Something's Fishy
	Chapter 4 We Have An Emergency... Or Two

I woke up very early. Or maybe I didn't sleep at all, I'm not sure. The first thing I realized was that overnight our tent had shrunk to about one-and-three-quarter-man. I had to get out of there. I crawled out of my sleeping bag and managed to escape without waking anybody up.

Outside I sucked lots of cold fresh air deep into my lungs. Birds sang their heads off in the trees, squirrels insulted me in squirrel talk, and a chipmunk scrambled around picking up graham cracker crumbs. As for the human population, I heard only a few sleepy voices from inside a tent here and there.

Luke had been right. The earth had rotated during the night. To prove it, the sun had come up. Whether the earth had wobbled or not, I couldn't say.

I walked to the other side of the isthmus and looked out at our second lake. It was smaller, almost a round pond compared to the first one.

Two canoes were working back and forth a ways out, and I saw one was Dillon and his dad's. They must have volunteered to catch breakfast.

They were trolling, which means casting out and trailing your lures behind you as you paddle. It's not something you want to do with seven or eight other canoes running over your lines. Now and then a fishing rod bent in an upside-down "U" and a moment later something lively was lifted from the water, splashes sparkling in the early sun. I heard somebody approaching behind me and hoped it wasn't Luke. It was Brownie, yawning and scratching.

"What are they catching?" he asked.

"Nothing," I said. "Panfish probably. Say, if this is the isthmus, where's the Panama Canal?"

"Huh? Still in Panama, I guess. Are you awake yet?"

"Of course. Aren't you?"

"How was last night in your tent?" he asked.

"I don't know. The earth rotated. Nothing out of the ordinary. Did you feel it?"

Brownie moved away sideways looking at me funny, and I suddenly wondered if Lukeness was catching.

"You know," I hurried on, "I think it's going to be all right. After all, it's only for two more days. In fact it's only for one more night. We'll be paddling out Sunday afternoon, right? I feel better this morning. Maybe he's not so bad after all, right?"

"Yes he is that bad," Brownie contradicted me. "Didn't you hear those jokes at the campfire? The more people groaned, the worse jokes he told. He doesn't know the difference between a groan and a laugh."

We watched the two canoes turn toward us. Four wet paddles flashed in the sun. Dillon was waving at us. I was glad they were coming in, partly because I had gotten curious again about Dillon's idea and partly because nothing sounded better than fresh fish filets frying over an open fire. Wow. I felt like I could almost say it.

Brownie said, not looking at me, "You know, David, I have to give you a hand or something for putting up with him overnight. I sure didn't want him in my tent."
"Yeah, I got that message."

"I mean I couldn't. We didn't have enough room. You understand that."

"Sure."

We stepped back as the two canoes ran their bows up onto shore. Dillon looked incredibly proud. He held up a stringer heavy with little fish.

"Quantity not quality, huh?" I said.

"They're good eating," Dillon insisted. "Bluegill, pumpkinseed and perch."

Brownie suggested, "Give David one of the perch. Then he can learn to have perch-everance."

The fish were delicious, and for a while I was too busy eating to ask Dillon what his great idea was. Luke didn't show up for breakfast, which didn't surprise me. He was probably in the tent stuffing down leftover s'mores he'd squirreled away last night. I was surprised that Poppa Joe didn't join us, but maybe he didn't like fish either.

Several times my dad stood up from where we sat on logs around the campfire and went back to our tent. In a minute he'd come back, look at me, smile stiffly and nibble on his fish again.

When breakfast was done and I went to help take our tent down, I met my dad coming out of it looking more worried than he usually does. He pulled me away under some trees. "Listen," he said, "Joe's sick. Having some pains. I don't think it's real serious, but he shouldn't go on the rest of the trip. Brownie's dad and I are going to take him out in his canoe and get him to wherever the nearest hospital is."

Oh, great! "Then the trip's canceled?"

"No. No reason to cancel it. You'll just continue on to the next campsite and keep fishing. No reason to send everybody home."

"When will you be back?"

"We probably won't be. By the time we paddle out and drive to a hospital and they find out what's wrong, it could be after dark tonight. And if he's got something seriously wrong, we'll have to stay and notify his family and so forth. We can't just leave him."

"You're leaving me," I said, and instantly I knew it was too little-kid-like, but I didn't care.

My dad hugged me briefly and reminded me, "You and your Pointer friends are used to taking care of each other, right? Remember Brownie's in the same situation as you."

"Yeah, that's right."

"And one more thing. You've got to take care of Luke. He's going to be scared about this and"

"Luke?! You mean he's staying here? You're not taking him with you?"

"Four people is too many for one canoe, especially since we want Joe lying down. Look, I don't think this is life-or-death, or of course we'd find a way to take him. Being with you guys will keep his mind occupied."

