Noses Are Red

by Richard Scrimger

  This girl’s eyes are bright. That much I can tell, even from down in my hole.

  “Oh, hi!” I say. I recognize her. So does Victor. He’s staring up at her in a trance. His mouth opens and shuts. His lips stick out. He looks like a fish, drowning in air.

  “Remember us?” I say. “We were on the riverbank a while ago. You went past us in your canoe. You paddle really well.”

  She wears camper shorts and a T-shirt with the arms ripped off. She carries a knife as well as a quiver of arrows in her belt. Her arms and legs are tanned and muscular, and she has a rose tattooed on her calf. I can see it clearly, peeking above her work boot, because my head is just below the height of her work boot. I don’t think Thor would have a rose tattoo. Hercules, maybe. You hear a lot of stories about those Ancient Greeks….

  “Did you see me run the rapids?” she says. “Wasn’t it glorious? I’ve been trying all summer. There’re only three of us at the camp who can do it. Me and two counselors. Trixie can’t do it.” Her face darkens on the name. “She broke her canoe in half.”

  She slips the bow over her shoulder, and bends down to offer us a hand each. Large hands, with thick strong fingers. Victor’s hand trembles as he puts it in hers. She smiles fiercely and straightens up, pulling the two of us out of the gully as easily as I’d pull a couple of popsicles out of the freezer at the corner store back home.

  She’s older than I am, but not by too much. She’s a head taller and a shoulder broader. The air around her is charged, as if there’s electricity coming off her. When she breathes in, there doesn’t seem to be enough air left for me.

  “Thanks,” I say. “My name is Alan. Alan Dingwall. This is my friend Victor.”

  He makes a sound like a dog throwing up.

  “I am Zinta Zeeler!” she says. “My parents named me after the Zeletic goddess of death and destruction.”

  “Mine named me after my grandpa,” I say.

  I look around, expecting to find campers and counselors, or whoever it is she’s camping with. I see the fire, and a small tent. I don’t see any other people.

  The wind is starting to pick up. I’m aware of my wet shirt sticking to me. “Could we…dry ourselves at your fire?” I ask. “And maybe get something to eat? You don’t have any soup, or anything, do you?”

  “Come,” she says.

  I nudge Victor. “Hey, loverboy!” I say.

  He gazes over in her direction. “Doesn’t she have beautiful eyes?”

  “What color are they?”

  “Why, they’re…” He stops to think.

  I tell you, the guys who write those books are just making it up.

  The fire is roaring in the wind. I move close and hold out my hands to it. An elemental force. “Thanks,” I say. “We really need your help here. You’re from a camp, right?”

  “Yes. I am staying at Camp Omega.”

  “Oh, that’s great,” I say. “We need to get to your camp right away.”

  “You can’t,” she says.

  “You don’t understand. We’re hungry and tired. We’ve lost Christopher, my mom’s…” I don’t know if “friend” is the right word. “Our trip leader,” I say. “With any luck, the rangers are looking for us. We’ve escaped from bears. You have no idea of our plight.”

  I don’t know if “plight” is the right word, either, but I’ll try it.

  “No, you don’t understand,” she says. “Have you heard the thunder? Do you feel the wind? It would take me three hours hard paddle to get back to camp. Sunset in two hours. I will not risk traveling in the dark.”

  “Do you have a phone?”

  “No.”

  “Oh. Well, who’s with you now?”

  “I am alone,” she says. “I must spend the night away from the camp in order to complete my qualifications for the Master Tripper Award. Only two campers in the history of Camp Omega have been awarded the Master Tripper Scroll. I will be the third. And you boys will not stop me.”

  I take a breath. “Okay, let me see if I have it right. This Omega is a regular camp, right? Like in the Disney movies, with cabins and archery and a dining hall, right?”

  She nods.

  “And there are grown-ups too: nurses and counselors and camp directors?”

  She nods.

  “But because you’re trying for this Girl Scout merit thing –”

  “Master Tripper Scroll!” She makes it sound like the Victoria Cross.

  “And because of this badge –”

  “Scroll!”

  “Whatever. Because you’re in line for this award, you are here, alone, hours from camp. And no one is coming to get you until tomorrow.”

