Harrison Squared (13 page)

Several overlapping tarps covered the ship from the deck to the bottom of the hull. The name of the boat would be on the bow, or at the very back of the ship. Bow first, I decided.

I found a gap between two tarps near the front of the ship and started rolling the canvas back. It was clear where the waterline usually was. Above the line, the hull was painted white, but below it was caked with barnacles and dark grime that could have been old algae. I kept pushing the tarp back, then stopped in surprise.

A large ragged hole had been punched through the hull, just above the waterline. The hole was perhaps three feet long and almost two feet high. Above the hole, in black paint, was the name of the ship: A
LBATROSS
.

“Now, that's a shame,” a voice said behind me.

I spun about, but the spear of icy pain in my leg told me who it was. The man in the wide-brimmed hat. The one Chilly Bob called the Scrimshander.

He wasn't looking at me. He was gazing at the chunk of white bone in his claw-like hand, and scratching at it with the tip of his long knife.

“You know what killed the cat?” the Scrimshander asked.

I couldn't make my throat work. I couldn't move.

The Scrimshander tilted his head. I could see nothing but a narrow chin and thin lips. Then he smiled. The teeth were very white, and sharp.

Then he said, “Me.”

*   *   *

You know that phrase, “My knees went weak”? I thought it only happened to people in love songs.

I fell forward, my meat leg as dead as my carbon-fiber one. My hand seized on the canvas, and as I fell the material popped free of whatever held it to the ship. The cloth dropped onto the Scrimshander. He shrugged it aside and moved toward me. I was on all fours, my heart pounding. He reached for me.

The
Albatross
rested on a metal lift. I rolled under the crossbars, then scrambled to a crouch. Too fast, and too high; I bashed my scalp against the keel and stumbled toward the other side of the boat.

The opening to the bay was maybe thirty feet away. I ran, stumbling over hoses and extension cords. I'd almost reached the garage door when I realized I couldn't get out that way; the boat bay, still holding Bob's outboard, blocked me.

The metal door began to descend, the metal wheels shrieking in their tracks. I cut left to circle around the boat bay—

—and the Scrimshander was waiting for me. He'd come around the other side of the
Albatross
. He stalked forward, his head still bowed. The knife dangled at his side, twitching like a fish on the line.

I looked at the water in the boat bay. I knew what I had to do. Jump in, swim under the garage door, then get to the shore and the road.

Now,
I thought.

My legs didn't move.

Now!

My body wouldn't obey. My eyes were fixed on the surface of the black water, and I seemed to be hovering above my right shoulder, watching myself. Screaming at myself.

The Scrimshander grabbed me by the throat. “What's the matter? Can't swim?” He squeezed my trachea, choking me. I grabbed at his arm with both hands. The skin of his black coat slid from my grip like something alive.

“Me, I love the water,'” he said. He walked me backward, toward the boat bay. “Practically born to it.”

I sucked in air, but his grip was too strong. The garage door rattled down, cutting off the light.

“The thing is, when you're afraid of something, there's only one thing you can do.” The Scrimshander shoved me, and I flew backward. The water slapped into my back, and then I was under, into the cold.

I flailed my arms and managed to get my head above water. The Scrimshander dropped to one knee at the edge of the bay and put a hand on the top of my head, almost caressing it. He leaned close and said, “You got to dive right in.”

He pushed me down, below the surface of the water, and kept a firm grip on my head, keeping me under. I clawed at his arms, but I couldn't get a grip on the slick material. I couldn't breathe, couldn't see. The water was pitch black.

I wanted to scream, but knew that if I did I would die. Still the man wouldn't let me up. I bucked against his grip, and he pushed me down farther.

I felt my pulse in my ears. My chest burned. I clamped my mouth shut and tried to reach out, to the side of the metal edge of the boat bay, but it was too far away.

Something fastened around my left ankle.

I did scream, then. The air rushed out of me.

The thing around my leg tightened, then pulled down—hard. My skull blazed with pain; it felt like a chunk of hair had been torn out by the roots.

