Navigating Early

by Clare Vanderpool

  Early busied himself folding up the tarp.

  “How’d you get it here?” I asked. “You couldn’t have carried it by yourself.”

  “Mr. Wallace helped me on the condition that I don’t tell anyone he took more than a few swalleys during the storm this morning. He doesn’t like storms. They make him nervous.”

  I didn’t care how many swalleys Mr. Wallace had taken. “Early, don’t you know whose boat this is?” I spoke to him kind of slow, as if he were a simpleton. “It belonged to someone who is a legend at this school. He was a student here and then went off to war. Surely you’ve heard of him. They call him the Fish.”

  Early stood looking straight into my eyes, as if he couldn’t understand what I was so intent on getting across to him. Finally, he spoke.

  “I know who he is. His name is Fisher. He’s my brother.”

  To say you could have knocked me over with a feather would be putting it mildly. This didn’t make sense. Heroes and legends didn’t have brothers, did they? No one ever talks about Sir Galahad’s brother. Superman had two sets of parents, but, as far as I knew, he didn’t have a brother. The Lone Ranger had Tonto but no brother.

  Uh-oh. I was starting to think like Early.

  Then I realized something—this was coming from a kid who had conjured up a whole story out of a number. He probably knew full well who the Fish was and had created this fantasy world in which they were brothers.

  I put my arm on Early’s shoulder. “Okay, let’s say he is your brother. That doesn’t mean you can just make off with his boat, does it?”

  “It’s not just his boat, it’s our boat. We built it together.” Early took a wooden seat from inside the boat and fixed it into position toward the stern of the Maine. It went in as nice and easy as you please and fit perfectly. We’d had to do some heavy-duty finagling to get the coxswain seat to sit right on the Sweetie Pie because it hadn’t been designed for one. But the Maine seemed to have been designed to hold not just any seat, but this very one.

  If it was true that Early and the Fish were brothers, why hadn’t any of the other boys mentioned it? There had been plenty of talk of Morton Hill’s greatest athlete and fallen war hero. Why hadn’t they said anything? I already knew the answer to that.

  Because they didn’t want to believe it. I knew how they felt about Early—he was strange, he lived in a cluttered old workshop, and he rarely showed up for class. They had cast him aside, and they didn’t want to acknowledge that the Fish could possibly have had a brother who was such an oddity, such a misfit. They ignored Early, students and faculty alike. They ignored him into nothingness, to the point where his name could be called during roll and nobody noticed or cared that he never answered. Or that he lived in the basement.

  And apparently nobody cared that he was still at school when nearly everyone else had left. Mr. Wallace, the custodian, was still around, but he was a bit of a loner himself and would probably not be aware of Early’s comings and goings throughout the break.

  Early stepped back into the workshop and headed toward his bulletin board, with its display of papers and leaves. He reached up high, to the upper right corner, and removed something. A chain—with two silver-colored metal pieces. He handed them to me. Dog tags. A soldier’s identity tags, worn around the neck. I touched the raised letters on metal that spelled out a name, serial number, and hometown:

  FISHER AUDEN

  37887466

  BETHEL, MAINE

  Then he handed me a small, crisply folded piece of paper. A letter with the words typed so sharply, I could feel them, raised, on the other side, so that forward or backward you’d get the same message.

  It is with deep regret that I write to inform you of the death of your brother, Lieutenant Fisher Auden.

  The message was clear. Your brother, Lieutenant Fisher Auden. This must be what Mr. Blane meant by proof by contradiction. Because those dog tags contradicted everything in my head that said Fisher could not be Early’s brother. The typed words went on.

  Eight members of Bodie Company were on a mission to destroy the Gaston Bridge along the Allier River in central France. Their position came under heavy fire. An enemy tank destroyed their barn shelter with a direct hit. There were no survivors. The remains were buried on site.

