didn’t need a babysitter or someone telling me what to do.
— BEACHCOMBING —
The running that morning wasn’t easy. Maybe it was all the energy I’d just wasted, maybe it was the dirt road, and maybe I should have had at least an orange. Ten minutes into my run, for crying out loud, for no reason at all, I started crying out loud. I don’t mean crying just a little, I mean bawling like a lunatic. I couldn’t seem to stop, either the running or the crying, and I don’t know what was running faster, my nose or me.
I slowed down a little, though, when I saw a black limousine snaking through the poplar trees up ahead on Poplar Hill. My heart did a cartwheel in my chest.
Carolina was right! It had been a rumour for years, but maybe just maybe Hardly Whynot did have a summer home here. Who else in Boulder Basin would be driving a limousine? It turned out of Poplar Lane and headed towards me. I could make out the silhouette of a chauffeur through the windshield. Hat, sunglasses. The real thing.
Any minute now, it would drive up alongside of me. The window of the limo would slide open silently. Mr. Whynot himself would lean out, saying, “Aye, mate, out for a run, are we?” I knew what he looked like and how he talked because my mother made me watch the old movies so many times. Then I would tell him that my mother was his biggest fan ever and he was the only man she ever loved besides my dad Corporal Ray and how her lifelong wish was to get his autograph. Could I please have one for her? He would say yes. And my mother would be grateful she had one daughter at least.
But not like this. I couldn’t meet someone that famous and British and make an impression looking like this! Not even for my mother. I knew my eyes were swollen from my yanging and my nose all crusty. No. Proper introductions are important in our house. I crossed the road.
I scrambled over the boulders lining the shore and started leaping from one rock to another towards the ocean. Jack be nimble, Minn be quick! I sang to myself. It was a dangerous thing to do, not because of the ocean—the tide was out—but it would be all too easy to sprain my ankle. That would be the end of my running for the summer, not to mention the only means of escape from my grandmother. I slowed down to smaller hops.
As the limo passed, I peeked back up. The chauffeur gave me a thumbs-up. His sunglasses were the ski goggle models. He was probably a bodyguard as well and was checking me out, making sure I wasn’t a sniper in disguise. He looked long enough to get a physical description. Subject:
Pre-teen girl. Hair: honeyblonde-brown. Eyes: bluegraygreen. Height: short. Wgt.: featherweight. Distinguishing feature: freckles unevenly distributed across bridge of nose. Status: newcomer. Potential stalker.
Cool as a cucumber, or so I hoped, I nodded. It was a nod that said: “To me you are just another limo and I am not suspicious about your boss. I am not impressed by your fancy car and I am not Nancy Drew or Trixie Belden, girl detective.” But that’s exactly how I felt.
The limo sped on down the road, leaving a plume of dust behind it.
At the water’s edge, I walked on for a while, stopping now and then to bend down and snap the seaweed pods. The clumps of dried-out seaweed by the road were the colour of ashes. Cheerleaders’ pompoms. But these clustered ones, the fresh ones, were the colour of dry mustard and made a snapping sound until they gave a little wheeze and oozed out a spit of water. The other kind of seaweed reminded me of lasagna: long ribbons of seaweed littered across the sand, as if the mermaids had had some wild partyand the streamers were left over next day for someone to come and pick up.
You can’t move anything by the ocean’s edge without noticing how everything is connected. The barnacles on the rocks, the tiny pool of water with crabs scuttling for safety. Then there’s the spiders, always looking like they are on some sort of mission.
— BEACHCOMBING —
The running that morning wasn’t easy. Maybe it was all the energy I’d just wasted, maybe it was the dirt road, and maybe I should have had at least an orange. Ten minutes into my run, for crying out loud, for no reason at all, I started crying out loud. I don’t mean crying just a little, I mean bawling like a lunatic. I couldn’t seem to stop, either the running or the crying, and I don’t know what was running faster, my nose or me.
I slowed down a little, though, when I saw a black limousine snaking through the poplar trees up ahead on Poplar Hill. My heart did a cartwheel in my chest.
Carolina was right! It had been a rumour for years, but maybe just maybe Hardly Whynot did have a summer home here. Who else in Boulder Basin would be driving a limousine? It turned out of Poplar Lane and headed towards me. I could make out the silhouette of a chauffeur through the windshield. Hat, sunglasses. The real thing.
Any minute now, it would drive up alongside of me. The window of the limo would slide open silently. Mr. Whynot himself would lean out, saying, “Aye, mate, out for a run, are we?” I knew what he looked like and how he talked because my mother made me watch the old movies so many times. Then I would tell him that my mother was his biggest fan ever and he was the only man she ever loved besides my dad Corporal Ray and how her lifelong wish was to get his autograph. Could I please have one for her? He would say yes. And my mother would be grateful she had one daughter at least.
But not like this. I couldn’t meet someone that famous and British and make an impression looking like this! Not even for my mother. I knew my eyes were swollen from my yanging and my nose all crusty. No. Proper introductions are important in our house. I crossed the road.
I scrambled over the boulders lining the shore and started leaping from one rock to another towards the ocean. Jack be nimble, Minn be quick! I sang to myself. It was a dangerous thing to do, not because of the ocean—the tide was out—but it would be all too easy to sprain my ankle. That would be the end of my running for the summer, not to mention the only means of escape from my grandmother. I slowed down to smaller hops.
As the limo passed, I peeked back up. The chauffeur gave me a thumbs-up. His sunglasses were the ski goggle models. He was probably a bodyguard as well and was checking me out, making sure I wasn’t a sniper in disguise. He looked long enough to get a physical description. Subject:
Pre-teen girl. Hair: honeyblonde-brown. Eyes: bluegraygreen. Height: short. Wgt.: featherweight. Distinguishing feature: freckles unevenly distributed across bridge of nose. Status: newcomer. Potential stalker.
Cool as a cucumber, or so I hoped, I nodded. It was a nod that said: “To me you are just another limo and I am not suspicious about your boss. I am not impressed by your fancy car and I am not Nancy Drew or Trixie Belden, girl detective.” But that’s exactly how I felt.
The limo sped on down the road, leaving a plume of dust behind it.
At the water’s edge, I walked on for a while, stopping now and then to bend down and snap the seaweed pods. The clumps of dried-out seaweed by the road were the colour of ashes. Cheerleaders’ pompoms. But these clustered ones, the fresh ones, were the colour of dry mustard and made a snapping sound until they gave a little wheeze and oozed out a spit of water. The other kind of seaweed reminded me of lasagna: long ribbons of seaweed littered across the sand, as if the mermaids had had some wild partyand the streamers were left over next day for someone to come and pick up.
You can’t move anything by the ocean’s edge without noticing how everything is connected. The barnacles on the rocks, the tiny pool of water with crabs scuttling for safety. Then there’s the spiders, always looking like they are on some sort of mission.
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