Stowaway Read online

  “Burn the beans again today, and I’ll bust your jaw,” the captain shouts from the pilothouse.

  Hopefully a joke. With one eye on the breakfast in progress, I look through the window into the pilothouse, where the captain is studying his navigational aids. There, too, I know way more than I let on.

  “Are we in Canada yet?” I dare to ask.

  Steely eyes in an unshaven face turn on me, and there’s silence but for the creaking of the boat. At last my boss utters one word: “Tonight.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  OWEN

  “Warning shot across the bow,” Coast Guard Officer Allen Olsen advises me. “They’re not answering Channel 16.”

  Channel 16, of course, is the 24-7 Coast Guard channel that all boats should listen to in case they need to respond to a mayday call: an emergency.

  “They’ve cut power, sir,” I confirm, my pulse pounding in my ears mosh-pit hard and my hands sweatier than my armpits.

  “Okay, alert crew to board to starboard. Steady as she goes. Now hard to port and come alongside.”

  “Are our guys wearing bulletproof vests?” I ask my mentor as I grip the throttle quadrant of our twenty-nine-foot patrol cutter.

  “No.”

  “It’s an old wooden Packer. Has seen better days. Could be hiding up to forty illegals,” I estimate.

  “Concentrate on controls, Owen. Steady. Okay, ease in gently.” He grabs the bullhorn and directs it at the vessel, now just yards away. “We repeat. Canadian Coast Guard orders you to stand down for boarding.”

  Bzzzt!

  “Hey!” I shout, pouting. “Game can’t be over yet. It was just getting good!”

  Officer Olsen grins, pushes the off button on his laptop-sized console, and rests a hand on my shoulder. Then he says what he always says whenever we run through one of his simulator-training exercises in Horton Island’s tiny Coast Guard station office. “Not a game, Owen, and if my supervisor ever gets word I let an underage non-cadet do simulation modules, he’ll keelhaul me.”

  “No one will hear it from me,” I promise. Lifting my head, I spot a WANTED printout on the bulletin board featuring a police sketch of a bearded man. “Hey, a new Coast Guard alert. What’s it about?”

  “There have been two on-water robberies in this region,” he replies, following my eyes to the board.

  “Pirates? Seriously?” Not unheard of, but as rare as the Loch Ness monster in this part of the world.

  “A group of hoodlums in a rigid-hulled inflatable who think they can get away with it. Led by a Caucasian man with a grey beard. We’re on it; we’ll catch them.”

  “Of course you will. I’ll keep an eye out.”

  “You do that, Owen.”

  “Any tips from the exercise we just did?” Usually he gives me advice after one of our simulator sessions.

  He sits back and strokes his chin for a moment, all too serious looking. “Why are you so set on joining the Coast Guard, Owen?”

  I look up in surprise. He has never asked that before. “So I can save people,” I answer in a measured tone.

  He nods, keeps nodding, making me nervous with his silence. “You know it won’t change what happened back in Ontario.”

  I leap up, flushed. “It doesn’t have anything to do with that!”

  He stands slowly and faces me as if to create a force field that will quiet me down and make me sit again.

  “Tips?” he echoes, and looks me straight in the eye. “Don’t ever do anything illegal. The Coast Guard won’t hire someone with a criminal conviction.”

  “Of course,” I say in a choked voice. There’s no way he could know the truth of what happened in Ontario.

  I glance out the office’s window. “Whoa! Look, Officer Olsen!”

  A glut of heavy clouds is taking over the sky like an oil spill. Good thing my parents’ plane got out yesterday.

  “That storm’s finally arriving. Looks like it’s going to let loose any minute. Want me to drive you home?”

  I shake my head. “No thanks. Biking’s good. I appreciate the practice, Officer Olsen. Maybe see you tomorrow.”

  “Not tomorrow, Owen. I’m off-island. But call me if you need anything, anytime.”

  As I bike home, the weather spills like a collapsing tarp roof. Given that the Coast Guard office and our marina are at opposite ends of Horton Island, I’m doomed to get 150 percent soaked as I sprint along the curvy blacktopped road between giant swaying Douglas firs and cedars.