  She throws a log on the fire. It lands perfectly, and bursts into flame. “Yes,” she says.

  “Wow. Well, what do you say, Victor?”

  He stares at me. I get a sense of the old Victor coming back. “I’m hungry,” he says.

  You can’t fight your nature. Actually, I’m hungry too. I rub my hands together. I wonder how much food Zinta has. I could probably eat it all myself. Usually I’d feel bad about imposing on a stranger, but Zinta isn’t the sort of person you have to feel bad about. She can look after herself.

  “So, do you mind if we stay for dinner? We don’t have anywhere else to go.”

  “Of course you will stay. You are not fit to look after yourselves, you boys.”

  Well, she doesn’t have to put it like that. But I suppose she’s right. “So, what did they give you for dinner?” I ask. “What’s in the food pack?”

  “Nothing,” she says.

  “What?” Victor’s face darkens. The goddess girl has lost points. “You don’t have anything in your food pack?”

  “It is a survival exercise,” she explains. “A true Master Tripper can live off the land. For my out-trip, I must find and cook my own food. The only things in my food pack are salt and pepper and a bit of flour. Good news, though. I have some gear in the canoe. Rod, reel, and a bucket of worms I dug up. You boys can come with me. This time of day, and with this wind, the fish should be rising nicely.”

  “You’re kidding,” I say.

  She folds her arms. Her biceps bulge. “I never kid.”

  You know, she probably doesn’t.

  The open lake is too windy to fish in, so we’re in a narrow stretch below the rapids. It’s still choppy. The canoe bounces up and down. The fishing rod in Victor’s hand moves like a conductor’s baton.

  “Ready? Cast over towards the reeds!” calls Zinta. She’s in the stern, paddling gently. Victor’s in the bow. “Cast away!”

  I have no idea what Zinta’s talking about. I thought a castaway was someone stranded on a desert island. Victor flicks the rod back and forth, and lets fly. The line sails gently out. The boat rocks some more. The motion takes me back in time.

  I remember the last time I held a rod in my hands, felt the living surge of the water beneath the boat, and smacked my lips over a fresh fish supper. I’m no fishing rookie. No, siree. I have, as they say, followed the fin. I have caught fish in my life.

  Well, to be honest, I have caught one fish. I was small, and so was it. I figure it died of boredom on the end of my line. And if the day had lasted any longer, I’d have died of boredom in the boat. That was the last time I felt a rod in my hands – and also the first time. The fresh fish supper was at a restaurant, after none of us caught anything worth eating. The memories I am recapturing now are mostly hunger and seasickness, with a pinch of apprehension thrown in. There’s no fish restaurant near Zinta’s campsite.

  I’m on the bottom of the boat, beside the worms. I’d feel sorry for myself, except that I figure the worms are even worse off than I am. At least I’m not being spitted on a hook by a laughing girl. Zinta seems actually to enjoy the…well, the brutal aspects of fishing. She keeps a club beside her, for bashing any fish we catch on the head.

  Victor swallows nervously as he reels in. He doesn’t want to look stupid in front of Zinta. And he doesn’t want to
make a mistake and miss catching a fish. If we don’t catch anything, it’s weed soup for dinner.

  I’m not kidding. Weed soup. Zinta collected the weeds herself, from around the campsite. She told us the names of the weeds. The only one I remember is, “something like a nettle.” Sounds yummy. There’s a pot of this seething muck on the embers of the fire right now. She offered us a taste before setting out on our dinner-catching expedition. “Full of vitamins!” she declared. I said I’d wait.

  Victor reels in slowly. And in. And in. And then the line stops.

  “Snag,” he says.

  We drift quietly downstream. “Look!” I say. A big long-beaked long-necked bird stands on stick legs in the reedy shallows. It blends in well with the landscape. It belongs. Like the mother bear. It looks like it’s been there since the river was made. As I watch, the bird bends down and grabs something with its beak.

  “Wow! Did you see that?” I whisper.

  “I can’t get the hook out,” says Victor. He wiggles the rod back and forth.

