Keeper, Page 2

  Dogie had a package of it waiting for her in the Bus.

  All that scraping and waxing, all that nose-to-tail, rail-to-rail, Day-Glo-banana-scented action, gave a girl muscles.

  She would need those muscles tonight for steering the boat.

  4

  Keeper dipped her fingers into the water beside the boat and stirred it in a quick circle. Right then, in the dark, deep night, the pond was as still as glass. “Hurry up, tide,” she muttered.

  Then she added, “Stupid, stupid crabs!”

  The water was cool compared to the warm night air. She knew those ten crabs were down there. That very morning she had watched them, one by one, scurry into the water. A parade of crabs.

  Suddenly, an image of their clacking claws made her yank her hand out of the pond. She stuck it, wet, into her shorts pocket and bumped her fingertips against the small wooden carving of Yemaya. Keeper had jammed the figurine into her pocket on her way out of her bedroom, right before she sneaked out of the house. Yemaya, queen of the sea, head mermaid. She was one of seven, carved for Keeper by Mr. Beauchamp. She called them the “merlings.”

  “Yemaya,” Keeper whispered. She rubbed the figurine—it was one of her favorites. Across from her in the boat, her dog, BD, whined. She reached over to give him a rub too.

  All at once, a small gust of wind bumped against her; a reminder. It wasn’t just the crabs that had caused all of this trouble. She had to admit that the crabs had company: Sinbad (cat) and Too (dog) and Captain (seagull) and BD (dog). The “beasts,” as Dogie called them. Those four were party to the mayhem too.

  “Why, yes,” she said to BD, as if the dog were protesting, “you most certainly were.” But then another little gust blew by.

  The beasts weren’t the only ones at fault, no-sirree-bob. Keeper knew—she herself was also, at least partially, probably, a little, a tiny bit, more than that, well, okay, yes, she was also to blame.

  “Stupid!” she said.

  She leaned over the boat’s edge again and made the maddest, angriest face she could think of and hoped that the crabs could see it. But it was so dark, she couldn’t even see her own reflection.

  Which was just as well. She had seen enough mad faces in the past day. She glared straight up at the black sky. Sugary stars blinked back at her. “Where are you, poky ol’ moon?” she asked. “Hurry up!”

  Keeper knew that a full moon should rise soon after the sun had set, and it seemed like the sun had set forever ago. But then she thought about what Mr. Beauchamp told her: “Blue moon might hide behind a cloud bank, might dillydally behind sand dunes. Blue moon… takes her time.”

  5

  The day had not started out with mad faces. It had actually started out with glad faces. Keeper had only barely been awake that morning when she had walked into the kitchen at the same time that Dogie walked through their screen door holding his large aluminum tub. Keeper knew it was filled with snapping crabs. Signe was already stirring the thick roux that would make the base for her gumbo. Keeper walked over to the tub to make the crab count. Suddenly, a small shiver ran along her arms.

  “Hey, s-s-sleepyhead,” said Dogie. He winked at her.

  “Hey, yourself,” Keeper said, whereupon she forgot about the shiver and winked back. This day had finally arrived! Which meant that the night she had been waiting for all summer would be along in only hours. Blue moon night! Blue moon gumbo! Mr. Beauchamp’s blooming flowers! And one more thing. The one more thing that made her face the gladdest: Dogie’s two-word song, the one that he would finally sing for Signe that very night, the one he had practiced all summer with his ukulele: “Marry me!”

  Keeper had listened to him sing it while she waxed the surfboards and Signe wasn’t around. “Marry me!” Dogie had sung it over and over, with not one single stutter.

  That morning Keeper wondered, Would Signe say yes? That was a question for the universe, but Keeper hoped so. Oh yes, she hoped so.

  Then Dogie would be even more like a real-life father, wouldn’t he? Keeper almost blurted it all out, right then, but instead, she put her hands over her mouth. It took every single cell in her body to keep from squealing. She smiled a majorly happy smile at him and crossed her fingers.

  Keeper had known Dogie since the moment she was born, born in the water.

