Cry of the Sea (3 page)

The piercing scream of the phone yanked me
out of my dream. One moment I was swimming with dolphins in the
warm, blue waters of Waikiki. The next, I found myself on my
stomach, arms above my head, sheets and pillows everywhere except
covering me and keeping me warm.

I bolted upright and faced the clock on my
bedside table. My movement was so quick, I wasn’t even fully aware
my eyes were open until I registered the digital numbers clicking
into place. 2:03.

By the time my hand touched the receiver the
phone had stopped ringing. My sleepy brain wanted to believe it
hadn’t actually rung at all, but the soft murmur of Dad’s voice
coming from his bedroom across the hall assured me that it had. He
answered so fast, like he expected the call. When Mom was out of
town, I think he slept with his hand wrapped around the phone in
case it was her.

Getting calls like this wasn’t that unusual.
My dad’s business was a nonprofit organization called EE Alerts, a
website and call center for environmental emergencies that was
basically a one-man operation run out of our house. What was the
call about this time? Hurt animal? Fallen tree? Probably not. Even
though we get those kinds of calls a lot, and I mean A LOT, those
calls could usually wait until morning. Only big calls came this
early. Forest fires. People chaining themselves to trees. That kind
of thing.

Or it could be Mom calling from Alaska. She
was okay when she called last night, but maybe the cold up there
caused her to get sick, like “go to the hospital” sick. Anchorage
in September has got to make the weather here in Olympia seem like
summer. I pulled a blanket over my knees to warm up.

Or maybe...

Oh, the way my mind can go to the absolute
worst thing at two in the morning. I hated myself for thinking it.
This was my mom we were talking about, not a character from a
primetime TV drama.

Melodramatic or not, though, I couldn’t help
thinking just then about how she told me that people from the
organization she had been lobbying against had been harassing her.
Maybe they did something to her. Something horrible that warranted
a call hours before the sun came up. Maybe she was in real
danger.

I couldn’t wait the five minutes until Dad
told me who called and what about, so I slipped my fingers around
the receiver and used my other hand to cover the mouthpiece so no
one could hear my breathing.

At the sound of my mom’s anxious voice, I
felt instantly nauseous.

“Peter! Are you awake? Are you hearing
me?”

I wanted to scream into the phone, “Mom, are
you okay?”

Luckily my dad asked for me.

“Calm down, Honey, what’s the matter?”

Good advice
, I thought.
Calm down.
Just listen.

“Affron’s rolling,” my mom sputtered. “Their
ship was sighted off the Canadian shore three and a half hours ago!
If they stay close to the shore, they’ll be passing you any time
now.”

“I thought they were going to wait,” Dad
said.

My mom had no patience for this. “I thought
so too, Peter, but apparently they didn’t.”

I carefully hung up the phone. Oh, that was
all. Not that this threat from Affron Oil was a little thing, by
any means. But Mom wasn’t hurt. That was what really mattered.

Especially after the fight we had on the
phone before I went to bed. I didn’t want those stinging words to
be the last one we ever shared with each other. How could I live
with that?

Okay. No point in dwelling on it. My mom
wasn’t under immediate threat, so I would have time to apologize
and maybe try to fix things with her later. Unfortunately, the news
Mom relayed made going back to sleep an impossibility. She had
called before dawn on purpose to let us know we had to get up and
over to the nearest beach ASAP. And our Northwest American beaches
weren’t nice and warm like the one I’d been dreaming about. Odds
were, too, that it would be raining.

I shut my eyes and listened for the familiar
tap-tapping on my bedroom window. It rained so much here in
Washington that I was used to tuning it out, and I had to really
work to hear it. Just a drizzle, it sounded like. Enough to make
the roads slick. The sand at the beach would be easier to walk on
because it would be firmer. But it would be extra sticky and hard
to get off our shoes and clothes, even without the oil that most
likely would be splattered everywhere.

While rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I
rolled out of bed. Like a firefighter to the beat of a pulsing
siren, I jumped into my jeans, sweatshirt and rubber boots. I
yanked my hair back into a ponytail and covered up the loose
strands with a cap. It didn’t matter what I looked like. No one who
mattered would see me. Besides, what else could I do with my hair?
It was long, straight, and black. No one has ever had straighter
hair than me. I laugh at girls who use straightening irons on their
hair. Honestly. Why would anyone erase her curls?

I headed down the hall as Dad hung up the
phone. My father’s groan let me know how serious the situation
could be down at the beach. I knew Dad needed a couple minutes to
get ready, so I went ahead and ducked into the bathroom to splash
some cold water over my sandy eyes and brush my teeth.

I beat my dad downstairs to the study and
began filling the duffel bags with equipment. We’d need to take
pictures and video, so I packed the cameras and some lighting
equipment. My dad had drummed the routine into my head. How many
times had he told me, “Anything we get on tape will be enormously
valuable to our cause. Years worth of damning press releases and
propaganda brochures could come from this mission.” So far, we had
never gotten any pictures over the years that were impressive
enough to do anything worthwhile for the many environmental causes
we fought for except fill fundraising pamphlets.

I worked quickly and efficiently. Lighting
equipment in the blue bag. Camcorder in the green bag, with extra
DV cassettes for it and some 35mm rolls in the side pocket. The
film camera I hung around my neck, and my cell phone was in a case
attached to my belt. It took grainy pictures, but I liked to have
it just in case. My dad would be taking the pictures, but I could
carry the cameras for now.

Above my head, Dad stomped around his
bedroom, probably looking for his boots. He wouldn’t find them.

“They’re in the garage, Dad. You left them
there on Friday!”

The stomping ceased.

I dragged the bags out to the front door and
was just dipping into the kitchen to grab some snack foods when my
dad came down the stairs. I looked up and smiled. He did not smile
back. In fact, by the way he sneered at me, it was clear that my
attempt at a friendly greeting had insulted him.

“I’ve got everything ready,” I said. “I’m
pretty sure, I do. I double-checked. So, let’s get moving.” He
didn’t move or say anything. I noticed his shoeless feet. “Did you
hear me about the boots?”

My dad just stood there. He didn’t note the
equipment ready to be carried out to the truck. He didn’t seem to
care that I knew where he left his boots. Instead, he stared at me
coldly. “Where do you think you’re going?”

After seventeen years of being
forced
to go to protest after protest, rescue mission after rescue
mission, and so on, my dad asked where I was
going
? Was he
insane
?

Stumped by my dad’s sudden lack of brain
cells, I stood there in the doorway gawking right back at him. I
couldn’t find a way to answer his ridiculous question without being
equally obnoxious. Impulses running through me urged me to shout,
“You don’t want me to help? Fine! I’ll go back to bed!” But I knew
better. Saying something like that would only make things
worse.

Finally, I summoned up these words: “The
phone rang, and I assumed there was a problem you needed help with
since I heard you getting up.”

He nodded. “It was your Mom. One of those
leaky oil ships is headed this way. I’m going to see if it’s
causing any damage.” His eyes drifted to the bags and then back to
my face. “Go back to bed, June. I don’t need you to help. I’ll call
Randy.”

“I’m already dressed,” I said. “I’ve got
everything packed.”

“I’m not going to make you do something you
don’t want to do,” he said. “If you don’t want to be a part of the
work your mother and I take pride in, then that’s your choice. Go
back to bed.”

Really? He was still hanging on to the fight
from last night? Here we were at 2:25 in the morning with the
possibility of a huge environmental emergency taking place off our
coastline, and he was going to get all pouty because his feelings
were hurt?

I wanted to scream some sense into him. Just
because I wanted to major in a different area of study than my
mother? Just because I wanted to go to a college in another place
from the one my father’s people had lived in for thousands of
years? Just because I wanted to try something new, he didn’t have
to jump to the conclusion I wanted no part of his life.

But I didn’t. I stayed as cool as I could.
Someone had to, because Dad was clearly not interested in being
sensible.