  “Let me do it.” Zinta stands up. The canoe wobbles slightly as she shifts her weight. The bucket of worms tips over. I reach out to grab them, and accidentally jostle the fishing rod.

  “Watch it!” shouts Victor.

  “Sorry,” I say.

  He reels in quickly now. The snag is gone. So is the hook.

  “See what Alan did!” says Victor.

  “No bother,” she says, reaching into a pocket and pulling out a card with a bunch of hooks on it. “We’ll put on another hook. Give me the rod.”

  The big bird takes off, ungainly, ponderous, its great wings beating. Something in its beak. I wonder what?

  “You idiot, Alan. What did you knock against me for?”

  “I said I’m sorry.”

  “Now Zinta thinks I’m a goop.”

  The big bird is right overhead now. Zinta is fiddling with her fishhooks. There’s a flash of movement – something falling, a splash – and Zinta cries out, “Stupid bird!” She shakes her fist.

  “What is it? What happened?”

  She peers over the side. She’s searching the water for something. Her eyes are…no, I still can’t tell what color they are. They’re angry, though. That, I can tell.

  “Would you believe it?” she exclaims. “That big bird dropped a clamshell on me. Knocked all my fishhooks into the water. They sank.”

  “What’ll we do now?” asks Victor.

  She’s frowning down at the fishing line. “If only we had something for the fish to catch themselves on,” she says. “Something hook-shaped, and strong, and sharp.”

  Norbert clears his throat. I whisper to him to shush.

  “Gee, I wonder,” says Zinta.

  Norbert clears his throat again. – Grunewald’s pocket, he says.

  “What?”

  – Come on, Dingwall, think. Grunewald’s pocket. Something hook-shaped.

  What’s he getting at? All Victor has in his pocket is a…

  Wait a minute.

  “How about a safety pin?” I say.

  “Shut up,” he tells me. “Don’t talk in that silly voice. And anyway, a safety pin is a stupid idea….isn’t it, Zinta?”

  She shakes her head. “You know, it isn’t stupid. Not at all. It’s kind of smart. But where would we get a safety pin?”

  We’re drifting closer to the reeds. Zinta shoves us off. Victor digs into his pocket.

  We all try our hands with the new hook. First Zinta, then Victor, then me. We catch exactly zero fish. I’m hungrier than ever. The rod in my hand is heavy. I cast towards the near shore. Zinta’s line seems to float out forever, before sinking gently to the surface of the water. My line dribbles out about the length of my arm. “Sorry,” I say. I reel in. I’m tired. While I’m yawning, I hear Norbert’s voice.

  – Try the other side, says Norbert.

  “Huh?”

  – Cast over the other side of the boat.

  “But the fish are hiding on this side, in the reeds. That’s where fish go.”

  – Trust me. You’ll do better.

  Victor frowns at me.

  “Did you say something, Alan?” asks Zinta.

  I shake my head, and cast on the other side of the boat. I do not do better. I let go of the line at the wrong time, and the hook goes straight up and straight down. The line is right under the boat now. “Sorry,” I say again. “I –” And then I stop.

  “I feel something tugging on the line,” I say.

  “There are some big fish around here,” says Zinta. “Last year Trixie caught a record trout.” Once again her face darkens. Trixie, whoever she is, is not a happy thought. Zinta picks up her big club and taps it against her hand.

  I pull again. And again. Nothing. “It seems to have stopped fighting back,” I say.

  “Probably another log,” says Victor. I’ve already caught a couple.

  I reel some more, and the line goes crazy. It shoots away from the boat, like a torpedo. I can’t stop it. “What’s going on?” I say. I stare stupidly at my departing line.

  “It’s a fish!” cries Zinta.

  “It’s dinner!” cries Victor.

  “What do I do?” I cry.

  “Hang on!” shrieks Victor. “Keep the end of the rod down.”

  “Don’t pull too hard!” Zinta paddles furiously after the fish. “Don’t break the line.”

  “Don’t get tangled!”

  I hang on grimly as the fish pulls away from the boat, and then across the front of the boat, and then away again. “He’ll get tired,” says Victor.

  “Me too,” I say.

