Touch Blue (4 page)

“Next time, you keep those words in your mouth,” Dad says. “Hear me?”

I nod. When I climb into the boat, boards sigh under my feet. I take my usual place in the stern.

As the skiff glides along, tiny whirlpools from Dad’s oars rush past. “Time for our morning commute,” he says.

I love how every day at the ocean is different — the clouds, the color of the water, the weather — it’s never exactly the same. But today, I’m only thinking about what Eben said about getting back at Aaron.

Off starboard, a flight of cormorants huddles together on a ledge. Pitifully holding out their wings to dry, they look like a funeral group, all dressed in black with their arms out. Like they’re begging heaven, “Take me instead.”

“Do you think God ever makes mistakes?” I ask.

“Mistakes?”

“Like not giving cormorants enough oil to make their wings waterproof, so they have to stand there and dry them?”

Dad slows his rowing. “I wouldn’t venture to speak for God, but maybe cormorants are the lucky ones.”

“How so?”

“They have to stand still in the sun awhile every day,” he says. “Not such a burden when you look at it that way. Might do some
people
well to stop running around and stand still awhile, too. Think so?”

I nod.

A seagull lands on the rock, shaking his wings. The cormorants pay him no mind, until he snaps at one. “I think that gull’s making fun of the cormorants because they have to stand there with their wings out.”

“Well, I wouldn’t set much stock by seagull opinions,” Dad says. “Any bird that’ll eat rotten fish heads and garbage isn’t someone to look up to.”

I smile. “Shh. He’ll hear you.”

Dad shrugs. “I’m sure he’s heard worse.” As he pulls our skiff alongside the
Tess Libby
, I look over toward Eben getting into his father’s lobster boat. I touch the blue sea glass in my pocket.

Don’t let him make more trouble for us.

W
e’ve been fishing several hours, when I decide to ask the question I’ve been wondering ever since Eben made his threat on the wharf. “Did Reverend Beal ask Eben’s family to take in a foster child, too?”

“No. I’m sure he didn’t,” Dad says. “The Calders don’t give enough attention to the kids they’ve already got.”

As Dad puts the boat in gear, I sweep my gaze along Bethsaida: past the rooftops and the white church steeple poking over the trees, all the way to the gray gable and black roof of our house. Our attic window looks out over the treetops like a tiny, diamond-shaped eye. “Eben said he was gonna get Aaron back for hitting him.”

“Hmmpf.” Dad looks around me at his boat instruments. “Eben’s all growl and no teeth.” Everything about Dad’s tight, though: his jaw, his knuckles, and the clench of his shoulders.

I put my hand on his sleeve. “But what if Eben does something else bad? Aaron might tell Natalie about it. Maybe she’ll think we’re all mean out here, even though it’s only the Calders, and —”

“Tess! Will you
please
stop searching for trouble?” The annoyance in his voice slaps me. I lift my fingers, one by one, off his shirt. We bicker plenty, but he doesn’t usually yell at me — not like that. If I were home, I’d run to my room and slam my door as hard as I could. But on a boat there’s nowhere to go.

A seagull flies fast beside us, keeping up, as we pass the first of the Three Sisters. Pine and spruce trees crowd the islands, bunched together like spectators at a wrestling match. The first row of trees leans out over the water, the ones behind peeking over the front row’s heads. A thin ribbon of water still flows between them.

Dad guns the engine, spray rising high along the hull.

“
Tess Libby
, you on?” Uncle Ned’s voice comes over the VHF. “This is the
Windlass
. Barb wants to invite you all to supper soon — so you let us know when’s a good time. Okay? And hey, Tess! How’s it going?”

I glance across to the
Windlass
fishing at the far end of Bethsaida. A cloud of seagulls floats above the stern
of Uncle Ned’s boat, each gull swooping in and out of the others, trying to steal a mouthful of bait.

I don’t really want to talk to anyone, but it’ll be worse to explain. “Hey, Uncle Ned,” I say into the mic, hoping if he hears the crack in my voice, he’ll think it’s radio static. “I’ll tell Mom about Aunt Barb inviting us.”

“Tess, who do you suppose your dad’s trying to impress, driving like an idiot?” Uncle Ned laughs. “It couldn’t be
us
, ’cause he already knows for a fact we ain’t impressed with him.”

Dad takes the mic from me. “Hey, boys. Looks like Ned’s found a hot spot over near Cousins Island.”

“You never mind where I’m fishing!” Uncle Ned says.

“Except he’s setting so close to shore, he’s as likely to catch chipmunks as lobsters,” Dad says.

The easy teasing in his voice cuts me. If my family is forced to move to the mainland, Dad can still lobster out here on this same bay every day. His whole world won’t change like mine will. I sit on a crate as far from him as I can get and pull my knees up under my chin.

“Cousins Island, huh?”

