As Dr. Youville had predicted, Petit Fou’s bleeding had stopped. Last we’d heard, the whale was just beginning to swim out into the shallow water. Dr. Youville and another vet from the interpretive center were monitoring Petit Fou’s progress.
“Are you and your uncle still fighting?” Rosalie asked. She was leaning in so close our heads nearly touched.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I muttered, backing away from Rosalie. I turned around to check that no one was listening to our conversation. A couple of the card players looked away before our eyes could meet.
“My mother says it helps to talk things through,” Rosalie persisted.
“Your mother says a lot of stuff.” I rolled my eyes to indicate I didn’t think much of Rosalie’s mother. “Besides, I believe in doing things—not just talking about doing things. If you really want to know—” and here I let my voice drop a little, “that’s the worst part about living with someone like Uncle Jean.”
Rosalie nodded, and when, a second later, she made a clucking sound, I couldn’t help thinking of Dr. Dingle.
“Uncle Jean talks nonstop about all these plans he’s got to expand his business. He says he wants to design his own web site and increase his prices. The problem is—all he ever does is talk!” I continued.
“But your Uncle Jean is a good person. And he loves whales,” Rosalie said softly. You could tell she was trying to calm me down, only this time, she didn’t cluck.
“What’s the good of being good?” I said, and I could hear the disgust in my own voice. “If Uncle Jean was smarter, he’d remember he’s got bills to pay, and that whale watching isn’t about saving the world. It’s about making money to pay those bills.”
Rosalie looked me straight in the eye. “You can’t mean that,” she said, her voice rising.
“I do mean it, Rosalie. Sometimes I think you’re as bad as Uncle Jean. Next thing I know you’ll be telling me what to have for lunch, where to hang my towel, and how to line up the kayaks. Twenty-two more days till I go home to Montreal, and I’m not sure I’m going to last!” I pounded my fist on the table for emphasis.
Rosalie stood up. Her salad was still uneaten. “I don’t know if I can be friends with someone like you,” she said, her lower lip trembling as she spoke. Then, without looking back, she headed for the door.
I took a big bite of my hamburger.
“It sounds like you could use some help,” a gravelly voice said. I didn’t have to look up to know whom the voice belonged to. It was Roméo Leblanc. He’d been playing cards at the next table. I’d spotted him—and that diamond pinky ring of his—when I was looking for a place to sit.
“What do you mean?” I asked, looking up at him. At the slamming of the door we both turned to look outside. There was Rosalie, storming by, her braids flapping in the wind. Leblanc turned back toward me so that only I noticed when Rosalie suddenly spun around. As my eyes met hers, Rosalie mouthed the words to a message: “One last prank!”
Chapter Twelve
Of course, the real reason Leblanc offered me a job was that he wanted to annoy Uncle Jean. I could tell by the way his eyes gleamed when he came over in the clubhouse. “I could use some help with my boats. And from the sounds of it, you could use a new job,” he’d said, without bothering to pretend he hadn’t been listening in.
Things went even better than Rosalie and I planned. For one thing, Leblanc didn’t mind when I said I wanted to work at least another week for Uncle Jean. “I owe him that. But he only needs me during the day. I could be at the dock by six,” I told him.
The work wasn’t glamorous—sweeping out Zodiacs and emptying trash bins—but it was a way to learn about Leblanc’s operation. If Rosalie and I were going to convince park officials that one of Leblanc’s Zodiacs had injured Petit Fou, we needed proof of two things: that his Zodiacs were out late at night on the Saguenay and that they got too close to the whales. If we could prove this, we hoped park officials would confiscate his license.
For now, I decided not to tell Uncle Jean and Aunt Daisy what Rosalie and I were up to. They wouldn’t like it. Luckily, they didn’t get suspicious when I said I’d be hanging out by the dock after dinner.
The hardest part wasn’t working two jobs; it was that I couldn’t spend much time with Rosalie. If we wanted our plan to work, we had to make it look like we’d stopped being friends. The only time we talked was first thing in the morning, when we’d meet for a few minutes on the pink bench outside The Whale’s Tale.
