The Devil Delivered and Other Tales (31 page)

So we stood there waiting, and waiting some more. Everyone figured she wasn’t going to show. Mom and Dad kept arguing about it, and Sis sat down on a stump and tried to loosen the knots I’d tied in her hair earlier that morning.

Dad told her not to sleep in!

I kept my eyes peeled on the waves, because I knew better. I knew she was coming, just like she did every summer. And just like all the other summers everybody figured she wasn’t going to show. Grown-ups have real short memories, if you ask me.

And sure enough there she was, her head bobbening to the surface in the middle of the bay. She gave a wave and we all waved back.

“See!” I said to Mom. “I told you I saw lights down there last night! I knew she was home!”

“Well,” she sneffed, tightening her grip on the broom handle. “Could’ve been lectric eels.”

Grandma Matchie swam towards us, her long skinny neck making a giant V through the water. Minnows leapt in little silver florshes in front of her, like she was chasing them, but I could’ve told them not to worry. Grandma Matchie didn’t give a rizzling hoot for small fry.

“Ain’t no lectric eels in Rat Portage Lake!” Dad gruzzled, scratching the thick black hair on his chest until the buttons on his shirt popped off. He turned to Mom with his big red-bearded face all scowllered up. “Semper fey, woman! What’ve ya got for brains, anyway? Turnips?”

“That’s a root crop,” Sis said. She was taking Agriculture in school and I hated everything she said, so I started looking around for something to throw at her. But then I remembered the frog and got scared.

“Lectric eels, Zeus!” Dad shook his shuggy head, making the fishing lures in his hat jample. He’d hung the biggest ones on the brim of the hat. For balance, he said. And so he had Red Devils in front of his eyes, and he looked out from the tiny holes where you tie the line. “Lectric eels!”

Mom scowllered too, hefting the broom in her skinny hands. She looked down at her high heels again and tried feebly to pull them out from between the planks in the dock, but she was stuck fast, which made her scowller even more. It was just like every summer. “Well, lamp rays, then.”

“Lamp rays!”

I left them binickering and ran down to the end of the dock to meet Grandma Matchie. Grinning, she clambered up on the weathered boards and began wringing the water from her bright red dress. She was taller even than Dad and skinnier even than Mom, and her gray hair sat on top of her head like a giant ball of torngled-up fishing line with only a little seaweed in it, and you could see she’d been lying on the rock all the bass like to hide under because her wrunkled skin was all tanned and anyway summer’s when her Indian blood shows through, because Grandma Matchie’s One Part Everything.

“How ya bin doin, Tyke?” Her hiking boots sloshed as, taking my hand, we walked up the dock. “You ain’t seen the Major lately, have ya?”

I looked across the bay at the Major’s tiny island, but all I could see was his dock and his Blarny Boat and the flagpole with its Union Jack hanging there all lank and tired. “I seen him out trobbling around, that’s all. Yesterday. Whenever he comes near shore he just shakes his fist at us. I think he’s mad at us or something.”

Tossing back her head Grandma Matchie laughed. “He’s mad, all right! Hah!”

Dad scowllered and said: “We bin here since yesterday and you ain’t been up once!”

“Aren’t you ashamed?” Mom demanded, poking the air with her broom.

Making a rude noise at both of them Grandma Matchie turned and crucked an eyebrow at Sis. “That hair sure looks funny, lass. In fashion nowadays, eh? Well, don’t let the bees see you or you’ll get stungled for sure!” And she laughed again.

Sis’s face scrinched up and I could tell she was going to cry. And sure enough she let out a browl and raced away towards the cabin.

Mom scowllered even scowllier than Dad. “Now look at what you done, Mother!”

Well, it didn’t surprise me, that’s for sure. Sis was older than me and I hated her. The way she made faces at dinner, and the way she started crying every time I kicked her under the table, and once she hit me when Mom wasn’t looking, and nobody’d believe me, so I hated her, and that’s why.

And she had purple hair too. It used to be brown, even when it wasn’t dirty, but now it was purple. And she wore shiny shirts that made her chest look funny. Once, I saw her in the bathroom, miggling her hips so that her fat bum moved funnily. She was crazy, and if you don’t believe me you just wait!

Grandma Matchie frowned. “She bin cryin alot, Ester?”

Mom’s face reddened for some Mysterious Reason, but she nodded anyway.

