Slick (7 page)

Melissa grabs my elbow. “Make your speech!” she whispers.

With his booming voice, Darryl calls for the crowd's attention. The wind dies down right at that moment, so I don't have to shout.

“There are environmentally gentle boats,” I begin, reading the speech I've worked on for a week, “such as the Salish dugout canoes that traveled these waters for thousands of years. And there are aggressive boats, such as motorboats and container ships. Our coast is wild and rough. It is also sensitive and complex as lace. Plankton, seaweed, salmon, seals, eagles—just as
we
need clean water, they do too.

“We can't let tankers bully up and down our narrow inlets. Yes, the oil they carry means a kind of life—movement and money. But it takes only a drop of oil the size of a dime to kill a seagull. Imagine a sleepy captain, hurricane-force winds, a broken computer. And a tanker loses its way and crashes, spilling hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil.

“The boats we're sending out this evening are gentle boats. They won't hurt the ocean and its creatures. They're at home here. Tankers are not. Ready? Launch!”

At first the boats cling to shore. A few nervous laughs. But Hannah's mom, a kayaker, says the currents at Arbutus will soon carry the boats off. And they do, as if stirred by a witch's wand.

“Wonderful speech, daughter.”

I wheel around. It's Mom! “What are you doing here? And—Ro-Robert. Hello.”

“Surprise!” Slick grins. He's got a boat in his hand. “Launch time, Laura.” I can't believe it. I look around at the crowd—they sure have no idea an oil executive is among them!

Mom launches her boat while Slick removes his fancy shoes. I guess he doesn't want to get them wet. Mom comes over and puts her arms around me. We watch as Slick crouches at the water's edge and gives his boat a little push.

“Robert's been learning from you,” Mom says quietly. “He says you walk the talk.”

Robert joins us. “This is really beautiful, Liza,” he says. Then he looks me in the eye. “I know it's a bit weird that I'm here. But I want to take your message to the company.”

“Robert's going to research his company's records,” Mom says.

“I've been very thankful to the company. They've given me a living,” Robert explains. “But maybe I've been too thankful. I just assumed they were doing the right thing. When I learned they were dragging their feet on those compensation payments, I was shocked.

“Now, I want to make sure the company doesn't step on the Gitga'at. Or endanger the environment. I'm going to be asking hard questions at meetings over the next few weeks.”

“Just taking oil out of the ground is bad for the environment,” I say. “And for what? For rich people to burn up in their Hummers?”

“Liza—,” Mom warns.

“She has a point,” Slick says. “And it's a good one.”

“Anyway, couldn't you lose your job?” I ask.

“It's possible,” Slick nods and looks out at the water. “Does GRRR! have an opening for a ceo?”

“No!” I laugh.

Slick nods. “You know, I like my job. And the pay is nice. But you and your mom and your brothers, you bring me a lot of happiness. You make me rich, the real kind of rich.”

So maybe Slick isn't such a bad guy, I'm thinking. He acts on what he learns.
That's
cool. Maybe he's like a rattleback. Maybe he will switch directions completely.

The crowd starts to thin. People head home. The three hundred paper boats bob in the moonlight. Overnight, they'll dissolve into the water.

The girls of GRRR! huddle with our heads together:

“Way to go,” Melissa enthuses.

“Beautiful,” Emma T. concurs.

“Here's to happy salmon!” I say.

“To green forests!”

“To blue waters.”

“To Olive, who wanted to be here.”

“Hip hip, hooray!” we hug each other.

Then Mom, Silas, Leland and I— and Slick—pile into the car. “Wait!” Slick shouts as I climb into the back. “My turn.”

He takes my arm and leads me to the front seat. Then
he
gets in between Silas and Leland. “Enjoy the ride, everyone,” Mom says. “We're getting on our bikes tomorrow. Time to walk the talk.”

“You mean bike the gripe,” Silas jokes.

I look at the backseat. Silas is rosy-cheeked from the night air. Leland is dozing off. And Slick just looks squashed, his knees practically pressed into his eye sockets.

Mom squeezes my knee and smiles. “Homeward, co-pilot?” she asks.

“Homeward,” I reply.

The cuffs of my jeans are wet with sea water. They're rough and cold against my ankles. But I don't mind. I don't mind at all.

Epilogue

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]

Comrade Liza!
Attached are photos of the Seattle GRRR! flotilla. A beautiful night.

I got a letter from the farmers of the Riviera Selequa. Oil spills have polluted lands along a pipeline that crosses thousands of hectares of indigenous land. The government and oil companies say it isn't their fault. They're threatening to jail environmentalists, journalists and local leaders who try to speak out.

They want me to let you know.

Rise up!

Jamaica

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]

Liza!
Ran into Niall, and he gushed about your amazing speech.

While you were on the beach, I got my parents to watch
An Inconvenient Truth,
that movie about climate change. It was like watching two people turn into rocks. They went dead silent. Then we had a family meeting. We've turned down the heat in the house three degrees—I need slippers—and we're not buying anything new except food for a year! You just might see me at the next Critical Mass ride!

Love, Olive Pit

From: aLynne@gitga'at.com
To: [email protected]

Dear Liza,
I read about your flotilla launch in the newspaper. Wonderful!

I live on the Douglas Channel.

Sometimes people block roads so logging trucks can't get through and wreck the wilderness.

You can't block water as easily. So I dream of crocheting a chain of wool and stretching it across the Channel. The little string wouldn't stop the tankers, but it would symbolize the fragility of our existence and show the magnitude of our fight.

Would GRRR! be interested in doing a little crocheting?

Sincerely,

Lynne Hill

Author's Note

While most of
Slick
is fictional, much is true. The Maya people's land and human rights are continually violated by the oil industry, especially the Maya Queqchi people, who live in a central strip of Guatemala.

Oil spills have polluted vast amounts of indigenous lands along a pipeline from a refinery in La Libertad, Peten, to Puerto Barrios, Izabal. Government officials as well as oil companies deny responsibility, and, yes, people are threatened with jail or physically hurt when they speak out.

Often indigenous peoples don't know their rights have been violated, mostly because they have long been treated as “sub-citizens” in their countries, as if they have no rights. Rich, poor, black, white—
all
people have equal human rights.

In British Columbia, since 2006, condensate tankers have traveled the Douglas Channel and other sensitive areas, and oil supertanker traffic is a real threat. For more information, see notankers.ca.

Lynne Hill does indeed live in Hartley Bay. The crochet chain across Douglas Channel she dreams of would be four kilometers long!

Special thanks to Don and Pam. And to Mike for being a good sport. Also, to Arlette, Nicole, Mikel, Diana, Amaya, Ezra, Alden and my amazing siblings.

Sara Cassidy
has worked as a clown, a youth-hostel manager, a tree planter in five Canadian provinces, and as an international human-rights witness in Guatemala. Her poetry, fiction and articles have been widely published and won a Gold National Magazine Award. She lives in Victoria with her three children.

For more titles in the Orca Currents series, please
click here
.