Whenever Dad and Uncle Ned start in teasing each other, fishermen all over the bay grab up their microphones and dive headlong into the scuffle.

“I’ve got a few traps I could put there.”

“Red and yellow? Ain’t them’s your buoy colors, Ned?”

“Now look what you’ve done!” Uncle Ned snaps. “This is all your fault, Jacob.”

“My fault?” Dad says. “How do you figure that?”

“Well, it ain’t like I’ve figured the details yet!” Uncle Ned says. “But when I get to the bottom of it, I’ll make sure it’s your fault!”

Reaching over the boat rail, I dip my hand into the icy, needling spray. Within seconds my fingertips throb with cold. Droplets jump ahead of one another, racing near the hull. A scrap of rainbow flickers as sunlight passes through the wet mist.

A rainbow is a sign of change coming — which can be good luck or bad luck, depending on what kind of change you get.

Please let it be a good change.

Let it be Aaron changing to like it here. Or the school regulations changing. Or Dad changing.

Or —? Peeking sideways through my fringe of bangs, I watch Eben hauling lobster traps with his dad near Gosling Island. Beast stands in the stern of their boat, nipping at the seagulls.

No, this tiny patch of rainbow can’t be about Eben
changing. He’d need a
huge
rainbow — big enough for a complete overhaul. Dad might accuse me of searching for trouble, but there’s one thing I know about trouble. It doesn’t always sit around waiting to be found. Sometimes it comes looking for you.

“Tess, you tell your father my lobsters can whoop his lobsters any day of the week, even with one claw banded,” Uncle Ned says. “You hear that, Jacob?”

“I heard it, but I don’t believe it,” Dad says. “Tess, you tell your uncle he’s downright misinformed if he thinks I’d pit my burly lobsters against the scraggly little crawfish he’s hauling today. Wouldn’t be a fair fight.”

The wind tickles my hair over my nose, and I tuck the strands back under my bandanna. My hair feels thicker with salt, and my skin is sticky.

The radio sputters. “
Tess Libby
, this is Kate,” Mom says.

“I’m here, Kate,” Dad says. “What is it?”

“Aaron would like to come join you.”

Dad smiles, slowing the boat. “Sure.”

I hold my breath so I can listen better. Aaron
wants
to come?

“We had a hard morning.” Mom sounds tired, although it’s not even lunchtime yet. “Natalie called to
see how he was settling in, and Aaron asked for a visit with his mom.”

I pull my fingers out of the water quickly. Did Aaron tell Natalie about his letter?

“Natalie said it isn’t possible. And Libby has hardly let Aaron breathe today without her.”

The defeat I hear in Mom’s voice makes me worry maybe she’s having second thoughts about all this. I grit my teeth. If Libby were here, I’d be tempted to push her overboard. I’m giving Aaron some space; why can’t she?

“Don’t worry. We’ll swing by the wharf and pick him up,” Dad says.

“He left a few minutes ago,” Mom says. “In fact, he’s probably almost there now.”

Our wake churns a bubbly circle as Dad turns the wheel hard. Ahead on Bethsaida, a tiny truck drives along the shore road. Farther up, Jenna’s mom stands in their doorway, letting their dog out. Laundry’s being pegged on a clothesline at the Moodys’ house as postage stamp–sized white sheets blow in the breeze.

And on the wharf, a red-haired boy waits.

“
H
ook the gauge in the eye socket like this.” Dad holds the brass measuring gauge in his right hand and the lobster in his left. “Lay it along the carapace — that’s the name for the lobster’s back. See this point on the gauge, Aaron? It has to fall on his back or he’s too small to keep.”

I brace my legs against the rocking of the
Tess Libby
and open the trap sitting on the boat’s rail in front of me. I haven’t seen Aaron smile once since he stepped on board.

“This lobster’s a keeper, so the first thing we do is band his claws,” Dad continues. “That way he can’t hurt the other lobsters in the tank. They’ll eat each other, given half a chance.”

Aaron steps backward away from the trap. “I’ll just watch.”

“You’re doing fine.” Dad picks up the bander and puts a fat, ring-sized rubber band on the end. “The bander works like pliers — only in reverse. As you squeeze the handles, it spreads the rubber band open. See? When it’s wide enough, you slip it over his claw.” Dad holds the lobster and gives Aaron the bander.

My own catch isn’t bad today, but I was hoping for better. Even though I called “Hi!” to Aaron before he came on board — hoping to undo his unlucky red hair by speaking to him before he spoke to me — Dad has outfished me good today.

I untangle a lobster from the netting of the trap in front of me. A lobster trap looks like a long, rectangular wire box with a brick or two in the bottom to even out the weight and keep it from flipping upside down in the water. There are two “rooms” inside, separated by a netted “head,” with an opening in the middle for the lobster to crawl through and get stuck.

My lobster opens his claws at me, ready for battle.

