by Steve Vernon
“Cutting into my business, they will be,” Warren said with a worried look.
“Warren,” I said. “Your business is t-shirts and a painted ostrich egg. How badly do you think that’s going to be hurt by someone selling sea monster balloons?”
“It’s too risky,” Granddad Angus repeated. “All of those people. Somebody is bound to notice that their sea monster is nothing but a couple of old fogeys and a pair of young kids in a tarted-up dory.”
“Who are you calling a fogey?” Warren wanted to know.
“If the shoe fits…,” Granddad Angus began.
Only I wasn’t about to let the subject get changed.
“This is our big chance,” I argued. “If Fogopogo turns up for the Fogopogo Festival, we’ll have tourists in town year-round, hoping for a sea serpent sighting.”
“It’s too risky,” Granddad Angus repeated.
“Buck, buck, buckaw,” Dulsie began.
All three of us turned to see Dulsie Jane Boudreau doing her world-famous chicken dance. I joined right in immediately, jamming my fists up under my armpits and flapping my elbows like there was no tomorrow.
“Buck, buck, buckaw,” I said.
It was wearing on him. I could tell. Not even Granddad Angus could resist the power of a well-timed double-dog dare.
“All right,” he said. “All right. You have talked me into it.”
He fixed a hard stare in Warren’s direction.
“Buck, buck, buck?” Warren asked.
“Go buck yourself,” Granddad Angus said. “Fogopogo is going to ride again. But this is the very last time.”
Granddad Angus was almost right.
Chapter 24
Down-Home Cooking
Later that day Dad sizzled up some garlic sausage and a chopped onion and some apple slices in the fry pan. Then he dumped two tins of beans on top of that, drizzled in a little maple syrup, and buttered a couple of slices of bread that looked suspiciously as if they might have been made out of rocks, twigs, and seeds.
“High fibre he-man beans,” Dad said. “I bet you didn’t know your dad was a gourmet chef.”
“Since when do you know how to cook?” I asked.
He grinned and winked.
For just an instant I felt this weird sort of Stephen King moment, as if I was staring at Granddad Angus wearing Dad’s face, cooking like Mom.
“It might be there are a lot of things you don’t know about your dad.”
The food tasted good. I was hungry from a morning of pedal-paddling. We had left the dory monster in the inlet, covered with deadfall and pine boughs. As far as we could tell, it was nearly invisible. Of course, Dad didn’t know anything of that. At least I was pretty certain he didn’t know.
You never can tell with Dad, though.
He can surprise you.
“It’s good to see you spending so much time with your grandfather,” Dad said.
He’s not just my grandfather was what I wanted to say.
Only I just nodded.
“I even kind of envy you getting the chance to leave Deeper Harbour.”
What?
Now where did that come from?
Just like that, I lost it completely.
I threw my fork down. It did a little hop-skiddle in the beans, spattering bean sauce on Dad’s paper tablecloth.
“Envy me? I don’t want to go. I hate Ottawa. And I hate my mother. All I want to do is to stay here with you and Granddad Angus.”
I stared up at him as if I had laser vision and could burn a hole through his skull deep enough to penetrate whatever common sense he had buried beneath the layers of grilled cheese sandwiches and he-man beans. I knew he would slap me. I had seen all the movies where the kid badmouths his mother and the dad slaps the kid and tells him that he must never talk bad about his mother.
Only Dad didn’t slap me.
He just sat there staring at me.
Not saying a word.
I think he must have had some sort of an evil shrinking ray hidden in his silence because by the time he was done not talking I felt a little less than two inches tall.
“So what were you up to all day today?” he finally asked.
I was in the belly of a dory monster named Fogopogo, was what I wanted to tell him. I was sitting in a moose hide with your father, was what I wanted to say.
“Nothing,” was all I said.
“So did you see the sea monster this morning?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said. “Didn’t everybody?”
“Funny,” he said. “But I was down at the wharf and I didn’t see you anywhere.”
I shrugged and swallowed. It was hard to lie to my dad but I had to.
“It was a big crowd, wasn’t it?” I said.
Dad nodded. I wasn’t so sure what a police chief would think about a crowd like that, especially since Dad had been complaining about the mess the tourists were making of the town. I was afraid that he might feel that so many people gathered so close to the water was a public hazard or something.
Only he surprised me.
“You know what?” he said. “I can’t remember ever seeing so many people in our town so excited over any one thing.”
“Not even on bingo night?” I asked.
“Not even bingo night,” Dad answered. “Whatever this sea monster is, I believe it’s doing a pretty good thing for Deeper Harbour.”
And then he looked right at me and winked one more time.
“Do you know what I heard?” he asked.
And then he told me who was coming to Deeper Harbour.
And it wasn’t David Suzuki.
Chapter 25
Clothesline-Caber Evolution
People will surprise you any chance they get.
