The Bay at Midnight

the cord and pulled it back so fast his arm was a blur. Instantly the motor came to life and I could finally breathe. As we sailed toward the canal, though, my mind returned to the boat George had seen through the binoculars.

“Are you sure it was Ned?” I asked.

“I think it was that white boy you showed me the other day,” he said. “Your sister’s boyfriend.”

I’d pointed Ned out to George and Wanda through the binoculars.

“And who was he with?” I asked. “What did she look like?”

“I couldn’t see her that good,” he said, “but good enough I could tell she’s easy on the eyes. A blondie with a long pigtail.”

“Pam Durant?” I asked, my voice high. “Was the ponytail on the side of her head? Were there other people with them?”

“Girl, don’t get your drawers all tight.” George laughed. “Maybe they was just taking a boat ride as friends. Like we doing.”

We headed back to the canal, the current nearly slack now, much to my relief, making the bridges far less difficult to negotiate. I pulled into the dock where their cousins were fishing, and Salena and one of the men came over to look down into the boat, marveling at our catch. I moved a few fish from my bucket to theirs. George looked at me quizzically, then seemed to get it.

“Tell your folks it was just a good fishin’ day on the canal,” he said, slipping the largest black fish back into my own bucket.

I crossed the canal and docked my boat. Climbing up the ladder with the bucket of fish, I thought that as much as I craved a good adventure, I really couldn’t handle a day like this one more than once a month or so. There’d been too many close calls. My guardian angel must have been looking out for me.

I was relieved to find that no one was home yet. I got the scaler and a knife from the kitchen and went out to the cleaning table in the side yard to work on the fish. It took me a long time, and when I was finished, I looked at the pile of filets and knew there was no way I could explain them to my mother. I left six of them on the cleaning table, then put the rest onto the cutting board along with their heads and tails and guts, and I carried them to the canal and tossed them into the water.

After dinner, I went out in the yard with the little baby doll I’d found in the river. I sat at the corner of the house and smoothed a couple of inches of sand from the buried bread box. I was just starting to lift the top of the box when it suddenly flew up into the air. I shrieked, jumping quickly to my feet. Then I saw what had raised the lid: a large, coiled toy caterpillar had been pushed into the box, ready to spring out at me like a jackin-the-box. I heard laughter, and turned to see Ned Chapman standing in his yard, hands on his hips, a look of amusement on his face.

“Did you put this here?” I yelled, getting to my feet, marching in his direction.

He held his hands up in the air. “Don’t look at me,” he said. He was trying not to smile.

I knew he’d done it, and I knew Isabel must have told him about the box. How else could he know?

“Don’t you ever touch my things again!” I said, a fury in my voice that I was not truly feeling. I was secretly thrilled by his attention. I thought of asking him if he’d been out on his boat with Pam Durant, but I suddenly realized he couldn’t possibly have been. He would have been lifeguarding at the Baby Beach. George had probably made the whole thing up just to tease me.

It was still light out, so I sat on the bulkhead with a book. I was there about fifteen minutes when Isabel came out into the yard. She walked beyond the fence and sat down on the bulkhead a few feet away from me. She had the giraffe towel knotted around her waist and she was staring at me, no expression on her face whatsoever.

“What?” I asked.

“I know what you’re doing,” she said.

“What do you mean?” I was doing so many things I wasn’t supposed to be doing that I didn’t know which one she was talking about.

“I mean, I know you’ve been going out in the boat at night,” she said.

I tried to put an expression of confused disbelief on my face. “What are you talking about?” I asked.

She leaned down to scratch her calf. “I happened to go outside the other night and I noticed the boat was gone,” she said. “I knew Grandpop hadn’t taken it because I could hear him snoring practically from the yard. I went upstairs and saw your bed was empty.”

I dropped my attention to my book again, as if I could possibly read after hearing what she’d said. “So?” I asked.

“Where are you going in the middle of the night?”

“None of your business.” She’d used that line on me so often it felt good to be able to say it back to her.

“Look, Julie,” she said. “You’re only twelve. I’m afraid you’re going to get in big trouble.”

“I can take care of myself,” I said.

“Either you tell me what you’re up to,” Isabel used her bossiest tone, “or I’m going to have to tell Mom what you’re doing.”

I looked at her sharply. “Go ahead and tell her,” I said. “And then I’ll tell her where you go in the middle of the night.”

She didn’t budge from her seat on the bulkhead, but I could see her face blanch beneath her tan.

“How would you know where I go?” she asked, some of the bluster gone from her voice.

“I have my ways,” I said. “Just…you just keep what you know about me to yourself, and I’ll keep what I know about you to myself.” I had the upper hand with her for the first time in my life. It was an extraordinary feeling of power. I could tell she was struggling with a response, and that pleased me. “By the way,” I added, “was Ned at the beach today?”