The thing dragged me down, down. My lungs burned, and spots erupted in my vision. I saw my father. He was looking at my face, and he was saying, “Look at the jellyfish.” His voice was clear and strong, and for the first time I could remember what he sounded like. I thought, Hi, Dad.

And then I wasn't thinking of anything at all.

10

How long in that same fit I lay,

I have not to declare;

But ere my living life return'd,

I heard, and in my soul discern'd

Two voices in the air.

I woke in the dark, something sharp digging into my back. I moved onto my side to get away from the pain, but then something burned in my chest and I coughed. Water sprayed from my lips. Someone slapped me between my shoulder blades and I coughed again, then again, desperate to clear my lungs.

Finally I stopped convulsing and breathed deep. I became aware that I was wet, and very cold. I opened my eyes.

I lay on my side on a rocky beach. The water was only a dozen feet away, and Dunnsmouth Bay gleamed in the moonlight. I tried to remember where I was. I'd been at the pier, then …

I jerked to a sitting position. Someone was squatting next to me, skin glistening like an eel's.

I shouted and scrambled backward. “Get away from me!” My voice was a raw bark.

The figure rose to its feet.

It was the fish boy. His large eyes caught the moonlight. His wide mouth was set in a thin straight line that turned down at each end, and that jaw looked like it could unhinge and swallow a toaster. He raised one hand and spread his fingers. Webbed fingers.

For a long moment we stared at each other.

Finally I said, “You saved me, didn't you?”

He blinked slowly.

“And you can understand me?”

His gills opened on each side of his neck, then flapped shut.

“Just nod if you understand what I'm saying,” I said.

“Okay,” the fish boy said.

“You can talk!”

“You should keep your voice down,” he said. His own voice was low and resonated strangely. His accent, too, was off-kilter, as if all the vowels had taken a step to the left. “We're not that far from the pier.”

“You can talk!” I said again.

“Okay, you're in shock,” he said. “That's probably hypothermia.” I didn't say anything, and the fish boy said, “That's when a human's body—”

“I know what hypothermia is.” I was already shivering, and the wet clothes were sucking the warmth from me. My wet hoodie felt heavy as cement.

“We've got to get you dried off,” the fish boy said. He stood up, then extended a hand. “My name's Lub.”

That hand ended in claws, and reminded me too much of the Scrimshander's. But I shook it. “Thanks, Lub.” At least that's what I meant to say. I was shivering so much now that all I managed to get out was a stuttering “Thanks.”

“My b-b-book,” I said.

“Oh, right,” he said. “Newton and Leeb! Sorry about that. But I did give it back. Plus I just saved your life, so that should be worth something.”

Lub was naked but for a pair of skater shorts that hung down to his knees, but he didn't seem to feel the cold. I was trembling uncontrollably now, every muscle trying to jump off my bones. I had so many more questions.
Why did you say my mother's alive? What are you? How did you find me?
But my teeth were chattering like a wind-up Halloween skull.

Lub led me up the densely wooded hill, toward a road. He was taller than me but seemed about the same height because of the way he moved, hunched over, arms swinging. He kept pausing to check on me. I was bent almost double, my arms wrapped around my stomach. My feet didn't seem to work properly. My carbon-fiber leg seemed too heavy, and I kept tripping over rocks and tree roots. Because of the shivering I could barely look left or right. I walked in a tunnel.

I bumped into a tree and then leaned against it. My mouth made a hissing sound. I was trying to say
Stop a second,
but my jaw did not want to unlock. I wanted to lie down. Get warm. I thought, Maybe if I take a nap here, just for a little while, I'll feel up to the hike home.

Lub put his arm around me. “Come on, Harrison. You can do it.”

He helped me away from the tree, then half carried me up the hill. He was surprisingly strong.

Finally we reached level ground, the edge of the roadway. I tried to remember the number of the highway that ran past town—61? 65?—but my brain wouldn't cooperate. A car's headlights approached from the distance.

Lub said, “Harrison, can you talk? Can you tell them how to get home?”