  I held the tags and remembered the clothes Early had loaned me after the incident in the pool. Clothes that were too big for Early. Fisher’s clothes. I felt my heart break for Early. His brother was dead as surely as my mother was dead. But somehow Early had maintained a sense of direction. He knew who he was and where he was going.

  I did not.

  By then the rain had slowed so that it no longer tapped on the window but only ran in teary streaks down the glass. The only sound left was Billie Holiday’s voice. That grainy sound of the record playing, and her words, filled with sadness and heartache.

  The song wound its way around me with echoes of gloom and sadness and ghosts of yesterday. A yesterday that was gone and wasn’t coming back.

  A restlessness rose in me. I didn’t want to be left alone with the gloom and the rain and the ghosts from the past. I knew then that I would follow Early, wherever he was headed. He may get us both lost, but that would be better than being lost and alone. That was what I thought, anyway.

  I turned around and handed Fisher’s dog tags to Early just as Billie Holiday finished her song and the needle shifted into the crackly empty space. Early handed me a backpack and indicated a drawer where I could find a few things to pack for myself. Among the items I threw in were a pair of extra socks, another flashlight, and my own Swiss Army knife, which I’d left there a few days earlier. Then, together, Early and I hoisted the Maine onto our shoulders and carried it to the mouth of the Kennebec River. The rain had stopped.

  “READY ALL, ROW!” Early called the command that was the rowing equivalent of “LOAD ’EM UP AND MOVE ’EM OUT!” His voice was a little flat and a little too loud. And it was clear and true. Right now, his was the only voice I could hear. And the only one I could trust. With that knowledge, I dipped the oars in the water and began rowing into the night with Early as my guide. If I still had any doubt about Fisher being Early’s brother, it was dispelled when the moon broke through the clouds and I saw a name carved into the handle of each oar: Early on one and Fisher on the other.

  I knew it was crazy to be searching for a fictional character who existed only in numbers, but Pi’s journey struck a chord in me. He was a voyager, Early had said. A navigator. One who keeps plotting a course and finding his way.

  “Early,” I said, working my arms and legs in smooth, efficient strokes as he had taught me, “don’t you think you’d better fill me in on how Pi got lost?”

  Early crouched in his seat, letting me row on my own without calls or direction. “Well, it all started back at the part where every number shows up in a row except one.”

  473906528 …

  Bound for Home

  THE SUN SET, and darkness covered the small island. But no darkness could smother the bright red and orange that spread like a blanket down the mountain. Pi was stranded. He had no boat. His skin prickled, and beads of sweat formed on his body as the heat oozed closer. Which way should he go? The lava shifted direction with no regard for what was in its path. Trees toppled. Rocks were smothered. He could run up the shore or down, but either way he might find himself with burning lava licking at his heels.

  How was it that he could survive a great storm and be saved by a whale, only to die on this tiny island? He knew that this time there would be no whale to escort him to safety. The very sight of the volcano nearly seared his eyes. He looked to the heavens, longing for a moment of calm like the one he had experienced in the storm. And then he saw it: the Great Bear, pointing the way to his star. Polaris. It had guided him this far. His mother had said the Great Bear was a mother herself. And a mother’s love is fierce. He would trust her. He would follow her. But she was pointing him out to sea, and he had no boat.

>   He would trust her. A piece of flat driftwood lay nearby. He took it up, gave it a shake, and set it on the water. It was small. It was thin. But it stayed afloat. Pressing his chest to the wood, he lowered himself into the water and paddled. When he could no longer paddle, he kicked. When he could no longer kick, he let the sea cradle him while he slept. Always he knew the Great Bear was watching him, beckoning him.

  A mother’s love is fierce. After many months and many trials, he felt he had earned his name. And he wanted to hear it in his mother’s voice. It was time for the young voyager to go home.

