“My parents?” Oscar sounded surprised.
“Well, yes!” said Lucy. “My parents are always arguing. They never agree about anything.”
“I don’t know why you think my parents do!” said Oscar. “They’re completely different. Pa’s always working. And Ma — she likes to play music all the time. She says she has to. She plays her violin whenever she can, so things kind of go to seed around the house. She can’t stand housework. She tries for Pa’s sake, but he’s so persnickety. He’s always getting mad at Ma — they’re always fighting. . . .” Oscar stopped short. “Or they were always fighting,” he added softly.
“It didn’t sound that way from what you wrote.”
“Well, they did.”
“But they loved each other,” said Lucy.
“Sure.” Oscar shrugged.
“That’s important,” said Lucy. She thought of her own parents — how they were always fighting. Yet now that her father was gone, her mother seemed so — lost seemed to be the right word.
She watched Oscar again, wondering what he was thinking. Then she said, “You wrote about one fight they had. Your pa moved out of the house.”
“Oh!” Oscar’s voice was full of pain. “I forgot I wrote about that.”
“But they made up with each other!” Lucy said.
“I guess you could call it that,” said Oscar. “What happened was Morris got the croup. Ma sent me to fetch Dr. Carter, and she sent Lavonne up to Uncle Ned’s house. Pa rushed home, and everybody worried all night. Morris was better by dawn, and Pa stayed for breakfast and there was never any more talk about it. That’s how most things went with them. I never heard anybody making up.”
Maybe that’s the way parents were, thought Lucy. They fought in front of you and made up in private. It was a strange thought — a lonely kind of thought that wasn’t very comforting.
“One of us should get some sleep,” said Oscar. “The other can stay up and watch for the moon path.”
“I’ll watch,” Lucy volunteered. It was silly, but she felt as though the boat needed her to stay awake. She needed to steer it toward her father so she could bring him home.
“Lucy!”
Her bed was shaking. Not only that, her bed was hard and shaped all wrong. Why would anyone make such an uncomfortable bed?
“Lucy, wake up!”
Startled, she opened her eyes and sat up.
“It’s the moon path!” Oscar grabbed the oars, swung the boat around, and began rowing.
Though the moon was still a good ways above the horizon, the path it made on the water was faint. The sky was turning light gray. It took Lucy a second to figure out what was happening. As the moon was setting, the sun was rising. It wouldn’t be long before daylight entirely erased the moon path from the water. “I fell asleep!” she wailed.
“It’s no use,” said Oscar, dropping the oars as the moon’s path flickered away to nothing. All around them, the sea was brightening.
“We could keep rowing,” said Lucy. “Just keep going away from the sun.”
“Aren’t we supposed to follow the moon path? Isn’t that what you wrote?”
“Yes.” Lucy thought about what she had written: They knew they could get to the island by following the path made by the moon on the water. Those had been her exact words. Would it have been wiser simply to write that they got to the island by following the moon path? She wondered if she could scratch out a few words. Then she remembered that she had forgotten to bring The Book of Story Beginnings.
“I say we use the potion,” said Oscar. “I could imagine the island into existence — right over there.” He gestured toward the west.
“All right,” said Lucy. “But it does seem like we’re using an awful lot of potion. I don’t want to waste it. I’ll need it when I find my father.”
“It won’t be a waste if we can make the island appear.” Oscar rummaged through one of the grocery bags and found the bottle of potion. He also pulled out an apple. He let a drop of potion fall on it, then hurled it through the air. “Island!” he shouted.
They heard a small plunk, and Lucy thought she could see the apple floating in the water.
“What happened?” said Oscar. “I was imagining the island. Believe me, I know exactly what it looks like!”
Lucy thought for a moment. “I wonder if you already imagined it,” she said. “When you made the sea earlier, you imagined the same sea that you saw back in 1914. The island was in that sea, so it must exist in this sea as well. Maybe you can’t imagine something that already exists.”
“I guess we’ll have to wait for your moon path after all.” Oscar sighed.
