You should have heard the woman scream. It was like what they describe in mystery books as bloodcurdling. Réal and I and the rest of the crew had a perfect view. We were out on the cliffs by the beach, and Réal had brought along the binoculars from the office. I was looking through them when I saw the husband pass the suntan lotion over to the wife. Then I saw her reach into her pocket and scream.
I saw the scream before I actually heard it. I guess that has something to do with how sound travels when you’re out on the water. It’s a good thing kayakers sit so low in the boat. Otherwise, I think the woman might have fallen in. And then who knows what could have happened to her extremities?
Uncle Jean paddled right over to see what was happening. I saw him talking to the woman. Then he looked up at the cliffs where we were. Which is when I put down the binoculars. Only, by then I knew it was too late.
Chapter Three
One good thing about living in a B&B is that you don’t get yelled at. Uncle Jean didn’t even mention the frog-in-the-pocket incident. All he said was he wanted me to come out on the kayak with him at six this morning. It didn’t sound like a punishment, even though getting up at 5:15 isn’t exactly my idea of a good time. “It’s the best time to see the whales,” Uncle Jean told me when we were packing up to leave, “before those damned Zodiacs are out.”
Uncle Jean is a pretty laid-back guy. The only thing that seems to set him off are those Zodiacs. They’re these little inflatable motor-boats that take groups of people out to see the whales. They leave all the time from the Tadoussac harbor. “They dump gasoline into the St. Lawrence, and some of them get much too close to the whales,” he told me.
There’s a rule up here that boats aren’t supposed to get any closer than 200 meters to a whale. Uncle Jean says there are plenty of captains who ignore it. “It’s difficult to enforce; besides, there’s pressure from the tourists. Everyone wants to go home and tell his neighbor, ‘I got this close to a whale.’” Uncle Jean stretched out his suntanned arm to show me what he meant. “If they want to get close to a whale, they should come out in a kayak. At least we don’t bother the whales when we’re on the water.”
Till now, Uncle Jean’s been too busy to take me out in his kayak. We’ve had nothing but sunny days since I got here, and there’ve been so many customers that Uncle Jean has had to turn some away.
Even though I’m not what you’d call the country type, there’s something pretty beautiful about this place, especially early in the morning. Like today, when we first looked out at the river—you can see it from the kitchen at the Whale’s Tale—there was this thick layer of mist over the water. It looked like cotton candy, only gray. But by the time we got into the kayak, the mist had disappeared, and the water was so clear and blue it was hard to tell where it ended and where the sky began.
At first, neither of us said a thing. We just paddled. I have to say it felt good to be quiet for a change. The morning air kind of whipped against my face, but that felt good too.
“Keep an eye out for low-flying cormorants,” Uncle Jean told me. He was sitting at the back of the kayak so he could navigate. Even though all he could see was my back, he must’ve known I was listening, because he kept talking.
“The birds feed on krill—the same shrimp-like creatures that whales eat. So if you spot birds flying close to the water, it’s usually a good indication that there are whales close by. It’s been a while, hasn’t it, Pierrot, since you were out in a kayak?”
I let the “Pierrot” slip. If Uncle Jean wasn’t going to get upset with me about my prank, I figured I couldn’t very well complain about his calling me the name he used to call me when I was a kid. Last time I was up in Tadoussac was when I was about six. I know because there’s a picture of me on the mantel at home. In it, I’m in a kayak, sitting in front, and my dad’s where Uncle Jean is now. Anyway, it’s so long ago all I can remember is remembering being here.
Suddenly a small brown head peeked out of the water, no more than ten feet ahead of us. “Look!” I called out, resting my paddle on the side of the kayak so I could get a better view. Whatever it was looked like a dog that had been left out in the rain. A moment later he slipped back underneath the water, leaving only some swirls on its surface.
“Harbor seal,” Uncle Jean said in a low voice. “They startle easily.”
He’d put his paddle down too, and for a few minutes we just floated on the still water.
