Noses Are Red

by Richard Scrimger

  To my parents

  Acknowledgments

  Many incidents in this book are based on real events. My own summers at Camp Pine Crest are green in my memory. I was, if I recall, a Chipmunk and a Loon, and you might say that I am still both these things. I would like – many years too late – to apologize to everyone else in the Lumberjack war canoe that capsized mysteriously in the middle of the big race. I lost my balance – what can I say?

  And I would like to acknowledge my own poker friends. You guys taught me a lot about cards and people, and if you recognize yourselves or each other, you might be right.

  On the work front, it is customary to thank agent, publisher, editor, publicist, and sales staff, and I am happy to do that (especially Sue, who said, “It’s such a clean copy!”). On the home front, my wife, Bridget, was as supportive as ever. The name Zinta was chosen by my daughter.

  You may find a number of words in the text unfamiliar. That’s because I made them up.

  “Quick!” shouts Victor. “Quick, Alan, run for it!”

  “What’s going on?” I ask.

  “They’re everywhere! Hurry!”

  He runs, pulling me after him by the neck. The dust cloud rises all around us, and the sound is in my ears – once heard, never forgotten – the buzz-saw whine of a million angry enemies. I can’t get at them with the aluminum construction on my head. I run as fast as I can, considering that I can hardly see where I’m going.

  “HELP! CHRISTOPHER!” I cry. “HELP, ANYONE!”

  Wait. I’m getting ahead of myself.

  Sorry. You’re probably wondering what on earth is going on. Who’s Victor? you ask. Who’s Christopher? What aluminum construction? Who are these angry enemies, and why can’t you get at them?

  Fair enough. Let me go back a bit further, and start again. Ahem.

  It all began on a beautiful spring morning about thirteen years ago. Cobourg, a pretty small town beside Lake Ontario – no, no, make that a small, pretty town beside Lake Ontario – was bathed in sunshine. The sky was a cloudless blue. The birds were singing their little heads off in the bushes outside the window of the hospital room. Inside that room was a tired new mom named Helen Dingwall. Mrs. Dingwall to you. She was learning how to put a cloth diaper on a baby. “Under and over,” she muttered. “Around and up and pin it like … this. Oops!” She stabbed the baby with the pin. The baby opened his mouth wide and screamed.

  “Oh, you poor thing!” my mom said to me. I screamed some more.

  No, wait again. Come to think of it, that’s probably too far back.

  I’ll try one more time. Fast-forward through my early years – teething, disposable diapers (finally no more pins!), singing “Clementine” to my nana while standing up in my crib, kindergarten, measles – and get to last June. I went to New York City to visit my dad. (My parents are divorced. No big deal. Maybe yours are too.) While I was having adventures with a snotty rich kid and her dog Sally (long story, no time to get into it now), my mom met Christopher.

  He’s important to this chapter of the Alan Dingwall chronicles, so I’ll describe him right off. Christopher Leech: tall and thick, with thick dark hair and a thick dark mustache. Thick arms too – he’s really strong. He can lift our big armchair over his head with one hand, holding on to the chair leg. He spends a lot of time lifting weights at the local YMCA – that’s where he met my mom. He’s kind of handsome, I guess. He has a lot of big sweaters. He’s my mom’s age, more or less. Old.

  Shortly after I got back from New York, he moved in with us. He has a place of his own, but he stays with us for days on end. Sounds cosy, but it isn’t really. There’s something about him I don’t like. Quite a few things, actually. His name suits him: Leech by name, and leech by nature. I don’t like the way he dresses. I don’t like the way he checks himself in the mirror. I don’t like the way he peers around when he kisses Mom. He’ll be giving her a peck on the cheek, and all the time his eyes are moving around the room, as if he’s on the lookout for the cops. I wonder if he’s on the run? It wouldn’t surprise me.

  To be honest, I don’t like him kissing Mom at all.

  We don’t get on very well. He started off calling me my boy, and I told him I wasn’t his boy. “I already have a dad,” I said. “I’m his boy, not yours.” Mom sighed, and Christopher apologized. Yesterday he tried calling me Young Dingwall. That didn’t last long. “What are you up to tonight, Young Dingwall?” he asked.