It turned out that Warren already knew who was coming to Deeper Harbour. He’d known for quite a while. He told us all about it while we carried Molly’s clothesline pole back to her backyard.
Or at least we were carrying what used to be Molly’s clothesline pole. Granddad Angus had changed it considerably. That was just what Granddad Angus did, I guess. He laid his hands on things and they changed. It had been a pine tree that had become a clothesline pole and then Granddad Angus had changed that pole into a caber.
And then he’d changed it one more time.
He’d changed it in the dark of Warren’s boat shed, working alone on it with a mallet and gouge and chisel whenever we weren’t out in the dory monster, turning that clothesline-pole caber into something else.
Something beautiful.
Granddad Angus had carved the top of Molly Winter’s clothesline-pole caber into a sea serpent.
“I got the idea from Dulsie’s today tattoos,” Granddad Angus said. “I wanted to make something out of this old caber before we gave it back to Molly and set it up for her as a clothesline pole again.”
The top of the caber was the sea serpent’s head and the rest of its body wound down around the body of the clothesline pole, with its tail curled neatly around the base. It was painted and thickly covered with at least three coats of marine varnish.
“I had Dulsie paint in the details and I glued two chips of amethyst where the eyes are supposed to go.”
I stared at it, thinking to myself how amazing it was that this old Jack pine had been cut down and used as a clothesline pole until Granddad Angus turned it into a caber and then threw it through a dory and now both dory and clothesline pole had grown up into sea monsters.
Dulsie, Warren, Granddad Angus, and I carried the pole down to Molly’s house and nearly half the town followed us. Some of them even helped carry the sea serpent clothesline pole. While we were carrying it I told Granddad Angus and Dulsie and Warren about who was coming to town.
Which was when Warren told us that he’d already known who wa
s coming to town.
Like I said, people will surprise you.
“The prime minister of Canada himself is coming to Deeper Harbour,” Warren confirmed, “for the town’s annual Fogopogo Festival.”
It struck me a little funny how something that had just been invented could suddenly be described as annual. I guess that it was something like a dream, painted with the hope that a festival and a town could outlast a new highway.
“I bet he read my letter,” Warren went on. He was about the most excited I’d ever seen him. “He wants to meet with me, I know it. I bet you he’s hoping to get a good look at Fogopogo.”
Granddad Angus snorted.
“My guess is he reads the newspaper,” he said. “I expect the man knows a photo opportunity when he sees it.”
“No,” Warren said. “He’s coming because he got my letter. I just know he is.”
Granddad Angus still wasn’t convinced.
“It must be an election year,” Granddad Angus said. “I wonder if he thinks that sea monsters can vote.”
“Say what you want, Angus,” Warren argued. “When he gets here, I expect him to see this sea monster. And I intend to be there with him when he sees it.”
“Well, how will we move that rig without you to help?” asked Granddad Angus, lowering his voice.
“You’ll just have to figure out a way,” Warren replied. “I need to make as much profit out of this as I can.”
“Do you figure he’s going to give you money?” Dulsie asked.
“They’re called grants, girl. Prime ministers give them out all the time.”
I wasn’t so sure about Warren’s logic, but there was no reasoning with the man. He had his heart set on getting next to the prime minister and pumping his arm like a pump handle.
“Since when did you get so greedy?” Granddad Angus asked.
“I’ve got expenses to deal with,” Warren said. “Up until now the only way I’ve made any money out of that boat shed has been selling some of my dad’s tools to an antique dealer.”
“Why don’t you just sell the shed and be done with it?” Dulsie asked.
“I’ve got plans for that shed,” Warren said.
“Plans?” Granddad Angus said with a snort of derision. “You figuring on expanding your ostrich egg exhibit?”
“I’ve got plans,” Warren repeated.
And that’s all he would tell us.
Then we got to Molly’s place and found out the truth of it.
Chapter 26
A Story Without Words
Molly was surprised when over half of the town showed up at her door carrying a Jack-pine-sea-monster-caber-clothesline-pole. She bustled around and tried her best to make pancakes, but she was saved by Nora, who showed up with a couple of bushel baskets of deep-fried grilled cheese sandwiches.
It was really something to see.
I was a little surprised that people could find the time to go to Molly’s, since everyone was so busy with their Fogopogo Festival preparations. The truth was, nearly everybody in town had been busy stringing streamers and repainting their houses and getting all of Deeper Harbour spruced up for the big day ahead.
The drugstore had a sea monster mural painted on its front window.
The town florist had a big sale on snapdragons.
The fishermen were decorating the fishing boats. They had built themselves a makeshift Chinese New Year’s dancing dragon out of long, flowing sailcloth that they duct taped to a dozen dory oars. They practised dancing with that dragon every day.
The preparations were both awesome and inspiring, but everybody still managed to find the time to come down and take part in the restoration of Molly’s pole. I guess that’s how a town works. People help people any chance they get.
