that’s suspended between the two buoys killing the engine. It’s brilliant. But as I watch them go between, there’s just one problem; the rope didn’t catch the prop and they’re still after us.
Jo jumps up. “Crapola! It didn’t catch. We gotta do it again! But this time I’ll make sure it’s really stretched tight so it’s sure to catch.”
There’s not much time to pull off the maneuver again, but we manage. I steer to starboard then back down to port, then to the middle again, and the whole time Jo is throwing the buoys in the water. They are just about to catch us before they go between the second set of buoys Jo tossed in. Luckily they paid little attention to what went overboard because the instant they pass between the two buoys a big black belching of smoke erupts from their exhaust pipe. And just like that the boat slows to a stop and settles down in the water. Their prop is tangled tight with the rope.
Sara, who was sitting quietly the whole time, jumps up. “You did it, Jo! You stopped them!”
Jo doesn’t say a thing as she smiles with her arms crossed. Satisfied with how it turned out, she sits back down and says, “Well, that takes care of the first part of the plan.”
