Red Sea

by Diane Tullson

  RED SEA

  DIANE TULLSON

  Text copyright © 2005 Diane Tullson

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Tullson, Diane, 1958-

  Red Sea / Diane Tullson.

  ISBN 1-55143-331-1

  I. Title.

  PS8589.U6055R42 2005 jC813’.6 C2005-903271-5

  First published in the United States, 2005

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2005927692

  Summary: After being attacked by Red Sea pirates, fourteen-year-old Libby is left alone on a hostile sea, far from home, to fight for survival.

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP), the Canada Council for the Arts, and the British Columbia Arts Council.

  Design and typesetting: John van der Woude

  Cover photograph: Getty Images

  Orca Book Publishers Orca Book Publishers

  po Box 5626 Stationb po Box 468

  Victoria,bc Canada Custer,wa usa

  v8r 6s4 98240-0468

  www.orcabook.com

  Printed and bound in Canada

  09 08 07 06 05 • 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Brendan

  Thanks to the usual suspects,

  Shelley Hrdlitschka and Kim Denman,

  and to Susan Goguen for

  their help with the manuscript.

  ONE

  THE ROAD FROM THE CITY is paved but dusty, and my sandals atomize small clouds that sift over my pant legs, my shirt, my chin and nose and eyebrows, then every strand of my hair until I’m dun-colored and faceless. I can taste it, Djibouti dust. It’s like particles of people and animals and African desert as old as anything is on earth, mixed with crumbling plaster and car exhaust. I draw attention; anyone new or different draws attention in these places, especially a girl, alone. Not that it bothers me. Guys here are not much different than guys at home. I know it bothers my mother that I’m alone, and that’s reason enough to do it. It’s the only time I have to myself, living on a sailboat with her and Duncan. I’ve seen walk-in closets bigger than our boat, but it could be the Queen Mary and still not be big enough.

  Below me, along the seawall, the sailboats jostle at the dock lines, not so much from the breeze as from all the activity on the boats. It’s pre-passage frenzy: crates of fresh food from the market stacked three-high by the boats, jerry cans of water and diesel line the seawall. We’ve waited here three weeks for the right weather for this Red Sea passage. Duncan’s boat is moored near the end of the line. I can see him and Mom on the deck of the boat fussing with the mainsail. I can tell from the bony hunch of Duncan’s shoulders that he’s stressed. At his age, he should think about his heart. Mom stands next to him, trying to look like she knows what she’s doing. She has more experience sailing than I do—about five days more. She took a crash course, so to speak, when they decided to take a year off from their college teaching jobs and fulfill Duncan’s later-than-midlife crisis.

  Two boats over, Emma is scrubbing the deck of her boat with a long-handled brush. She looks up, sees me and waves. It’s not actually her boat. She and her brother, Mac, are delivery skippers. I like Emma. She’s younger than most of this sailing crowd, twenty-eight, and she looks younger than that. She’s wearing a ball cap, backward, and a bikini, her standard attire when she’s working on the boat. Unlike the other women on these boats, Emma can actually wear a bikini. Slipping off my daypack, I rummage for the can of beans I’ve found for her, then wave it over my head. She shades her eyes to see, then gives me a thumbs-up. Emma likes beans for breakfast. She’s British. She calls us Canadians colonists. Smiling, I head down to her boat.

  She’s dropped her brush and meets me on the plank suspended between the stern of her boat and the seawall. When I step toward her, she holds up a hand to bar me from the plank.

  I say, “I’ll take my shoes off.”

  She shakes her head. “You’re all dust, Lib. You’ll make mud.”

  “Well, I guess you don’t want the beans very badly.”

  With a sigh she says, “Alright. But brush yourself off.”

  I do as she says, kick off my sandals and climb into the boat. Under the cockpit awning, the shade is cool refuge. I settle onto the cushioned bench and peel off my hat. “Why are you washing the decks when tomorrow they’ll be covered in salt?”

  Emma drinks from a water bottle, then tosses it to me. “I always clean the boat before a passage.”

  I empty the bottle. I never used to drink water at home. “So, it’s some sailors’ superstition?”

