Ten minutes wasn’t much time if you had a lifetime of questions you wanted answered.
“Did you know that my parents and I were living here?”
“My mom told me last week.”
Phew. That meant seeing Ali at debate team hadn’t been a total shock.
“Our families don’t speak,” she said, dipping a toe in the Sloane Family Feud waters.
“It’s so stupid.”
The knot in Ali’s chest unraveled a bit. “I think so too. I was worried you wouldn’t want to be friends with me.” In the distance, seagulls called to one another as they fished for their supper. Their screeches sounded like please, please, please to Ali.
“We can be friends,” said Alfie after a torturous minute, as if he’d reviewed all of the possible alternatives and chosen this one.
Thrilled, and braver now, Ali turned to look at him. “I’m throwing a birthday party for Gigi. She’s turning one hundred.”
“Gigi?”
Duh—of course he didn’t know her nickname! Ali giggled. “It’s what I call our great-grandmother. She wanted me to call her Gertie, but I couldn’t pronounce it very well, so Digger said to call her G. G., for ‘great-grandmother,’ which is what he and your dad used to call her. I thought he was saying ‘Gigi.’ The name stuck.”
“Gigi? I quite like it,” said Alfie.
“You’ve never met her.”
“Nope.” Ali sensed years of regret in that simple word.
“But now that you know me, you can meet her, and you can come to her birthday party.”
Alfie shook his head. “Impossible.”
“No, it’s not. If you come to the party, then the rest of your family will too, and the Sloanes will be reunited! It’ll be the best gift ever for Gigi!”
Alfie made a half-choking, half-grunting sound. “Never going to happen.”
“Why not? We’ve just met, and the world hasn’t ended. If all the Sloanes come to the party, I’m sure they’ll make up.”
“My grandfather will never go.”
Then it hit her: maybe she didn’t need all of the Other Sloanes to come to Gigi’s party. Maybe one would be enough. “Will you come, at least?”
“No.”
Ali’s excitement fizzled like a spent sparkler. “I don’t even know why they’re fighting.”
“It’s about my dad. My grandfather blames your father and Gigi for his death. My mom and my aunt don’t, but it doesn’t matter, because Granddad does.”
“But one person can’t boss everyone around!” Ali protested.
Alfie stood up. “I love my grandfather. So even though I’m dying to meet Gigi and your dad, I can’t go against him. My mom says family has to stick together, even if you don’t agree. If they won’t go to the party, I can’t go either.”
“But we’re your family too! We’re blood. We even look alike!”
Alfie grinned. “When I walked into the classroom, I recognized you straightaway.”
“Can’t you at least ask them to come?” Ali didn’t try and hide her distress. “Maybe if he knows you want to come, your grandfather will change his mind.”
“Look . . . I’ll try, but don’t get your hopes up. Do you want to eat lunch together tomorrow? Murray and Cassie and I have eaten in Mr. Corby’s classroom the past couple of days because they were working on a project, but we’re eating in the cafeteria tomorrow.”
That was one mystery solved.
“Okay.” Surely the rule about not making friends too soon didn’t apply to cousins.
Alfie swung his knapsack as he walked away. When he reached the sidewalk, he turned. “I’m glad you came to debate team!”
Chapter Three
Deadly Whirlpools and Fog: A Disaster in the Making
The second-largest whirlpool in the world, the Old Sow, is found near Deer Island, where the Passamaquoddy Bay meets the Bay of Fundy. Harold Lord of Lord’s Cove, Deer Island, recalls accidentally going through the Old Sow on his small schooner, the Island Girl, in 1897, whilst returning home in the fog. “There was a great sucking sound, and the water roiled and boiled around me. Were it not for the wits of my first mate, Lionel Lord, and his ability to maintain a course around the funnel, the Island Girl and its three passengers would have been lost.
—PERCIVAL T. SLOANE,
A History of Fog in the Bay of Fundy (1932)
Ten
Digger was in the kitchen making apple pies when Ali arrived home. She wasn’t surprised that he didn’t glance up when she came in. Whenever Digger baked, it meant he was stressed.
“What’s up?” she asked.
He didn’t respond right away. The only sound was the dull rumble of the rolling pin as he worked to flatten the pie dough. A couple of minutes passed, and then he flashed her a strained smile. “Gigi’s cough got worse this morning. I called the doctor, and he had me bring her in. He’s worried it might turn into pneumonia, so she’s confined to bed.”
Ali started to get up, but Digger held up a floury hand. “She’s asleep. You can see her when she wakes up. She needs to rest.”
Ali sat down and ran her fingers through her hair, a nervous habit her mother loathed because it resulted in Ali’s hair going everywhere. Gigi being sick frightened Ali. Gigi was so old; sometimes she reminded Ali of the stuffed birds and mammals mounted in display cases at the New Brunswick Museum: fragile and liable to fall apart if handled too much. It wasn’t fair. She had so much more to learn about Gigi and her remarkable life. Even worse, if something happened to Gigi, Alfie would never get to know her at all.
Time to share some happy news. “I met Alfie today.”
Digger’s eyes lit up. He put down the rolling pin and leaned against the counter.
“What’s he like?”
“You’d like him so much, Digger. He’s funny and smart.”
“Is he tall?”
“Nope—short like me. Well, not quite as short as me. And he’s a grade ahead of me even though he’s only a month older.”
“Huh.”
“We look alike.”
Digger beamed. “Didn’t I say that? Just like me and Teddy.” The smile vanished. “It’s awful that I don’t know Teddy’s son.” He began to scoop pie filling into the pan with renewed vigor.
ALI’S RULES FOR WHEN DIGGER BAKES
Encourage him to use sugar.
If he’s making something elaborate, like a seven-layer cake or cream puffs, don’t ask him what’s wrong. You DON’T want to know.
Don’t offer to help.
Try to lighten his mood.
Eat whatever he bakes, even if it’s horrible, even if it means picking raisins out of your cookie.
Ali sighed. “I wish the Other Sloanes didn’t hate us.”
Digger paused. “They don’t hate us, Ali-Cat.”
“They act like they hate us.”
“It’s complicated.” Complicated was the word grown-ups used when they didn’t want to tell you something. “Do you think Alfie is a Copycat?”