Terrible, Horrible Edie

by E. C. Spykman

  “You go home,” said Theodore furiously.

  “Go home bad dog,” said Edie freshly.

  He was near enough to see into the boat, and all the talking had waked Lou. She stood up with her thumb still in her mouth and looked around bewilderedly.

  “Where did you get those children?” said Theodore. “You ought to be ashamed.”

  “You taught me to sail,” said Edie, more freshly still.

  It was all they had time for. Edie heard Ted ask Jane to see if the boat hook was under the cockpit seat, so while she was feeling, Edie jibed. It took her right away from the P.D.Q., but it jolted the dory a little and made Lou sit down hard on the floor boards. The Fair Christine as usual had watched what was going to happen and crouched in time.

  “I want to get out of here,” said Lou, getting up and climbing onto the seat.

  “You sit down,” said Edie, “and keep quiet. We’re out sailing.”

  Theodore had shot yards and yards in the other direction, and Edie did not think he was coming after her. Wasn’t that the starter’s gun? And he was in a perfect place. She tacked up and down a few times more, but it was dull now that the fleet was off, so she thought she might as well go back. She would have to tack until she got to the point and then would have a fair wind home to the dock. Never, simply never, had anyone had such luck. Maybe she ought to ask to go to church on Sunday so that she could say a prayer. And she was glad that it was time to go home. The wind, unlike most afternoons at the beach, was dropping. It wouldn’t matter a bit once they were in the harbor, but she would like to get past the commotion of the tide rip that led through the narrows out to sea before it died altogether. There were some awfully black clouds coming up in the west. The dory began to pound a little, yawing this way and that.

  “Mith-thes,” Lou said, standing in front of Edie with her hands behind her back, “did you hear what I said to you? I want to get out of here.”

  They were getting into the tide rip and Edie had no time for her.

  “You’ll have to walk on the ocean,” she said absent-mindedly.

  Lou turned and started for the bow of the boat.

  “She’s going to try to do it,” said Chris hurriedly.

  “Catch her!” said Edie, watching her sail and feeling the tiller.

  But it wasn’t so easy. Chris could stop her, but she could not get her back; she could just pin her down against the centerboard and Lou was kicking and shouting.

  That Lou, Edie thought. She wondered if she could reach from the tiller to Lou’s hind leg. Going with the fair wind, the boat almost took care of itself now that they were nearly out of the tide rip. She slipped like lightning from her place on the rail, made one turn round the cleet to hold the sheet, slid the tips of her fingers down the tiller, and reached as far as she could. Not far enough. She made one swift dip with her body, caught Lou by the back of her pinafore, and lifted her back to where she could look after her. She unwound the mainsheet rope and settled back to steady the tiller with her body. There was no touch of wood under her arm. She looked. There was no tiller. It must have broken, it must have come off; she would have to use the rudder with her hands somehow. With her left hand she felt for it. But there was nothing there. No—feel—of—wood. No rudder! She took her eyes from the sail, from Lou, from the restless water, and twisted round to look over the stern of the dory. The rudder was gone. She looked for it behind them. It was not even to be seen. Her thoughts rushed like race horses. They would not drift onto it because it had been carried she could not tell where. She must have forgotten to tie the little rope that kept it from slipping out of its sockets, or the rope had broken. With something inside her that was almost like thunder she remembered that she and Susan had been going to get a new rope and hadn’t done it and that she had come out without oars. “Never sail without oars,” was one of Father’s rules. She could have easily steered home if she had had one.

  Edie saw now that they were drifting fast because the tide rip had caught them. They had just not gotten out of it. It simply meant that they would go out to sea instead of being pulled into the narrows; she and Madam’s two children. And it wasn’t a very nice day any more either. Clouds in the west were like ink, and the wind seemed to be in gusts. There were no real waves, but there probably would be. “I have got to do something quick, I have got to do something so quick that it must be this second,” she said to herself.

  “Chris,” she said, “we’ve lost the rudder. I can fix it, but you have to hold the sail. Can you? Wait till I say, then use two hands. I’ll put a half hitch round the cleat.”