It was the longest day ever. The sun was at high noon before they figured out that they were going to get dreadfully sunburned if they didn’t do something about it. After much debate, Lucy agreed to use the potion to change one of the grocery bags into an enormous beach umbrella (Oscar called it a parasol) that was large enough to shade them both. Eventually a gust of wind whipped it out of the boat. The parasol collapsed and sank before they could retrieve it.
As night fell, they took turns rowing, moving confidently along the path of light the rising moon shot across the water. After several hours, however, the path faded because the moon had risen too high.
“We’ll have to take another rest. Wait for it to set a bit,” said Oscar.
Lucy let the oars drop. The muscles in her arms and back were aching. Her hands were blistered and raw.
“The moon looks smaller than it did last night. It must be waning,” said Oscar.
Waning! thought Lucy. What if they were out here tomorrow night, and the night after, and the night after that? What would they do when the moon disappeared altogether? “I’m sorry,” she said. “I should never have suggested we do this.” She cupped her hands in front of her mouth, sheltering her palms from the cold air. “I should never have written what I did in The Book of Story Beginnings.”
“Now you sound like me — sorry for what you can’t undo,” said Oscar, shifting his position so he could stretch out in the stern. But a second later, he sat up, a look of astonishment on his face.
Lucy turned to see what he was gaping at.
It was a ship — a quaint, old-fashioned ship with a striped sail. It made Lucy think of model ships in old movies.
“You shout!” Oscar commanded. “Let me row!”
“Hey! Over here!” Lucy shouted as Oscar took over the oars. He rowed as if a steam engine were powering his arms. And still the ship sailed on, the distance between it and the rowboat steadily increasing.
“It’s no good. We’ve got to signal it somehow,” said Oscar, gasping for breath. “What about a flare?”
“A flare!”
“Yes — we could use the potion to imagine a flare.”
Thinking of flares made Lucy think of the Titanic. Was that before or after Oscar? “Do you know what a flare looks like?” she asked. “Have you got any idea how to shoot one off?”
“I think I could figure it out,” said Oscar. “But if you like, we could use a lantern.”
“Why not a big flashlight?”
“Go ahead! Hurry!” Oscar stood up, rocking the boat dangerously, waving his arms at the ship.
Lucy imagined the largest flashlight she could, modeling it on one she had seen at music camp last summer. “Flashlight!” she said, remembering at the last second to say, “with batteries.”
She fumbled with the switch. Then Oscar held the flashlight up above his head. He waved the beam of light slowly back and forth.
“They don’t see it,” said Lucy. “Try switching it on and off.”
Oscar handed the flashlight to her. “Over here! Over here!” he shouted as Lucy flashed the light at the ship.
“They can’t see it. We’re too far away!” cried Lucy.
“No! No, look! The ship’s turning around! They’ve seen us!”
As the ship turned broadside to the rowboat, Lucy saw shadowy figures stand
ing near the stern. One of the figures raised a hand and beckoned. “Come alongside ’n’ state your business!”
Oscar propelled the rowboat toward the ship’s hull, which rose up before them like the wall of a fortress.
“Put some muscle into it! We ain’t got all night!” a voice called. To Lucy’s surprise, she saw that it belonged to a woman. She could see the woman’s broad face peering down. Other, smaller faces grinned down as well, looking ghoulish in the darkness.
“They’re children!” whispered Oscar.
“It’s the law of the sea to help a sailor in need,” said the woman. “But so help me if you ain’t in need and you’ve slowed us down for nothin’. . . .
“Fetch a rope, Mavis!” she said, and one of the smaller faces disappeared. A minute later, a rope snaked its way down. “Hoist yourselves up!” ordered the woman.
“You first,” whispered Oscar. He grabbed the rope and held it taut for Lucy.
“Don’t forget to tie up your boat,” the woman called as Lucy tumbled over the rail onto the deck. A grinning girl helped her to her feet.
By the time Oscar flopped onto the deck, even more children — Lucy counted eight in all — had gathered around to stare. The oldest was a sturdy-looking boy with a wispy beard sprouting on his chin. The youngest was a little boy who kept yawning and rubbing his eyes. He sat down on the bottom rung of a ladder that led up to a small deck at the ship’s stern.
