Keeper
Kathi Appelt
Keeper isn’t generally disaster prone, but this summer, well, she’s created more than her fair share. (Her dog, BD [Best Dog], seagull [Captain], and a one-eyed cat are also a little to blame.) Keeper had been waiting for this blue moon—the magic moon!—all summer. But now she’s going to have to use up all that blue moon magic just trying to get everyone who’s mad at her to forgive her. Keeper decides that she will need her mother’s help, and so she takes off in the middle of the night on a little row boat to look for Meggie Marie and for the other mermaids who gather on the sandbar for a full moon. But when a riptide tugs Keeper away from the shore and deep into the rough waters of the Gulf of Mexico, she feels all the magic—of the night, of her mother, of believing in mermaids—go tumbling into the water.
Kathi Appelt spent much of her girlhood on the beaches of Galveston, Texas, where her grandmother Marge lived. One winter a seagull blew against Marge’s kitchen window and damaged his wing. Marge nursed the bird back to health by wrapping his wing in a soft kitchen towel. Once the bird recovered, he became best friends with Marge’s dog, BD (short for Bird Dog). BD was famous for rolling in dead fish, and he always smelled like one. But that didn’t seem to matter to the seagull, who loved to sit on BD’s head. Kathi remembers riding in her grandmother’s green Dodge station wagon with the seagull perched on the back of the seat and BD hanging his head out the passenger window. If such a friendship as this could happen, then why not mermaids?
Kathi is the author of the Newbery Honor–winning, National Book Award finalist, PEN USA Literary Award–winning The Underneath, as well as many picture books. She lives with her husband in Texas.
Praise for Keeper
A 2011 CCBC Choices pick
A Kirkus Reviews 2010 Best Children’s Book
An NCTE Notable Children’s Book in the Language Arts
A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year
“I especially love when Appelt blurs the line between reality and myth, reminiscent of her work in The Underneath!’ —Sharon Creech, Newbery Medal winner of Walk Two Moons
“With the gentle wit of a seasoned storyteller, Kathi Appelt turns the life of a small coastal town into modern mythology.” —Gene Luen Yang, Michael L. Printz Award winner of American Born Chinese
“When I finished Kathi Appelt’s joyous new novel, Keeper, I didn’t want it to be over. I wanted to go on living in its magical world of talking crabs and mystical totems and wise old cats and dogs. Then I realized that I already do live there: The world is exactly as magical as we allow it to be. Hold this one up to your head and have a long, good listen.” —Brent Hartinger, author of Geography Club and Shadow Walkers
*“Deftly spinning together mermaid lore, local legend, and natural history, this stunning tale proves ‘every landscape has its magical beings,’ and the most unlikely ones can form a perfect family…. Beautiful and evocative—an absolute ‘keeper.’” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review
*“Appelt masterfully balances themes of loss and renewal and demonstrates that magic works in unexpected ways. In so doing, she has written another keeper.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
*“Filled with love, wild adventure, family drama, and even a touch of true fantasy, this is a deeply satisfying tale.” —School Library Journal, starred review
Also by Kathi Appelt
The Underneath
keeper
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
An imprint of Simon " Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Text copyright © 2010 by Kathi Appelt Illustrations copyright © 2010 by August Hall
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS is a registered trademark of Simon " Schuster, Inc. For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon " Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or [email protected].
The Simon " Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon " Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.
Also available in an Atheneum Books for Young Readers hardcover edition
Book design by Debra Sfetsios-Conover
The text for this book is set in Centaur MT.
The illustrations for this book are rendered in mixed media.
Manufactured in the United States of America
0412 OFF
First Atheneum Books for Young Readers paperback edition May 2012 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows: Appelt, Kathi, 1954-
Keeper / Kathi Appelt; illustrated by August Hall.—1st ed. p. cm.
Summary: On the night of the blue moon when mermaids are said to gather on a sandbar in the Gulf of Mexico, ten-year-old Keeper sets out in a small boat, with her dog BD and a seagull named Captain, determined to find her mother, a mermaid, as Keeper has always believed, who left long ago to return to the sea. ISBN 978-1-4169-5060-8 (hc)
[1. Sailing—Fiction. 2. Ocean—Fiction. 3. Mermaids—Fiction. 4. Mothers and daughters—Fiction. 5. Gulf States—Fiction.] I. Hall, August, ill. II Title. PZ7.A6455Ke 2010
[Fic]—dc22 2010000795
ISBN 978-1-4169-5061-5 (pbk)
ISBN-13: 978-1-44240-608-7 (eBook)
For Rose and TA, Merfolk
“I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing for me.”