  She did it all like lightning and Chris did what she was told, steady and solemn. Edie tipped Lou over on her back like a beetle and reached into the bottom of the dory. With a jerk she picked up one of the floor boards. It was spaced, but perhaps it would do.

  “I hate you, Mith-thes,” said Lou. She was having a hard time getting up.

  Edie drew the mainsail taut and gave Chris the end. “You have to hold it,” she said. “No matter what.”

  “I will,” said Chris.

  Edie leaned over the stern with the floor board and plunged it into the water. The first time it would not stay down, so that she had to lean farther. With her hair and forehead almost in the water she clasped the wood in such a way that it took the pressure of the water at last. She felt the dory steady and begin to inch forward. She dared to raise her head and look. It was working and they were going ahead. It was harder to believe than anything that had ever happened to her, even anything on this remarkable day. First they were all going to be dead, and then maybe they were all going to be saved. She was not yet quite sure, but the strain on her arms was getting a little less, which must mean they were getting near the mouth of the harbor. She hung down again almost upside down using her arms like clamps, keeping the dory strained against the floor board.

  “My hands hurt,” said Chris.

  “Her handth look like lobsterth,” said Lou. She was sitting in the bilge water that had been under the floor board and was having a good time bathing.

  Edie was able to get one eye up over the stern. Chris had wound the mainsheet round her hands and it was very tight. But Edie could not leave the rudder. She could not even let go with one hand. “Just one second more, Chris. Just one second.” The next time she twisted up Chris’s hands were blue, and great big tears were coming out of her eyes one by one. “All right, let go,” said Edie. They would have to drift back a bit. This time she would put a full hitch round the cleat and be very, very careful herself not to let the boat yaw into a jibe. Chris was holding her hands in the water, and the dory was losing way. “Take it once more, just once more, and don’t wind it round and round—do it just once.” Edie lifted the floor board back into the water. O Lord, O Lord, they might have lost too much. They were on the edge of the tide rip and almost crossing into quiet water. They would still have to work hard, but at least they would not have to worry about going out to sea. But Lou did not know anything about this.

  “She’s coming,” said Christine.

  Edie felt a soft, solid body against her legs. “Did you hear what I’ve been saying to you a hundred times?”

  “Go and play with the water some more,” said Edie.

  “I’m going to help you, Mith-thes.”

  “No!”

  “Yeth!”

  Lou climbed on the seat at Edie’s side and put her fat hands on the top of the floor board. It wavered. “I’m sthreering,” said Lou. “Chrithtine, I’m sthreering this boat.” The dory came up into the wind. “Let go the sheet, Chris, quick,” Edie said. She had to lift the floor board clear of the water and over Lou’s head. They began drifting back again. It’s like a nightmare, she thought. I wish it was a nightmare and that I’d wake up. She picked Lou up with two hands by the waist and Lou tried to give her a hug and kiss. “Later,” said Edie, “I’d love to kiss you later.” Rather hard and as fast as she could she put her down between her hard brown legs
. “You’ve got to keep still, do you hear,” she said. “Louli, keep still.” She fastened the mainsail again and handed the rope to Chris. “Now!” Again they had drifted, but they were nearer the harbor mouth than before. She held Lou as gently as she could, but she held her tight and when she squirmed, she held her tighter.

  “I would like to get out of this plath, pleeath,” said Lou. “I don’t like it in here. Itth too narrow.”

  Christine suddenly leaned over her. “Keep still,” she said right into her face. “Do you want to be dead and drownded?” She got back on the seat. “You can’t swim and the fishes would eat you,” she said, nodding, “all but the bones.”

  It impressed Lou. She put her thumb in her mouth and sat down on Edie’s ankles, leaning against one of her legs. “I don’t want to,” she said, over her thumb, after thinking it over.