“Now’d be the time for statin’ your business!” The woman thrust her thumbs behind a pair of blue suspenders. These held up a pair of brown pants that looked like they had been made out of an old potato sack. The pants were tucked into a pair of battered brown boots.
“We’re lost!” Oscar and Lucy spoke in unison.
“You’re lost!” scoffed the woman. “I guess you are! Out in the middle of nowhere without a sail. What happened to you? Were you put off your ship?”
“What?”
“How’d you get here? Can’t tell me you rowed that old tub all the way out here. What’d you do? Get caught as stowaways?”
“No!” said Lucy and Oscar together.
“Where’re you headed?”
Not knowing what else to say, they told her the truth. That they were looking for an island inhabited by cats, and ruled by a king who couldn’t get along with the queen, who kept all the birds on the island in cages. The description tumbled out of them haphazardly because they were so anxious. Lucy wondered whether the woman might be a pirate. If so, she looked like she had invented the phrase Make them walk the plank! Her thick gray hair looked like it had been hacked off at the shoulders, probably with the knife that was tucked into her right boot. Her chin was crumpled up toward her nose, pulling her mouth down in what looked like a perpetual sneer.
But as they described their destination, there was a twitch in the sneer. “Cat’n’berd Island,” she said in a twangy drawl.
“You know it?” said Oscar.
“Headin’ there myself. Got a load of birdseed below deck to deliver.” Just as the woman said this, there was a thud from behind her. The little boy who had been yawning was lying on the deck looking dazed.
“Charlie’s so tired he fell right over, Auntie,” said the girl who had helped Lucy up earlier.
“Don’t just stand there gawkin’, Millie. Take your brother to bed,” said the woman. “And don’t forget to call me Captain.”
“Yes, Auntie — Captain.” The girl picked up Charlie and disappeared into a doorway next to the ladder. There was a little house beneath the stern deck. The ship’s cabin, thought Lucy.
“As for you,” continued the woman, turning toward them again. “What business has the likes of you got on Cat’n’berd Island?”
“We need to see the Queen,” Oscar said boldly.
“Well, ain’t that somethin’!” The woman grinned. “Jarvis!” she said to the boy with the wispy beard. “He says they need to see the Queen!”
Jarvis and the other children snickered.
“Now look here — you’re either daft as sea slugs or you’re lyin’ through your teeth,” said the woman. “No one sees the Queen less’n they’re somebody the Queen wants to see. And less’n you got feathers sproutin’ on your head, she don’t want to see you!” This comment brought on a new round of giggles from the children.
Oscar glanced at Lucy and rolled his eyes. “The Queen will see us,” he told the woman. “I can promise you that. And if you take us to the island, we’ll pay you.”
“How much?” asked the woman, as quickly as a cash register drawer sliding open.
“How much do you want?”
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Fair’s fair,” she said after a moment’s calculation. “Say twenty silver coins.”
“We haven’t got any coins,” said Oscar. “We haven’t got any money.”
Lucy had two dollars and some odd cents in the pocket of her jeans, but she didn’t see the point in bringing that up right now. “We’ve got a rowboat,” she offered.
The woman smirked as if she had been offered a toy boat. She said, “I also seen you got a lamp.”
“You want the lamp?” Oscar sounded relieved.
“Gimme the boat ’n’ the lamp, and I’ll see you get to Cat’n’berd Island.”
“All right with you, Lucy?” said Oscar.
“All right.” Lucy hoped the batteries in the flashlight would hold out.
“Deal, then!” said the woman, smiling broadly. “Hate to sound hard, but fair’s fair. I got a family to feed. Haulin’ folks back and forth between islands never made nobody rich. Jarvis! Let’s get goin’ again. Stupid to waste this good wind.”
“Yes, Auntie — Captain,” said Jarvis.
“And you two — Hugh, Mavis — climb over and secure that rowboat. Both ends now, and we’ll haul her out of the water. Mind the lamp. Hand it up careful or I’ll have your ears.”