"Why do we have to baby-sit Luke?" I asked and this time I really knew I shouldn't have said it.

My dad got impatient. "I know you don't like him, but you're going to have to do what you can. We have to get going. We may have wasted too much time already."

I realized then he really was worried. He went back to our tent, and I hurried to try to find the other Pointers. Unfortunately Luke found me first.

"David!" he gasped. "Did you hear? What'll I do?"

"Not much you can do, I guess," I answered. "Pray. Try not to worry."

"I want to go along, but they're telling me to stay here with you."

"Yeah, well, uh, I don't think they exactly mean with me, I mean not with me personally, more like stay with the group and enjoy the trip."

"How can I enjoy the trip when I don't know what's happening with Poppa Joe?" His voice wobbled a little and I almost felt sorry for him but squashed it. Poppa Joe would be all right.

"He'll be all right," I said, but not with much feeling.

"But I don't know, and what if something happens to him, and you're the only friend I've got on this trip, and you're practically my only friend at all, and"

"I said he'll be all right!" I yelled. "Just stay with the group and don't worry about it, okay?" And I walked away.

I didn't even see the old wood canoe leave with its emergency cargo. I kept myself busy taking our tent down and answering people's questions, not that I knew much more than anybody else.

To keep my own mind occupied, I focused extra hard on packing up and getting launched into the next lake. They put me and Brownie and both our stuff in our canoe, with me in the stern. There was enough room because his tent was so small, but Brownie was mad that they hadn't put him in the stern, so I concentrated even harder on paddling strong and getting my J-stroke right which keeps the canoe from spinning in a circle.

At the end of the little lake was a narrow channel to the third lake, which would be the largest. We wouldn't have to portage. I'd been paddling so hard that our canoe was way out in front and we were first through the channel, and I kept us first as we started down the bigger lake.

This lake was narrow and shaped something like a fat "C." We had come in at the bottom of the "C," if you see what I mean. The next campsite was at the far end of the "C," like where you'd start to write it, and we were supposed to get there by late morning.

On the inside of the "C" the lake curved around an area thick with trees, and as we started around the curve we were hit head-on by cold wind. The waves started kicking up, making some whitecaps.

Canoeing into the wind takes some skill or strength or luck or all three. If we met the wind head-on, our canoe cut the waves clean. The problem was, it was practically impossible to keep the boat pointed straight into the wind.

If we turned a little off the wind, paddling was easier, but we wallowed in the waves more. All the canoes were heavily loaded with stuff so they rode low in the water and would be that much easier to swamp.

One more thing about paddling into the wind: if the wind does get the better of you, it doesn't just push you backwards; it spins you around so you're sideways to the waves, and you get stuck there unable to turn back the way you were headed.

That's exactly what happened to Brownie and me after a very short time.

He was digging in hard on the downwind side, and I was doing the same, but we got spun around and wound up rocking in the foot-high waves which hit us from the side and threatened to come on board for a ride.

"Pull the bow into the wind!" I yelled at Brownie. He put his paddle in on the downwind side. "No!" I hollered. "Pull it around!"

"You've got to turn us first!" he yelled back. "Dig in and get us moving so I can do something!"

An extra-big wave rocked us. "Turn us, I said!" he ordered me.

"I'm trying!" I yelled back. A gust of wind hit us and undid the small progress I'd managed to make.

"We can't make it!" I called to him. "Let's go straight and head for shore!"

"No! Dig in!" he answered back and finally did what I'd told him and reached out with his paddle to pull the bow into the wind. He called out, "Keep going! Persevere and all that!"

I looked back and saw that everybody else in the other canoes was having the same problem making headway. Brownie and I were still ahead of everybody even though we were hardly going anywhere.

That's when my mood lifted. I didn't see Luke in any of the boats. They'd taken him with them after all!

It made sense. We were paired up two to a canoe, and without Poppa Joe he would have been the odd third person. And there wasn't room for a third person in any of the canoes, not with all the camping gear. Besides, he had practically begged to go.

Yes! Hooray! It didn't matter after all that I hadn't heard Dillon's great idea. I didn't need it now. I wouldn't require any more perseverance or perch-everance or whatever that quality was for the entire rest of the weekend!

For a second I thought the earth was rotating. Then Brownie yelped at me and I realized I'd quit paddling without knowing it and the canoe was spinning again. I ruddered us back into the wind and felt new energy surging through my paddle.

We pushed ahead, going along the inside of the "C." Big splashes of raindrops starting showing up on the choppy lake surface. Our stuff was all covered with a tarp, and with my usual great organizational skills, my rain gear was safely packed away under that tarp.

Brownie pointed at the shore ahead. "Looks like an inlet or bay or something coming up! Let's get out of the wind for a minute."

"Okay," I said, "if you don't want to persevere . . ."

"Yeah, yeah, okay, just head for the inlet, all right?"