  Truth is, I love approaching storms. It’s fun watching them hit the island like a giant boxing glove. Windowpanes rattle and tin roofs do heavy-metal riffs. Small branches come flying off of trees. Eagles cling to treetops by their claws, pip-pip-piping as they sway in the gusts. Animals go into hiding and people tuck up into their cabins. And it goes dark so fast.

  As I step onto the deck of our house, I hear the jingling of loose rigging in the bay below. The boats shift like restless horses in a corral. I slip inside and by the time I’ve made myself a cup of coffee, all hell has broken loose. The boats in the marina, large and small, go into gang warfare: elbowing, jostling, trying to punch one another as the swells beneath them get violent.

  I’ve only just shed my dripping bike jacket when a growl of thunder shakes the entire island, and a jagged bolt of lightning highlights the dark ocean like a camera flash. As I light the kindling in the fireplace, howling winds suck the flames halfway up the chimney. And then, just like that, the lights in the house flicker and go out.

  Cool. It’s going to be a candlelit dinner for one: hot dogs cooked campfire-style in the fireplace. So much for playing chess with one of my internet buddies. Not worth trudging down to the dock to fetch the backup generator for just an hour online.

  After fumbling for the matches and our cookie tin full of stubby candles, I look out at the water and wonder if I’ve secured the marina’s boats well enough. That’s when a shadow moves silently into the bay. Like a phantom ship, it shudders and pounds in the whipped-up waves, yet steers smoothly to the dock as if it’s on an underwater cable.

  A slight, barefoot figure leaps from the bow with a thick coil of rope and lashes the craft tightly to the mooring cleats of an empty berth. In the last moments of dusk, the silhouettes of the boat and boy merge with the black of the water and sky, and I know I’ve entirely imagined the vessel’s arrival. It’s not him. Ontario is too far away. Stop fantasizing every time there’s a storm. Anyway, there’s nothing to fear.

  Section 6.1c, Moorage Law Covenants: You must provide without compensation temporary accommodation to any vessel that is disabled or that seeks shelter in weather conditions that would render it unseaworthy.

  Why did that just pop into my mind?

  • • •

  I’ve awakened to a tapping on my bedroom window. Battering swaths of rain, I tell myself. The fire has burned to glowing coals, the candlewicks have punched out early, and my hot dog–stomach ache makes me groan.

  Tap, tap, tap. No sane woodpecker would be doing his thing at this time of night, especially not this night. I sit up and fold back a flap of the curtain over the window above my bed. A pair of eyes, white with small black pupils, stares back.

  “What the —” I release the curtain and dive under my quilt. A nightmare. You’re making things up. Not really awake.

  Tap, tap. “Hello?”

  I rise, pull on my frayed red terrycloth bathrobe, grab my headlamp, and unlock the front door. It nearly brains me as it flies back with the force of the wind, and the soaking I take from the rain is like a bucket of water being tossed in my face.

  “Hello?” I direct my slightly trembling voice into the darkness.

  He appears in front of me: a short, skinny Latino dude in grubby jeans, an oil-stained hoodie, and oversized white boating shoes that seem to glow in the dark. He wears a headlamp with a pathetically weak beam.

  “Sorry, sorry. But please to turn power on at dock? For charging. Our batteries too much low.”


  The accent is Hispanic, and for a split second he looks almost as nervous as me. Then he’s trying to peer past me into our house.

  When I don’t answer right away, he points toward the marina without taking those bug-eyes off me. “Storm.”

  “Storm?” I mock-echo. “Oh, and I was just heading out for a picnic! You do know it’s the middle of the night? Is this an emergency?”

  Hesitation. Then, “No emergencia.”

  “Okay, then try me in the morning. Maybe we’ll have power by then. The storm took it out.”

  I start to close the door when he catches it with a bicep that bulges in a way you’d swear such a scrawny guy couldn’t manage.

  “You alone?”

  “Actually, my wife and five children are all here, but sleeping,” I say, narrowing my eyes at him while calculating how fast I can scoop up my cellphone from the coffee table and hit Officer Olsen’s number.

  A flash of surprise, then mistrust, crosses his face. It occurs to me that his English isn’t up to catching all I’ve said.