  “Playing cards, Old Leech,” I replied.

  He choked, spilling beer all over. “Why, you little…,” he began, and then caught himself.

  In the evening Mom called me downstairs from the TV room. “Alan, I think we should have a talk,” she said. I hate that phrase. I shuffled from foot to foot in our living room. We were all alone in the house; Christopher had gone back to his place to get some more sweaters.

  “What about?”

  “Sit down, first.”

  She patted the couch beside her. I took the yellow chair. I sat with my feet on the floor, then spun around so that I was sitting upside down with my feet dangling over my head.

  “Alan, sit straight!” A harsh voice. You’d think she’d be nice, seeing as she works with troubled kids all the time, but that’s the way it goes. I swung around so that my head was right way up.

  “What should we talk about?” I asked.

  “You and Christopher.”

  “Old Leech?” I smiled. I couldn’t help it.

  “Alan!”

  “Sorry.”

  She folded her arms and spoke sternly. “I’m very worried about the way you and he don’t get along. I’m disappointed in you, Alan. Christopher has tried to get along with you. He has done his part. He has extended the hand of friendship, and what have you done?”

  Where does Mom get these phrases? Hand of friendship, indeed.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “You have slapped it aside. Christopher has gone out of his way to … Alan, look at me!”

  I was staring out the window. I don’t know about you, but when someone is yelling at me, I find it hard to stare deeply into their eyes and say yes, yes, go on. I turned back to Mom.

  “Christopher has extended the olive branch to you,” she said. “And you have …”

  I didn’t know what you did to an olive branch. “Eaten it?” I said.

  “Alan!”

  “What?”

  “You have refused it. This situation must not go on. Don’t you see, I care about you. So does Christopher. Both of us do. And that is why –”

  “Here’s Victor,” I said. I was looking out the front window again. “He’s early. The game doesn’t start until 7:00.”

  “Game?”

  “Sure. We’re going to Nick’s tonight.”

  “Cards again?”

  “Uh-huh.” I don’t know why, but cards have really caught on this summer. We play all the time. Poker, mostly. Victor’s dad found us an old carousel full of chips, and we carry it from basement to basement. I usually end up with most of the chips.

  Victor Grunewald is my best friend. He’s part of the story too. We’ve been in the same class since kindergarten. We looked like twins back then, but we don’t now. He’s grown up and out, and all I’ve grown is more red hair, and more freckles. I come up to his chin now, which isn’t a great idea since he’s beginning to get these pimples.

  He’s a nice guy, Victor. Very polite. He rang the doorbell and waited for me to come to get him, instead of just walking in, which is what I do at his house. He said hello to my mother.

  She frowned at him. “I’m afraid that Alan won’t be able to play cards with you tonight, Victor. We have some things to discuss.”

  He shot a look at me. I shrugged.


  “Oh, sure, Mrs. Dingwall. I understand. Maybe tomorrow, or the next day.”

  She hesitated. “Actually, Victor, Alan is going to be busy for a few days.”

  “He is?”

  “I am?”

  Mom turned to me. “Yes, Alan, you are. Christopher is taking you on a canoe trip.”

  “Wow!” said Victor.

  “What?” I said. I wasn’t talking to Victor.

  “You’ll leave tomorrow morning, and be gone all weekend.”

  “Double wow!”

  “What?” Still not talking to Victor. “But, Mom, I’ve never been on a canoe trip. I’ve never been in a canoe.”

  “Christopher loves canoeing. He knows all about it. That’s why I suggested the trip. I think it would be a good way for you and Christopher to get to know each other better.”

  “But I don’t want to –”

  “Alan!” A warning note in her voice.

  “You are one lucky guy, Alan.”

  “You can be quiet!” Now I was talking to Victor.

  Just then Christopher pulled into the driveway, in his fresh-waxed cherry-red jeep with roll bar, extra chrome bumper, mudflaps, and fog lamps. Another thing I don’t like about him. He swung himself out of the driver’s seat and strolled up the driveway in hiking pants and boots, a camouflage shirt, and an Australian bush hat. Yikes. Joe Camping.