As Hugh and Mavis scrambled over the side, the woman gave an agreeable nod to Oscar and Lucy. “Captain Amelia Mack at your service. Jarvis is first mate, but don’t tell him that. It’ll go to his head. The rest of my crew . . .” The captain took notice suddenly of the remaining children on deck — two small boys and a girl who were staring at them with big eyes. “The rest of my crew needs to get back to bed! See that they’re tucked in straightaway,” she told Millie, who had just emerged from the ship’s cabin.
“Yes, Auntie. . . . Can I come back when they’re all in?”
“Don’t let me see your face till mornin’,” Captain Mack said firmly.
“My sister Sadie’s lot,” she said as Millie herded the children through the door. “Eight of ’em she had. Always dyin’ of curiosity she was, to know whether the next one’d be a girl or a boy, whether it’d be pretty or plain, whether it’d have curly hair or straight. And there she is carryin’ the next one in line last winter when her husband ups and dies of the flu. Silly man, about as useful as a sail full of holes. Yes, I know,” she said, looking at Oscar and Lucy as if they had spoken. “It ain’t right to speak ill of the dead, but it was the plain truth. There he goes, leavin’ the family bereft and all, and then Sadie goes and has the baby and wouldn’t you know she dies, leavin’ behind a houseful of kids and a baby besides and only me, their aunt, to take care of everyone.
“I’m no saint, if that’s what you’re thinkin’, takin’ ’em all on board,” said Captain Mack. “Had seven of ’em already as crew, and it wasn’t much trouble to take on Charlie, though he’s too young to be much use for anythin’ but givin’ everybody practice shoutin’, ‘Man Overboard!’ But I couldn’t have the baby, naturally. Had to farm her out. Money out of my own pocket, too, payin’ for a full-time nurse, but nobody ever said I ain’t good to my own kin. And fair’s fair — I guess I owe Sadie somethin’ for the work I’ve got out of the rest of ’em. They’re a good crew, though I won’t swell their heads by tellin’ ’em so,” the captain concluded.
Just then, Hugh crawled over the side of the ship with the
flashlight. The captain watched with interest as Lucy showed her how to switch it on and off. “Never seen one like it,” she said. “Should come in handy.” She checked to make sure that Hugh and Mavis had secured the boat properly and sent them off to bed.
“You two will have to sleep on deck,” she told Oscar and Lucy. “Somewhere out of the way.”
“Jarvis!” she called as she climbed up the ladder to the stern deck. “You need to steer by the stars. If you expect to get there by the seat of your pants, you might just as well go naked!”
“Lucy — you know what this ship is, don’t you?” Oscar whispered. “It’s the ship of orphans. It’s that story beginning I wrote! I guess this means that one more story has gotten mixed up with all the rest.”
For breakfast, Millie brought them hard biscuits and coffee. Lucy, who had never been allowed to try coffee before, sipped it curiously, trying to force herself to like the bitter taste. Oscar drank his eagerly, all the while pelting Millie with questions about the ship. He seemed to know a lot about ships, though it did sound to Lucy as though most of his knowledge came straight out of Treasure Island.
“The ship’s called the Rosalie, after my dead granny,” said Millie. “She was Auntie’s mother. Auntie wants me to be captain of the Rosalie someday. That’s because I’m her favorite. I’m named after both her and Granny — Amelia Rosalie. You can call me Amelia Rosalie, if you like,” she said, smiling at Oscar and leaning toward him. “I got a secret,” she added. “I don’t want to be captain at all.”
“No?”
“No — not one bit,” said Millie. “I hate ships. There’s mice and rats down below. I hate mice and rats. And nothin’ but work, work, work, all day long,” she complained. “What I want is to be a lady. Do you really know the Queen?”
“Well, I guess you could say we do — in a way,” said Oscar, and Lucy could guess what he was thinking. After all, he had invented the Queen in his story beginning. For that matter, he had invented Millie as well. She must be the girl he had described in his story about the ship of orphans, the girl who dreamed of lords and ladies, of kings and queens.
The Book of Story Beginnings Page 11