“About the frog in that lady’s life jacket,” Uncle Jean began in the same low voice he’d used before. So he was going to confront me, after all.
This time I was glad not to have to look at him.
“I’m sorry about that, Uncle Jean,” I said, trying to sound as sorry as possible. I hate apologizing—it makes me feel like an idiot who does everything wrong—but it was kind of a relief when the words were out.
“Look, your parents told me about the trouble they’ve been having with you. But I don’t want to talk about that. When you came to stay with us in Tadoussac, it was a new start. But Pierrot, that lady could have had more than a shock. The kayak could have tipped over. Like this—”
And just then, before I could complain about being called Pierrot again, Uncle Jean did the one thing you’re never supposed to do in a kayak. He leaned over hard, so that all his weight bore down on one side of the kayak. And Uncle Jean is big. He’s over six feet and not skinny either. I figure he must weigh about 250 pounds.
I tried to lean into the other side of the kayak, but it didn’t make much of a difference. We were toppling over! As my body lurched to the left, I could feel the cold breeze coming off the water.
We were about to capsize. Aunt Daisy’s words rang in my head, like a song you can’t forget, no matter how hard you try. “Three minutes until you lose sensation in your extremities. Three minutes until…” Without meaning to, I wriggled my fingers and toes. While I still could.
Uncle Jean must be out of his mind. What was he trying to do? Drown us?
All at once the kayak regained its balance. Its prow lifted itself up from the murky water, covering me with a mist of watery droplets. Uncle Jean was laughing—so loud the sound echoed in the surrounding coves.
It was only then that I started to tremble, every part of my body shaking as if I had actually fallen into the icy waters of the St. Lawrence.
Then I heard Uncle Jean’s voice. This time it was booming, not low the way it had been before. “You’re not the only one who knows how to play pranks, Pierrot. When I was your age, I was pretty good at pranks myself. But there’s one thing I want to tell you, and you’ve got to understand it—no more pranks! You got that?”
“I got—” I said, but I never finished my sentence. A huge, dark shadow was moving through the water right next to us.
“Look at that baby!” Uncle Jean whispered when the whale’s head surfaced about eight feet ahead of us, and a plume of mist came spouting from its blowhole. Talk about getting close to a whale! For a second I’d been able to look right into the black of his eye.
I couldn’t help feeling grateful to the creature. Thanks to him, I didn’t have to make a promise—one I wasn’t sure I could keep.
Chapter Four
“See you later, Petit Fou!” Uncle Jean called out as the huge whale arched its back and dove back into the icy water, leaving a thick layer of foam on the water’s surface.
I knew fou meant someone crazy, but I didn’t get the petit part. There was nothing small about the whale we’d just seen. He was the size of a bus.
Uncle Jean seemed to know what I was thinking. “In French, we sometimes call people—and animals—petit to show we like them. That whale—he’s a humpback, an endangered species up here—is one of my favorites. He’s been coming to Tadoussac every summer for about fifteen years.”
“How do you know it’s the same whale?” I asked.
“From the triangular scar underneath his tail. During mating season, male humpbacks fight for the females’ atte
ntion. He must have got in someone’s way,” Uncle Jean explained.
“How did you get interested in whales?” I wanted to know.
The question made Uncle Jean laugh. “I guess I was born interested in whales. That’s what happens when you’re raised in these parts. Where I grew up, in the town of Ste. Anne de Portneuf—about an hour east of here—whales were as common as mosquitoes. Only, whales don’t bite. My mother used to say she never had to sing me to sleep. The whales blowing outside my window—those were my lullabies.
“Then, when I was not much older than you are now, a teacher encouraged me to study marine biology. So I ended up at Chicoutimi University, specializing in marine mammals.”
I’d never known that about Uncle Jean. I’d thought of him as a businessman—never as a scientist. Maybe my parents had mentioned it, but I wasn’t paying attention. You could miss a lot that way.
There was one thing I really wanted to know. “Why are you so nuts about whales?” I asked.