  Emma flops down across from me. “Maybe. It’s been lucky so far. Main reason though is that cleaning the boat is a good way to check things over. So, you found me some beans?”

  I lob the can to her. She says, “Where did you find it? No, don’t tell me. I don’t care.” She blows the dust off the top. “No bulges, no rust. Bonus.”

  “You’d probably eat them anyway.”

  She laughs. “Mac would.”

  We met Emma and Mac in Australia. Duncan bought his boat there, and Emma and Mac were picking up this one to deliver to Tel Aviv. In Djibouti we joined up with a couple of other boats to travel north, up the Red Sea to the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean. Mom wants to sail in Italy, the Isle of Capri and all that. Italy is still a long ways away.

  I say, “Where’s Fanny?”

  Emma thumbs toward the side of the boat. “Feline terror. She dumped my basil plant last night, so we threw her overboard.” She laughs at my reaction. “Put your eyebrows back, you know we didn’t. She’s sleeping. I rigged her up a basket hammock that she quite likes. Hopefully, she won’t get seasick.”

  Fanny is a seawall kitten Emma and Mac adopted from here, one of hundreds that live off the town garbage. You never see an old seawall cat. I would have brought home a dozen by now except Duncan says he’s allergic to cats. Right.

  “Can I go see her?”

  Emma feigns exasperation. “Who do you really come visit, the cat or me?”

  “I brought you beans, didn’t I?”

  She shrugs. “I don’t suppose you found chocolate?”

  “On the next shipment from Paris, not that I could afford it anyway. I’d have to marry a Somali general and bear him ten brown babies.”

  “Steep price to pay even for chocolate, Lib, and it would only melt.” She gets up and heads through the small door to the companionway below. “Come on, you can help me plot our course for tomorrow.”

  I follow her down the steps into the boat. “That sounds too much like school.”

  “Have you done any schoolwork today?”

  “No, Mother.”

  Inside, the boat curtains are drawn against the heat of the sun. I blink as my eyes adjust to the dimness. “Although I did find an Internet café and read two newspapers from home. It’s snowing there.”

  Emma shudders. “It always snows in Canada.”

  “Technically, somewhere, like the polar ice cap maybe. Not in Vancouver, even in winter. In Vancouver when it snows they close the schools. It’s like a gift.”

  “And you checked your e-mail?”

  I know what she’s asking. She’s asking if Ty has written me. It’s almost three months now I’ve been gone. I e-mail him every day when we’re in port.

  I say to Emma, “I heard from my friend Jesse and she says Ty is moping.” Actual
ly, what she said is that school is boring and Mr. Waring, the PE teacher, is up on charges of sexual misconduct and that she has a new boyfriend, like that’s news. “Ty is probably too sad to write.”

  The gray tabby kitten is curled asleep on a scrap of toweling in a round basket that Emma has suspended over the seating area. Emma rocks the basket gently. “She has the best berth in the boat.” Reaching in, I gather the kitten into my hands. The kitten startles, then stretches and yawns. I cradle it under my chin. Emma says, “Fickle thing likes you best.”

  The kitten purrs as I stroke it. Some of the seawall kittens are too feral to hold. This one was born to live with people. “I’m going to miss you while we’re sailing, Fanny.”

  Emma snorts. “We should be under a week to Port Sudan. I think you two can be apart that long.”

  I try to make my voice sound like I’m joking and say, “I could sail with you and Mac. I could be your crew.”

  Emma might laugh at the thought of me as crew, but she doesn’t. “Your mother needs you. And Duncan does too.”

  The kitten rests its paws over my shoulder and gazes longingly at the top of the cupboards. When I scratch it behind the ears, it drools. “Mom and Duncan don’t need me. They only dragged me on this trip because they couldn’t trust me at home on my own.”

  “You’re fourteen, Lib, never mind your gorgeous face and long red hair. I wouldn’t have left you either.”