  “L-l-like a d-d-dolphin,” he had told her. Too, Dogie’s little pup, stood on his hind legs and did his own funny dance. Keeper reached down and scratched his spotted head.

  “G-g-got a c-c-couple of b-b-boards need waxing,” Dogie told her. Keeper kept smiling. That meant at least two more dollars for her red purse. By the end of the day she would have $44.00. A fortune! What a lucky day! Now she watched Dogie scoop up little Too and open the door. “G-g-gotta go,” he said. Then she looked over at Signe and saw her turn her face away from the steaming roux and smile at him.

  “Adios,” Signe said, adding some sort of spice or another to the pot.

  Keeper watched Dogie cast his eyes at Signe as he stepped onto the porch. “B-b-blue moon t-t-tonight,” he said as he closed the door.

  Keeper wanted to rush out behind him and beg him to sing his song now; she wasn’t sure she could wait all the livelong day.

  She listened to his heavy footsteps going down the wooden stairs. She counted. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two… He paused. There were ten steps between the porch and the ground. Would he come back up? Maybe he couldn’t wait the livelong day either!

  Keeper bit her tongue.

  One.

  There it was, the last step. Shoot. Dogie was gone.

  But her glad face was still there.

  6

  Keeper was still smiling when she walked to the stove and stood next to Signe, who was stirring the bubbling liquid for her blue moon gumbo. The smell filled the room. Keeper thought that if she held out her tongue in the steamy kitchen, she’d be able to taste the spicy mixture without even putting a spoonful in her mouth.

  Onions, garlic, bacon, all stirred together with a mysterious spice called “filé”

  “It’s made from sassafras leaves,” Signe told her as she chopped up the okra and tomatoes, brought home fresh from the Tater Grocery " Market the day before.

  Keeper loved loved loved that smell. “It smells scrumptious,” she told Signe. The spicy scent settled on her skin.

  Keeper knew that the pot would sit on the stove top all day, simmering and stewing, and at the last minute, just before she served it, Signe would drop the crabs into a pot of boiling water, one at a time, and then add them to the gumbo.

  Fresh crabs.

  Caught in Dogie’s net just hours ago.

  Blue crabs.

  Tasty crabs.

  In that very moment Keeper became intensely aware of the crabs in the tub. She could hear their pinchers snapping in a nervous frenzy. But when she squatted down next to them, they stopped and became perfectly still. For the first time ever, she noticed the delicate markings on their shells, saw the perfect symmetry of their heart-shaped backs and the imperfect balance of their large and small claws. Suddenly, the crabs seemed beautiful to her, all of them facing her, looking up at her.

  Oh no! she thought. Signe was going to drop them into boiling water, drop them in alive. Their wonderful shells, blue and brown and white, would turn pink and then red in the hot liquid. Keeper’s stomach did a flip. She couldn’t look at them.

  She turned away from the tub and hurried to the bathroom, where she sat down hard on the edge of the bathtub. The porcelain finish felt ice cold through the seat of her pajamas. Her heart beat like mad against her chest. As mad as the crabs. She grabbed one of her great-grandmother’s white cotton towels and bit it.

  What to do?

  She didn’t think she had ever been “looked at” by a tubful of crabs. Goose bumps ran down her back. Were they trying to tell her something?

  Next she heard Signe knock at the door. “Keeper, honey?”

  She should say something. B
ut what?

  “Keeper?”

  In the bathroom she could not hear the crabs. Thank goodness. Her heart slowed down. She took a deep breath, then rose to open the door. Then she stopped. How had she not thought of it before? That the crabs were boiled alive? Suddenly she realized that the crabs were sending her a message: Help us! And that message was coming through loud and clear.

  And how did the crabs know what dire fate awaited them? But if they didn’t know, why would they call out to her? And they had called out to her. She was certain of it. She draped the towel over her head and held the edges under her chin.