  Going down the harbor was easy enough. The floor board made a fine rudder in quiet water, and Edie knew just how she was going to make her landing until she saw that G-nan was still on the dock. Probably she had never left it. Practically upside down with her hair dripping into the water and her arms stiff from being clamps, she realized that it was no good thinking they could go round the harbor until G-nan went away. She would never go away until she got The Fair Christine and Lou. That made up Edie’s mind. To tell the truth, she was tired of them, especially that Lou. Chris was a wonder. They could never have been saved without her. But just at the moment Edie did not want to have to take care of anybody but herself. She would take the kids in, but if G-nan tried to capture her, she would use the floor board.

  “Chris,” she said, “the minute I start to come about let go the sheet.”

  She came alongside the dock beautifully, and Chris did things exactly right. They rocked gently, rubbing the old wood, with the sail fluttering in their faces. Edie left the stern and held on amidships so that the children could crawl over the side. G-nan did not move; she stayed with her arms folded in the middle of the dock. Edie wondered if she were going to wait to attack her until she thought the kids were safe. She would watch her every minute. Christine stepped onto the seat and very properly onto the dock, Lou scrambled, but both of them ran and threw themselves at G-nan’s knees. “Did you thee us on the ocean?” said Lou. “I was sailing,” said Christine, stepping back. “I had to sail because we lost our rudder.”

  Edie looked up for a second from where she crouched.

  “I brought them back perfectly safe,” she said.

  G-nan looked at her. “I have telephoned your Aunt Charlotte,” she said, “to tell her what you have done.”

  Edie turned her back on her immediately. She would risk anything rather than look at her. “Well, skunks will be skunks,” she said quickly.

  G-nan turned and started toward the gangway. “Wait for Mith-thes,” said Lou, hanging onto her skirt. “I want to wait for Mith-thes.”

  “So do I,” said The Fair Christine. “She saved our lives, you know. She and I did together, you know.”

  But G-nan picked up a hand of each one of them and they had to go. Edie could see that Lou did her best and had to be carried like a monkey on a branch up the slope to the house.

  Edie put up the dory, rolling up the sails and putting them away in their bag, taking out the centerboard, making the boat itself good and fast. It was frightful about the rudder. Perhaps if she went along the beach she might find that it had drifted ashore. First, however, she unstepped the mast and took it to the boathouse. As she was coming out, she remembered her fifty-cent piece and felt in her pocket. Of all the luck, it was still there! But she would not trust Fate any further. She dug a hole by the wooden upright that held up the boathouse roof, wrapped the money in a leaf, and put it in. It would not pay for a whole rudder, but she could offer it at least as a beginning. Then she went up through the ravine to the top room where she had left Widgy and wrenched open the door. “Here, Widge,” she said, “here, old boy.” She expected to hear a rustle in the semidarkness and have Widgy come shooting out of it to greet her, but there wasn’t a sound. She went all over the room calling; she went out on the balcony to look there. He might be asleep and not have heard her. But she did not really believe that. She really believed suddenly and furiously that that gorilla had taken him, that she had done something to him. Perhaps she had killed him. Drowned him. It was what she had thought up as a punishment. Edie shot out of the boathouse, banging the door behind her, and raced down the little hill to Aunt Louise’s front hall. Gander was there picking up things that had been lying around.

  “Where’s Miss Black,” said Edie. “Have you seen her?”

  “I have not then,” said Gander. “Is it you are the wicked girl has the life tormented out of the poor woman?”

  Edie flew through the downstairs rooms and then up the stairs. No one was there. The wind was hardly blowing the curtains, which made the rooms seem emptier than ever. She opened all the closet doors, brushing the clothes and shoes every which way, but there was not a sign of Widgy. “Chris,” she called, “Lou!” at the top of her lungs, standing in the middle of the hall. Finally even louder she called: “Here Widge, Widge, Widge.” But the house seemed to be drowned in a late afternoon silence, and it just absorbed all her noise. She started running again and rattled down the back stairs and came out in the kitchen. Cook was polishing the stove.

  “Have you seen my dog?” Edie asked.

  “Sure, miss, I have him in the stove,” Cook said.