  “Right.” She’s been at sea too long. “I could have stayed with my dad. It’s not like I would have been totally alone.” Not that Dad was jumping up and down to take me. Every other weekend is more of me than he can handle. “I have an aunt, or my grandparents would have taken me.” They would have, except they live a two-hour drive away from Ty, so what would be the point? “Duncan is probably endangering our lives.”

  Emma waves me off. “I’d sail with Duncan in a heartbeat. He’s a flawless navigator, he maintains his boat in perfect condition, he sails better than a lot of racing skippers—”

  I cut her off. “And I’d be fine on my own back home. Weren’t you only a couple years older than me when you left home?”

  Emma nods. “I was sixteen. But it was different for me.” She pauses, looks at me. “Duncan seems to me to be a good man.”

  Now I snort. “So you win. You had the worst stepfather.”

  “I didn’t mean that. You’ve got a different notion about Duncan. I’m just saying that I like him.”

  The kitten bats at a strand of my hair. “I have no idea what my mother sees in him.”

  Emma laughs. “Maybe he’s good in the rack.”

  “Please.”

  “He’s quite fit, you know, for someone his age. So limber.” She lifts her eyebrows suggestively.

  I set the kitten down on the floor where it proceeds to hunt imaginary prey. “Maybe you’d like to have Duncan.”

  She smiles. “Ooh, I might. I’ve always loved tall, dark, handsome men.”

  “Duncan is totally gray and wears glasses.”

  “Exactly right. He’s nothing like my old boyfriends, and that has to be good.” She laughs. “Why did you choose Ty?”

  I shake my head. “I didn’t. He chose me. Last year it was Taryn Talbot. Year before that it was Ashley Somebody.”

  “What, like a term position? He turns in the girlfriend with his textbooks?”

  I smile. “He’s not in school anymore, and any time with Ty is worth it, for as long as it lasts.”

  Emma rolls her eyes. “You’re telling me exactly nothing about this guy. Let me guess, he has a car.”

  “He does, actually.”

  “And he’s drop-dead gorgeous.”

  “He is.”

  “Bet he doesn’t have a library card.”

  “He likes car magazines.”

  “Reads them for the pictures. Does he have engine grease under his nails?”

  “No. And he chews with his mouth closed and doesn’t scratch himself in public.”

  Emma nods. “Admirable, but you still haven’t said what you like about him.”

  She’s waiting for an answer. I say, “Everyone wants to be with Ty.”

  “And he’s good to you?”

  I look at her. “Of course he’s good to me.”

  She says, “When I was sixteen, when I left my mother’s, I went to my boyfriend’s place. He always had lots of people around him too. One night he got drunk, more drunk than usual, and shattered my cheek.”

  “Nice. Sounds like a real winner.”

  “Well that’s the thing, isn’t it? Based on what my mother dragged home, I thought he was. Took me a while to see that I could do better.”

  Emma’s looking at me, hard. I say, “What has this got to do with Ty? Just because the guy doesn’t write me means that he’s going to smash my face? Or has my mother been talking to you?”

  “Your mother doesn’t talk about Ty.” Emma pauses. “It’s more what I see in your eyes when we talk about Ty. It’s like looking in the mirror.”

  Now I roll my eyes. “Right.”

  Emma scoops up the kitten and sets it on my shoulder. “But if you say that Ty is good for you, then I’ll believe you.”

  The boat tips gently and I hear Mac’s footsteps on the deck. He appears at the top of the stairs, a lidded plastic container under one arm, a net sack of lemons in his other hand. He grins at me and says, “Hey, Lib. What should I toss you, the lemons or the kitty litter?” He feigns a throw with the plastic bin, then passes me down the lemons. “All set over on Mistaya?”

  “I guess.” Duncan let Mom name the boat. Mistaya. Apparently it means little bear. I think it means big mistake. Still, I’ll take Mistaya over the name on this boat: Pandanus. Emma says she doesn’t name them, just delivers them. I take the lemons from Mac, set them on the counter, then the plastic bin. Examining it, I say, “This looks like regular sand.”