  We all went outside together. Mom was pushing me from behind. “Hi, Mr. Leech,” called Victor from the doorway.

  “Yo, Vic!”

  Yo.

  “Hey, there,” he said to me. Undecided about what to call me. “Ready to get wet and dirty, hey? Paddle hard, run hard?”

  “Um,” I said.

  “Got a buddy flies a seaplane out of Rice Lake,” he said. “Thought I’d ask him to take us to a conservation area north of Peterborough.”

  “Wow!” said Victor. “A seaplane. What kind?”

  Christopher smiled at him. “Cessna single engine four seat.”

  Victor turned to me. “You’ll have a great time!” he said.

  “Uh-huh,” I said.

  All right, I was acting dumb and graceless. But I truly did not want to go camping with Old Leech. And, from the look on his face, I wondered if he really wanted to go camping with me. I know how strong Mom’s suggestions can be.

  “Gee, I sure wish I could go with you guys. I go to camp every summer. I love canoeing.” Victor looked like he meant it. Actually, he always does mean what he says. It’s what I like best about him.

  “Sorry, Victor,” Mom began, but Christopher and I interrupted together.

  “Why don’t you come with us, Vic!” The two of us stared at each other. Something we agreed on.

  “Do you mean it?” Victor’s eyes bulged. They looked like plums.

  “You bet,” I said.

  “But, Christopher, honey, do you remember what we –”

  “Hey, there, darlin’,” he told her. I hate him calling her pet names. “It’ll be okay.” He put his arm around her shoulders and smiled widely. Big white teeth like piano keys. “What do you think?” You, meaning me.

  “Great,” I said.

  “You see? He doesn’t mind.”

  Mom didn’t know what to say. Her idea was for me and Christopher to go out in the woods by ourselves and become best friends. Neither of us wanted to tell her that we didn’t want to do this. And she didn’t want to insist. An odd situation. None of us saying what we were thinking. None of us meaning what we said.

  “Gosh, that’s great!” Victor did mean it. “Let me ask my folks!”

  “I’ll come with you,” I told him. “Bye, Mom. I’ll be back in a while.”

  “Sure, Alan. Come along. My mom likes you,” he said.

  And he meant that too.

  Victor’s mom took a bit of convincing. “Oh, dear,” she said. “I always worry when you go camping. What if you fall in a hole? Or get lost? What if you get hurt, little man, among all those lions and tigers and bears – then where would I be?” She talks with an accent something like the leprechaun in the cereal commercial.

  “Aw, Ma,” said Victor.

  I giggled at the lions and tigers.

  Victor’s dad reached over to steal a gingersnap cookie. He doesn’t worry about his son quite so much. “Vic’ll be fine,” he said. “And he can do with the exercise.”

  Mrs. Grunewald put her hands on her hips. “Exercise, is it? And what about you, then?”

  “I don’t need exercise. Why, I’m fighting fit. Look at that.” He held out a muscular arm. Mr. Grunewald spends a lot of time shifting boxes and crates in his grocery store.

  She laughed, and poked him in the belly. “Lard. All lard.”

  I swallowed the end of my cookie and reached for another one.

  “Come on. Ma,” said Victor.

  She frowned.

  His dad jerked his head at me. “You like those cookies, Alan?”

  You can’t go to Victor’s house without eating. Most of your time is spent in the kitchen.

  I nodded vigorously. “For sure. They’re the best. Even better than the peanut butter ones we had last week.”

  Mrs. Grunewald softened. “An old family recipe. You’ll take another.”

  “Thanks.” I took a couple. She beamed down at me, a broad red-haired lady who looked natural in an apron.

  “Please let Victor go camping, Mrs. Grunewald,” I said. “We’ll have fun, and…Victor will be company for me. I don’t want to have to talk to Christopher all by myself.”

  “That’ll be your mother’s new man?” Mrs. Grunewald looked at me shrewdly. “I’ve seen him around town. A well set up fellow, I must say.”

  “Hmph,” said Mr. Grunewald.

  “So can I go?” said Victor. “Please?”