“Leblanc wants me to work late tonight and tomorrow,” I told Rosalie as I sipped my hot chocolate. “I’ve got a camera. Did you remember the tape recorder?”
It was Rosalie’s idea that I should get Leblanc to admit he sometimes took clients whale watching at night. “You could tape him,” she’d suggested. “My mom has this tiny tape recorder. She got it to tape my father yelling.”
“What?” I’d asked.
“My father used to yell so much when he got upset that my mom worried he might have a heart attack. So she taped him, and then afterwards, when he calmed down, she played it back to him. He hardly ever yells anymore.”
I decided it was time to stop bad-mouthing Rosalie’s mom—and her theories. Thanks to her, I was about to get my hands on a tape recorder.
The tape recorder was no bigger than a bar of soap. It came with a small attachable microphone. “All right then, I’ll admit it,” Rosalie said as she handed me the tape recorder, “sometimes—in an emergency—pranks are okay.”
Truth was, lately I hadn’t been thinking much about pranks. Sure, it had been fun to prank Leblanc into hiring me. But catching Leblanc in the act wasn’t about teasing him or getting attention. It wasn’t even about feeling angry. No, this prank was a way to right a wrong. Knowing that felt good. Better, come to think of it, than any prank had ever made me feel.
“It’s going to be a late night,” Leblanc said when I turned up at the dock that evening. “You and I are going out on a Zodiac. Instead of cleaning, why don’t you have a nap in the clubhouse?”
Getting paid to sleep sounded like a sweet deal. Besides, I was exhausted. Though the clubhouse couch smelled musty, and there were springs sticking out at the bottom, I fell right asleep. I had a lot of dreams. Petit Fou and Rosalie were in most of them. I even dreamt about Mr. Quincy. In my dream, he was at assembly, telling students I’d drowned in the Saguenay. “He was a prankster,” Mr. Quincy said, nodding his head sadly. “Only, the last prank was on him.”
It was after midnight when Leblanc shook me awake. “There’s a group of tourists ready to pay big bucks to go whale watching this time tomorrow. We’re going on a practice run. I need a pair of young ears to listen for whales.”
Leblanc let the motor idle as he pored over a map. When he put the map down, he pointed at a damp cushion in the boat’s stern. As I sat down, I stuck my hands into my pockets. I felt the hard ridges of the camera and, in the other pocket, the tape recorder. I’d rigged things up so the wire that attached the microphone to the tape recorder was hidden inside the sleeve of my windbreaker. With one finger, I searched for the tape recorder’s switch. I was pretty sure I’d be able to flick it on without Leblanc noticing.
At night, the waters of the Saguenay were as black as the sky. The sharp scent of pine filled my nostrils as the Zodiac took off. All I could see of Leblanc was his back, hunched over the wheel. “I got really close to a humpback the other night,” he muttered, without turning around.
Gee, I thought as I flicked on the switch to the tape recorder and tugged the tiny microphone out from my sleeve and into my palm, this is going to be easier than I thought.
“Humpbacks?” I asked, leaning in toward him. “Pretty rare out here, aren’t they?”
Leblanc grunted. I couldn’t tell whether that meant yes or no.
“How close did you get?” I asked, careful to keep the excitement out of my voice.
“I’d say five meters, maybe four,” Leblanc said, turning aroun
d to face me. Was he trying to gauge my reaction?
“Cool!” I said. My answer seemed to satisfy him.
It was hard to know exactly where we were. Out in the dark, you couldn’t spot landmarks. The waters we were traveling through had narrowed. There were no beaches in this area, just scraggly shrubs that grew close to the shore. Overhead I could make out the outline of hydroelectric cables crisscrossing the sky.
If there were whales around, they were staying clear of the Zodiac. My eyes dropped to the floor of the boat. A coil of thick cord lay next to a pile of blankets. If I get cold, I thought, I could grab a blanket. Just then I saw something roll under the blankets. Was there an animal on board?
It was a good thing I didn’t say anything, because a second later I spotted another piece of what looked like thick cord. Only this was dark brown—and it was moving. Which is when I realized it wasn’t cord at all. It was a braid. And I only knew one person with braids.