My own arm muscles didn't feel so great either, not to mention my back, so I was glad enough to head for the inlet. As we turned into it, we left the wind behind us and the water instantly got quiet and smooth, except for splashes of rain. We rested our paddles across the canoe and leaned on them and took deep breaths while our momentum carried us further into the bay or cove or whatever it was.

Like I said, it was quiet, but it wasn't what you'd call peaceful.

Everything got darker as we drifted further in. The trees on either side looked kind of sick. Several times the shallow murky water churned suddenly right next to the boat. I knew it was carp, big bottom-feeding fish that stir up the water as they move, but it looked like the water was boiling. A great blue heron standing on a log croaked at us and took off.With its long curved neck and spiky beak and huge wings it looked like one of those prehistoric flying lizards as it headed for the far end of the cove.

I could see the cove got shallower and swampy down at that end.

I could see something else, too.

A cabin stood at the far end, or rather leaned there. It was an old rotten-looking cabin with twisted cedars bending over it on either side like guards. A dock came out into the weeds that barely poked up through the dark water this time of year. Or I should say the dock was collapsing into the weeds. The cabin had a tin roof with a pipe chimney coming out at an odd angle. The cabin door was hanging crooked, or maybe the door was straight and the whole place was crooked and sinking into the swampy earth.

Brownie said quietly, "This place gives me the creeps."

"I agree," I said equally quietly.

Silence for a minute. The rain stopped. A crow made a nasty comment, answered more nastily by another crow.

"You rested enough?" I asked Brownie.

"Yeah," he said, still staring at the cabin.

"It looks like a place Poppa Joe would live," I said. Funny I would think of something like that. For the first time I wondered how Joe was doing.

Brownie looked at me over his shoulder. "Dare you to go inside."

"Dare you to go inside," I said.

"Dare you to go inside," he said.

This sounded like it could go on all day, so I gave a couple of good strokes that sent us all the way to the dock.

Underwater weeds hissed against the metal hull. I stuck my paddle straight down to test the depth of the water. The paddle met the bottom and plunged on downward through the muck. I never did hit anything solid.

Brownie caught the dock with his hand to stop us. Then he carefully got outof the canoe. That was almost braver than going into the cabin, since the dock looked like it would collapse with the weight of a dog, even one smaller than Brownie's dog which he hadn't brought along after all.

I climbed out too and searched for a place to tie up the canoe. All the wood of the dock looked rotten. I finally found a post that seemed a little less rotten than the rest and tied the rope to it. We walked looking down, taking long strides over broken boards, and stepped onto the swampy shore. "Crazy place to build a cabin," Brownie said. "The ground's not even solid. No wonder the place is sinking. And look at that roof. There's gaps between the pieces of tin. Must leak like crazy." He kept going on about how badly the cabin was built.

"You're scared to go in," I said.

"I don't see you charging through the door," he said.

To prove him wrong I charged through the door. Or rather I walked up to the door and tried to see through the crack where the door was hanging funny.

"What do you see?" he asked and pushed against me trying to see in as well. My face got smooshed against the wood and I felt like I was getting a faceful of splinters.

I shoved him back and pushed my weight against the door. I was hoping it wouldn't open, but it did.

We went inside and stood there waiting for our eyes to adjust. The cabin had an opening in the back wall, a window which had maybe once had glass in it, but with the trees all around, it was still dark in there.

Gradually we saw there wasn't much in the cabin. Only a very basic wood stove, a table and one chair, an iron bed with a crummy-looking thin mattress, and some cupboards which were closed. I didn't feel like opening them.

"So much for that," Brownie said, "let's leave."

Why was he being such a coward? Now that we were inside, it was clear this was only a hunting shack. Somebody used to come out here by boat to hunt ducks and geese. It looked like nobody had been here for a long time.

"What's your problem?" I asked. "It's just a deserted old shack. It's gotuhcharacter. It does look like a place where Poppa Joe would live. In fact it's almost like I can feel him here."

Brownie said, "You too??" and it was like a big rubber band snapped inside him and he turned and ran back out the door.

I laughed to myself, standing alone in the empty cabin. What could possibly be here for anybody to be scared of? I hadn't realized Brownie was such a chicken. I stood there a minute longer in the empty cabin which for some reason didn't feel so empty anymore. I mean, I was there, but it was like somebody else was there besides me.

The next thing I knew, I was following Brownie outside.

After all, maybe he needed my help or reassurance or guidance.

Brownie stood a few steps out on the dock, looking down at the water. He looked back at me. His eyes and his mouth were both wide open but he wasn't saying anything. He looked down again. He pointed at the water.

I figured out he was trying to communicate something important but couldn't manage it. He looked confused. I tried to think of some helpful words I could say to him at this difficult time.

Then I caught on that both of us needed help, for a very big reason.

Our canoe was gone.