Harrison Squared (10 page)

“Lobster is not fish,” she said. “It's life.”

The only time I'd eaten lobster meat was by accident, when it turned out that the chunks of chicken in my salad weren't. I couldn't remember what it tasted like.

The old man returned a few minutes later with the chowder. It was creamy and chunky, but the consistency reminded me too much of the stuff the lunch ladies were stirring in the school kitchen. I swallowed a few spoonfuls, then set my cup aside.

“You used to love fish when you were little,” Aunt Sel said. “Your father would feed you sushi. You were both crazy for it.”

“Yeah, well, I'm not my dad. You know Grandpa thought I was him when I called?”

“Your voice is as deep as his now.”

“But he's
dead
. Grandpa was all mad at me for coming back to Massachusetts.”

“Can you blame him?” Aunt Sel said. “It was a horrible trip. Why your mother would come back here after—ah! The guests of honor.”

The old man came toward us, somehow managing to balance three huge platters on two arms. Each dish held a small wooden bowl of drawn butter, a dozen hushpuppies, and a red, armored creature who'd just crawled out of the Jurassic period. Evidently it was steamy back then.

Aunt Sel and Saleem cracked open their victims and dug in. “Oh my God,” Aunt Sel said. “This is
amazing
.” She pointed a knife at me. “You
will
eat, Harrison.”

“Seriously, dude,” Saleem said. “I mean—seriously.”

My lobster's claws were bound like a prisoner's. A few minutes ago the big guy had been alive. Probably earlier today he'd been swimming in the water somewhere outside this restaurant. What crime had he committed, to be sentenced to death by boiling?

Aunt Sel showed me how to crack open the shell. I poked the tiny lobster fork into the white meat and dipped it into the butter. It took only one bite to lose all sympathy for the prisoner. The meat seemed to melt on my tongue, and it tasted nothing at all like fish.

“I'm sorry,” I said to the lobster. “You're guilty of deliciousness.”

*   *   *

Aunt Sel was feeling tipsy on the way home. I wasn't sure how she was remaining conscious. She was not a big woman, and she'd drunk an entire bottle of wine on her own. We leaned against each other in the cab, and she kept talking about the amazing food.

“So why was the trip horrible?” I asked her.

“What trip, dear?”

“The one my dad took. When was he here?”

“The last time he was here, well, that was the last time he was anywhere, wasn't he?”

I moved so I could see her face. “My father died
here?
In Massachusetts?”
I met him when he visited the area,
Montooth had said.

“Just miles from here,” she said. “Where did you think?”

“I don't know—California?” Mom and I didn't talk about Dad's death too much, but I'd grown up thinking he'd died in the Pacific, off of San Diego. Mom had never corrected that impression. “Are you sure he was here?”

“Not just your father—you all were. Of course, you were too young to remember that shark attack, thank God.”

From the front, Saleem said, “Shark attack?”

“It's bad form to listen to the passengers,” she said. Then: “Harrison lost his leg when he was three.”

“I wasn't attacked by a fish,” I said. I remembered tentacles. Tentacles and teeth. But that was a false memory. “A piece of metal from the ship's bulkhead came down. Some part of the boat.”

“Hmm,” Aunt Sel said. She gazed out the foggy passenger window.

“Aunt Sel?”

“Of course,” she said sleepily. “A metal … thing.”

Her eyes closed, and that was the end of the conversation. I didn't know what to think. Had I really been attacked by a shark? And
here
, in Massachusetts?

If that was true, Mom had been hiding the truth from me for my entire life. And not just when I was little. We'd been planning this trip east for months. And all that time we'd spent in the truck together on the long ride across the country, she still couldn't mention, Hey, this is where it all happened.

Yesterday morning she'd looked at me like she was going to tell me something.
It was a mistake bringing you here
. And she still hadn't said a word.

Saleem helped me guide Aunt Sel into the rental house. She poured out of our arms, into the bed. She pointed at me. “You probably have regular kid things to do before you go to sleep, yes? Brushing teeth and all that?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Then let's pretend you've done all that. Now, pay the man.” She fell back, instantly unconscious.

