The Pacific Giants (3 page)

The breakfast was amazing, though, and by the time Vanessa had polished off two pancakes smothered in fresh blueberries and almost a whole jug of maple syrup, she felt a lot better. She came to the conclusion that she'd have to get used to pottering on her own from day one.

Vanessa refused seconds politely. It was time to explore the place.

“What's the best way to get down to the beach, Mrs. Bouche?” she asked as she carried her plate to the sink.

“Oh, please call me Frankie. Everyone else does—even Wayne does sometimes.”

Who exactly was this Wayne that she kept talking about? Vanessa wondered. It was clear that Frankie thought she should know.

“Do you mind me asking who Wayne is?” Vanessa asked, recalling something about his addiction to Jo-Jo's, whatever that was.

Mrs. Bouche burst out laughing, as if Vanessa had
said the funniest thing in the world, although she also looked mildly incredulous.

“Why, honey, Wayne is my son, of course.” Her laugh turned to a fond chuckle. “Wayne is my one and only.”

Mrs. Bouche said her son's name with such naked affection and reverence that Vanessa was quite taken aback.

Vanessa's dad didn't talk about her brothers like that, and he certainly had never used
her
name with such open admiration. She'd have to talk to him about that when she got home!

“What age is Wayne?” Vanessa asked, not sure what she was hoping for. Too young could be annoying; her own age could be complicated.

“He's ten, but he's big for his age,” Wayne's mother said with pride. “He's been so excited about you coming, honey. He's just dying to show you the ropes. He had his breakfast earlier and went off on his bike, but he'll be back soon, I'm sure.”

We don't know all the sea creatures in our world yet. Marine scientists believe that there are many large deepwater species yet to be discovered. In 2005 two scientists, Solow and Smith, predicted that as many as fifteen marine mammal species still await discovery.

Vanessa put her camera, iPod, and sketchbook in her backpack and made her way to the garden. To the side of the house, she found a small rusty gate that was half off its hinges. She stepped over it and followed the path around to the back of the house. At
the end of that was another gate. This one was held open with an old piece of string. Below it she could see tiled steps disappearing down, many of them broken. Clearly nothing around here had been repaired for a long time.

Vanessa started cautiously down the steps. At one point there was an entire step missing, and there was a long and dangerous drop to the beach. Vanessa shuddered. She wasn't bad with heights, but the jagged rocks below looked a bit scary. Had other guests not mentioned the state of the steps to Frankie? Did they get many guests?

Vanessa looked around. It was a very beautiful spot, but what a lonely life for Mrs. Bouche and Wayne!
What must it be like in winter?
she wondered.

Vanessa walked the full length of the beach before deciding to take off her runners to have a paddle. The sea, which had looked quite blue from her bedroom window, now looked gray and very cold.
A bit like the sea at home in the summer
, Vanessa thought. She'd have to test it.

She sat down on a boulder and began to peel off her socks. Suddenly there was a scrabbling noise behind her and Vanessa turned quickly, expecting to see
a dog or a small animal, but there was nothing there. It happened again, the sound a little closer this time, so she sprang up to investigate. Through a crevice in one of the rocks an enormous crab, with the longest legs she had ever seen, scuttled toward her quickly. Startled, Vanessa stumbled backward and landed hard on the flat of her back.

“Ouuuuch,” she shouted into the air, when she finally recovered her breath. It had been a painful fall.

The noise she heard next sounded exactly like a snicker. A small, unpleasant, half choked-back snicker, Vanessa could have sworn. She sat up quickly, wincing with the pain, and looked around. Who could it be? She hadn't seen anyone on the beach.

And then it struck her.

“Come on out, Wayne,” she said as playfully as she could.

“I know you're there!” She hoped the irritation in her voice wasn't too obvious.

Vanessa waited.

“Come on, Wayne. It's OK. Your mum said you would follow me down to the beach.”

Her voice was friendlier this time. It would be better to take a more conciliatory approach, she thought.
After all, Wayne was only ten—and she would be seeing him every day for the next week.

The silence was total, except for the soft sound of the waves and the birds calling out overhead. She made a complete circle of the area, checking behind boulders. Nothing. Maybe she had been imagining things.