People chipped in and did their part as we dug a new hole and poured the cement and raised up the sea monster, while others helped to raise the section of Molly’s fence that Granddad and I had trampled. We made sure that between the fence and a nearby tree it was almost impossible to see the sea serpent without actually coming into the yard.
“Me and Angus figure you’ll be able to charge admission to come look at the sea monster,” Warren explained. “If you get enough tourists, that’ll make you some money to buy new books for the library.”
Molly just shook her head sadly.
“There isn’t going to be a library,” she said. “The school is closing down. I don’t think even the tourists coming back will stop that from happening.”
Warren shrugged.
“I knew that already,” he said. “And I’ve been trying to doing something about it.”
We all stood there looking at him and waiting.
“I’ve been buying up lumber and building bookshelves in the back end of the boat shed,” he told her. “It will take a while yet, but I believe there will be a brand new Deeper Harbour library ready for you by the fall.”
So that was what Warren had needed the money for. And that was what he planned on doing with the shed. And that’s what he hoped to get a grant for.
I felt a little embarrassed that Granddad Angus and I had given Warren such a very hard time when he had said he couldn’t help us run Fogopogo anymore.
A lot of people said they would help Warren with the building supplies and insulation and wiring and they all sounded like they meant what they said. I looked at old boring Warren and wondered just where he had found the time to dream this up.
I guess people can surprise you if you let them.
Molly stood there and looked like she was going to cry.
Then she stepped over to Warren like a tidal wave rolling in on a dory, swooped him up in her arms and hugged him hard and kissed him even harder and, wonder upon wonders, Warren kissed back.
Dulsie looked at the two of them.
I could see anger and happiness arm wrestling in the shadows of her heart.
There was a story being told here, right before my eyes. There were no words involved and I did not know all of the details. I did not know all of the facts. I just knew that whatever this story was and however long it had been going on, it was the truest and deepest kind of story there is.
Finally, Dulsie stepped over and hugged the two of them. The whole town kept on cheering for the sea monster clothesline pole and Warren and Molly and the new library, while me and Granddad Angus grinned over what had just gone on.
Everyone was so happy.
Too bad things couldn’t have stayed that way.
Chapter 27
Grounded without Grounds
A day later, Mom was laying down the law again.
And all I could do was listen to her talk.
“This is an opportunity that you will not pass up,” Mom said. “It’s the prime minister of Canada, Roland.”
“Can’t we just wait to see him in Ottawa?” I asked.
“You don’t just knock on the door at 24 Sussex Drive,” Mom answered. “It just isn’t that easy.”
I figured if Mom knew the prime minister’s home address she was probably on speaking terms with the man already. I wanted to tell her how Warren had gotten in touch with the prime minister just by sending him a common through-the-mail, Bigfoot-stamped letter, but then she would have asked me how I knew about that.
So I settled for, “Big deal.”
“Don’t argue with me, Roland,” Mom said. “This is a chance to meet the prime minister of Canada, face to face.”
“So what?” I said.
Which didn’t help any more than “big deal” had.
“This isn’t fair,” I said. “You are grounding me without any grounds for evidence.”
This approach had worked on a Law and Order episode three weeks ago, but I wasn’t all that confident that it would work for me today.
“I have
really had enough of arguing with you, Roland,” Mom said. “This is a big opportunity and you will not miss it.”
I was done arguing.
She had that mom-is-the-boss tone in her voice.
“Okay,” I said.
Mom smiled.
“I bet this is really going to bring in the tourists,” I said, hopefully.
Mom looked at me.
She knew what I was hinting at.
“You really do want to stay here, don’t you?”
I nodded, hopefully. I’d seen all of the movies. I knew there was always a point after the kids had set up some crazy scheme that the parents would back down and see things properly.
Only this wasn’t a movie.
Mom just shook her head. I could see she felt bad about it. I felt bad about feeling so mad at her. The two of us were stuck on opposite ends of emotion, not wanting to argue, but not able to agree.
“Do you know, except for when I went to university in Halifax, I have never been out of the town of Deeper Harbour?” Mom asked.
I hadn’t known that.
She sighed, like she was missing something.
“Canada is such a big, wide country,” she said. “There is so much of it to see. I’d like to see a little more of it before I need bifocals.”
When she put it that way I felt bad about keeping her from fulfilling her dreams.
“Okay, Mom,” I said. “You’re right. This is a great opportunity.”
I would go and meet the prime minister. I would stand there with Mom and Warren and the prime minister, waiting to see the Deeper Harbour sea monster.
I wondered if he would show up.
I wondered if we’d ever hear from David Suzuki.
But mostly I was wondering just how on earth was I going to tell Granddad Angus that I couldn’t take the sea monster out with him tomorrow.
Chapter 28
Mutiny and Desertion
Have you ever known you had to say something, but not known how to say it?
