Uncle Evert pulls out a wooden reel and lets a long line run from the stern of the dinghy.
“Rest the oars and come hold the line,” he tells her.
Stephie raises the oars over the edge of the boat. Cold water drips on her feet. Carefully she steps over the bench toward the stern. The boat feels tippy. She’s afraid it will capsize.
“Don’t worry,” Uncle Evert says. “This boat doesn’t tip easily. At least not from the movements of somebody as light as you.”
Stephie gets to hold the line, while Uncle Evert rows with powerful strokes.
“Let’s hope the mackerel are biting,” he says. “Tell me if you feel the line pull.”
Stephie thinks the line’s pulling the whole time.
“Now!” she says. “I’ve got a bite.”
Uncle Evert comes over and feels the line, then shakes his head.
“That’s just the weight of the sinker. When the fish nibble it feels different.”
“Like what?”
“You’ll know. Lively, not just a dead weight.”
Stephie examines the palms of her hands. They’re red and tender. She’s almost forgotten the line when, suddenly, there is movement between her fingers.
“Now!” she shouts. “Now they’re biting.”
Uncle Evert rests the oars, comes over to her, and pulls the line in. A shimmering fish is struggling on one of the hooks.
Although Stephie has watched Aunt Marta clean mackerel many a time since she came to the island, she’s never before realized how beautiful a mackerel is. The smooth skin shimmers in black, gray, and silver. She’s strangely excited, her heart beating fast.
“What a beauty,” Uncle Evert says. “Surely weighs over a pound. You take it off the hook.”
Stephie hesitates. She’s never touched a living fish before.
Then she seizes the mackerel with both hands. It’s not as yucky a feeling as she’d expected. Cold, but not slimy. Uncle Evert helps her remove the hook from its mouth.
Then he takes his knife and slits an incision alongside one of the gills. Stephie looks away.
“This is another thing you need to learn,” he says. “How to gut and clean them.”
“Ugh, no,” says Stephie. “I’ll never do that.”
Uncle Evert smiles to himself. “Never say never, that’s what I say.”
They get three mackerel on the line that evening. Aunt Marta cleans them and fries them for dinner. They do taste quite good, actually.
thirty-two
“I’ve done the dishes and my homework,” she says. “May I go out for a while?”
“I suppose so,” Aunt Marta replies. “But be home by dark.”
Stephie pulls on a cardigan and ties her shoes. Finally it’s warm enough for her to put her too-small boots away and wear lighter shoes.
She goes out onto the steps. The air feels cool and fresh against her cheeks.
Aunt Marta’s bicycle is leaning up against the house. It has thick tires and a heavy black frame.
If she could learn to row the dinghy she must be able to master Aunt Marta’s bicycle, too.
Stephie grasps the handlebars by their wooden grips and leads the bike out onto the road. She pulls it up the hill, getting sweaty and out of breath.
She stops at the top. The road continues in a long downward incline. Not steep. And quite straight. This must be a good place.
Taking a deep breath, she puts her right foot on one pedal. Then she lifts her left foot, tramping down with her right. She tries to get up on the seat, but it’s too high. Standing on one pedal, she rolls unsteadily down the hill, gaining speed. It feels exciting and scary, both at once.
Between two outcrops of rock, the road curves left. Stephie turns the handlebars and loses control. The bike totters, she pushes the brakes and skids in the loose gravel. The bicycle topples and Stephie is thrown into the roadside ditch.
I’m dead, she thinks.
But she’s not. One of her arms hurts, though, and so do both her knees.
At the sound of brakes in the gravel she looks up, knowing everyone on the island will hear about this and laugh at her.
“Are you all right?” Vera asks.
“I’m not sure,” Stephie answers. “My arm… I’m afraid it’s broken.”
“Let me help you up,” Vera says. She dismounts from her bike and pulls Stephie out of the ditch. “Is that your bicycle?” she asks.
“No, it’s Aunt Marta’s.”
Vera stands the bike up and inspects it. “Looks all right,” she says. “Maybe a little dent over the front tire. But that might have been there before.”
“I don’t know,” says Stephie.
She’s feeling less dizzy now. Her knees are just scraped, but her right arm aches.
“Do you think it’s broken?” she asks Vera.
Vera feels it gently through the cardigan. “Can you move it?” she asks. “Like this?”
Stephie tries moving her arm up and down. It hurts, but she can do it.
“I don’t think it’s broken” is Vera’s verdict. “Don’t you know how to ride a bike?”
It’s no use denying it now.
“I’ll help you learn,” says Vera. “You can’t just roll away, you need to know how to turn and to put on the brakes first. Want me to show you?”
“Please.”
“Tomorrow,” Vera tells her. “After school. It’s Saturday, so we won’t have homework. I’ve got to get home now, and you need to wash up and change your clothes.”
Stephie glances down at her muddy dress.
“I’ll have to come home for the bicycle after school,” she says. “Where do you want to meet?”
“Right here?”
“Fine.”
“See you,” says Vera, hopping onto her bike and riding off.
Stephie walks Aunt Marta’s bike the whole way home. It feels like it’s growing heavier and heavier. Going down the steep hill to the house demands all her strength; she has to hold back to keep the bike from taking off on its own and pulling her with it.
She leans the bike up against the house and goes in.
“I’m back,” she calls, scurrying up the stairs so Aunt Marta won’t catch sight of her muddy dress. At the wash-stand she does her best to rinse the mud off herself and her dress and to clean her scraped knees.
“I see you’re learning to ride the bike,” Aunt Marta says when she comes back down.
Stephie had been hoping Aunt Marta wouldn’t have noticed the absence of her bicycle. But it’s eight o’clock and evening prayers were over long ago. Aunt Marta probably went out into the yard and saw that the bike was gone.
“I’m sorry,” says Stephie. “I should have asked before I borrowed it.”
“That’s all right,” Aunt Marta answers. “Just take good care of it. And yourself,” she adds, glancing at Stephie’s scraped knees and stiff arm.
“May I borrow it tomorrow after school?”
“Certainly.”