I rooted through her handbag until I found her wallet. There was only forty dollars in cash, but a dozen credit cards. I handed him the top one, a MasterCard.

“Not that one,” Saleem said. “Try the green Visa.”

“What's wrong with this one?”

He looked uncomfortable. “We had a little trouble with that one the other day. Same with the Diners Club.”

Saleem took the Visa, went out to the car, and came back with a receipt. I signed it, even though I had no idea what Aunt Sel's handwriting looked like. I locked the door behind him, then went to my bedroom. Once I was in bed, I suddenly wasn't sleepy. Was Mom sleeping now? Was she dreaming of me?

The window was directly across from my bed. Moonlight seeped between the green curtains, gauzy old-fashioned things that had come with the house. I was looking at a gap between the curtains when a shadow passed on the other side of the window.

I didn't move.

A moment later came the creak of wood. The sound came from the back porch, just outside my window.

I slipped out of bed. Fortunately, I'd kept my leg on.

I crouched beneath the window, then slowly raised my head. I could see nothing through the curtains but a glow off to the right. The kitchen light I'd left on, illuminating the backyard.

I couldn't remember if I'd locked the back door.

I tried to convince myself that I'd imagined the shadow, or the sounds. I tried not to think of the fish boy.

After five minutes, I still hadn't heard or seen a thing. I went into the hallway. From my mother's room came Aunt Sel's wheezy half-snore.

The kitchen light shined too bright for my night-accustomed eyes. I went to the back door. And yes, it was unlocked. Because I'm an idiot.

I turned the lock, and couldn't stop myself from looking through the door's little window.

Then I saw it, sitting on the wicker table on the back porch.

I opened the door a few inches. Nothing moved outside. I opened the door more fully, and stepped out. On the table was my book,
The 20th Anniversary Treasury Edition of Newton & Leeb
. A piece of paper rested on top. In blocky handwriting, someone had written:

SHE'S STILL ALIVE. LOOK FOR ALBATROSS.

8

“God save thee, ancient Mariner,

From the fiends that plague thee thus!—

Why look'st thou so?” — “With my crossbow

I shot the Albatross.”

Let's say this strange guy comes up to you in the recess yard. He points to his windowless van and says, Hey kid, I really need to find a home for my Labrador puppy, do you want it? And oh yeah, the puppy comes with a new Xbox and a crate of giant-size Snicker bars. All you have to do is hop in the van to get them.

If you're five years old, or an idiot, this is the greatest moment in your life.

My first instinct after reading the note was to look for someone to punch. But the woods outside the porch window were dark, and my book thief was nowhere to be seen. I crumpled the note and jammed it into my pocket.

She's still alive.
It was the one thing I wanted most in the world. The thing I needed to believe. But that need was exactly what made me sure that I was being jerked around.

I could have thrown the note away, if it wasn't for that second sentence.
Look for albatross.
What the hell did that mean?

I know I must have slept that night, because I woke with a start. I'd forgotten something, something important, and I needed to find it.

I was in my bed. My phone said it was 4:45 a.m.

As I came awake, I felt cheated. No rest and no dreams, just a fast drop through the trapdoor to morning. How could I sleep and not dream of my mother? I felt her in me, echoing like a doubled heartbeat.

She's still alive.

I remembered then what I'd forgotten. I pulled on my leg, then jeans and a hoodie, and on my way out of the house I peeked into my mother's bedroom. My aunt, in silk men's pajamas, lay sprawled across the bed, one arm thrown over her eyes. Aunt Sel, of course, even
slept
dramatically.

I walked outside into the cold. For a short while I was the only person in the world: the sky black above but purpling to the east; the silent trees beside me; the empty road under my feet snaking down through the mist to the water.

As I walked the sun shouldered its way through the fog. The bay was shaped like a crocodile's mouth, with teeth of jagged outcroppings. Near the base of the jaw, wooden and sheet-metal buildings clustered near the water. Warehouses, maybe, or fish processing plants. A few had boat doors that opened to the bay.