Dad caught my eye and winked. “Woman talk, son. Don’t you pay it no mind.” His eyes looked small as a gerbil’s inside those holes in the Red Devils, but not just any old gerbil unless all gerbils are like the one that used to be in my classroom but got away when a Child with an Overwrought Imagination Assisted it to Escape. Eyes like that gerbil’s, which were mostly suspicious even when I showed it the Plans. And all those flies snigged in Dad’s hat made me think of when you accidentally drop a ten-pound jar of chocolate pudding on a rock and it breaks and there’s a pile of ucky pudding just sitting there for hours before you tell anyone, and by then it’s fly pudding and you can watch them sinking and disappearing until the sun goes down when there’s none left and it’s time for Sis to have a snack.

We were all getting ready to go up to the cabin when Grandma Matchie hissped “Shhh!” and crouched, looking around. Everyone froze. Her eyes narrowed to slits and she sniffed the air. “He’s here, he is!” she hisspered. “Somewhere!”

All at once we heard fladapping overhead and we all looked up.

“There he is!” Grandma Matchie screeked. “Spyin!”

The Major hovered over us, wearing his usual navy blues and polished boots. You could see the fire gleamering in his eyes and he grinned crazzerly, his big red nose purlsing and his giant mustache bristlering. The two gulls holding him up screewled loudly and beat their wings madly, and feathers floated down all around us.

Water spraying from the eyelets of her hiking boots, Grandma Matchie splomped back and forth in a rage. “Where’s my duck gun!” She shook her fist skyward. “I’ll turn those gulls into paperweights! Hah!” Then she swirjerked around and tore off up the trail and prashed down the cabin door with both feet at once.

She disappeared inside. “She’s getting a gun!” Dad shouted at the Major, who shrieked. And the gulls shrieked too. Legs pumping the air, the Major tried to run home. The seagulls ducked their heads and drummed their wings, hurrying him towards his island. By the time Grandma Matchie arrived with her shotgun, the Major had shrunk to a speck. Looking miserable, she pumped a couple rounds after him anyway, then sniffed, her wrinkled lips pouping.

“Damn spyin! Did you see his beady eyes? Just aglowin!”

“How come?” I asked.

“He’s fishin, that’s what he’s doin. An he’s got it bad, sure enough if you ask me.”

“Got what bad?”

“The itch.” Grandma Matchie surplied.

I didn’t know what on earth she was talking about, but I saw Dad grinning and Mom’s face turning red. And for some reason I could feel my face starting to scranch, though it had no reason to that I could figure. It does that sometimes.

That night, in the cabin, Grandma Matchie cooked us up a whole pot full of crayfish, but said they had to cool till morning before we could eat them. Then she sat herself down by the fireplace, streetching out her glongly legs and watching her boots steam.

Mom took over the kitchen and said no one was allowed to come in while she Baked Bread.

“Crazy woman!” Dad snargled, crushelling his beer can and throwing it into a corner, his eyes streaming in the smoke from the pipe in his mouth. Smoking a pipe’s an important part of being a fisherman, he’d said between coughs. He had on his fishing hat with the thousand hundred fifty-two million lures snegged in it, and he stood in the center of the living room, wearing hip-waders and a fish basket clipped to his leg. Bing Crosby was on the tape deck and the sound of turckling water came from the bathroom where Dad had turned on the tap. “Gotta have the sound of turckling water,” he’d said. “It’s a parta fishin. An important part.”

Whipping the air, Dad’s fly rod swung back and forth, and fishing line torngled everything. It hung from the rafters of the A-frame like spiderwebs; it snarvelled the furniture and lay in twingled coils on the wooden floor. Sis was all wrapped up in it and hadn’t moved in an hour. She just lay there, groaming every now and then.

I sat with Grandma Matchie, my feet growing hot as Hades in front of the mackling spunkering pafting fire.

“Crazy woman!” Dad repeated in a voice loud enough to be heard in the kitchen. Snapping open another beer can with his left hand he tugged the rod. “Damn! Snaggered again! It’s the worst parta fishin! If I lose another leader I’ll scream!” He pulled and pulled and the moose head on the wall waggled and nodded.

The kitchen door swung open and a white-powdered figure stepped out and screaked: “Didn’t I tell you to do your fishin outside?” Clouds burst from her lips. “Didn’t I!?”

“I ain’t goin out there!” Dad belbowed. “There’s dangerous beasts out there! A man could get himself killed!” He yanked savagely and the moose head jampled straight out from the wall all brown and blurthy like it was attacking him. Yimping, Dad ducked and the head sailed over and crashed down on a table. “See!”

“Fishin’s dangerous, Tyke.” Grandma Matchie nodded.

