Chapter 1 It was a summer day that Fern would later call the Day of Eleven Whales--that was how many they saw from the boat , a record. Her brother, Hamish, would argue that it should be called the Day of the Killer Sea Lion, even though the sea lion hadn''t been trying to kill anybody, probably. It had only bitten that tourist''s knee when he leaned over the side of the boat to take a photo. Fern supposed that a big pink knee might look like an appetizing fish to a sea lion. It had probably been an honest mistake. Fern had leaped into action right away, before Mom could even open her mouth. She grabbed one of the ice cream sandwiches from the cooler and hurled it into the waves to distract the sea lion. It wasn''t actually necessary, because the sea lion had already decided that knees were not as tasty as fish and had slid back into the water, but everyone on the boat looked at her as if she were a hero.
"Are you all right?" Mom asked the man with the knee in what Fern and Hamish called her Captain Mom voice, loud and confident. The sea lion hadn''t broken the skin, but Mom got the man a bandage and an ice pack anyway. "What a brave girl!" exclaimed a woman with a big hat. "You have a very clever assistant," the man sitting next to her told Mom. Fern adjusted her baseball cap modestly, trying to hide her smile. She already knew she was a good assistant, but it was always nice to have other people notice. Once the knee had been dealt with, Mom went back to the wheel and pointed the whale watching boat toward home. The Zenith could move fast over open water, and they were soon zipping along, bouncing over shallow waves.
Fern took off her cap and leaned back, letting the salty wind comb her hair. Sunlight scattered over the waves like sparks. School was done for the year, and the summer stretched before her like her own private kingdom, waiting to be filled with adventures. "There''s another one!" a man yelled. The tourists scrambled for their cameras, and Mom slowed the Zenith to a crawl. "Is it a killer whale?" called the man, his eyes round. "Another humpback," Mom said, and the man looked disappointed. Everybody wanted to see a killer whale, but they were rare.
Fewer than a hundred lived in the Salish Sea, the part of the Pacific Ocean that lined the southwest coast of Canada and the northwest coast of the United States. The disappointing humpback blew a spout of mist before slipping back into the water without even lifting its tail. Fern knew that meant it was sleepy, swimming lazily near the surface as it dozed. She took a few photos with her own camera, adjusting the strap around her neck--Mom wanted some new pictures for the website. The strap was patterned with dinosaurs because the camera had belonged to her dad, the world''s biggest dinosaur fan. Watch the light, she heard Dad''s voice say in her memory, and she carefully adjusted the lens. Mom tossed her frizzy, carrot-colored ponytail over her shoulder and steered the boat around Castle Island and through the narrow channel it shared with Makena Island. The Salish Sea was full of islands, wild and uninhabited, looming out of the sea and bristling with pine and cedar.
Sea lions played in the rapids, rolling around like happy dogs. And then the boat was bumping up against the dock back in town, and Fern was jumping out to secure the Zenith while Mom gave her goodbye speech to the tourists. There were six of them today--not a large number, given that the Zenith could fit twelve. Mom said business would pick up later in the summer. "Thank you again," Mom told the tourists as she helped them onto the dock. "Thank you for choosing Worthwhale Tours, the oldest and highest-rated whale watching company in the Salish Sea. Remember to leave us an online review if you have time. Have a lovely day.
" Everybody smiled at her, even the man with the wounded leg. He looked extremely pleased with himself and kept saying that he wished he''d gotten a photo of the sea lion biting his knee. Fern thought this would make for a very strange photograph. Once everyone was gone, Mom turned to Fern with one eyebrow quirked and said, "An ice cream sandwich?" Fern folded her arms. She could see that Mom was hiding a smile under a stern expression. "Why not? Maybe he wanted a break from fish." Mom rolled her eyes. Her face grew worried.
"Well? How''d I do? My captain skills are rusty." "You were great!" Fern said. Mom was always nervous about the first whale watching tour of the season. She ran most of the tours now--Granny and Gramps helped out on weekends, sometimes, but they both said they had grown too old for "gallivanting across the sea." They had started Worthwhale Tours forty years ago, and now Mom was going to take over the business. Fern couldn''t wait. Mom had said she could help out on the boat that summer as much as she wanted. Fern pictured herself, cool and confident on the deck of the Zenith, camera ready, looking like a real photographer.
