The Devil Delivered and Other Tales (34 page)

Well, the answer to that was obvious. “Probably not,” I said, lowering my head and watching the drops hitting the floor.

“Probably?
PROBABLY
!?”

“Jock Junior simply refuses to control his imagination”:

That’s not even true! I can control it just fine! It wasn’t me who jampled to crazy conclusions, was it? Was it?

So there was Dad, and there was Mom, and there behind that big desk was the principal, who was all ears as Big Nose ran off at the mouth about all the things she Misunderstood.

“… And he had the gall to tell me he was talking with that goldfish!” Big Nose said in fruxasperation. “I’m completely fruxasperated!” See! “I mean, a goldfish!”

Turning to Dad I explained, “That was my mistake. Goldfish can’t talk. I should’ve known better—”

“I should think so!”

“Goldfish aren’t like other fish. And of course you can’t keep pike and muskie in aquariums cause they’d never stop complaining and it would disturble the class—”

Big Nose jumped to her feet. “Aaaaghh!”

I’ve never seen her so red. Redder even than a boiled crayfish with its eyes bugging out in all directions. I started to get real worried when she clatched the sides of her head and began running in circles.

“You shouldn’t get so mad,” I said as calm as I could. “It just makes you intolerable.”

“Aaaggghh!”

The meaning of Aaaggghh:

Well, what could Dad and Mom say? They knew all about talking fish and they didn’t even have imaginations! All they could do was sit there and help Big Nose drink down her medicine.

And the principal sat there frowning and gromering, drumbling his desk and cluhearing his throat and looking at his paperweight, which wasn’t very big and a gull full of buckshot would’ve done the job much better. I vowed to give him one as a present for graduating me. Grandma Matchie would be proud of that!

“And that assignment!” Big Nose cried, her hands pressed against his cheeks. “My Lord!”

My heart sank. Back to that again, eh? I knew right then I was finished. Turning to Dad I pleaded, “Summer vacation at the lake. I wrote it just like it happened and—”

And. It’s a funny word, isn’t it? I mean, everything follows naturally, doesn’t it? It shows up everywhere, and there’s nothing you can do about it. See? The whole world turned into “And” right then. And Dad’s eyes bulgered, and Mom jippled out of her chair, her bum hitting the floor with a bathump. And Dad’s cheeks bulgered, and Mom started repeating “Oh my, oh my oh my—” And Dad’s head bulgered and I started getting real worried.

And, finally, when I could take it no more, I leapt to my feet and screamed: “It’s all true!”

The point where you just can’t take it no more and you scream: “It’s all true!”

It was the second week of summer vacation at Rat Portage Lake. Dad had given up the art of fishing and was putting together his new Jacuzzi in between bellowing at the ceiling and tearing at the instruction manual.

Mom finished sweepening up the forest trail out back and came in for a breather. “My! But that was dirty!” she breathed, wipering invisible sweat from her brow and leaning on her broom.

“Gothic in heaven, woman! You know the roof needs fixin—but off you go without a damn thought for anyone else! What happens if it rains and water leaks down on your daughter’s forehead? What happens then, eh? She’s sleepin away and it’s drip, drip, drip! Pretty soon she’s droolin and chanterin communist slogans!” He glared up from the pile of cedar planks. “What then, eh?”

“Oh, we’ll put a bucket on her head long before that happens, dear.” Mom replied dreamily, since she’d already seen the tiny hairball trying to sneak into the kitchen. Her knuckles went white on the broom handle, and she began creepering forward.

Out on the porch Sis ruckled in the old ruckling chair, staring out at the lake with a scowl. “I hate this,” she kept saying over and over again. “I hate this. I hate everything about this and I hate you!” she hisspered at me.

The fire o’ love had worn off, thank gothic.

Her hair was now blue, bright like the sky and if there were any clouds they were all inside her head. Every now and then she reached up, her fingers all turembling, and touched it, then she’d dart her hand back down and start ruckling like mad. Crazy. Just plain crazy.

Hearing footsteps on the roof I went outside and stood in the middle of the driveway and looked up. “Hey, Grandma Matchie!”

She waved at me with the hammer, her mouth full of nails. Shingles sat in piles all around her like burnt pancakes and her yellow dress bilbowed brighter than the sun. I ran to the ladder and crawpelled up. The roof crucked and crackled as I walked across it to where she was working.

From the looks of it she’d finished patching the hole. Frowning, I asked, “What’re ya doin?”

