The Pacific Giants (6 page)

Mr. Fox looked mildly surprised and then smiled at her. “You're right, of course,” he agreed. “Sometimes when we look back, progress can seem a bit ruthless even though it's necessary.”

Necessary? For what? For whom? Not the native
peoples who had been living here, that was for sure. Vanessa opened her mouth to argue, but Wayne cut across her.

“I'm hungry,” he whined. “You shouldn't hog the lunch bag, Vanessa. Frankie meant us to share.”

Vanessa shoved the bag at him.

“Have as much as you like, Wayne,” she said through gritted teeth. “Just don't choke on the sandwiches,” she added, dropping her voice.

Wayne eyed her solemnly. “You know, you're a very cranky person,” he said loudly.

Luckily Mr. Fox intervened before the argument could escalate further.

“Up ahead, starboard side,” he called urgently, pointing to the right. He turned the boat and then picked up speed.

At first Vanessa could see nothing. Then in the distance she saw a fin appear out of the water, hesitate for a second, and begin slapping the surface of the water.

“He's pec slapping,” Mr. Fox shouted over the noise of the engine.

Vanessa laughed. It looked so playful, like a toddler slapping the water in a bathtub.

As they got closer, Mr. Fox cut the engines, and immediately a huge gray back broke the surface and rolled gracefully. Then another appeared beside it.

Vanessa gasped. Their size was incredible, and the sight of them so close blew her mind. She really felt as if she was in the presence of something important, something prehistoric.

“They're humpback whales, probably males. See the one waving his tail at us? That means either he's going straight down and will disappear or—”

Mr. Fox didn't have time to finish before the whale shot up vertically out of the water and landed on its back with a thunderous crash and a huge splash. “Or he'll breach,” Mr. Fox finished with a grin.

“Oh my God!” Vanessa exclaimed. She had seen it on wildlife programs, but this wasn't the same. The thunderous noise, the beauty of their movement, the power needed to jump so high. It was breathtaking.

“Imagine,” Vanessa whispered to herself. “I'm in British Columbia, watching humpbacks play right in front of me.” When Vanessa did this, it was the mental equivalent of pinching herself. Not only did it help her mark the moment as a permanent memory, but she actually enjoyed the words themselves: the
foreignness of them thrilled her—British Columbia, humpbacks—it was so unbelievable.

She had forgotten about Wayne.

“Why are you talking to yourself, Vanessa?” Wayne said loudly. “It's the first sign of madness, you know.”

He grinned slyly at her, and Vanessa could have sworn he gave a conspiratorial wink to Mr. Fox.

“Shut up, you little twit,” Vanessa said irritably. Wayne really could spoil any occasion.

Mr. Fox looked at her sharply.

“Sorry,” she said quickly. “Tetchy because I'm tired. Dreamt about people hiding in bushes and eavesdropping,” she added pointedly.

This caused Wayne to grin even harder.

Just as Vanessa turned away, she thought she saw Mr. Fox give Wayne a little nod. Vanessa stared. Were they up to something? No, she scolded herself, she was being silly. She really needed to calm down a bit and not let Wayne get to her.

The whales, which had disappeared for a while, now surfaced again. They were even closer this time, cutting across the bow of the stationary boat, their backs rising and submerging in the water, spray
billowing from their spout holes. And then the magic happened—a third, tiny whale swam out from beneath the larger one.

“Look, there's a baby!” Wayne shouted.

“Oh my God, a whole family,” Vanessa said wistfully. Tears sprang unexpectedly to her eyes, taking her by surprise. She wiped them away quickly before they could get a hold. Luckily it was windy.

“Humpbacks don't tend to travel in families,” Mr. Fox said. “It's usually the mother and the baby with another female. The males travel in packs. Bit like humans, I suppose,” he added with a smirk.

The whales swam around the boat for a while, the baby swimming beneath the mother, the companion staying close. Vanessa wondered what it would be like to swim with the whales.

As she watched they sank slowly, as one, beneath the surface. It was only then that Vanessa noticed that Mr. Fox was speaking quietly into the handset of the radio. Vanessa strained to hear what he was saying, but the sound of Wayne munching his way through a bag of potato chips made it impossible.