  “No power?” he asks, like he has only just noticed our house is dungeon-dark.

  “No power. Storm,” I say. “Maybe in the morning.”

  “Morning,” he says dubiously. “But we are gone in morning.”

  “Not if you have a battery too much low.”

  His frown indicates he has processed that. “Need diesel and water, too.” He mimes drinking so that I know what kind of water.

  I sigh. Okay, I’m awake now, and bigger than him, so whatever. Obviously the power cut took out the water pump at the dock. I gesture him in and lead him with my headlamp to our kitchen. Water splashes on my hands as I fill up a two-gallon plastic jug. His eyes travel to the platter of leftover hot dogs I never put away, so I hand him the dish along with a glass of water. A couple of dogs and the water both go down like he’s some kind of stranded shipwreck victim.

  “I’d offer you coffee, my favourite drink, except I can’t heat any up.”

  “Is okay.” He chugs the water down pretty fast, then finds his way to the bathroom and back slowly, sticking his nose and headlamp into my parents’ room and then my bedroom for a moment. Snoopy sort.

  “Owen,” I say, pointing to myself.

  “Arturo,” he replies.

  • • •

  ARTURO

  This tall guy, Owen, is clearly alone, I’m thinking to myself in Spanish. (I’ve tried, but I’m not good enough to think in English yet.) And even if he is a little annoyed about being woken up, he is starved for someone to talk to. Maybe the storm has rattled him. Looks like he has no brothers or sisters — not uncommon with gringo families, I’ve noticed.

  “Parents?” I ask.

  “Away for a week,” the boy answers with a sort of conspiratorial grin. “Freedom! Tomorrow I’m going to head out on one of the boats down there and explore around, camp on islands, fish and stuff.”

  The gringo boy talks too fast, but I get some of it. “All boats yours?” I question, trying not to sound shocked.

  Owen wiggles his eyebrows, which seems such a strange thing to do that I do it back to him, which makes the island boy laugh.

  “My parents own the marina. I have keys to some of the boats. And I know how to hot-wire the rest. Not that I would.” He says it so proudly that I know to grin at him the same way that I and the other shoeshine boys would after agreeing to get some tourist to pay us triple the going rate.

  “I have to make my own fun,” Owen continues. “This is the most boring island in the universe!”

  Boring island? I let myself dream for a microsecond of having parents and a big house like this on a beautiful island. And keys to a bunch of boats in a marina.

  “No friends?” I press, since Owen seems naive enough to answer anything I ask. The new, more sober expression on the tall boy’s face notifies me that I have stumbled onto something.

  “No one my age. Nothing to do. Except hang out with the Coast Guard officer, who’s off-island at the moment, or help fix and service boats with my dad.”

  “You fix boats?”

  “I can fix almost any kind of boat.” The gringo boy pushes the plate of cold hot dogs back at me, so I help myself as slowly and politely as I can manage.

  “If you’re around for a day, I could show you the island, eh? There’s a store where you can get food and supplies, even ice cream. Good places to fish, if you like fishing. I caught a twelve-pound salmon last week. And there’s a lighthouse and this farm with a bull you wouldn’t believe the size of, and —”

  He stops like he is embarrassed to have gushed all that so quickly. “How about you, Arturo? Where are you from? Where are you going? What kind of boat are you on? How many people on it? Bet it was exciting out there when the storm hit!”

  Questions. Dangerous questions. I look down at the jug of water, stand, and move toward the door.

  “We talk in morning,” I say firmly. “Maybe I go to store with you then. Thanks for food. And sorry, sorry for I wake you up.”

  “Oh, no problem,” Owen says, leaping up. “Yeah, I’ll be down to fuel you up and help you get your batteries recharged when it’s light. That’s if they get the power working by morning. Otherwise there’s a generator.”

  As I exit into the downpour with Owen’s cellphone in my jeans pocket, I train my headlamp on the slippery steps that lead down the cliff. I feel Owen’s eyes at the dark window, watching me disappear. I have lots of information for Captain, who will be pleased. But maybe I will save some of the information for myself.