  The fish jumps out of the water. I can see the line leading into his mouth. I can’t see Victor’s safety pin.

  “Wahoo!” cries Zinta. “Look at the size of it!”

  I’ve never seen a fish like this. I almost drop the rod.

  “Pull harder,” says Victor.

  “But not too hard,” says Zinta.

  – Don’t use too much water, says Norbert.

  What is he talking about?

  – When you’re cooking the fish. And don’t forget the salt.

  The fish jumps again. Not as high this time. It’s getting tired. Zinta puts the club in her teeth, like a pirate. She paddles us over to the fish, which is thrashing around in the reedy shallows. I can’t reel in anymore. I don’t know what to do. The fish is on the surface. The water is all frothy. As we glide up to the fish, Zinta drops the paddle, snatches the club from between her teeth, leans over the side of the boat, and whacks the fish as hard as she can.

  The boat wobbles. The fish is still struggling. Zinta whacks it again. And again. Her expression is triumphant. The Master Tripper look. She reaches down and grabs a flap of gill. Her arm muscles bulge when she lifts the fish from the water.

  “Great job, Alan,” she says. “You are a hero. We’re going to have a grand supper!”

  Victor sniffs. “It was my safety pin,” he says.

  It’s amazing how one little event can change everything. And I don’t mean one little event like a teeny-weeny bubonic plague germ that happens to wipe out your town. I mean a little event like catching a fish. There I was in the boat, feeling pretty darn low – sorry for myself, and sorry that I was on this stupid camping expedition. Worried about Christopher and the old lady, and wondering what was going to happen to me. Would it rain tonight? Would we find Christopher tomorrow? Would we get home? Night was coming and we had no place to stay and nothing to eat.

  There’s the key. Nothing to eat. That’s what changed, and it changed everything.

  After something to eat – something in the shape of a huge bass, poached in not too much water for not very long, and served with salt and pepper and something called bannock, and horrible tea and all the second and third helpings you want, and no one worrying about table manners since there’s only one fork between three of us – after all of that, I feel a million percent better. It helps that I am dryer than I have been in hours. It helps th
at I can stretch my legs. But it helps most that I am full.

  “I love my independence,” says Zinta. “This whole meal came from the land.”

  “Not the fish,” I break in. “That came from the water.”

  Zinta frowns at me. I don’t think she appreciates my sense of humor. Ah, well.

  “Is there any more bannock?” asks Victor. Bannock is a kind of pretzel made with flour and water and salt. You loop a string of dough around a stick, and bake it in the fire. A charbroiled pancake.

  “Sure, eat up,” says Zinta. She’s a good eater too. The muscles at the side of her jaw slide and bulge as she chews her fish. “Soup or tea, anybody?”

  Victor declines politely. I shake my head vehemently. Nettle tea tastes like muddy socks, with a faint hint of gasoline.

  After supper Zinta takes us up the hill near the campsite. A steep climb, me clinging on to pine trees, which are themselves clinging to the bare rock, with their roots outspread like fingers. From the top of the hill we can see a long way – north, I think. The thunderheads are piling up there. The setting sun is hidden behind clouds shaped like scoops.

  “Oh!” Victor nods in comprehension. “So we’re on an island!”

  I can’t see all the way around, but there’s the open lake in front of us, and what looks like a bay to the right. That’ll be the narrows, where the cabin is. I can’t see the cabin. The rapids we bumped and tumbled down are behind us. I guess we are on an island, at that.

  Victor is pointing down the lake. “And those lights at the far end are –”

  “That’s my camp. Camp Omega.”

  It does seem like a long paddle away. Too bad we can’t get there tonight. I think about my phone conversation. Hi, Mom! How are you? I’m fine. By the way, Christopher deserted us and we were nearly killed by rattlesnakes and bears.

  Zinta is frowning up at the sky. “It will be a dirty night. Look at those clouds.” She clears her throat and gives a recitation:

  ‘Mare’s tails and mackerel scales

  Make tall ships carry small sails.’

  “What?” I say.

  “Haven’t you heard that rhyme before, Alan?” says Victor. “It’s famous. Like, ‘Red sky at night, sailors’ delight.’”