In January 1992 Dorothy Sinclair saw a monster in Gray's Harbor. “The long slender neck rose, I would say, five or six feet in the air, and the thing that struck me was that incredible dignity!”

“Maybe we'll move on and find some others,” Mr. Fox suggested finally. He started the engine. “I think we'll head up to Gray's Harbor. It's a nice place if you want to go for a swim. You can change into your wet-suit in the cabin if you like, Vanessa.”

Vanessa put on the wetsuit and then ate her chicken
roll before Wayne could polish off everything in the bag. All the snacks and treats were gone already, she noticed, and the fizzy drinks too. There was just a single bottle of water left, but Vanessa didn't really mind. The whales were all that mattered.

Mr. Fox cut the engine as they approached an inlet.

“Think I'll make a cup of coffee and have something to eat too,” he said. “Don't get into the water until I'm ready.”

Vanessa went to the back of the boat and looked up at the craggy cliffs and the strangely deformed-looking trees that clung to the edges. Then a sudden movement in the water caught her eye. There was something moving just below the surface. Could it be another whale?

Vanessa froze. Not a whale. What on earth was it?

She could make out a long neck and a large head just under the surface. A moray eel? A huge bird diving for fish? The creature submerged fully and Vanessa sighed heavily. Now she'd never know.

“Did you see something?” Mr. Fox called out to Vanessa.

“Just a bird,” she called back, as casually as she could, although her heart was thumping in her chest. There was something moving in the water again. It was back, whatever it was!

Vanessa gripped the handrail and stared. What was it? A seal didn't have a long neck like that. And the head! She'd never seen anything like it before. It was extraordinary—like a horse's head with its nose squished in.

Vanessa froze as the creature turned, and she saw its bulging black eyes and two small bumps near the top of its head. Ears? Horns? Her camera was in her backpack, but she didn't dare move in case she missed anything.

“You've seen something back there, haven't you?” Wayne called to her from the front, making her start.

At that very moment, the creature moved a little in the water and Vanessa saw a number of large humps—no, not humps, really—more like the vertical coils of a giant snake as it moves.

Whatever happened, Vanessa knew she couldn't let Wayne see it. She pulled a coin out of her pocket and threw it as hard as she could at the creature. She didn't know whether she had hit it or not, but it
suddenly darted away, quick and agile as an eel, and then disappeared.

“What are you up to?” Wayne said suspiciously, joining her at the rail and peering down into the water where the creature had just been.

Vanessa's mouth was so dry that she croaked the word. “Money,” she said, clearing her throat.

“Throwing money into the sea?” Wayne said with mock outrage. “You're just weird, Vanessa.”

It was the first time that he had used her name, and she didn't like it at all.

“It's for luck,” Vanessa said quickly, praying the creature wouldn't reappear. “It's an old fisherman's tradition we have in Ireland.”

She turned and walked away, hoping that Wayne would follow her.

He did.

“That's just stupid,” he said.

“A lot of traditions are, I suppose. The Chookinan tribe in this part of the world used to drown their firstborn boy, didn't they?” Vanessa's eyes narrowed as she lied. She had no idea if there was such a tribe and knew nothing about native practices. “That would have been you gone, Wayne,” she said with emphasis.

Wayne's mouth opened and closed, but he said nothing, and Vanessa grinned. One point for her. Or so she thought, until she noticed Mr. Fox watching her. Why was she always the one to get caught out?

In October 1937 at Naden Harbor Whaling Station, whalers cut open the stomach of a sperm whale and found the 20-foot long carcass of an unidentifiable creature. It was described as having a horselike head, a serpentine body, and a finned, spiny tail. Although it is not known what happened to the carcass, there are three photographs still in existence. To this day no scientist has been able to identify the creature.

In the end, neither Vanessa nor Wayne felt like going for a swim. The water had turned quite choppy and
cold, so Mr. Fox started the engines, deciding that they should head home.

Vanessa was subdued and silent. Her thoughts returned obsessively to the image of the coils, the bulging eyes, and the extraordinary head. She had only seen the creature for a few seconds, she guessed, but what she had seen had turned her whole world on its head.