Chapter Thirteen
Partly, I was pissed off. What was Rosalie thinking? If Leblanc found her, we’d be in hot—or more likely, cold water. But another part of me felt glad she was along for the ride.
I was trying to think of a way to signal Rosalie that I’d spotted her, when I heard a faint whoosh. I spun to the right. So did Leblanc, and as he did, he turned on the boat’s searchlight. Its hazy beam picked up the reflection of what looked like a shiny white half moon on the water’s surface. Then there were more of the half-moon shapes. They were up ahead, near a small island.
“Belugas,” Leblanc whispered.
“I think it’s time to take some pictures,” I said, pulling out my camera. Leblanc couldn’t have heard me over the sound of the motor, but I needed photographic evidence—and this was my chance. I positioned myself so I could include not just whales, but also part of the Zodiac.
When we were so close to the pod—there were six belugas in all—that I could have touched their blubbery skin, Leblanc switched off the motor. “Something’s wrong with this gas gauge,” he muttered. “I filled the bloody tank this afternoon.”
He leaned over the instrument panel and began fiddling with the gauge. He was so intent on fixing whatever was wrong, he didn’t seem to notice the belugas—or that I was taking pictures.
When one beluga dove, the cool spray left a misty film on my camera lens. Within a couple of minutes I’d shot a roll of film. Just as I was putting in another roll, Leblanc turned toward me. “I fixed the—” he announced, but then his eyes landed on my camera. “Hand that over! Now!” he shouted, coming toward me and tugging the camera from my neck.
I stepped back, tucking the roll of used film into the pocket of my life jacket. “What’s wrong?” I asked, trying to keep my voice calm, though my arms and legs felt wobbly.
“You—you!” Leblanc sputtered. “I should have known you were in cahoots with Jean Racine, that useless do-gooder.”
“I don’t know what you’re tal—” I began, but I never got to finish my sentence.
“I want you off this boat!” Leblanc barked. Then he lunged at me, picking me up by the waist and hoisting me over his shoulders. I tried to kick myself free, but it didn’t work.
“I’m going to dump you on that island. Let’s see how long it takes your uncle to find you!” As he shouted, the tape recorder—without the wire or the microphone, which must have come undone—dropped from my pocket, landing a few inches from the pile of blankets. I watched Rosalie’s thin fingers emerge from under the blankets and grab the tape recorder.
“I’ve had it with you! I can’t take it anymore!” a strange male voice crackled. “I’ve told you before, and I’m telling you again. Cut it OUT!”
I’d never heard anyone sound so angry. Whoever it was was out of control.
“Where’s that voice coming from?” Leblanc called out.
“I’ve had it with you! I can’t take it any more!” the voice repeated, even more loudly than before. This time I noticed some static in the background, which is when I figured out who it was. Rosalie’s father! Rosalie had rewound the tape and was playing it back at maximum volume.
“What’s going on?” Leblanc yelled. Without knowing it, he’d loosened his grip on me. I jumped to the floor, landing near the pile of blankets. Don’t move, Rosalie, I thought to myself.
There was no time for a plan, but I had to do something. Just then I noticed a slight wiggling in the cord next to the blankets. It’s Rosalie, I thought. She’s pulling on one end. But why? What is she trying to tell me?
Then I got it. You’re brilliant, Rosalie, I thought. Absolutely brilliant. I reached for the cord and looped it around Leblanc’s ankles.
“What the—” Leblanc was still trying to figure out where the voice was coming from. As I tugged on one end of the cord, Rosalie leapt up from under the blankets and crashed into Leblanc’s knees.
Leblanc fell flat on the floor, head first, making a thud as he landed.
I thought he’d try to get up, but he didn’t. He just lay there, breathing heavily.
“I think we knocked him out,” Rosalie said. The two of us worked quickly, wrapping the cord around Leblanc’s body so he wouldn’t be able to use his hands or feet.
We dragged him over to the pile of blankets. He didn’t look too happy when he began to come to. “What’s she doing here?” he asked, eyeing Rosalie.