Vanessa rubbed her shoulder, which had taken the brunt of her fall. It was pretty sore, but she didn't feel like going back to the guesthouse yet. Time for a paddle. Slowly rolling up the legs of her jeans, Vanessa listened hard, but there were no more snickers or scuttling sounds.

At the water's edge, a wave ran over her feet and made her gasp. It was just as cold as the Irish Sea—or just as “refreshing,” as her mum used to say on their caravan holidays in Wexford when Vanessa was younger. She smiled to herself, remembering the bets as to who would be in first. It had always been Vanessa. Her brothers, Luke and Ronan, liked to talk tough, but they were wimps when it came to it.

The sound of a bell ringing above her made Vanessa turn and look up. From the beach side, the guesthouse looked a rather odd building—sort of straggly, as if it had evolved over time. Some of the
rooms looked as if they were balancing uncomfortably on the edge—one-buttock-on-a-shared-seat sort of uncomfortable. A decent storm could easily blow it down the cliff, Vanessa thought.

The bell tinkled again. A clear, sweet sound like the little handbell her headmistress rang in school to bring order. “A lady never raises her voice,” she reminded them frequently.

But what did the bell mean here? A lunch bell? Surely not. She'd only just eaten breakfast.

Vanessa looked at her wrist, but she'd forgotten to put her watch back on after her shower. She had no idea how long she'd spent on the beach, and as it had clouded over, she couldn't even use the sun to help her guess. She paddled for a bit longer and then dried her feet on her jeans. She put on her runners, but shoved her socks into her pocket, and made her way slowly up to the guesthouse, stopping to look for the giant crab that had startled her earlier. If she found it, she'd take a photo to show to Lee later. But the crab was well gone.

When Vanessa finally poked her head around the door of the kitchen, Mrs. Bouche was sitting with a young boy at the kitchen table, eating.

“Don't you worry about being late, honey,” Frankie said as she got up to get a plate for Vanessa. “Your first day here gives you the perfect excuse, doesn't it, Wayne?”

The boy stared glassy-eyed at Vanessa.

“It's the perfect excuse, isn't it, Wayne?” Frankie repeated. She didn't seem in the least put out when he didn't reply. Maybe he couldn't speak? That would be perfect: pleasant, smiling interactions with no expectation of conversation or friendship. Surely Frankie would have said something to her earlier, though.

“Hi, Wayne,” Vanessa said politely, pulling out a chair opposite him.

Wayne stopped eating and winked at her. Vanessa's eyes widened. Had he really just winked at her? She stared at him, her jaw loose with surprise, and watched a slow grin spread across his face like a rash.

There was something unpleasant about him, and Vanessa took an instant dislike to his face. Not his features so much as his look. Smugness? Sneakiness? Was that even a word? She shook herself mentally. Maybe it was just the thought of him spying on her at the beach that was coloring her first impression.

“Been to the beach yet?” Wayne asked her
suddenly. “If not, I'll take you later if you like.”

Frankie beamed.

“See, I told you my Wayne was dying to show you the ropes, Vanessa. He knows all the best walks and hikes on the island.”

Vanessa eyed Wayne warily. His eyes slid away from hers. Sly! That was the word she'd been looking for. Wayne looked sly.

“Thanks, but I've already been down to the beach. Funnily enough, I thought I saw you down there too, Wayne,” Vanessa said carefully.

“Must have been my alter ego, then, 'cause I've only just gotten back from my bike ride,” Wayne said pompously. He turned to his mother. “Can I have more lasagna, Mom? It's really good.”

Vanessa was thrown for a moment. Maybe she'd gotten Wayne all wrong. How embarrassing! It wouldn't be the first time she had misread someone.

“Thanks, Wayne,” Vanessa said quickly. “Maybe you could show me some other places around here too.”

“Maybe,” Wayne replied airily, without looking at her, “if you're nice.”

Fisherman David Miller from Vancouver Island saw an unknown creature in the sea in November 1959. He said that “other fishermen friends have also reported strange creatures much resembling the one we saw, but are reluctant to report it to the papers or authorities because of the ridicule which follows such sightings.”