This time, Uncle Jean didn’t answer as quickly. Instead he took a deep breath. He exhaled with a long, slow sigh that reminded me a little of the sound Petit Fou had made. “Why am I so nuts about whales?” he said, repeating my question. “Jeez, Pierre, I hardly know. Maybe because they’re so darn big—and so darn beautiful. They make even a big guy like me feel small—which is a good thing sometimes. People get into trouble when they think they’re so big the whole world revolves around them. Whales have a way of reminding us we’re just a tiny part of the universe.”
I thought I knew what he meant. Even Petit Fou’s short visit had left me feeling that way. There’s so much of the world we just don’t see. I scanned the water around us, eager to spot the humpback or maybe another whale, but the water was still except for an occasional rolling wave. There were no low-flying birds in sight either.
“Paddle hard on your left,” Uncle Jean directed me. “It’s time to head back.”
For a while I paddled so hard I didn’t have the engery to ask any more questions. There was lots I still wanted to know—about Uncle Jean and about whales. If Uncle Jean was a marine biologist, why didn’t he teach at a university the way my parents did? And if whales kept blowing all night, when did they sleep?
Uncle Jean must have taken a break from paddling. I could hear him opening something up. I hoped it was food. All the paddling had made me hungry. But when I tilted my head a little to see what Uncle Jean was doing, I realized he was taking out a pair of binoculars from the watertight hatch in front of him.
“Jesus Christ,” I heard him mutter under his breath. “Zodiacs up ahead at three o’clock.” Then he began paddling again. With both of us paddling, the kayak moved easily over the water, gliding in the direction of whatever Uncle Jean had seen.
In the distance I saw what looked like dark splotches against the horizon. But as we approached, I realized there were three Zodiacs—the little speedboats Uncle Jean hated so much. They had formed a tight circle. In the center I thought I could make out the outline of a whale.
“It’s a minke,” Uncle Jean told me as we moved in toward the group. “And those idiots have him cornered.”
The passengers on the Zodiacs paid no attention as we paddled toward them. They were leaning out of the Zodiacs, frantically snapping photographs and shouting instructions to one another. “Get one of me with the whale, darling!” a high-pitched voice squealed.
So much for the rules. These boats couldn’t have been more than a couple of meters away from the minke, who seemed to be trying to figure out how to escape. The sharp smell of gasoline hung in the air, making my nostrils burn.
Just then, one of the Zodiac captains spotted my uncle Jean. “Okay!” he called out, loud enough for the other captains to hear. “Time to move on.” The captain had a shaggy gray beard and a sunburn. He had this gold ring with diamonds on his pinky finger. I noticed because the diamonds gleamed in the sunlight. I’d seen him before, only I didn’t know where.
“Time to move on all right, Roméo,” Uncle Jean yelled from our kayak. Considering how Uncle Jean felt about Zodiac operators, I didn’t expect him to be on a first-name basis with the guy. “You know better than to get so close.” Uncle Jean’s voice sounded angry.
“That minke came over to see us,” the man whose name was Roméo called out.
“I’ll bet he did!” Uncle Jean didn’t sound convinced.
Then I realized why the captain seemed familiar. I’d seen him at the clubhouse by the Tadoussac harbor. When I’d gone in to get sandwiches for the crew, he’d been sitting in the cafeteria, playing cards with his buddies.
The moment he had a little room to maneuver, the minke disappeared from view. There was no telling where he’d gone. Even though we weren’t far from shore, I knew the water here was very deep. What other animals, I wondered, were swimming beneath us—in their own watery world?
“You okay?” I asked Uncle Jean as we made our way toward the launching dock.
“I’m okay,” he muttered, but he sounded upset. “They treat the whales like performing seals. And the more people bother the whales, the less they eat—which means that, over time, their existence is endangered. Then there’s all the gasoline they dump into the river. And that Roméo,” he added, “we grew up together. He was as interested in whales as I was. Like I just told him, he should know better.”
I made a tsk-tsk sound to show my disapproval, unsure what else I could say to make Uncle Jean feel better.