Dad straightened and glawered at Mom. “Not only that! It’s gothic fulla bugs and stuff!” He beared his teeth at her and snargled, “Why don’t you go out there if y’like it so much! Do your gothic bakin in the bush!”

“Look at your daughter!”

“Ahh, she’s all right. Just sleepin, is all.”

“She’s all tied up!”

“Bah!”

Crossing her arms, Mom whirled about. “Well!” She slammed the door and flour gusted out around it.

Bing Crosby began dreaming of a white Christmas and I hissped, “Shhh!” to Grandma Matchie and began wormening toward the kitchen, crawpelling from shadow to shadow like the Indians must have done, until I crouched up against the door. Reaching up, I grasped and turned the knob ever so slowly. I opened it a crack and peeked in.

It was white woman’s territory for sure. In fact, the whole kitchen was white, and loaves of bread were stacked everywhere, a million thousand seventy-two of them. And there was Mom, her fancy black dress all covered in flour and butter and dough, and there was more dough clinging to her fingers and arms and wrapped around her neck as she strubbled and pulled and pulled and strubbled, muttering and whimpering all the while.

Once Mom started she couldn’t stop, and pretty soon the loaves of bread began showing up everywhere. Sloggy and swobllen on the beach, with groaming crows lying in piles all around them. Made into nests by squirrels, all hollowed out with flowery drapes in the windows. Hanging from tree branches with bees brazzling all around them trying to figure a way to get inside. And after a few days you could easily make bread igloos out of them. But this time she’d really gone overboard. Groaming softly, I closed the door and snucched back to Grandma Matchie’s side.

“She done it again, huh?”

“Worse than ever!”

Grandma Matchie sighed, wrivilled her steaming boots. “Ever drank crayfish wine, Tyke? I got vats of it down in the lodge. Canada’s Finest, it says on the labels. Bottled it myself. Course, you’re not old ’nough fur crayfish wine, anyway.”

“Soon?”

“Maybe. But I’ll tell you somethin. You want hair on your chest like your Dad?” I thought about it and was about to answer but she went on, “Well, drink some of Canada’s Finest and I guarantee it, you’ll never freeze in winter again.”

Frowning, I said, “Maybe that’s why the Major goes fishin and trobblin for you every day. He wants your crayfish wine.”

Grandma Matchie chackled. “Not likely, though it does kinda get im a hankerin, ’times.”

“Every day he’s out there! Rowin back and forth and trobblin bait past your windows!”

“Lubber don’t know a thin about baitin,” she muthered distantly.

I looked up at her and I saw her eyes glowing like the coals in the fireplace. Before I knew it, my face scrinched up. “Grandma Matchie! Snap out of it!”

Turning, she gave me a blank look. “Snap out of what, Tyke?”

I sighed, feeling my face unscrinching. Whew! I’d almost lost her there! In the dull light I peeked out of the corner of my eye at Grandma Matchie’s arm to confirm my belief. Yes, it looked too skinny to be punched. It’d break for sure. Right then and there I vowed to protect Grandma Matchie, no matter what.

Laugh if you want! You’ll see I was right!

The next morning Sis was gone no one knew where. Mom sifted the piles of flour in the kitchen; Dad checked his fish basket; and I searched through all her clothes and stuff just in case anything interesting came up. But Grandma Matchie sniffered the air and then went straight over to the crayfish pot. Lifting the lid she peered inside and after a moment cried out, “Aha! I knew it!” She slammed the lid down and whirvelled to us, her face grim. “She’s been kidnapped! And I know who!”

“The Major?” I asked.

Even more grimly she shook her head. “He’s small fry. Nope, this is bad, real bad. Cause it means he’s back, an if he’s back there’ll be trouble for us all!” Suddenly she threw back her shoulders and roared a defiant laugh, then began barking orders: “Ester! Get the canoe outa the boathouse! Jock, get me my spurs and saddle! Jock Junior! Pack us a lunch! An alla you—be quick ’bout it!” Hands on her hips, Grandma Matchie glowered at us until we all started scrambling.

Passing by the crayfish pot I paused to lift the lid and peek inside. They were all there, bright red and tasty looking. “But Grandma Matchie—”

“Aye, an look at em, Tyke. Look at em real good, now.”

And then I saw that each of them was missing a claw. “Someone’s stolen half the claws!”

“An you know what that means?” Grandma Matchie’s face was grim and serious. “It means he’s back, and he was right here! An he stole Sis.” Fury smolgered in her eyes. “He stole Sis!”