—T. S. Eliot,
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Chapter 104
Chapter 105
Chapter 106
Chapter 107
Chapter 108
Chapter 109
Chapter 110
Chapter 111
Chapter 112
Chapter 113
Chapter 114
Chapter 115
Chapter 116
Chapter 117
Chapter 118
Chapter 119
Chapter 120
1
Keeper leaned over the edge of the boat. In the darkness of the night, she glared at the black surface of the water.
“You stupid crabs!” She sputtered as she said it. Keeper knew that Signe would be mad if she heard her use that word, “stupid,” but it was the only one that seemed to fit, so she said it again, this time with more force. “Stupid!”
She hoped the not-allowed word would sink down to the bottom of the pond and etch its way into the crabs’ hard shells. She couldn’t see them, but she knew they were down there, scuttling along the bottom of the pond.
In her entire ten years she had never heard crabs speak before. And then, that very morning, all ten of them had called out to her.
Those ten crabs had turned this whole day into a disaster.
Stupid, stupid, stupid crabs!
Keeper checked the rope that held her boat to the pier. It was still too tight to untie it. She needed the moon to rise, which would make the tide rise, then the boat rise, which would make the rope go slack, which would mean she could untie the knot, which would mean she could set her plan into action. Her perfect plan.
“Come on, moon,” she implored. Didn’t it know she was in a hurry? As soon as she said the word “moon,” she chewed on her bottom lip. So much had depended upon tonight’s moon, a blue moon, second full moon of the month.
First, Signe’s gumbo.
Then, Dogie’s two-word song.
Finally, Mr. Beauchamp’s night-blooming cyrus.
All three of those things had depended upon the blue moon, and all of them, every one, had been ruined.
Ruined by… CRABS!
Keeper never wanted to see another crab in her entire life! Never, never, never!
And now she needed the moon to turn the tide around and pull her out of the pond, through the channel, and into the breakers until she got to the sandbar.
That was the plan… or at least the first part of the plan.
2
What makes a ten-year-old girl think she can go out in a boat alone, at night, with only her dog for a sailing mate?
Well… muscles. Exactly!
Sitting in The Scamper, curling her arms up like a boxer, Keeper flexed her muscles. She certainly was not like the Incredible Hulk, but she was proud of her strong arms.
Recently, Dogie, her next-door neighbor and the proprietor of Dogie’s Beach Umbrella and Surfboard Shop, which had at one time been a yellow school bus but was now simply known as “the Bus,” had put her in charge of waxing the surfboards. It was a job she took seriously. Dogie called her his “wax-wing,” which Keeper knew was some sort of bird because Dogie loved birds. He was always drawing them for one thing. Lots of pictures of birds. And even though waxing surfboards had nothing to do with birds at all, she still loved being called his waxwing.
He didn’t pay her much—a cold Dr Pepper, plus one dollar for waxing a short board or two for waxing a long board—but she was proud of her work. She kept her dollars in an old red purse in her closet, a purse that Signe had picked up for her at the Tater Thrift Shop for fifty cents. To date, Keeper had $42.00 in that purse. She did not know what she was going to spend it on, but she liked knowing it was there, adding up.
And then one day Signe came home from work and handed her a copy of a Sears catalogue, the “Wish Book” edition. The only time Keeper had opened it, she randomly turned to a page with men’s corduroy jackets and decided that there wasn’t anything in that wish book that she wished to have, especially a man’s corduroy jacket.
“Save it,” Signe told her. “You might need it for a rainy day.” So Keeper did.
Each time Dogie paid her to wax a surfboard, she put the money in her red purse, and then she put the purse on the shelf in her closet. The catalogue gathered dust.
3
The job of waxing is more complicated than it sounds.
Step 1: Keeper had to wash the salt water off of the board. Because there was no running water at the Bus, Dogie had attached a string of water hoses from his house all the way down the road to the Bus. This meant that Keeper had to run back and forth from house to Bus to turn the water on and off. It wasn’t that far, maybe fifty yards, but she had to hurry anyway. “N-n-no n-n-need to waste water,” Dogie always told her.
