Seas of South Africa (2 page)

The barber behind me started cutting my hair. It dropped onto my lap and the floor, but I wasn't really paying attention. I hoped the unfriendly man would finish first and leave. I was careful not to make a sound, and the barber cut my hair very quietly. I think he didn't want to be noticed, either. All of a sudden, the man yelled. “Ouch! You stupid . . . ! You miserable
wretch! Watch what you're doing with that razor! You cut me again and I'll slice you into little pieces and hook you for bait! Hold your hand steady!”

I saw the razor swing back. The barber's hand was shaking. The barber behind me stopped cutting, put the scissors down and opened a drawer in the small desk beside me. He didn't make a sound. I saw a small grey handgun in the drawer. It looked like a toy. The barber dropped a face towel on top of the gun, covering it. Then he turned and smiled at me awkwardly. I forced a smile back. I wanted to get out of here.

The shave continued, and so did the man's talk. “I've been here before, to this place, a long time ago. A lot more people around then. Used to be a thriving place, when the Portuguese were here. Lots of wreck divers, mapmakers, sailors for hire, investigators . . . a lot of fancy names. Thought they were all better than me.” He paused. “They were no better than me. They were just treasure hunters, too. Now they call themselves oceanographers, ecologists, environmentalists. Fancy names, aren't they? Baaaaaaah! They're no different than me.” He raised his voice until he was almost shouting. “You think I'm a nobody?” Suddenly he lowered his voice to barely a whisper. “Well, I'll tell you something—you can't understand me anyway, can you?—those guys don't know a real treasure from a bag of rocks. But I do. I do because I've got one.” He raised his voice again. “There! Put that in your pipe and smoke it! Hah!”

The barber dipped a face towel into the bowl, wrung it out
and handed it to the man. He reached for a bottle next. “No. Don't put that stink on me! I've got plenty good smell all my own. Hah!”

I heard him get up. The shop shook under his weight. His hand slapped a bill down on the barber's table. “There! Buy yourself a shave! Hah, hah, hah!” I hoped he would leave now. I held my breath. But the barber beside me reached for the scissors again, missed them, and they fell to the floor. Shoot! The man took a few heavy steps . . . and there he was.

His face looked like it had been beaten with a shovel. It had scars and bumps all over it. His nose was twisted, his teeth were yellow and brown, and mostly broken, and one side of his face was bigger than the other. His eyes were big and bloodshot, his head was big;
everything
about him was big. On his head he wore a captain's cap with holes in it, which looked about fifty years old. I couldn't help thinking he would make a good model for a Halloween mask.

He was surprised to see us there, as I thought he would be. He stood and glared suspiciously. “You look like an English boy,” he said accusingly.

I didn't want to answer him, but I had to say something. “Canada.”

“Canada?” He looked confused. “What are you doing here? How'd you get here? Come overland? I didn't see a jeep outside. Where are your parents? You must have sailed here. But I didn't see a boat. How'd you get here?”

He stood there with a scowl on his face, like a bully. The
barber behind me took a small step towards the desk. I hoped he didn't reach for the gun. That little pea-shooter probably wouldn't even stop the man; it might only make him angry. I tried to tell him as little as possible. “I sailed here.”

“You sailed here? With who?”

That was none of his business. Who the heck did he think he was? “By myself.”

He looked like he didn't believe me. “Then where's your boat? I never saw a boat.”

“It's down the shore a little ways. What difference does it make?” I tried to sound tougher than I felt because I knew you have to stand up to a bully. But he was so much bigger than me, and he looked really dangerous. He just stared at me for a while, as if he were trying to make up his mind. I tried to look like I didn't care about anything. Finally, he just snickered with disgust, turned around, and walked out the door. But he didn't go far. We all listened to his footsteps. The other barber stuck his face around the corner, looked at us and shook his head.

I took a deep breath. I had been holding my breath for a long time. The barber continued cutting my hair. He cut slowly. I figured he was trying to take a long time so the man would leave the area before I went outside. That suited me fine until I realized I didn't have any hair left. And then the barber picked up a small battery-powered razor and shaved the rest of my head! I put my hand on top of my head and it felt like sandpaper. I looked down at the floor and saw all of
my hair lying there like rabbit fur. Then the barber held a mirror up behind my head. I was bald! Ah, well, I probably
had
looked like a girl. I rubbed my head again. It actually felt kind of good. It was nice and cool. I stood up. “How much do I owe you?”

The barber clicked like he was swallowing something. “Five dollar.”

I reached into my pocket and gave him a wrinkled American five dollar bill. He nodded his head. Then he picked up the little grey gun and offered it to me. I stared at it. It was probably a lot more dangerous than I first thought it was. “No, thank you,” I said. “I'll be okay.” I shook hands with both of the barbers and said goodbye.

When I stepped outside, he was waiting for me.

Chapter Two

HE WRAPPED AN ARM
around me in a way that was supposed to be friendly but wasn't, and I hated it. He squeezed me tight so that he could pull me along in his direction. I didn't try to free myself because that might start a fight between us, and I wasn't ready for that. He'd probably kill me. So, I went along with him for the moment, but waited for my chance to escape. It was really awkward and uncomfortable. And he stank.

He pulled me towards the end of the street, from where we could see the water below. It was about thirty feet down. There was only one boat there, a sailboat. And it must have been his, because there hadn't been one when I sailed in. My
sub was there, too, but you couldn't see it because it was in the shadows under the pier. He stopped when we were facing the water and pointed with his head. “So, where's your boat?”

“I told you, it's down the shore a ways.”

“Oh, I see. Down the shore?”

“Yah.”