Vanessa had gone to her bedroom after lunch with the idea of reading her book but had fallen asleep the minute she lay down. She was woken by a knock on the door and staggered off the bed to answer it,
feeling like she had been run over by a convoy of trucks. So much for a refreshing nap.

“Would you like to come into town to collect the groceries, Vanessa?” Frankie said when Vanessa opened her bedroom door. She was wheezing badly from the climb up the stairs. “I'll be downstairs,” she said without waiting for Vanessa to answer, making her way heavily back down.

Frankie really wasn't able for those stairs. Why hadn't she sent Wayne up? Vanessa wondered. Maybe he had gone out again and it was only Mrs. Bouche who was going into town, she thought with some relief.

Vanessa went to retrieve her runners, which she had left by the back door on her way from the beach at lunchtime. She had forgotten her socks, and when she thrust her bare foot into the shoe something sharp dug into the sole of her foot and made her cry out. Vanessa turned her shoe upside down and a pile of sharp little stones fell out. She stared. How strange! The second shoe was just the same.

She was sure that the stones hadn't been in her shoes when she'd come up for lunch. She couldn't have worn them back from the beach like that. But
how else could they have ended up there? That little snake Wayne must have done it! Vanessa flung down her shoes in annoyance. So much for giving him the benefit of the doubt.

As she gathered the stones up, Vanessa toyed with the idea of not going to the village, just in case Wayne was going too. But she couldn't let that little monster get the better of her so easily. Besides, there was absolutely nothing else to do, and she still had hours to kill before Lee came home. It would be a relief to get out and see a bit of the island. Between the rain falling and the bags blocking her view yesterday, she'd seen nothing. Yesterday? It was hard to believe that they had arrived less than twenty-four hours ago. It felt like a lifetime to Vanessa already.

She decided to go.

Wayne sat in the front of the car and chatted away. He pointed out various local landmarks as they drove.

“That's the mill, and over there, just beyond that, is Bear's Head Forest. And see up there on the ridge?” Wayne stuck his finger out of the open window. “They're arbutus trees.”

Vanessa looked at them. In the distance, they didn't look like much.

“Arbutus trees are really rare,” Wayne said.

Vanessa allowed herself the luxury of turning to the window and rolling her eyes. If she heard another word about their flipping arbutus trees or their fresh air, she would scream. Here she was with a ten-year-old from hell whose mother thought he was a little god, while Lee was … Where was Lee? She was only a few miles away with a bunch of scientists discussing Vanessa's favorite creatures in the whole wide world—whales, the giants of the sea. It wasn't fair!

Vanessa gazed at the back of Wayne's head and imagined it inside the mouth of a gigantic killer whale, his legs sticking out, kicking frantically as he was being taken down to the bottom of the ocean. Imagining them was as close as she was going to get to whales on Duquette Island, Vanessa thought bitterly.

Before long, Frankie pulled into the gas station. Attached to the station was a small store. “Givney's Food Emporium” was written above the door on a hand-painted wooden sign.

“That's our church hall,” Mrs. Bouche said proudly, pointing to a clapboard building on the opposite side of the road. “Farther up is a gift shop for tourists and all our local crafts are displayed there.”

“And then at the top of the hill, near the ferry, is Jo-Jo's,” Wayne said eagerly.

Jo-Jo's, at last.

“It's the new ice-cream shop that opened just last summer,” Frankie explained. “Lettie runs it. She's away yesterday and today, otherwise we'd go for an ice-cream soda and you could meet her.”

“An ice-cream shop on such a small island? That's amazing!” Vanessa exclaimed. “Where do you go to school, Wayne?” she asked then. She'd been imagining the local children crowding into the ice-cream shop after school.

Wayne turned in the front seat and scowled at her.

“There's no school here,” his mother said. “Too few kids. But there's one on Granta Island that Wayne used to go to. He doesn't anymore, though. Not since …” Frankie hesitated. “These days, Reverend Took takes him for classes two mornings a week.”

Wayne's scowl deepened. Clearly Reverend Took was not a favorite with Wayne either.

“Next year I'm going to Vancouver to school,” Wayne said loudly, and Vanessa caught the darting look of concern that his mother gave him, although she said nothing. Family webs were always full of dark
corners and fragile threads.