  Edie went on down cellar to Aunt Louise’s old-fashioned laundry and the bath houses, which were under the piazza. There was nobody anywhere. For a few minutes she had to stop because her heart was beating so fast. If that G-nan had done anything to Widgy—!

  But lucky for her she hadn’t. While Edie was listening to her heart she heard him scratching and whining, and she found him in the laundry tub that had a wooden cover over it. They were so glad to see each other that it took quite a while for them to quiet down. Edie went out with him and lay under the big honeysuckle vine outside the laundry. She let Widgy sit almost on her head and held him with her two hands. She had to scramble when G-nan and the children came around the corner, and Widgy was behind her back.

  Miss Black stopped. “You shall have your dog when you can behave,” she said. “He is perfectly safe.”

  “Thanks,” said Edie, getting up.

  Miss Black stared at Widgy who was panting in the sun. “You are a very naughty girl,” she said.

  “And you are an old hunk of blubber,” said Edie outrageously.

  “Your aunt,” said Miss Black, “will be here in a very short time now.”

  Aunt Charlotte did not come until Edie had had a chance to walk down the whole length of the shell road that bordered the harbor looking for the lost rudder. She felt very badly about it. Nobody would be able to use the dory until they got another, and if they had to wait until she could save the money out of her allowance, it would take several years. It wasn’t likely either that anyone would lend her anything. It was her fault, it was bad seamanship, and it was because she had tried to play a trick. She had to find the rudder, and when the shell road left the harborside, she went along the beach. It could have been washed ashore if the wind and the tide were right. She was not very hopeful. The wind had died and the tide would have taken it out to sea, but she kept on, even trespassing on the beaches of the big shingled houses that ran out to the point, where they had breakwaters and walls to keep their sand from being washed away. When the sand gave out at the end of the harbor, she climbed over the enormous boulders at the point to get a view out to sea. There was not a sign of anything bobbing in the water, but through the outlet to the bay she could see that the racers were heading for home. And it was a good thing. There were a lot of black clouds coming up over the bay. She started back herself. There were not half as many thunderstorms at South Harbor as there were in Summerton, but when there was one, it was worse. Still, she would stay out till the last minute. Aunt Louise’s house
would not be very comfortable if G-nan were telling her woes to everyone and Edie had an idea that there would not be many people on her side. Certainly not Theodore. Hubert would go away and sit somewhere out of sight, Jane would just stand there, and the children were no good in a fight any time. What in the world she would do with Aunt Charlotte she did not know. She was not anyone you could talk to. She was not the kind of person who ever would listen. She would probably do something terrible and she would talk a long time before she did it. In the soft sand that made walking so hard Edie suddenly felt tired and for one second had a thought that made her weak. “If only Madam were home!” But she stopped thinking of it quick. She saw the boats go by her into the harbor and waved brightly. “Did you win?” she screamed.

  “No,” Jane screamed back. “Hurry up, it’s going to rain.”

  “Hurry up, yourselves,” yelled Edie. She really thought of not hurrying at all, of going somewhere else, of getting to the village and taking a train somewhere, but she looked at the sky. It was an awful-looking sky, the worst she had ever seen, mountains of black clouds with green and yellow in them, and it was beginning to blow in much harder gusts.

  Edie got to the front door of Aunt Louise’s at exactly the same time as Aunt Charlotte. She was standing with her hand on the screen door when the big black car with the chauffeur ran up behind her. She didn’t have time to get out of the way before she was seen, so she put her hands behind her back and waited while John got out and opened the car door. He also helped Aunt Charlotte out because she seemed to be in a hurry. Edie waited for her scolding.

  “Get in, get in,” said Aunt Charlotte, looking carefully for the steps over her skirts and veils. “There’s a storm coming.”

  It started in just that minute with a boom of thunder.

  Everybody was in the hall. They had all come up from the boat by the piazza side, carrying the sails. G-nan and the children were in the background, and G-nan came through the crowd to greet Aunt Charlotte.