Like Dad. "You were a top-notch assistant today." Mom gave Fern a hug, crushing her tight to her chest in a way that always made Fern feel totally squashed and completely cozy at the same time. One of the best things about Mom was her hugs, because they seemed to explode out of her. You got the sense that her hugs were unstoppable, and that if you stepped out of the way of one, she would have no choice but to hug the nearest lamppost or chair. Another good thing about Mom was that she let Fern dye her hair. Not all of it--Fern could only dye one lock, which she did with hair mascara, so it wasn''t really dyed, because hair mascara washes right out. Right now, her brownish-blonde hair had a streak of blue at the front.
She had four colors of hair mascara--blue, green, pink, and red--and she changed them to match her moods. Blue was her favorite color, so blue meant happy. Once the Zenith was tied up properly, Fern followed Mom to the Worthwhale Tours office, a small one-room building at the edge of the ramp leading down to the docks. Mom stopped so suddenly that Fern walked into her. Another boat pulled smoothly up to the dock. It was also a whale watching boat, but it was bigger than the Zenith, with huge pontoons and a covered cabin. On the side of the boat were the words Whale of Fortune Tours -- Why go anywhale else? Fern''s hands tightened into fists. She saw Mom''s do the same, but she relaxed them quick.
The boat was full--fifteen tourists, more than twice as many as they''d had on the Zenith . A tall, muscular man jumped out of the boat first, flashing a brilliant white smile as he helped the tourists onto the dock. "Come on," Mom muttered, trying to hurry past the boat. But it was too late. The man had seen them. "Well, if it isn''t Fiona Mackenzie!" he said, and Mom''s shoulders stiffened at the same time as a hard sort of smile spread across her face. "How''s it going, Clarke?" she said. "Oh, it''s going," he replied.
His wife came to stand beside him, and her smile was the same as Mom''s. It reminded Fern of the time Hamish had cleaned his room by shoving everything under the bed. It was a smile that hid things beneath it. "Wendy!" Mom exclaimed, giving her a fake hug. Mom''s fake hugs were extremely easy to detect, because they were not at all explosive. Fern didn''t think of Clarke and Wendy Roy as Clarke and Wendy, but instead as Jasper''s mom and dad. Jasper was a boy in her class. He was eleven like her, and they would be attending the same junior high school in the fall.
His parents were exact opposites. Jasper''s dad was big and pale with messy movie-star hair that was almost as orange as Mom''s, while Jasper''s mom was small with brown skin and black hair slicked back flat into a braid that always hung over the same shoulder (left). They ran Whale of Fortune, the other whale watching company in the town of Goose Beach, and they were the Mackenzies'' mortal enemies. "How''s the old girl?" Jasper''s dad asked Mom. Fern bristled--the Zenith wasn''t that old . Mom''s smile got a little harder to read. "Just fine, Clarke. That''s a nice boat you''ve got there--has all the bells and whistles, doesn''t it? But I''m sure you''ll make your money back eventually.
" Jasper''s dad gave a laugh that was a lot like Mom''s smile. "Yes, we certainly will." "How are the folks, Fiona?" Jasper''s mom asked. Mom chatted with the Roys for a while about Gramps and Granny. She was pleasant and polite, because the war between Worthwhale Tours and Whale of Fortune Tours was also a war of politeness. Any insults that passed between the two families had to be wrapped up in politeness like bows, so that it wasn''t always easy to know if you had been insulted until you thought about it afterward. Mom said, "I noticed you two had a full tour today. That''s a nice change, isn''t it?" "Thank you, Fiona," Jasper''s dad said.
"Well, we had a cappuccino machine installed in the cabin. We''ve been offering them during our tours for free. Tourists just love cappuccinos--can''t get enough of them. We''re advertising it in all of our brochures." He handed Mom a glossy brochure with Whale of Fortune written at the top above a photo of Jasper, his older sister, and their parents standing on the dock and waving. Jasper looked annoyed, his usual smirk replaced by a forced smile. At the bottom were the words NOW SERVING HOT CAPPUCCINOS! in a very large font. "How nice," Mom said.
She handed the brochure back to Jasper''s dad. "An interesting idea, hot coffee on a moving boat. It''s something only you would come up with, Clarke. Anyway, I''ve got to go finish up the.