“Sorry about all the yelling,” Rosalie said, pulling out the tape recorder and turning it back on. “I can’t take it anymore!” her father’s voice blared.
“That was just my father,” she added, grinning up at Leblanc. “Don’t worry, he’s learning to control his temper.”
On the way back, I took over at the wheel. My hands tingled with excitement. Once I got us past the small island, all I’d have to do was follow the path of the Saguenay back to Tadoussac.
Rosalie sat, squatted, close to Leblanc. “Darned kids. You won’t get away with this!” he muttered. A minute later, when he tried to break free, Rosalie tightened the cord around him. After a while he stopped squirming and just stared straight ahead at the water, his chest heaving up and down.
The sky was beginning to turn pinkish orange when we reached the confluence. Which was when this totally incredible thing happened. The kind of thing you might think only happens in books or movies.
We heard splashing. Then, as if a water fountain was bursting from the bottom of the Saguenay, this huge spray of water shot up into the air. It was a whale coming up for air. As its tail rose into the sky, I spotted the familiar triangular scar.
Chapter Fourteen
If you read the Tadoussac newspaper or watch the news, you’ll know what happened next. Leblanc lost his boating license and had to pay a huge fine. If you ask me, he kind of liked the attention. In the newspaper photographs, he’s smiling so much you’d think he was some kind of soap-opera star. And in a way, as Aunt Daisy said, he was.
Other Zodiac operators were scared by what had happened to Leblanc, so there were a lot fewer violations of the whale-watching rules that summer.
As for Rosalie and me, I guess you could say we became kind of like local heroes. We got free hot dogs and fries at the chip wagon, and the guys at Uncle Jean’s kayaking company stopped giving me the crummy jobs. There were still two weeks till I had to go back to Montreal to start over at a new school—but to tell you the truth, I didn’t want to leave.
I guess sometimes when you’re really dreading something, it can end up surprising you. I’ve got to try to remember that in the future.
Rosalie and I had this routine. She’d meet me at the launching area after work. Sometimes she’d bring granola bars and we’d walk back to the B&B, stopping to sit on the rocks and look for whales.
We didn’t see Petit Fou again that summer, but as Dr. Youville said, in the case of a recovering whale, no news is good news. Plus I had this strange feeling that Petit Fou was out there, keeping an eye on all of us.
“So,” Rosalie wanted to know one evening as we
tossed pebbles into the Saguenay and watched the water ripple, “planning any pranks?”
“No more pranks!” I told her. Only, this time I meant it.
NEW Orca Soundings novel
Charmed by Carrie Mac
Cody Dillon comes and rescues me (RESCUES ME!). He takes me to his apartment (HIS OWN APARTMENT!) and runs me a bubble bath. He lights a bunch of candles and turns the light off. He sits on the floor and keeps me company. He says I can stay here as long as I want. Um, hello, heaven? Izzy McAfferty has arrived, in case anyone wants to know.
Izzy’s mother works far away and leaves Izzy at home, alone with Rob the Slob. Angry at her mother and trying to deal with school, friends and the attentions of charismatic Cody Dillon, Izzy finds her life swirling out of control. After “borrowing” money from her mother’s boyfriend, she is forced to leave home until she can repay it. Ending up with Cody and living in the city, Izzy makes misguided choices that are all wrong.
NEW Orca Soundings novel
My Time as Caz Hazard by Tanya Lloyd Kyi
“How can you be like this? What if this was our fault?” I could feel my voice growing loud and shrill.
“Shut up!” Amanda grabbed my arm, hard. “You’re not making sense. What did we have to do with it? No one kills herself over a ripped shirt. Understand?”
Moving to a new school, Caz is told she is dyslexic and sent to Special Education classes. She tries to fit in and get by while suffering the taunts and abuse that others throw at the students in her class. Her friendship with Amanda leads her into new territor—shoplifting and skipping school. Coupled with her parents’ impending separation, her life is anything but stable and continues to spiral out of control. And when Caz and Amanda’s behavior seems to contribute to a classmate’s suicide, Caz must take a long hard look at her life.
No More Pranks Page 5