  Mac climbs down the stairs, his bare feet treading lightly on the polished wood. Mac is hardly taller than Emma and me, slim but well built, and his hair, even plastered with sweat, sticks out from his cap in blonde spikes. His grin gleams white against the tan of his face. “Not just any sand, I’ll have you know. It’s Sheraton beach sand, carefully screened to remove twigs or pebbles that might irritate the rich clientele. Or Princess Fanny.” He strokes the kitten’s forehead. To Emma he says, “I checked for cockroach stowaways.”

  Emma grimaces. “Keep the lid on, anyway.”

  Mac wipes his forehead with the sleeve of his T-shirt. Under his arms, the shirt is marked in half-circles of wetness. But he doesn’t stink, Mac; I detect just a faint scent of salt and sun as he leans close to me to pat the kitten. At twenty-four, he’s too old for me, but he’s nice to look at. He catches my eye and winks. “Pre-passage bash here at sundown. I’ll save you a spot by me.”

  And a mind reader, apparently. I will myself not to blush as I hand him the kitten.

  Emma jabs him in the ribs. “Chasing fourteen-year-old girls? Are you adding ‘pervert’ to your criminal repertoire now?”

  Mac pretends to be hurt. “I’ve rarely, if ever, broken the law.” He adds, “And got caught, that is.”

  I never know how serious Mac is being. Most of his so-called crimes seem to be fairly regular exploits, like when he was younger, downhill-racing in shopping carts. In Australia, I’ve seen him surf when there were sharks. No one else was anywhere near the water, not me, that’s for sure. I don’t even like wading in the sea. Swimming pools are bad enough, but at least in a pool you can see the bottom. Mac is fearless. In the towns we’ve been to, Mac explores the darkest lanes. He says that in hot countries, the shadows are the best places. Once, he took Emma and me into a tiny place, no tables, just a packed-earth floor, so dark I stumbled over my feet. We leaned against the plank bar and shared stewed lamb from a blackened terracotta pot, dipping bits of golden flat bread into a fiery broth of garlic and cumin that made sweat break out on my forehead. The proprietor gave us cans of warm Fanta soda, sliding carefu
l glances over Emma and me before averting his eyes. We always cover up before going into town, even our hair. But our eyes and fair skin are fascinating. I’ve stopped telling Mom where I go when I’m with Mac and Emma. I’ve stopped telling her much at all.

  Mac hands me three lemons as I climb up the stairs. “Tell your mother I’m fond of lemon pie.”

  TWO

  ON MISTAYA, MOM IS UP to her elbows, literally, in an immense pot of lasagna noodles. She always cooks for an army before we head out on passage so that she doesn’t have to go near the galley for the first few days at sea. Mom gets seasick, Duncan too, although at least he can eat. I could cook, but they wouldn’t like what I prepare, and with the motion of the boat, I might make a mess or spill boiling hot liquid onto myself. It doesn’t matter. I’ll eat the lasagna.

  Duncan pulls his head from the engine compartment, wipes his hands on a paper towel and makes a note on a clipboard. To Mom he says, “Oil level is good.” She murmurs “uh-huh,” which is the extent of her interest in diesel engines. Duncan latches the lid to the engine compartment, then leans down to check the battery indicator. He’s reminded me about nine hundred times: Always start the engine with one battery bank, let it recharge, then switch to the “house” bank to run lights, the refrigerator, and the electronics. That way you always have power to start the engine. No engine, no way to recharge the batteries. I’m not stupid, Duncan. Even on days with good wind, we always run the engine a while to recharge the batteries. And there are lots of days with no wind, or wind right on the nose, so that we run the engine just to get where we’re going. Some purists sail without an engine at all. Duncan sees me and says, “Lib, can you mark off the list of spare parts as I call them out to you.” It’s not a question, and he hands me the clipboard. It’s like a ritual with him, all this pre-passage engine checking, like a dog turning around three times before it goes to bed. I perch on the edge of the dining bench as Duncan lifts the lid to the locker. Inside, neatly labeled, is an array of brown boxes, zipper bags and bubble-wrapped lumps of machinery. I know it’s all there. So does he. But we go through the exercise all the same. I show him the list, completely checked off, and he smiles, satisfied. “Check the go-bag, then, will you.”