Around the nails she whispered: “Shhh! It’s a disguise!”

Duckening down beside her I stared wildly about. “Who are ya spyin on?”

“Take a gander, Tyke. The Major’s island!” And with that she jerked her head ever so slitherly, her eyes squimbled to secret slits. “He’s up t’no good! I can feel it in m’bones!”

“Which bones?”

“Never you mind. There’s trouble in the air, can’t you feel it?”

On his island, the Major was humbering back and forth between his dock and his cabin, carrying stuff down, packing it into the H.M.S.
Hood,
his blarny boat. And every now and then he’d take out his long spyin glass and study us, and when he did that Grandma Matchie’d bend down and pretend to be hammering nails, and I’d look down too with a big frown of concentration on my face.

“He’s preparin fur war, that’s what he’s doin,” Grandma Matchie muthered in a low voice, after checking the sky in case any gulls were trying to listen in. But the sky was empty.

“Against us?”

A shake of her head. “Uh uh. Somethin else I can’t scry. But come mornin you can bet your toad ranch he’ll be gone. Right dis’peared inta thin air!”

We heard screams coming from below and I looked down to see Mom runnering out onto the dock, waving Dad’s fishing rod over her head like she was trying to swat a horsefly out of midair.

“What’s wrong?” I cried, jumping to my feet.

Grandma Matchie squimted. “Damn girl! Sometimes I wonder how’n hell I…” Then she shook her head. “She’s bein chased by a wasp, is my bet.”

“Probably as big as the one Dad made last week,” I said.

“Probbly is the one Dad made last week! Still tied t’the line!” Grandma Matchie threw back her head and let out a wild laugh.

And she was right. You could see the fishing line glittering every now and then in the sunlight, as Mom frantically whippled the rod over her head, screeking and runnering round in circles at the end of the dock. Then, with a mighty swing, she flung the wasp down into the water, and there was a huge saplash and suddenly Mom was yelpering. A giant fish leapt out of the water and we could hear the drag winding as the fish raced out into the bay.

“Keep ridin im, Ester!” Grandma Matchie shouted, jumping to her feet and waving the hammer over her head. “Keep on ridin im! Ya-hoo!”

It was a tug-o-war as the fish brolled the surface again and again, throwing spray everywhere. And Mom had her hand on the reel now and was pumpening madly, her legs spread wide and bent inward at the knees. Even from here I could see the terror in her wild eyes and if her high heels weren’t stuck between the boards again she’d have been pulled right out into the water. But she pumped and she reeled, and the fish was dragged closer and closer, and suddenly it flew up and splanded right on the dock, flippening about between Mom’s feet.

“Oh my! Oh my!” Mom plopped right out of her shoes and danced around, trying to avoid the slimy flippening fladapping fish. “Oh my!”

Running forward along the roof, Grandma Matchie gave one mighty jump and landed clear on the dock beside Mom. “You got im! You got im clean! Hah!” And with that she dived, grabbling the fish in a bear hug and they rambelled back and forth, struggling and torngling and grumting.

By the time I crawpelled down the ladder and raced around the corner of the cabin and down to the dock, Grandma Matchie had put the fish down for the count and was standing triumphantly above him, one boot on his gaspering head.

“Must be a hundred million ninety-nine pounds!” She shook her fist at him, and he mackled his eye and fladapped and squirmed feebly. “We got dinner t’night! Hah!”

And sure enough Mom put the pot on the stove and stoked up the fire until the water boiled crazily, and then she added salt and a whole load of potatoes. Dad put the fish in the sink and filled it up with buckets from the lake to keep him fresh until the time was good and right. I sat on a stool beside him and watched him glape, glape, glape.

Everything was just about ready when we heard a browl from the porch and we all ran outside to see Sis standing beside the ruckling chair, a mirror in her hand. Her face was turning every color and so had her hair—yellow, red, mauve.

“Waaa!” Sis wayloned. “Waaa!”

Behind me I heard a funny fladapping sound, then a wild laugh.

Whirling, I tore into the kitchen. “Grandma Matchie!” I screamed. “The fish is getting away!” And there he was, pushing at the window latch. One of his eyes winked at me and he laughed again.

Grandma Matchie flew toward him but it was too late, because just then he got the window open and plungered over the sill.

“Aaak!” Mom squawked from the porch. “It’s got my broom! Give me back my broom!”

We ran back out to the porch. A whufizzing sound came from over our heads and we ducked low. The fish had Mom’s broom, all right, and he was flying on it all over the place, laughing hysterically.

