Marian Elders, who was sitting directly in front of her, was the unfortunate full recipient of what the girl evacuated.
Her pew evacuated too.
Meryl Lee watched. She figured that most of the lower school at least would have run screaming from the chapel except they were probably terrified of Dr. MacKnockater.
On cue, she sat down. She didn’t follow all of the next flurried moments, since suddenly she was trying to not throw up herself. But she saw Mrs. Kellogg lead the girl whose skirt was too long out of the chapel by a side door. And she saw Bettye, who had schlepped Meryl Lee’s luggage, appear with a very large towel, which she wrapped around Marian Elders, who was covered with . . . well . . . and who was now crying herself—with pretty good reason, thought Meryl Lee. Then Alethea appeared with a pail and mop.
And though Mr. Lloyd C. Allen, chairman of the board of trustees, rose to speak his welcome to the girls of St. Elene’s Preparatory Academy, and though he hurtled his voice toward the rows and pews as if he were speaking from the other side of the campus, he did not receive everyone’s full attention.
Five
At five o’clock in the morning on the day when Mrs. MacKnockater would greet the new girls of St. Elene’s Preparatory Academy for the first time, Matt Coffin was down below Harpswell, walking out onto the docks.
In the purple light before dawn, Captain Willis Hurd of the lobster boat Affliction, his blue cap pulled down low, did not see him. The Captain had two dozen lobster traps to stow on board, and the day before, Jonathan Buckminster—his crew entire—had boarded a train down to Mississippi, of all places, drafted into the war. And now the Captain’s back was doing what it always did on cold mornings: seizing up like a broken piston. He stepped sideways into Affliction. Dang, how was he going to get all those traps aboard?
Captain Hurd listened to the creaking of the mooring lines and the collapsing of the low waves. He closed his eyes and smelled the sea-washed boards and the tar of the dock and the piney breezes that came down from the ridges. He felt the give of Affliction as the tide began to urge inward.
He thought of young Buckminster, just a boy, hefting the weight of a rifle. Aiming it at some other young boy who—
He opened his eyes, and there was this scrawny kid on the dock, handing one of the traps down to him.
Captain Hurd looked at the kid, grunted. Then he reached out and took the trap.
And the next one.
And the next.
The kid was good. He kept up. Actually, Captain Hurd had to keep up with the kid, scrawny as he was.
When it came to the last trap, the kid climbed aboard with it himself and stowed it. Then he looked at the Captain as if he expected something. And he did. Questions. Questions like “What do you want?” and “Where are you from?” and “How old are you?” and “Why aren’t you in school?”
And “Where are your parents?”
But Captain Hurd didn’t ask any of those questions. Instead, he asked, “Can you tie a buoy hitch?”
Matt nodded.
The Captain looked at him a long time, then threw him a rope.
“Show me,” he said.
Matt did.
The Captain nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, I’ll give you fifteen percent of the profits since it’s my boat. You can have one of the tuna fish sandwiches I made and I hope you like tomato and pickle and mayonnaise because I do. There’s some brownies but I made them too so don’t expect much and they don’t have any nuts because I hate nuts. I’m laying four six-trap strings down below where the New Meadows empties. Mile and a half out. Boots are over there. You tie up the traps on the way. After that, gloves are over there. No, over there. Pay attention. So that’s it. Come if you want to.”
Captain Hurd fiddled with his cap and turned to the engine.
Matt went over to put on the boots.
“Take care of the stern line,” Captain Hurd called back.
Matt took care of the stern line.
“And the bow line.”
Matt went forward and took care of the bow line.
“Push off,” called Captain Hurd, but Matt was already pushing off the dock.
And that was, pretty much, the last time they spoke until midmorning.
Affliction sputtered along the coast as the sun was almost peeking. If Matt had looked up the ridge toward Mrs. MacKnockater’s house when they passed by, he might have seen the lights on and maybe Mrs. MacKnockater out on the porch with her binoculars, watching—but it was too dark, and she wouldn’t be able to make him out. Affliction chugged by with its neatly stowed traps, the engine missing occasionally—she was an old trawler. Matt tied hitches between the traps and the buoys, and they came past the end of the peninsula and out into the long swells of the Atlantic, where the air was cold and the spray sort of moderate. The sun was barely full up, and the water was blue-black.
They worked as though they had been working together all their lives. Matt tied the lines to each of the traps, and then he put on the yellow gloves and baited the traps with herring while the Captain slowed the trawler and brought her around to face into the breeze. When the Captain nodded, Matt made sure the buoy hitch was tight and slid the first of the traps over the stern, and then the second trap, and then the Captain came to help lay the next four as the sea pulled and the line got heavier. Back at the wheel, the Captain brought Affliction around and chugged out into the waves, turned her toward the breeze again, and they laid the next six-trap string.
It was past ten o’clock when they finished, and the Captain came back to the stern, sat down, and stretched out his legs. “You know the bay?” he said.
Matt nodded.
The Captain drew his blue cap down low over his eyes. “Don’t hit anything. Take us around some.”
And Matt did. Around Chebeague, and then up to Little French, and Bustin, and past the Sow and Pigs since it wasn’t yet high tide, and over to Upper Goose and then back out to sea past the Goslings, then the long stretch to Whaleboat Island, and then Stockman Island, the water so blue and the sky bluer, and if the Captain had raised his cap and seen Matt’s face, he would have seen something close to happiness.
They anchored off the lee shore of Stockman and Affliction lay smoothly on the low swells. The Captain opened his cooler and took out the tuna fish sandwiches—Matt opened his and threw the tomato and pickle overboard, and he tasted right away that the Captain really did like mayonnaise. Afterward they shared the bottle of water—which Matt drank the most of because the brownies were pretty terrible, not at all like Mrs. MacKnockater’s.
The thought stung him.
And that was when they saw the whales.
Or heard them, first.
There were four, five, or maybe six. Seven. Swimming over toward Chebeague, riding the currents below the surface in long and slow curves, spouting their mist high into the air, as calm as if they were feeling the earth rotate slowly beneath them, as unconcerned as if there were nothing else on the planet except for this blue day, these green islands, those gray shores.
They watched until the whales moved off around the island, then sank away, Matt leaning over the side of Affliction the whole time.
He could have watched them for days.
The Captain, too.
“Only God sees them now,” said the Captain, as quiet as a ripple. Then, “Best get your gloves back on,” and the Captain headed the trawler around toward the first trap.