  To be called by name. To be known. To be loved. He was almost home. Floating on the driftwood, his mind wandered back over the many adventures of his journey. Learning the ways of the sea. Meeting strange people in even stranger lands. Surviving storms and sharks and bugs. What adventures he had to tell. As his body and mind floated, aimless and adrift, he felt a shadow pass over his face. But even more, he felt eyes upon him.

  It was a ship with a group of men, blurred by his sun-drenched vision, staring at him from the deck. He squinted, and just as his eyesight cleared he was hoisted aboard. Who would believe it? He’d been saved by a rough and ragged band of men, scarred and maimed from many a sea skirmish, always at the ready to steal goods, treasure, or kegs of rum from any vessel within their scope.

  They plopped Pi’s exhausted body on a pile of ropes and called for a jug of rum. A woman, the Haggard and Homely Wench by name, came forward with the rum and a jigger. She appeared to be the only feminine presence on board but was treated with such ill temper and vulgarity by the men that she could do little to soften their rough edges.

  The wrinkled, weathered, and one-eyed captain stepped forward, giving the order to administer the spirits to loosen the young man’s tongue. One of the crew grabbed Pi by the hair and poured a jigger of rum down his throat to rouse him enough to talk. Pi sputtered and coughed out words of searching and wandering and home. When the pirates realized he had nothing of value for them to steal, no buried treasure to lead them to, they prepared to throw him back into the ocean, until he dared them to go ahead. He told them he’d been hunted by sharks and nearly eaten by giant insects. He’d been attacked by an angry tribe of parched natives and outrun a river of molten lava. And he’d stared a whale right in the eye. “Go ahead,” he dared them. “Throw me into the ocean.”

  The pirates looked at each other, puzzled. Who was this young man who could not only escape death time and time again, but could tell the tale of it with such delight?

  “Tell us about your travels,” the captain said. “We have been long at sea and want to hear more.”

  So night after night, he regaled them with stories of his travels and adventures, the Haggard and Homely Wench filling their mugs with ale and rum. They threw him back in the brig at sunrise, but each night the pirates drank their rum and let Pi’s stories take them to distant lands and exotic peoples.

  Sometimes the head pirate, Darius, would tell stories of his own. Stories that Pi was sure were greatly exaggerated. Heroic tales of finding buried treasure and sinking entire fleets. Darius told of winning the pale and homely servant maid in a game of dice with a powerful witch doctor in the South Seas. The witch doctor had put a curse on the girl so that she would always appear the way others told her she looked. That was why she was always referred to as the Haggard and Homely Wench.

  Pi convinced the captain that he needed a better name—a pirate name. Darius was too plain. He called him Darius the Dreadful to his face, but to the servant girl, the Haggard and Homely Wench, who brought Pi fresh water and fruit and whose real name was Pauline, he called him Darius the Disagreeable. The two laughed about it. Pi looked at the girl and, gently tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, he told her she had a pretty smile. And suddenly she did. After a time, Pauline wasn’t so haggard and homely after all. In fact, she had turned into a beautiful girl. But always Captain Darius would call her from the deck by her Haggard and Homely name, and her hair would turn haggard and her face would turn homely.

  Pauline told Pi of the words the witch doctor had said would break the spell.

  Let go of your bondage,

  Step out of your chains.

  No longer be captive,

  Your beauty remains.

  But to break the spell, the chant had to be spoken by the one who held claim to her. And she knew Darius would rather be thrown into the sea than speak the words that would release her. She said he kept her ugly so that she would be so hideous, she would never run off in some port of call.

  As weeks went by, Pi dropped hints of calm waters filled with fish, and sandy beaches sprinkled with gold dust. He pretended to be drunk with ale when he told them of sailing into the north and around the Cape of Fortune, past the Blue Island Archipelago. Darius plotted a new course and steadily steered Pi closer to home.

  Finally, one night when Pi knew they were within safe distance of an inhabited island, he told Darius a story of a great and daring sea captain who had learned of a secret treasure buried in a rocky cave. But a sea witch had hexed the treasure with many spells and incantations.