Could she have been hallucinating? A food allergy? Was there a strange marine creature in this part of the world that she had never heard about?

“Besides whales, what else do you get in these waters? Anything weird and wonderful in this part of the world?” she asked Mr. Fox eventually.

“Seals, sea lions, porpoises mainly.”

“Don't think so,” Vanessa said doubtfully. Mr. Fox gave her a funny look.

“Don't think what?” Wayne asked.

“Nothing. I just saw a strange-looking bird on the water,” Vanessa replied lamely.

“Maybe you're seeing things, Vanessa,” Wayne said slyly. “That's the second sign of madness, you know.”

His round eyes in his moon face met hers. Vanessa didn't react, but his words hit home hard. Maybe
she was a bit loopy. She did sometimes see things that other people didn't.

“You seasick?” Mr. Fox asked Vanessa.

“No. Not at all,” Vanessa replied, surprised by the question, unaware of how pale she was looking.

“See the land in the distance there, Vanessa? That's Brighton Island.” He looked quickly at Wayne, who was playing with some ropes in the middle of the boat, and lowered his voice a little. “That's where Lee is working.”

Normally, Vanessa would have been full of questions.

“That's great,” she said flatly.

She stared out at the horizon, but she kept thinking about the creature in the water. She was coming slowly to the conclusion that she might just have witnessed another cryptid. But which cryptid? What was its name, and would it be in her mum's files in the attic at home? How was she going to work this one out?

Alan Maclean of Vancouver Island saw the sea monster in 1962 and probably regretted ever reporting it. He received joke mail with offers of free eye tests and even membership in Alcoholics Anonymous.

Vanessa was barely conscious of the return journey, and it wasn't until Mr. Fox let out a roar that she was dragged back to the present.

“The tender's gone,” he cried, staring at the mooring. “I should have done it myself,” he muttered angrily.

Although he dropped his voice, Vanessa still heard him. She felt her stomach turn over. She knew she had tied it up properly—Mr. Fox had even checked the knot. She looked to where it should have been and then scanned the bay frantically.
Please be there, please be there
. But it was nowhere to be seen.

“I'm so sorry, Mr. Fox. I'm sure the knot was good,” Vanessa said, trying not to cry.

She knew how important the little tender was. The trawler was too big to bring into the shallows.

“Forget it,” Mr. Fox said shortly. “I'll go in as close as I can and let you guys swim in with your wetsuits and snorkels. Then I'll go and look for the tender. OK?”

Wayne was remarkably quiet, and when Vanessa looked at him, he avoided her eyes. That was odd. Not like Wayne to miss a chance to gloat.

Unless…

Vanessa struggled to recall the sequence of events. After she'd tied the tender, Mr. Fox had checked it. And then what? Then Wayne went to check it, she remembered now. Had he loosened it deliberately? Why would he do that? To get her into trouble?

“You checked it after we did, didn't you, Wayne?” Vanessa asked him.

“He's ten, Vanessa,” Mr. Fox said tersely. “How is he supposed to know a good knot?”

With that, he banged his hand on the railing, and Vanessa could see that he was trying to control his temper. Did he think that Vanessa was trying to shift the blame on to Wayne? She'd have to watch herself. Wayne might be annoying, but he was an islander, and being local would mean a lot around here, she guessed.

“OK, sorry,” Vanessa said quickly. “Sounds like a good plan. I hope you find it, Mr. Fox. Come on, Wayne,” she added chummily.

“Last one in is a girl,” Wayne yelled as they stood at the edge.

Vanessa sighed inwardly as Wayne gave a triumphant shout and jumped in. He swam quickly to the shore, determined to be first. She had to admit that he had a really nice stroke. Maybe his mother hadn't been exaggerating about his swimming abilities after all.

Vanessa swam slowly back to the beach. It would be hard work walking across two stony beaches in her bare feet, but she'd take her time, and that way she'd avoid arriving back with Wayne. Vanessa hoped that Mr. Fox would remember to bring back her runners
later; otherwise she'd have nothing to wear tomorrow.

When Vanessa got back to the guesthouse, there was no sign of Wayne or Frankie. Relieved, she crept up the stairs to her bedroom, had a leisurely shower, and then lay down on her bed to read.