Tell who? I wondered. But I nodded. “Sh-sh-sure.”

“Wait here,” he said. He stepped out into the middle of the road and began to wave his arms. The lights grew bright, and the car kept coming.

It's not going to stop, I thought.

Brakes squealed, and the headlights slewed from one side of the road to the other. Lub leaped off to the side. The car shuddered to a stop right where Lub had been standing.

Lub ran to me and crouched. “Terrible driver.”

A car door opened, and woman's voice said, “Oh my God! What are you? Get away from him!”

“Got to go,” Lub said. “Please don't tell the human about me. I'm serious. They
will
hunt me.” He disappeared down the hill, into the trees.

I forced myself to walk out onto the road. A woman in a short white dress gaped at me, openmouthed, like one of the stuffed fish on the bait shop's walls.

It was Nurse Mandi. With a heart to dot the “i.”

“Help,” I said. I was very proud of myself that I said the word so clearly.

*   *   *

It was a glorious thing to be warm. The next morning, I woke up in my own bed, under half a dozen blankets. I was still drowsy, and my sleep-fuzzed brain decided it would be a good idea to never leave this bed. Mom could make me breakfast in bed, and we could …

No. Mom was gone. Missing.

But maybe still alive.

The memories of last night rushed back to me. I'd nearly drowned. The Scrimshander was out there, waiting. But also, Lub was out there. And for some reason that allowed me to think that Mom could really be alive. If the world contained things like a fish boy, anything was possible.

When I'd appeared at the house last night, half carried by Nurse Mandi, Aunt Sel had swung into action like a one-woman NASCAR pit crew. She put me in my bed, then stripped off my clothes. I was too dazed to be embarrassed. She struggled with my leg's snap-lock, then finally got it undone. Water poured out of it.

She found sweatpants and a T-shirt, pushed me into them, then buried me in blankets. At some point Nurse Mandi said, “We should check his…”

“Pulse?” Aunt Sel asked. “What?”

“… temperature.” I was surprised the nurse was still there.

Aunt Sel managed to find the thermometer in our bathroom supplies. As I lay there with the thing under my tongue, Nurse Mandi said, “I think he'll be fine.”

Aunt Sel said, “Are
you
going to be fine?”

“Why would you ask me that?” Nurse Mandi said.

“Because your mascara is all down your face. Also you seem a little—”

“Heartbroken?”

“I was going to go with a different word, but sure. Man trouble?”

“There are monsters out there.”

“You got that right, honey. Now, let me take care of Harrison for a minute, and you just take a seat in the living room and we'll have a nice chat.”

“I really should be going.”

“Nonsense. Let's have a little girl talk before you get behind the wheel all … heartbroken.”

I must have drifted off, because the next thing I remembered, Aunt Sel was holding a cup to my lips: hot tea loaded with honey. I'd never liked tea, but I had to admit I liked the sensation of the warm liquid sliding down my throat and into my stomach. I don't remember finishing it.

Now my body ached in strange places: my shoulder, my left ankle, the top of my scalp. I gingerly patted the crown of my head, where the Scrimshander had held onto my hair—held on while Lub yanked me down.

I knew I wouldn't be able to stay in bed all day. I had to get out, and tell someone.

I'd just thrown off the covers when Aunt Sel knocked on the frame of my door. “Back in bed, kid. It's Saturday. Besides, I'm not letting you leave the house.”

“We have to call the police,” I said.

“Why? What happened?”

“There's a boat. It's called the
Albatross
, and it's in the garage down by the bay. At a place called J. Ruck's Marine Engineering.”

“This is where you fell in and banged your head? All you said last night was, ‘I fell in the water.'”

“It's got a hole in it, Aunt Sel—right in front. The boat rammed my mom's boat. Or something. I'm not sure how. But I think—”

“Okay, okay,” she said. “But breakfast first.”

She brooked no disagreement. She sat me at the kitchen table with an afghan around my shoulders and wouldn't allow me to speak until I'd finished a bowl of cereal and a tall glass of orange juice. Nurse Mandi, thankfully, was not still in the house.