  Darius pulled a knife from his pocket, demanding that Pi draw a map with the location of the treasure. Pi agreed but told Darius that without the proper words, he would find only a chest of rusted coins and jewels that had turned to dust.

  “Write it down,” he said. Pi did as he was told. Darius’s eyes glimmered. He raised his glass in a toast but found it empty. “Haggard and Homely Wench,” he called, “bring me more rum.” As she poured the liquor into his glass, he read the words from the treasure map.

  “Let go of your bondage,

  Step out of your chains.

  No longer be captive,

  Your beauty remains.”

  His eyes still on the map, Darius didn’t notice Pauline’s features turn back to their beautiful state.

  That same night, while Darius and his men slept, Pi assisted Pauline into a side boat and rowed her to the safety of that nearby shore.

  The perils of the sea were great. The small and rickety side boat was not a safe means of travel for a young woman. So, after leaving her in the care of a kind tavern owner and his wife, with assurances of love and a hasty return, Pi again set off alone, but this time he set a course for home. The journey was short and his heart light.

  But when he finally reached the shores of his youth, he found that his village had been attacked. There was great destruction, and his people were dead.

  He walked amid the ruins of his village. Some huts were burned to the ground, while other dwellings remained intact. The hut of his family was still standing, but most of the possessions had either been taken or smashed. In a corner, on the ground, he saw something. A great sadness pierced his heart as he reached to pick up the shell necklace his mother had made for him. She had wanted him to be able to hear the sea lapping on his home shore. She had wanted him to come home. But he’d left it behind. Too late—he remembered the words he had called out to her as he left. When I return. But he had been absent when this great destruction happened. He had returned too late.

  He placed the string of shells around his neck and felt their weight—the loss that they now symbolized. His family, his home, and the sound of the sea lapping the shores that he would not return to again.

  Despite his confusion and grief, he found a small fishing boat and once again took to the sea. But he did not look to the sky for guidance. Many days he sailed without direction, letting the wind steer his course. The moon waxed and waned and waxed again. Eventually, he could see past his tears, and once more he looked to the sky for guidance. To the Great Bear.

  But he couldn’t find her. At first there were only clouds and darkness. And even when the sky cleared, he found no Great Bear to lead the way. Perhaps his sadness had confused him. It was as if the stars had changed places in the sky and he could no longer distinguish which star was which. There was no longer a crab, a hunter, a fish. There was only a jum
ble of lights that seemed to flicker and fade.

  He thought of his mother—remembering the boy he was, standing next to her, cradled in her arms. But now she was gone, and he realized he had yet to earn his name. Pi drifted alone, with no direction, no bearing, no stars to guide him. He disappeared over the southern horizon and was lost.

  14

  We glided along in silence for a long time, each of us lost in our own thoughts. The river had a few turns that Early guided me through, and even though we were heading upstream, the current was slow. I took nice, easy strokes, and we settled into our assigned stations—me rowing, him calling out an occasional command. It felt good to be the brawn of our duo and let Early set the course.

  I couldn’t begin to guess what was going on in Early’s mind, and every once in a while, he would lapse into his absent stare. It usually only lasted ten or fifteen seconds, and then he’d be back. Always as if nothing had happened.

  My mind meandered this way and that, to Pi and Fisher and Mom—and Early, that strangest of boys. And yet here I sat, heading into the wilderness, rowing backward, facing Early. I didn’t know for sure that Early really knew where he was going, but I was in it for the long haul.

  After what might have been a few hours, Early took the length of rope from his pack and began making intricate knots. The sun was rising, shedding light on the folly of our trip. It was one thing to set off in the middle of the night. It had seemed more like a dream. But now, as Early worked his knots, I had a knot of my own forming in my stomach.

  I rowed harder, trying to keep ahead of the feeling I’d had since the end of Early’s last Pi story.