“They’re predicting bad weather tomorrow,” he said, his voice sounding a little less upset. “So when I go for groceries, I could drop you off at the Marine Mammal Interpretive Center. What do you say, Pierre?”
I’d always refused when my parents tried to talk me into going with them to one of the museums in Montreal, but this was different. This wasn’t going to be about paintings or sculptures. This was about whales.
Chapter Five
The weather was bad all right. I could tell without even getting up from my bed. The sky was the color of smoke, and the pine tree outside my window was tottering in the wind like an old drunk. There were none of the usual morning sounds in the house. The radio wasn’t blaring, the coffee machine wasn’t gurgling, and there wasn’t the usual chatter of guests as they lined up for the downstairs bathroom. Everyone seemed to be sleeping in—something that didn’t happen much in Tadoussac.
But I was wide awake. So I slipped on my jeans and sweatshirt and tiptoed down the winding wooden staircase to the main floor. A Scrabble board had been left out on the table, the game still unfinished. The word “temptation” was spelled out across the middle of the board.
Aunt Daisy and Uncle Jean didn’t have a bolt on their front door the way we did in Montreal. I unlatched the screen door and headed for the small patio at the front of the house. There weren’t any chairs—only this small, bright pink bench people used when they put on their boating shoes. I sat down and looked out at the St. Lawrence. Today, there was no mist over the water—if there had been a mist, it would have been blown away by the gusting wind.
Even without binoculars I could see the waves tumbling toward the shore with a force I hadn’t seen before. In the distance I spotted a huge cargo ship moving a little unsteadily across the water. I didn’t want to imagine what it would be like to be out in a kayak in these conditions. Uncle Jean had warned me that the St. Lawrence was moody. “It’s beautiful all right,” he’d told me, “but she can be like this girlfriend I had before I met Daisy. Calm one minute, wild the next. A guy never knows where he stands with a woman like that.”
Just then I heard the squeal of bicycle brakes. Whoever it was had stopped at the gray-shingled house next to the B&B. Just as I was craning my neck for a closer look, someone tapped on my shoulder.
“Bonjour, you. It’s me—Rosalie,” a girl’s voice said.
I turned around to see a smiling, freckled face between two long brown braids. “I’m Pete,” I said, extending my hand, “er, Pierre.”
/> “Pete,” the girl repeated slowly. From the way she said it, you could tell she hadn’t ever heard the name before. “I am Rosalie Marchand,” she said slowly. “I live next door.”
“I figured that.”
“You figured?” Rosalie said. “Excuse me, but my English is not very good.”
“I figured you live next door since that’s where you parked your bike.”
“Oh,” said Rosalie, brightening. “I see.”
“How come we haven’t met before?” I asked.
“We were away, visiting my grandfather in Chicoutimi. We returned home only last night. My parents told me you were here, staying with Jean and Daisy. You got in trouble in Montreal, didn’t you?”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
Rosalie kept right on talking. Not the shy type, you could say. “No kayaking today, I suppose,” she said, gesturing toward the water. “What are we going to do?”
“We?” I repeated, a little surprised. Maybe this was a Tadoussac thing. In Montreal, people didn’t go around making plans with people they’d just met. “Uncle Jean is supposed to drop me off at the interpretive center later,” I told her.
“Just ring the bell before you leave. I’ll come,” and with a toss of her braids, Rosalie disappeared into the wind.
Uncle Jean and Aunt Daisy seemed glad when I said I’d met Rosalie—and that she’d invited herself to come along to the center. They left us at the top of the long, winding parking lot. “We’ll do our groceries, have a café au lait in town and pick you up at two,” Aunt Daisy said, checking her watch as she slammed the van door shut behind us.
“It’s busier than usual,” Rosalie said as we paid our admission. “When it’s sunny, there’s hardly anyone here.” The displays were in French, but when the clerk heard us speaking English, she offered us two English booklets. “He’ll take one, not me,” said Rosalie. “I speak French.” You could tell she was pleased that the woman had thought she was English.
No More Pranks Page 2
