The Middle of Everywhere (11 page)

“I'm gonna hold onto this end of the rope. You head out onto the ice and listen for the clicker,” Tom told me. “It'll move under the ice as I pull the rope. With every pull, it'll go a little farther.”

“Okay,” I said, though I didn't really know what he meant. How was I supposed to hear something under all that ice?

I squatted on the ice, Inuit-style. Except for my own breathing and the
whoosh
of the wind, I couldn't hear a thing. Man, I thought, is it ever quiet up here!

I looked toward Tom and shrugged. He pointed to his ear. “Listen!” he said.

“I am listening!” I shouted back.

“You have to be patient,” said Steve, who'd joined me on the ice. Patience has never been one of my better qualities.

Steve squatted next to me and lowered his head so his ear nearly brushed the ice. “Pull harder!” he shouted at Tom.

Steve raised one finger to his lips and gestured for me to lower my head to the ice too. When he raised his eyebrows, I knew he wanted to know whether I could hear the clicker.

I shook off the hood of my parka so I could hear better. The side of my head nearly grazed the ice, but I still couldn't hear any clicking. I turned to Steve and shook my head. “I've gotta go check on the dogs,” he said. “Keep listening. Move around a little if you have to. It'll help you stay warm. This part can take a while.”

By then, the sky was as black as Geraldine's braid. I shifted a little to the left, listening some more. Now I heard something, but it wasn't coming from underneath the ice. It sounded like “
whoo! whoo!
” and it was coming from the dark sky. Then something huge and white flapped its wings over my head. “Wow!” I said out loud, covering my mouth. If only my mom could have been there.

“What are you so excited about?” Lenny shouted once the bird was out of sight. “Never seen a snowy owl before?”

I couldn't tell him that for me, seeing that snowy owl and hearing his hoot felt almost like a sign, a message that I needed to be a little more patient. Maybe I didn't always take enough time to look or listen carefully enough.

I thought about that as I crawled along the ice, my head only a few inches from its surface. And then I heard it, a distant
click click
of metal under the ice. “I hear it!” I shouted. “Now what?”

That cracked Lenny and Tom up. “Now what?” Tom called out. “You keep listening! You're only about fifteen feet from the first hole, Noah. You've got a ways to go. The net's one-hundred-and-fifty freakin' feet long!”

We were out on the lake for another two hours. That's how long it took for me to follow the clicker and for the three of us to cut a second hole in the ice and pull the rope and the clicker up through it. It wasn't easy to hear the clicker, and we even started cutting out a hole that turned out to be in the wrong place. But once we had both ends of the rope, all we had to do was attach the net to one end and pull it out the other.

But at least the net is set. We are catching fish right now, while everyone except me is asleep. I have to admit that even with all that work, it's a good plan.

FIFTEEN

L
enny's and Tom's voices wake me.

Lenny whistles as the two of them peek out through the crack in the tent door. “Look at her out there. Ain't she beautiful?” I figure they're talking about Geraldine. I think of her silky hair, and the way it sometimes looks navy blue. And I think of the way her dark eyes twinkle when she says something funny.

Tom is crouched on his knees next to Lenny. “She's beautiful all right. But cruel.”

“Yeah,” Lenny says, “she's going to give us some beating today, that's for sure.”

Geraldine cruel? Geraldine beating up on us? I don't think so.

I sit up in my sleeping bag and rub the sleep from my eyes. The stove is making crackling sounds. “I have to take a leak,” I say.

“You might change your mind when you see what's going on out there,” Tom says.

I crawl out of my sleeping bag and over to where Tom and Lenny are. Tom makes room so I can see outside too. Only there isn't anything to see. Just white. Everywhere. That's when I understand what Tom and Lenny have been talking about. It's not Geraldine. It's not any girl at all. It's the weather. Beautiful and cruel.

“Is this a whiteout?” I ask the guys.

“Sure is,” Tom says.

I still have to pee.

I pull on my parka and put on Dad's boots and my mitts. Even from inside the tent, we can hear the wind howling. I take a deep breath. This isn't going to be fun. When I crawl out from the tent, the wind smacks my face so hard I'm sure it'll leave a bruise.

