We clattered down the rocks to the shore and jumped up and down, waving our arms and yelling. The figure in the boat didn’t look up.
“I think he’s wearing headphones or something,” I said, holding a hand over my eyes. “And he’s not looking this way. How are we supposed to let him know we’re here?”
“On it!” said Abby. She grabbed a baseball-size chunk of ice in each hand and flung them as far out into the bay as she could, which, seeing as it was Abby, was pretty far. There were two big splashes. The figure in the boat lifted its head. If I hadn’t already known it was Uncle Joe, the yell that echoed across the water would have told me for sure.
“Holy whale poop!”
Uncle Joe tugged the motor to life and turned his boat toward shore. We waited, hopping around to keep warm.
“Hang on—wait a second,” Abby said suddenly. “What exactly are we doing here?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean what are we going to say when he gets here? Are we telling him everything? Are we letting him in on our discovery?”
“Ooh, right!” I said.
“I’m not sure we should. What if he goes all grown-up on us and tries to take control of the forts?”
I shook my head. “He wouldn’t do that. He’s not that kind of guy.”
“Good. I guess we should probably just tell him, then? He’ll want to know how we got up here, and it’s not like we have a cover story.”
We turned back to the water just as Uncle Joe pulled the boat up onto the rocks. I expected him to be surprised, maybe even shocked, but as we ran to meet him, he shouted something I never thought I would hear come out of his mouth.
“Not one word, either of you! Not one single beluga-bawling word about it!”
“Hi— You—huh?” I said. “Not one word about what?”
“Anything!” said Uncle Joe, putting his hands on his hips. “I don’t want to know a whale-burping thing about anything at all!”
Abby looked at me in alarm.
“But . . . ,” I said, “aren’t you wondering how we got up—”
“LALALA!” cried Uncle Joe, shoving his fingers in his ears.
It took both of us putting our hands over our mouths to get him to stop la-la-ing and explain himself.
“Okay,” he said, eyeing us carefully. “Maggie. And Abby, I’m guessing?” Abby nodded. “Good. That’s good. Nice to meet you. I’m Joe. Now, are you two clear on why I don’t want you to say anything just yet?”
We shook our heads.
Uncle Joe ran a hand over his face. “All right. Maggie, you know from my postcards that I’ve been up here all on my own for three months. And apart from a few day trips into town for supplies, I’ve spent most of that time sitting by myself, in a boat, watching the clouds and listening to the underwater microphones. Take a moment to imagine that for me.” He spread his arms wide, and Abby and I looked around at the sky and rocks and waves.
“And now imagine that two young people, who you know should definitely be back in Seattle, have suddenly appeared in front of you here beside your remote Alaskan bay. What would you think?”
We looked at each other.
“You’d think you were hallucinating, that’s what,” Uncle Joe answered for us. “You’d think you were hallucinating and actually having a conversation with a flock of seagulls or a pile of rocks or something, and that’s just not a good use of time. So you would hope, against all your scientific training, that you weren’t hallucinating and these young people actually were there, which would mean some kind of magic was involved—”
“Actually, we’re not calling it magic,” I cut in, “because—”
“WHICH MEANS,” said Uncle Joe, shouting over me, “that I don’t want to hear a single word about it!”
Our shock must have shown on our faces, because he spoke more gently as he went on.
“Listen, kids. Maggie, Abby. I may be a grown-up now, but I’ve read a ton of books in my time, and I know how these things go. The moment the kids in stories tell the grown-ups about the magic they’ve discovered is always the moment things start to go seriously wrong. I’m guessing you’ve probably done some very hard work and been brave and smart and you want to tell me all about it, but the only way I’m willing to let you stay here is if you agree to act like you being here is completely and totally normal. Can you do that for me?”
There was a huge, windy silence. I had no idea what to say, but Abby tugged her fancy new braid out from under her hat, put her hands on her hips, and smiled.
“So, Joe,” she said. “What are we having for lunch?”
Six
After a lunch of canned soup and crackers, which was pretty much all Uncle Joe had for food, came “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Whales,” an Uncle Joe afternoon lecture. I listened from the folding table while Abby followed Uncle Joe around the cabin, hanging on to his every word as he gushed about the pictures covering the walls.
“Ooh, and this one here,” said Uncle Joe, tapping a photo next to the fridge, “is Bertha. She’s a fighter. See that massive lateral scar on her tail? She probably got that in a fight with an orca when she was young. And this photo shows a bubble net, a sort of ring of bubbles humpbacks make underwater to confuse fish and trap them in a small space so they can eat them. Whales also slap the surface of the water to send down sound waves to freak the fish out. You really should see a whale calf try to slap the water sometime—it’s the cutest thing in the whole world.”
I smiled. I felt good. I was on an adventure, I was warm and full, and it looked like the combination of cold Alaskan air and my dorky-sweet uncle