  CHAPTER THREE

  OWEN

  I toss and turn as the storm’s rage continues to clobber the house. At the first streak of light, I sit up and listen hard. The faceless alarm clock plugged in by my bed indicates the power’s still off. Rain continues to smear the window as wind wallops the walls. Last night’s encounter comes rushing back.

  A strange boat has docked in our marina, I reflect with a mix of anxiety and intrigue. Sheltering from the storm, stuck here till they can resupply. With a boy my age who might hang out with me today! Should I inform Officer Olsen? I leap up and move to the coffee table in the living room. But I must’ve put the cellphone down somewhere else. Anyway, nah.

  I try to guess what kind of vessel it is and from where. Mexico or South America, maybe. In which case it’ll be big. Maybe a tramp steamer or forty-foot sailboat or even an offshore cruiser. Well, you da boss of the marina, I remind myself. And I handled last night well. Didn’t I?

  Clothes thrown on, a chocolate bar for breakfast down the gullet, I train my binoculars on the dock. And do a low whistle. A handsome white trawler with a raised pilothouse. Forty-plus feet, I’m guessing. Its profile is familiar.

  Too strange to be a coincidence.

  My feet pad back to my bedroom, where I face the 9x12 framed photo of my older brother on my dresser. “Gregor, a Hans Christian Independence 45 has pulled up to our dock. It’s a sign, right? The same type as our favourite boat back in the Toronto marina. Remember how we used to sneak onto it and pretend to take it places?”

  Seriously? he says. It’s totally a sign. Go check it out. Get on board and come pick me up, little brother. We’ll have an adventure.

  I laugh bitterly and back away from the frame. “Like that’s going to happen! I don’t even know who’s on it or where it’s going. Stranger danger, remember? And Mom and Dad would freak.”

  A week, Owen. You have a week to do anything you want, go wherever it’s going. If the people on board seem okay, go for it. Mom and Dad will never even know. Sorry you’re stuck here with no friends at all ’cause of me. I say go have some fun for once. It’s a freakin’ sign, like you say.

  I rub my jaw, then place the photo face down, gently. “Mom and Dad say you’re a bad influence on me, Gregor. I’m not listening to you.”

  Because he’s upside down, he doesn’t reply the way I know he would.

  Minutes later, braced against the wind and wearing a hooded rain poncho
, I work my way down the steps to the dock and pause to stare at the yacht. I’m pretty keen to get a look-see at the inside of this baby, and also to suss out if this Arturo dude is up for a day on Horton, including maybe some badass fun, storm or no storm.

  Rain runs down my poncho and the wind has me walking tilted. I nearly trip on a rotted step before reaching the dock.

  “Ahoy!” says a large man on the bow deck. He has tangled black hair under a mariner’s rain hat, a tooth missing from his wide smile, a moustache, and an impressive beer gut. “You must be Owen. Good service here for you to show so early, especially in this lousy weather!”

  Arturo appears, half skulking behind the big man who, Mexican or whatever he might be, has no trace of an accent.

  “Captain Jones,” the man introduces himself, extending a hand between boat and dock.

  I wince as he all but breaks mine in his crushing grip. “Nice to meet you, Captain. Power is still out, so I have to start the backup generator to fuel you up and get the water pump happening. There’s a general store on the island if you need supplies — opens in a few hours — and if you want any kind of tune-up or oil change, I’m your man.”

  I notice he glances up the cliff behind me as if to make sure I’m on my own. I note the boat’s name: Archimedes. Name of Merlin the Magician’s owl in that book and animated movie about King Arthur. I take a quick look for the identifying numbers I can look up on the internet, but am disappointed to see a wet towel hanging over where they must be.

  “Nice boat,” I say as the generator starts up and I shove the nozzle into the fuel tank. “Any damage from the storm? Where are you coming from?”

  “From Seattle via Victoria. Cleared customs yesterday,” he replies as Arturo studies the deck. “Yeah, pretty scary wave action out there. And the weather report says it won’t calm till tonight. No damage, luckily. I was relieved to find your little bay. Is the store within walking distance? I’ll send my nephew up for supplies.”

  “It’s a twenty-minute bike ride and I have an extra bike. Maybe I can show him around the island till the store opens?”