Lenny pokes the top of his head out of the tent. “Hey, city boy, bring some wood when you're done taking your leak!” he shouts.

“Don't call me city boy!” I shout back, but I know there's no point. Lenny is already back inside. He'll never hear me over the wind.

The snow is coming down at a forty-five-degree angle. It isn't soft snow like the kind you see in movies or on Christmas cards. These are tiny sharp pellets that prick at my skin like needles. But there are so many of them and they are coming down so quickly, they seem to be making the whole world white.

I don't want to wander too far from the tent. I can't see more than a few inches in front of me, and it would be easy to get lost out here. But I also want to be sure the guys won't see me. I'll never hear the end of it if they catch me with my fly open.

I try heading out in a straight line. I watch for landmarks in case I have trouble finding my way back. I see two small bushes in a row, but then there are lots of small bushes. Then I spot a jerry can that has probably been used for siphoning gas into a snowmobile.

I continue a few more feet. Walking is easier if I keep my head down. Okay, I think, now's as good a time as any. I'll just get this over with, collect some wood and head back. Maybe Steve will say the conditions are too bad for us to empty the fishing net. I hope so, but I kind of doubt it. I remember something Dad told me about Steve: “He's lived here so long he thinks like an Inuk.” I'm pretty sure stormy conditions—even a complete whiteout—can't stop the Inuit from catching fish. After all, we've got to eat, and so do the dogs.

It's so cold that at first I think I won't be able to pee. But once I start, I feel like I'll never be able to stop. I try to concentrate on the puff of smoke my pee makes as it hits the ground, not on how the cold is seeping inside my bones and how the wind is whipping my face and fingers.

I had to take off my mitts to unzip my fly and now my fingers are numb. I fumble as I zip up my pants. Thank god my dick didn't freeze right off.

The snow is coming down even harder now. I watch for the jerry can. Is that it? It seemed windy when I was walking away from the tent, but now that I'm headed back, the wind is twice as strong. It feels as if it might blow me right over. Small steps. I'll just take small steps. Rats! What I hoped was the jerry can turns out to be a branch.

That reminds me: I almost forgot to look for branches. Luckily, there are a few more under the bush. As I reach down to grab at them a gust of wind sweeps down and carries them away. I hear a crack as, somewhere close by, a branch breaks. But with all this snow, I can't tell where it lands.

What I'd give to be back in the warm tent. Even if Lenny's in it.

There it is—the jerry can. And there are branches too, lots of them. Quickly, I make a bundle. I know I'm not far from the tent now. I try imagining how good it'll feel to warm my hands in front of the stove. And do I smell pancakes? I've been so busy fighting the elements I didn't realize how hungry I am. I hope Steve has syrup in one of his boxes.

Just then, I hear steps—heavy ones—coming toward me. “Who is it?” I call out. I stretch the top of my hands out in front of me like a blind man groping in the dark, which, in a way, I am.

The only answer I get is the cracking sound as another branch breaks. “Who is it?” I hear the fear in my voice. If there's a polar bear out here, I tell myself, I'd have seen tracks. Or would the snow, falling so quickly, have covered them?

The steps are coming closer.

My breathing speeds up, and the top of my chest starts to hurt. I can't tell if it's from the cold or from fear. Probably both.

“Hey.”

I recognize the husky voice.

“Geraldine,” I say. “What are you doing out here?”

I can see her now. She's got on an old-fashioned pair of snowshoes, the kind made from wood and rawhide. They explain the heavy steps I just heard.

“Did I scare you?” she asks. Her dark eyes twinkle.

“Nah,” I say. I'm pretty sure she can tell I'm lying.

“Steve said he'd make pancakes for breakfast,” she says. “Me and my
ataata
are invited too. After that, we're going to empty the nets. All of us.”

“All of us?”

Geraldine laughs. I figure that means me too.

SIXTEEN

S
teve makes the best pancakes ever. They're not too thin, not too thick. Plus they're sweet and salty at the same time. And there's pure maple syrup, not the fake kind. Since there aren't any maple trees up here, I figure Steve must've brought the syrup back with him from one of his trips south. He's from Thunder Bay, Ontario, and his parents still live there. I wonder if it's weird for them that he lives up here and that their grandchildren speak Inuktitut.