  Mrs. Grunewald raised her eyebrows at her husband. He nodded.

  “Well …,” she said. “I’ll have to talk to your mother first, of course.”

  I knew what that meant. “Thanks, Mrs. Grunewald,” I said. “Thanks, Mr. Grunewald. Come on, Victor, let’s get packing.”

  “My sleeping bag’s in my room,” said Victor. We ran upstairs together.

  “Hey!” Mrs. Grunewald came to the hall and called up after us. “I haven’t said yes, yet.”

  Rice Lake at 7:00 A.M. A deserted sandy beach. A playground. A litter of docks and small boats, floating in the reeds. A metal shack with BEWDLEY TOURS on it. Christopher was off to look for coffee and his pilot friend. I climbed down from his little red jeep, shivering. Not from cold. It was a sunny morning in August. Not that cold. I was shivering from fear.

  “That’s it?” I said, pointing. “That’s the plane?”

  “Could be,” said Victor. “It’s a plane.”

  It was tied up to the dock beside the shack. There was a teeny little breeze, making teeny little ripples in the lake. And these teeny little ripples were enough to make the plane bob up and down violently on its pontoons.

  “But it’s so small. It looks like a model. The only plane I’ve been on was much bigger. Why, this one is so small it floats!”

  “Well,” said Victor. “Better than having it sink.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  He wasn’t worried. He yawned wide enough to split his jaw, and stuck his hands in his pockets. He wore army shorts, with pockets all over the place. He even had a special hidden pocket with a hidden zipper. I knew it was there because he’d showed it to me. Took him five minutes to get the thing open. Inside was a safety pin with a shamrock on it – a lucky gift from Ireland. “Mom gave it to me,” he said.

  Christopher came back with a little bald bowling ball of a guy. The bowling ball was drinking coffee and eating a donut. He didn’t look like a pilot. He looked like a next-door neighbor – the kind of guy who goes for lots of walks with his dog and doesn’t pick up after it. He stuffed the rest of his donut into his mouth and shook hands. His name was Art. His palm was sticky. He kept chewing.

  Art led us onto the dock. Between
us, Victor and I carried the food pack, which didn’t have any food yet, just pots and pans. Christopher carried the tent, bedding, and spare clothes in a pack, with a special forehead strap. When he put it on, he looked like a coureur de bois in last year’s history textbook – a coureur de bois with a Styrofoam coffee cup in his hand.

  Close up, the plane still looked like a model. Every time one of us moved, the plane moved. Christopher noticed the expression on my face.

  “Scared, huh?”

  I didn’t reply.

  “Are you scared, Alan?” Victor said.

  The engine started up. I screamed. Christopher laughed. Very funny.

  I’m not going to talk much about the plane trip. It was short, as the clock ticks, but long long l-o-n-g in my mind. I felt about thirty years older when we – well, we didn’t land, but it doesn’t sound right to say we watered. We skimmed over the tops of pine trees, touched down, and skidded for thirty very long seconds along the surface of a silver lake, while I got my breath back and tried to clear my blocked ears. What made it worse was that Victor seemed to be having a wonderful time.

  “Isn’t this great?” he said, punching me in the arm.

  “Great,” I said.

  There wasn’t a litter of boats and buildings on this lake. There wasn’t much of anything. One log cabin, with a rack of canoes beside it, and a long rickety dock pointing out from the rocky shore like a finger. The moment our bags were on the dock, Art turned the plane around and took off again. The plane lurched clumsily into the air, like a little kid climbing the stairs one at a time. The silence after it left was very loud.

  We carried our bags to the cabin without speaking. It was colder up here than back home. I shivered and wished I’d brought my jacket. All I was wearing was a T-shirt with a checked shirt overtop and baggy bathing shorts.

  The log cabin was full of outdoor gear. The old guy behind the counter was happy to see us. He didn’t move from his stool by the cash register, but he talked all the time we were in the store. Mostly about stuff that was supposed to scare us. “I have to charge you a deposit on the canoe, in case it never comes back. Some nasty rapids around here. That lady artist is staying near them. I keep expecting to hear that search and rescue have found her body.”