He did one last loop then raced away into the west. Looking after him, Grandma Matchie put her hands on her hips and announced in a low voice: “That, Tyke, was no ordernary fish.”

Numberly, I shook my head.

“I’ve known alotta fish in my day,” she muttered, “but I ain’t never known one like that!” And then she turned to me, shaking her head. “You ever heard a fish laugh like that? I never heared a fish laugh like that.”

“Me neither,” I said. “It sure was eerie.”

Next morning, just as Grandma Matchie had predicted, the Major and the H.M.S.
Hood
were gone.

“Bad omens, Tyke. Bad omens.” Grandma Matchie paced up and down on the dock, while I sat with my feet in the water. “Too many strange thins goin on round here.” Grimmerly, she stopped and faced me. “Jus list em! First that fish, laughin like some demon. Then Sis, gettin a hangnail as if from outa the blue! An those potaters didn’ taste like they shoulda at all. An, the most gothic damnin omen of all, Dad can’t read those J’cuzzi ’structions—cause they’re in French!” She began pacing again. “Nosiree, I don’t like this one bit!”

“Where d’you think the Major went?” I asked.

Suddenizedly Grandma Matchie slapped her forehead. “O Course!” She whirled to me, her eyes burning merrily. “Why didn’ I think of it afore? Course! That’s gotta be it!” She began stramping up the dock, then paused to straighten her dress and glare at me. “Well, are ya comin, or what?”

I leapt to my feet. “You bet! Where?”

“Where? I’ll tell ya where! We’re goin after the Major!”

“But what about the demon fish? And Mom’s broom?”

“They all went to th’same place, or my name ain’t Grandma Matchie! An we’re goin after em!”

“Where?” I asked again.

A shiver jampled across Grandma Matchie’s shoulders like there was a snake in her dress, and her eyes narrowed as she glared out over the water. “We’re goin t’the deepest lake on Earth! That’s where we’re goin!”

Well, it wasn’t long after that that we packed all the essentials and readied ourselves for the trip. The deepest lake on Earth, I knew, was Westhawk Lake, over there in Manitoba. And it was made by a shooting star.

“Not just any old shootin star,” Grandma Matchie said mysteriously, but she wouldn’t explain any further, only a burning kind of look would come into her right eye, then jump across to her left eye, then back again and back again and back again until I got dizzy just watching it.

By the time we were ready it was almost dark. “Just right!” said Grandma Matchie as she stood at the end of the dock with her hands on her hips. “An there ain’t be no moon tonight, neither,” she said, nodding grimmerly.

“How’re we gettin there?” I asked.

“You jus keep your eyes peeled on the lake, Tyke,” she growbled, “an you’ll see soon enough!” Bending down she checked her backpack and I heard clinking come from inside it.

“What you got in there?”

“Canada’s Finest crayfish wine! That’s what I got in there!”

By now it was night and the lake turned completely black, looking like a giant hole going down forever. I watched it like Grandma Matchie told me to do.

Then Mom and Dad and Sis came down from the cabin.

“Don’t forget to bring back my broom!” Mom said, her hands all fluppering and her cheeks glowing red in the darkness. “Oh my! Look at the dirt on this dock!”

Sis’s hair glowed neon green but no one said anything about it so she wouldn’t run off browling her eyes out. And there were funny little twigs sticking out of it now too. I thought back on it and was pretty sure it wasn’t me who stuck them in there, so they must’ve grown naturally. Not that that made any sense, since Sis is so dumb she likes taking baths all the time, unless the water made those twigs grow better, I don’t know.

“Don’t you go brawlin bears this time, Grandma Matchie,” Dad warned. “I don’t wanta hear that my son has bin exposed to that!” He paused, frowned, and plungered his hand right into his beard and scritching sounds came out. “You’re s’posed t’be sensitive ’bout things with chil’ren, y’know. It’s a turrible sight t’see a creature of the furest cryin and beggin like that.”

Grandma Matchie ignored him, thank gothic. “Ready, Tyke?”

I nodded and with that she turned to face the lake.

“All right! Come outa there you varmits! Afore I come down there after ya!”

And it wasn’t long before the lake started glowing, and the water started burbbling and churmbling about. Then little streaks of light began flashing around the dock. Peering down I shouted: “Those are lamp rays!” You could see their little helmets with those lights in them, flashing around as they swam in crazy circles and started fleaping out of the water. Then two big ones came up to the edge of the dock and poked their heads out.