  She had never felt any affinity for crabs. Plenty of times she had been nipped on the side of the foot or on the toe by one as she walked through the shallow waves on the beach. But they had never looked at her before either. Also, she never fully realized how lovely their shells were. She sat back down on the edge of the tub. She couldn’t bear the thought of them being dropped into the boiling water. She heard the knock on the door. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to hear the crabs. But it wouldn’t be good for Signe to think that she was sick. That would mean a whole day of staying in bed.

  There was nothing worse than staying in bed on a summer day. And not only that, but she was supposed to go to the Bus to wax the two surfboards, plus she needed to help Mr. Beauchamp water his plants. And what if Signe made her miss the two-word song? The one that Dogie was supposed to sing that very night? She heard the knock again. She had to open the door. But if she did, she’d hear the crabs.

  Open?

  Not open.

  Knock, knock, knock.

  “Keeper?”

  Stay in bed on a summer day? Maybe miss Dogie’s song? Miss hearing Signe’s response? No!

  No-no-no-no-no!

  “Okay, okay,” she said. She stood up and leaned against the door. On the other side she knew that Signe was standing there with her wooden spoon in one hand. Signe’s bright white hair stood up in spikes. Keeper loved Signe’s hair. According to Signe, her hair turned white when she was only fourteen, right before she left Iowa. It had been snow white ever since. At once Keeper realized that she had never asked Signe what color her hair had been before it turned white. Had it been black like hers? Auburn like Dogie’s?

  Purple?

  Pink?

  Green? Mr. Beauchamp, their elderly neighbor across the road, had told her that the Russian mermaids, the rusalki, had green hair.

  Hair.

  It came in so many colors.

  Like red.

  Red like boiled crabs.

  Boiled crabs.

  Boiled alive.

  There was the message again. Keeper couldn’t deny it. She knew what she had heard, even though she really hadn’t heard it, had she? Technically, all she heard were snipping-snapping claws, but the message was coming through nonetheless. She started to pant. She tugged on the towel. The message zoomed around her head, buzzed in her ears.

  “Are you all right?” Signe asked from the other side of the door.

  Was she all right? She wasn’t sure.

  Keeper shook her head. “I’m okay,” she said. But was she? She was standing in the bathroom with a towel over her head, and she was sure she had just gotten a message from a tubful of blue crabs.

  Was this what it was like to have mermaid blood running through your veins?

  7

  Now, hours later, Keeper sat in the boat with BD.

  Of the four people who lived along Oyster Ridge Road, Keeper was the only one who was not a grown-up. “I’m the only one with merblood, too,” she told BD as they sat in the small boat, the darkness as thick as stew.

  The boat rocked. She had tried to discuss this fact with Signe before, only to have Signe cross her arms and say, “Keeper, let’s be practical here,” and then change the subject to homework or feeding BD or washing the dishes.

  Now Signe was furious with her, and Signe wasn’t the only one. So were Mr. Beauchamp and Dogie.

  E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E.

  Signe called the terrain of Oyster Ridge Road the “world unto itself.”

  Here’s a fact: Everyone in the world unto itself was mad at Keeper.

  “There’s only one person who can help us, BD,” she told the dog. “My mother.”

  Then she added, “The mermaid.”

  As she sat there, atop the glassy pond, Keeper solemnly put her left hand on her chest, just below the charm that hung from her neck. There she felt her heartbeat under the skin of her palm. The charm was icy cold. She could feel the cold of it even through her T-shirt. Then, with her right hand, she patted her pocket where the carving of Yemaya sat. She could feel the small outlines of the figurine against the denim of her shorts.

  “For luck, BD,” she said. Between the charm and the figurine, she figured she was loaded with luck. “Good luck,” she told the dog. Then she followed with, “We’ve had enough of that other kind.”

  8

  At the sound of his name, BD thumped his tail against the bottom of the boat. BD, short for Best Dog. He felt Keeper rub the soft fur behind his ears. In return, he gave her a slurpy kiss.

  “Ugh… stealth kiss!” Keeper complained, then he watched her wipe her chin with the back of her hand.

  BD whined. Please, can we go back now? Please? For emphasis, he put his right front paw on her knee. Please, please, please, he whined.