I pass Steve my tin plate for a third helping. “These pancakes are amazing.”

Steve points to a cardboard box on the floor. “That's my secret recipe. Store-bought pancake mix from the Northern. Low fat, low salt.”

When I get back to Montreal, I'll put that on the shopping list. Only maybe pancakes taste better when you're winter camping and the polar bear you've been afraid of turns out to be a pretty girl on snowshoes.

“Eat up, everyone. We're going to need all our strength to empty those nets,” Steve says, rubbing his hands together. “Something tells me they're gonna be loaded with Arctic char.”

“I wanna help too!” Etua says. He's jumping up and down again.

“I don't think so.” Steve bends down and looks into Etua's eyes so he'll understand he's serious. “The weather's too bad out there for a little guy like you.”

Etua pouts. “I'm not a little guy. I'm Spiderman!”

“Spiders don't like the snow. It's bad for their webs,” I tell him.

Etua nods. That makes sense to him at least. I sure wish I could trade places with Etua and stay inside the tent doing puzzles. Joseph gets to stay inside too, to look after Etua. When I offer to take Joseph's place, Steve says he doesn't think it would be a good idea. “Thanks for offering, but whoever stays in the tent needs to know how woodstoves work,” he tells me. “These things can be pretty dangerous.”

When the rest of us head out after breakfast, we keep close. Along our way, we pass the dogs. Steve and Joseph and Jakopie have tied the teams up in a clearing at the edge of the camp. The dogs are staked out at regular intervals on a long cable strung up between two spruce trees. Each dog is tied to the cable at intervals of about six feet, by a smaller cable that hooks onto his collar. The dogs can only get close enough to touch noses.

“How come you don't let them huddle together to stay warm?” I ask Steve.

“That'd never work,” he tells me. “They'd fight or get tangled up. But don't worry about the dogs, Noah. They were made for this kind of weather.”

I make a point of walking behind Tom and Lenny to give myself a little extra protection from the wind. If the weather were a girl, the way Tom and Lenny talked about her this morning, she was in some bad mood.

“You think this is gusty?” Geraldine's father says with a laugh. His face is rounder than Geraldine's. “This is nothing compared to when I was a kid hunting seals with my
ataata
. Oh, those were gusty days all right. Much gustier than today.” It's the first thing he's said all morning.

The Inuit may be people of few words, but Matthew, Geraldine's father, is quieter than the rest. Quieter even than Jakopie. Still, I get the feeling Matthew is the sort of person who enjoys watching life happen around him. And fishing. Geraldine told me fishing is her dad's favorite thing. “He says it gives him time to think,” she said.

Matthew and Geraldine head for their own fishing spot a little farther out on the lake. Roy goes to give them a hand with their net.

This morning, there is no time for the kind of thinking Matthew likes to do. Not with our net full of Arctic char, some already dead, but most wriggling for dear life, their silver bodies glimmering against the snow. Steve was right. The net is so heavy it takes four of us to pull it out from under the ice.

Tom is standing closest to the hole, where the ice is slick. As we pull, water gushes out and freezes up almost as soon as it makes contact with the air. When the net is nearly out, Tom loses his footing and falls over on the ice.

Tom takes Lenny with him when he falls. That leaves Steve and me holding the rope. And since the net is too heavy for just the two of us, we end up letting go. Luckily, Etua isn't around to hear his dad swear. When Tom and Lenny are back on their feet, we start over again. Steve grits his teeth as we pull. My back is killing me.

Because of the way the snow is coming down, we can't see Geraldine and her dad and Roy.

It doesn't take as long this time to get the net back on the ice. I tug so hard I forget how cold I am and how the wind is stinging my face.

“Good work, guys!” Steve is saying. “Look at all these fish. There's plenty for us and for the dogs too.”

This time when Tom collapses on the ice he does it on purpose. “Nothing tastes as good as fresh-caught Arctic char,” he says, stretching his legs out in front of him so he looks like one of those Russian dancers.