Step 2: She had to remove the old wax. First she had to scrape the whole deck of the board with a thing called a “comb,” which looked a little like a hair comb, but instead of long, thin teeth, it had small, squatty teeth, perfect for jabbing underneath the old wax. This was the hardest part, especially when the wax was majorly caked on and gunky. Keeper had to press down on the comb with both hands to pry the old wax off.
It wasn’t such a bad job when she was working on one of the short boards—five feet or so. But the long boards were a pain. Imagine eight to ten feet of gunked-up wax, and there you have it.
The wax went everywhere. It got underneath her fingernails, it stuck to her clothes, it clumped up on the top of her shoes. Blech!
Dogie had one old surfboard called a “gun” that was almost eleven feet long. Keeper hated waxing the gun, with its pointed ends. According to Dogie, wannabe surfers used it to “g-g-gun for the b-b-big waves.” Thank goodness for Keeper, it didn’t get rented too often. Even though she liked getting two dollars instead of one, the gun took F-O-R-E-V-E-R.
After she got the bulk of the old wax off, she finished removing the rest by rubbing the entire board with a product called Pickle Wax Remover. The Pickle was squishy in her hand and felt like a bean-bag, only instead of being stuffed with beans, it was filled with a powdery substance that felt softer than silk. Keeper didn’t know what was in it, only that it got the old wax off. It also made the skin on her fingertips all pruny, like raisins. After she wiped all of the wax off, Keeper stood back and admired the shiny, clean board.
Dogie’s surfboards were like works of art. Splashed across their rainbow-colored decks were air-brushed paintings of waterfalls and sea dragons and a host of other fantastic creatures. Her favorite painting was a winged horse that looked like part horse and part comet, with its long tail blazing down the length of the board.
Dogie had told her that a good ride in the surf was “l-l-like f-f-flying.” Keeper wouldn’t know since she had never ever been on a surfboard. “Wh-wh-when you’re older,” Dogie
promised.
That promise was small consolation because Keeper thought that anyone old enough to wax a surfboard should be old enough to ride one, but in this matter of unfairness Signe had put her foot down. “No way, missy,” Signe had told her, time after time. “I’ve already pulled you out of the surf twice, and that’s enough.”
Whenever Keeper appealed this decision to Dogie, he just shrugged.
Step 2a: Once Keeper removed the wax, she checked the board for any dings, cuts, or notches in the fiberglass skin, so that Dogie could repair it with a ding repair kit. This was a critical responsibility. If a ding went unrepaired, the board would take on water and make it heavier than it should be. Then it wouldn’t be as easy to maneuver.
“A w-w-waxwing has to f-f-find d-d-dings,” Dogie told her. So she did. Surfers put dings in the boards all the time. Especially if they accidentally ran up on the sandbar. Dogie was constantly warning them about that sandbar. De Vaca’s Rock.
Step 3: This was when Keeper applied the new wax, beginning with the base coat. Keeper knew this was an important step too. If the base coat wasn’t applied just so, then the whole wax job could be a big, fat mess, and then she’d have to start over. The key to Step 3, according to Dogie, was waxing in the right direction: “N-n-nose to t-t-tail, rail t-t-to rail,” he told her, which meant “start at the top and work your way to the bottom by going side to side.” So Keeper pressed the bar of base coat wax on its edge, then in small, precise circles she covered the entire deck of the board with an undercoating of sticky, bumpy wax. In fact, her favorite brand of wax was called Sticky Bumps. True to its name, it made the smooth deck all sticky and bumpy.
“S-s-so the s-s-surfer will st-st-stick,” said Dogie. If the wax was too smooth, the surfer wouldn’t be able to grip the board with his or her toes. Wipeout!
Step 4: Last step. The wax itself. The kind of wax Keeper used for this step depended upon the water temperature. Most of the time the water temperature of the Gulf of Mexico hovered in the 70s or 80s; only in the winter months did it drop into the 60s and upper 50s. Because Keeper had been Dogie’s waxwing only since late spring, and it was still summer, she used Sticky Bumps Day Glo wax for warmer water. The hot pink of it seemed to scream at her while she rubbed it on top of the base coat. When it turned cooler in the coming fall and winter months, she thought she would switch to the Tour Series, which smelled faintly of bananas.