“I’m going with you,” I said as evenly as
possible through gritted teeth. I came up with a reason that he
wouldn’t be able to argue against. This tact was always important
when dealing with my parents—they were activists, after all.
Arguing was their life. “I want to go whether you want me to or
not. This kind of operation goes right along with a Marine Biology
major. If there’s an oil spill, there will be hurt sea life. My
volunteer work with them will help toward my college
applications.”

“I’m sure you’ve got enough volunteer work
credits to get you into college without applications or even having
to pay tuition,” he said sarcastically, finally moving off the
stairs and through the mudroom leading to the garage door. “You
could wallpaper the house in recommendations from
professionals.”

Okay, that was rude. I followed my dad even
as my face stung from that verbal slap. “That’s true,” I told him,
working a little harder at maintaining my tone, “but since you and
Mom only deal with environmental issues that affect the state of
Washington, a lot of those recommendations won’t do me any good in
Southern California where I want to apply for school.”

Dad shut the door in my face.

I leaned against the washing machine and
waited. He had to come back in to get the rest of his stuff. A beat
later, boots on his feet, he stomped back through the doorway and
whisked past me. I continued explaining myself.

“My plan is to submit work I’ve done
specifically with rehabilitation centers, oil spill rescue, or
anything related to helping sea mammals to demonstrate how devoted
I am to my educational direction.”

“Well said,” he mumbled. “I’m sure you’ll do
well at your interviews.” He picked up one of the duffel bags and
grabbed his keys from the counter.

“Dad,” I said. “Are you even listening?”

“Do I need to? Seems like you’ve got it all
figured out.” At the door he stopped and looked back at me. “Come
or don’t. I have to go.”

I pulled the other bag over my shoulder and
followed him out to the pick-up truck in the driveway. My dad
helped me load the equipment into the extra cab, and then we
buckled up and drove off. Thirty minutes had passed since my mom
called. Too slow. Usually we moved much faster than this.

Those extra couple minutes shouldn’t have
made much difference, really. Nothing could stop the oil from
leaking and the animals from dying. But if I had known what we were
going to find on that beach, I’d have grabbed the keys and shoved
my barefoot Dad and all his “poor me” attitude out the door so we
could get there in time to help.

~ * ~

Neither of us spoke at all on the way to the
beach. We didn’t have to. We knew what we had to do once we got
there, and if we spoke about anything else, we’d just argue. So we
listened to the early morning news, wondering if the possible oil
spill had been leaked to the press yet. It hadn’t. Usually no one
heard about these events before the so-called experts (who were
secretly under contract with Affron Oil Company) came and declared
that the situation “had only minimal impact.”

Once Dad got on the highway going west, he
floored it. At the speed he was going he’d cut a lot of time off
our hour drive to the beaches at Aberdeen.

“Dad,” I said, a little nervously, “don’t
worry, you’ll be the first one there.” Although, I felt pretty sure
that his lead foot was more from anger than from his need to be
first on the scene to get footage before anyone disturbed it. When
he only shrugged, turned up the radio, and added another five miles
per hour to the speedometer, I decided to shut up about it and let
him drive. Hopefully, the death-defying speed would help get the
drama out of his system and we wouldn’t die before it happened.

I shut off the radio and said, “Dad, I’m
sorry about last night. I didn’t mean to make you mad.”

The speedometer dropped back ten miles per
hour as my dad sighed.

“No,” he said, clearing his throat because he
hadn’t spoken in forty-five minutes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t sleep
well after we argued, and your mom’s call put me on edge. This
isn’t the way to handle things.”

I didn’t say anything. How do you agree with
your dad when he tells you he’s being stupid?
Yeah, Dad. Get it
together
. Ah, no.

“I still want to talk more about all that,
but not now. Okay?”

I wasn’t going to argue that. The last thing
I wanted to do was launch into that topic again. Dad had finally
reached a speed limit that didn’t have me clutching the handle
above the window.

“So, what do you think?” he asked. “It’s
Tuesday in September.”