  He was worried about Keeper. He could tell she wasn’t happy.

  He was worried about the dark. He did not like the dark.

  He was worried about being in the boat this late at night when they should be sound asleep in Keeper’s room just down the hall from Signe’s room.

  Worry. It was worse than sand fleas. Suddenly he itched all over.

  Keeper patted his paw atop her knee. “It’s okay, boy,” she said. Then she added, “You’ll see. It’ll be easy peasy.”

  The dog licked her chin again. He didn’t think being in this boat in the middle of the night was easy at all.

  “After all,” she told him, “you’re the finder dog.” That was true. Over the years BD had found a whole host of missing objects—the odd sock, a misplaced spoon, the tiny key to the lock on Keeper’s diary, one of Signe’s peace-sign earrings, loose pages of homework.

  He also found other things, things that weren’t missing until he found them, like one-of-a-kind seashells and tiny abandoned puppies, including Too, who was adopted by Dogie. He even found shooting stars and stripey geckos, things that came and went. But right now BD wasn’t so much a finder dog as a worry dog.

  9

  Keeper leaned over the boat’s side again. “I know you’re down there,” she said to the black water. She cupped her hands over her ears. Would the crabs call to her again? She hoped not. She did not ever want to hear anything at all from crabs, never ever, not in a million bajillion years, not one single crabby peep.

  “Stupid crabs!”

  How, she wondered, could ten stupid crabs cause so much trouble?

  T-R-O-U-B-L-E.

  She rested her chin on the side of the boat and peered into the water. She could hear Signe’s words in her brain: “You’re in trouble, missy.”

  “All because of you stupid crabs,” muttered Keeper to the water.

  If only she had stayed in the bathroom that morning, with the towel over her head. Why hadn’t she? If she had stayed in the bathroom all day, none of this would have happened. She would not have heard the crabs at all, because by the time she came out, Signe would have boiled them and added them to the gumbo.

  But… she hadn’t stayed in the bathroom, had she? Nope. After all, how could Keeper stay in the bathroom all day long? Was the bathroom a good place for a girl to spend the day? Was it a comfortable place to pass the hours? A fun place to hang out on a summer day? Was there anything at all interesting about the bathroom? No. No. And double no.

  So instead of staying there, Keeper had followed Signe back to the kitchen. Didn’t Signe hear the crabs also? Keep
er didn’t think so. She didn’t think that Signe had any merblood in her. In fact, she knew that Signe didn’t have any merblood. Signe, after all, was not her real mother.

  That would be Meggie Marie.

  All at once, watching Signe stir the gumbo, Keeper got another message, this one from the universe: Set those crabs free. The thought immediately made her feel hugely better. Freeing the crabs was the answer.

  But the answer led to a question: How could she carry that gigantic tub of screaming crabs past Signe, out the door and down the steps, and then all the way to the beach, which was at least a hundred yards from the house?

  She didn’t think she could.

  Could she? Hmmm… Wait!

  Of course!

  The answer was so simple: just ask!

  Exactly.

  So Keeper asked, “Do we have to put the crabs in the gumbo?”

  Signe turned around, spoon in the air. “What?” Keeper noticed that when she asked the question, the crabs stopped scuttling.

  “The crabs,” repeated Keeper. “Do we have to put them in the gumbo?”

  “Keeper, it’s crab gumbo.”

  “I know… but just this once, could we have… sausage gumbo?” She smiled her nicest, most very nice smile at Signe. “Everyone would be happy with sausage.”

  “Don’t be silly,” said Signe. “Anyway, you love crab gumbo.”

  Keeper knew that was true… once… she used to love crab gumbo. She did not want to say it out loud in front of the crabs, who were now completely silent. Were they reaching a state of resignation? Did they understand that they were doomed? She glanced at them. If it were possible for crabs to look resigned, these crabs did. Keeper couldn’t stand it.

  “Besides,” Signe’s voice interrupted her contemplation, “if we don’t use the crabs, we might hurt Dogie’s feelings.” Then she added, “After all, he got up at dawn this morning to catch them.”