“Well, isn't that funny? I just sailed
up
the shore, and I never saw a sailboat. Do you suppose it sank?”

“It's there. How else do you think I got here?”

“Well, that's what I'm trying to figure out. And you heard me talking in there, didn't you?”

“I wasn't listening.”

“You weren't listening? That's a good one. A man talks about treasure, and you're not listening? You're a crafty one, my boy. Now, tell me a little about your boat. It must be a motorboat then, is it, because I never saw a sail, and I was looking. If there was a sail, I'd have seen it. But I could've missed a motorboat. Maybe you moored it in the shallows, did you? How long is it?”

His arm was so strong it was like getting pinned against the wall by a horse. “It's twenty-five feet.”

“A twenty-five foot motorboat? Now we're getting somewhere. It must be fast then, is it?”

“It's fast enough.”

“I'll bet it is. It'll be a heck of a lot faster than what I'm sailing right now. Maybe we should trade.”

“I'm not interested in trading.”

“Oh, you're not, are you? Listen boy, you just show me where your boat is, and I'll see to it that nobody gets hurt. Do we understand each other?”

He wasn't a treasure hunter, he was a pirate. And he was trying to scare me. And it was working, but I couldn't let him know that. I just had to get free of his grip, then I could run. He would never catch me; he was too heavy, and too old.

“Okay, okay. I'll show you.”

“Of course you will. And I'll show
you
something, just in case you get to thinking you might take a little run and forget all about me.” He pulled a knife from his jacket. “See that coffee sign on the side of that shack?”

“Yah.”

“See the picture of the girl?”

“Yah.”

He raised his arm and flung the knife. It flew straight to the sign and struck the girl in the face. He had amazing aim. He pulled me over to the shack and dug the knife out. Then, he let me go. “Show me your boat.”

I started walking towards the water, and he followed me. I kept thinking, maybe I could run for it. But I also kept imagining the knife sticking into my back. The water was so close, just a run and a jump. But I'd be an easy target for his knife. I had to do
something
; I couldn't lead him to the sub. Would I survive a knife wound? Not if it hit me in the head. And what if it struck me in the spine? It would cripple me. Then he'd probably just kill me anyway. There were no police here. I
hadn't seen a single person on the street. No witnesses. Nobody would ever know what had happened to me. I thought of Hollie waiting in the sub. If the man got into the sub, he'd kill him too. He didn't look like the sort of man who would care much for a little dog. Seaweed would survive. He was up in the sky somewhere. Seagulls can survive anywhere.

My chance to escape came at the very end of the street. I was almost close enough to jump. Just a couple of steps and I'd be clear. But was it a safe jump? I couldn't remember if there were rocks at the bottom. I couldn't jump if there were rocks. I tried to peer over the edge of the bluff as we approached the stairs that led down to the pier. My heart was beating fast. It had to be a split-second decision whether or not to jump. I had to catch him by surprise, before he could throw the knife. What should I do? Jump? Not jump? What were my other options? I tried to think. There weren't any. I reached the top of the stairs, took a glance over the edge, took one step, and flung myself off.

Air rushed into my face as I went down. The jump lasted only a couple of seconds, but it felt longer. I tensed my whole body to prepare for impact, and half expected to feel the knife stab me on the way down. It never did. But I never had a chance to jump with proper form, and hitting the water was almost like hitting the ground, except that it swallowed me up instead of flattening me out. Before I hit, I tried to grab a breath of air. I didn't want to come right back up where he could see me. I was hoping to swim under water to
the sub, climb in, and motor away before he knew where I was.

But hitting the water knocked the wind out of me, and I couldn't do it. It was too far. I wasn't sure of the direction, either, and had to surface to look. I broke the surface as gently as possible, and gasped for air. Maybe he wouldn't see me if I just stuck my face above the water. No, he saw me. He was coming down the stairs towards the pier. He was going to reach it before me. I took a breath, and went under again.

Maybe I could trick him into thinking I was swimming down shore. I swam twenty feet or so, and surfaced. I waited until he saw me, then took another breath, and did it again. He must have thought I was swimming away, but he hadn't left the pier yet. The next time I went under, I went right to the bottom and doubled back towards the pier. It was twenty-five feet deep. He couldn't spot me. But this time I had to go all the way to the pier without surfacing.

It was so far. My lungs were bursting by the time I reached the sub. I went under it and up the other side. I broke the surface and sucked air into my lungs as quietly as I could. Had he fallen for the trick and gone down the shore, or was he right above my head? I reached for the handle on the side of the sub and started to climb up. But the water that dripped from me made a small noise. There was a heavy shuffling of feet above me and a scraping sound. As I climbed onto the portal and reached for the wheel to spin open the hatch, I saw him drop his head over the edge of the pier and look
down at me. “You! You! . . .” He was furious. I spun open the hatch, climbed in, and shut it. I jumped down inside, rushed to the control panel, hit the dive and battery switches, put the sub in gear, and steered out from under the pier. As we came out, we started down. We couldn't dive more than fifteen feet, but at least we could get out of sight.

As we cleared the posts of the pier, I felt a heavy weight land on the hull. He had jumped onto the sub! He was insane! What did he think he could do? Would he try to open the hatch? But we were already under the surface. If he opened it now, the sub would flood and sink. Hollie would drown.

I had to pull us out of the dive because it was so shallow. We were going to hit bottom. We would hit hard, too, if we didn't slow down. I had to shut off the power. We would still hit, but maybe it wouldn't be so bad. It was a sandy bottom. It probably wouldn't damage the sub. And then, I heard the wheel spin on the hatch. He was opening it! He was trying to sink us!