The dock itself looked like the bones of a creature that had died in the crocodile's mouth. Weathered poles stuck up out of the water, the walkways and berths long since rotted away. One pier remained, jutting over the water. Clinging to its tip was a colorless wooden shack. A dozen boats—outboards, fishing boats, a handful of sailboats—were tied up along the pier. Three lobster boats were loading up. Men in baggy pants tossed down metal lobster traps to other men on the decks. They shouted to each other as they stacked the traps, the fog muffling their voices.

Birds wheeled in the air above the boats, keening. They looked and sounded like the seagulls back home. If any of them were albatrosses I wouldn't know—I had no idea what one looked like.

Our pickup was parked in a corner of the gravel lot. It looked lonely with no equipment in the bed of it, like a dog with its chin on the floor. I hoped Edgar and Howard and the other buoys were still out there, still taking sonar pictures, still broadcasting. When Mom came back she'd be anxious to see the data.

I walked over to the truck, tried the door, but it was locked. I cupped my hands against the window. The keys weren't in the ignition—a place Mom had been known to leave them—so I figured she'd brought them with her on the boat. No matter. I went to the rear right fender and felt around until I found the magnetic case. The key was still inside. I'd never told Mom about the spare, because then she'd use it: If you give an AMP a key, she's sure to lose it.

I unlocked the door and climbed in. The cab still smelled like the onion rings we'd eaten somewhere in Pennsylvania. I only had my learner's permit, but I figured I could risk driving the truck back to the house. Then I noticed the crumpled green paper on the floorboard. I remembered the note Mom had found on the hood of the truck.

I picked it up, then smoothed it out. In spidery black cursive, it said, “Stay out of the water.”

I stared at it. A note from the neighbors, she'd called it.

The windows of the truck were rolled up, and the parking lot was empty. I felt okay about screaming a few curse words, in a couple different languages.

I thought of Mom yelling into the phone the morning she disappeared.
That, that … Viking!
The charter captain's name was Erik Hallgrimsson. Had he left the note? Or was everyone in town trying to get us to leave?

Hallgrimsson was probably out on that pier. All I had to do was go out and find him.

*   *   *

The pier.

It wasn't that I was
afraid
of the ocean—that wasn't it at all. I
hated
it. I wouldn't swim in it or boat across it, and I didn't even like to fly over it. Walking out over it, on some rickety platform that looked like it would fall apart at the first big wave … ugh.

But there were questions I needed answers to.

I was relieved that the boards felt solid beneath my feet. I avoided looking out at the water and kept my eyes on the sign above the shack's door: B
AIT
S
HOP
. When I reached the shack, I stood with my back against the wall, hands jammed in my pockets.

No one paid me any attention. I watched the men work, and when I thought they weren't looking I studied their faces, wondering, Is he the one?

A slate board was nailed to the bait shop wall. The boats' names were written in chalk. Each boat had been assigned a numbered slip. I wondered which one was the ship Mom had gone out on that first day. The
Bonny
? The
Paste Pot
?

Then I saw the next two names on the list.
Huginn
and
Muninn. Huginn
was crossed out.

Huginn and Muninn were the ravens that belonged to Odin, king of the Norse gods. Huginn's name meant “thought.” Muninn meant “memory.” Good names for boats if you read a lot of Thor comics—or if you were a Viking.

The men still on the pier climbed down ladders to the boats, and my time was running out. I stepped toward one of the men heading for the
Muninn
. He was tall, with thick arms, and blond hair that hung to his shoulders. A black band was fastened around one bicep, and then I knew for sure.

“Erik Hallgrimsson?” I said. “I'd like to talk.”

The man looked up at me. “Sorry kid, no work.”

“It's not that,” I said. “I wanted to know—”

“Try back tomorrow.”

The man started down the ladder, and I strode forward. “I want to know why you bailed out on my mother.”