“Much better,” Dad says to Aaron. “Now
you
hold the lobster for the second claw. It’s okay. Lobsters can’t reach behind and grab you, the way crabs can. Just keep your hand back here.” When Dad lets go, Aaron jerks his arm out, holding his lobster away from his body. Dad grins. “Gotta bring him a little closer.”

As I squeeze my own bander, my lobster grabs the rubber band in his claw. “Hey, cut that out,” I tell him.

The lobster thrashes, flipping his tail. I pick at the band, but he’s got it clamped so tight it’s a wonder he doesn’t slice it in half. I set him on the deck to tire himself out. The lobster wriggles his spindly legs, but he can’t get going. In water, lobsters scuttle easily along the sea bottom. They’re graceful, dainty even. But on land, their bodies are too heavy and they have to pull themselves along, dragging their bellies.

The lobster opens his claw, and I snatch him up. “Gotcha!” I secure his fat crusher claw. As my lobster struggles to get that first band off, I slip another over his smaller pincher claw, easy as pie. “Gotcha twice!”

“Watch your fingers, Tess,” Dad says.

My smile sags. Aaron may need to learn all these things, but I’ve been doing them right for years.

“We won’t bother to measure this little one,” Dad says, pulling a tiny lobster from the trap. “He’s not even close.”

I drop my own catch through the hole in the top of the tank. The water shudders as all the lobsters inside try to get out of one another’s way.

“Hold out your hand, Aaron. He won’t hurt you.” Dad lays the tiny lobster on Aaron’s palm. “When Tess and I throw the short lobsters in, we always say, ‘Today’s your lucky day, little one.’”

I expect Aaron to make a disgusted face or squirm, but he pauses, holding the tiny lobster on the palm of his rubber glove. Leaning out over the rail, Aaron sets the lobster into a wave as gently as if he were made of glass. “Today’s your lucky day, little one.”

The lobster pauses just below the water’s surface, his tiny claws outstretched. Then, flipping his tail, he spurts off backward, disappearing into the shadows under the boat.

Dad reaches back into the empty trap for the mesh bag of leftover bait. “Next we throw out the old bait, put in some new, and reset the trap. The bait bag hangs here in the first part of the trap — called the kitchen. The lobster comes into the kitchen to eat, and then he’ll crawl up this ramp and through this opening between the two rooms. The back part of the trap is called the parlor, and that’s where he gets stuck.”

“Why doesn’t he just leave the kitchen the same way he came in?” Aaron asks.

“I imagine some do,” Dad says. “But climbing forward into the parlor is easier for him.”

I hear a boat’s engine behind us. I lift my hand to wave, until I see it’s Eben and his dad — and Eben’s driving their boat.

Dad opens the small, mesh bait bag and shakes the leftover fish bits into the sea. From rocks and ledges all around us, seagulls leap into flight. They dive-bomb through the air to pluck the bait bits off the waves, surrounding the boat in a swirl of wings and mournful cries.

Aaron jumps backward.

“They won’t hurt you.” I slide my gaze from Aaron’s borrowed hauling pants to his life jacket and skinny shoulders to the ends of his red hair. When I reach his face, Aaron’s eyebrows are so light-colored they don’t seem to exist at a distance. But I’m close enough to see them go up in surprise. He opens his mouth and closes it twice, like he’s struggling to keep from —

“Over the rail!” I yell, grabbing his arm.

We make it just in time. Which is a relief, because cleaning off our boat every night is bad enough without adding
that
in.

“Don’t worry,” Dad says, patting his back. “Everyone gets seasick sometimes.”

I nod, though I’ve only ever felt queasy in the fog. When you can’t see the horizon, your body plays tricks on you.

“I see the
Tess Libby
’s new sternman needs some weathering,” Brett Calder says over the radio.

“Yeah,” Eben adds. “Maybe the
Tess Libby
should be renamed the
Barf Bucket.
”

I glance to Aaron. He’s sitting on a crate with his head on his arms.

Dad picks up the mic. “Maybe you should pay more attention to your own boat and less to mine!” The back of Dad’s neck is getting red. He snaps off the VHF. I don’t remember him ever doing that before. He sometimes turns it down when he’s sick of the chatter, but he never turns it off all together.

I make myself busy filling bait bags. Cloudy fish eyes stare up at me from the bait tub. I let my hands take over, grabbing slippery fish from the pile, cramming them into the bags.

Aaron looks so miserable that I peel off my rubber gloves and hunt around in the junk box Dad keeps on the boat. I push aside a little calendar the size of a
credit card, a couple pencils, and some screws and nails, until I find what I’m looking for.

“It’s spearmint. It’ll take the taste out of your mouth,” I tell him, laying a wrapped hard candy on his knee.

Aaron lifts his head just enough to look at me.

“It’s gonna be okay,” I promise.

Though I’m not sure either of us believes me.