OUT OF THE DEEP

A MYSTERY IN ACADIA NATIONAL PARK

GLORIA SKURZYNSKI AND ALANE FERGUSON

Text copyright © 2002 Gloria Skurzynski and Alane Ferguson

Cover illustration copyright © 2008 Jeffrey Mangiat

All rights reserved.

Reproduction of the whole or any part of the contents is prohibited without written permission from the National Geographic Society, 1145 17th Street N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036.

Map by Carl Mehler, Director of Maps. Map research and production by Joseph F. Ochlak and Martin S. Walz Humpback whale art by Joan Wolbier

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to living persons or events other than descriptions of natural phenomena is purely coincidental.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Skurzynski, Gloria.

Out of the deep / by Gloria Skurzynski and Alane Ferguson.

p. cm.—(Mysteries in our national parks; #10)

Summary: Jack, Ashley, and their unreliable new foster sister set out to solve the mystery of why whales are beaching themselves at Acadia National Park.

ISBN: 978-1-4263-0973-1

[1. Whales—Fiction. 2. Acadia National Park (Me.)—Fiction. 3. Foster home care—Fiction. 4. National parks and reserves—Fiction. 5. Mystery and detective stories.] I. Ferguson, Alane. II. Title. III. Series.

PZ7.S6287 Ou 2002

[Fic]—dc21

2002005547

Version: 2017-07-07

For Stephanie Alm,

a rising star

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors want to thank the following people for their wonderful help. At Acadia National Park: David A. Manski, Biologist and Chief of Resources Management; David Buccello, Chief Park Ranger; Deborah Wade, Interpretive Ranger. At Allied Whale, we’re extremely grateful to Sean Todd, Senior Researcher. Sean is also Professor of Science Resource at College of the Atlantic. Many thanks also to Rosemary Seton, Whale Biologist, Director of Stranding Response Program. We’re grateful to District Court Judge Kevin Sidel for his suggestions and to GenAnn Keller, Librarian. Very special appreciation goes to Vicki Lockard, editor of Canku Ota (Many Paths), an online newsletter celebrating Native America, for granting us permission to use the legend about the Great Spirit and the bowhead whale. Visit Canku Ota at http://www.turtletrack.org/

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

AFTERWORD

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

“Of course I know what’s at stake,” the man said gruffly, pressing the receiver against his ear. “Millions. A huge international deal. Don’t worry, I won’t screw up. I’ll do whatever it takes. You know that.”

He took a drag from his cigarette and looked around to make sure his conversation had gone unnoticed. Through the haze, he saw a couple huddled over a small table, while a grizzled man stared vacantly into his glass.

It was then that he noticed the top of a head rising from a nearby booth and two round eyes staring at him. Anger surged through him. What was a kid doing in a place like this? How much had she heard?

“Something just came up. I’ll call you back,” he said, slamming the pay phone into its cradle. He couldn’t let some kid ruin his plan. Not now—not when they were about to cash in!

He turned quickly to make his way toward the girl. Whatever it takes, he told himself. Whatever it takes….

CHAPTER ONE

When Jack saw his mother’s face, he knew the news on the other end of the phone was bad.

“Two more are dead?” Olivia cried into the receiver. Squeezing her eyes shut, she let out a long sigh. “This is nothing short of bizarre. I truly don’t understand why they’re dying this way. Where did you find the bodies? Uh-huh,” she nodded, peering at a map she’d laid out on her desk, tracing it lightly with her fingertip. “Yes, I can see where that is—right at the edge of the peninsula. How badly decomposed?” Another pause, and then, “I’m sure that will make your job harder. The stench can be overpowering.”

“What’s up?” Jack’s 11-year-old sister, Ashley, asked as she walked into the Landons’ study. Their newest temporary foster child, Bindy Callister, trailed behind, a bowl of popcorn perched on her round hip. Munching noisily, she shoveled another fistful into her mouth, her cheeks bulging out like a chipmunk’s. Although Bindy had been at the Landons’ home for only three days, she already knew where all the food was kept and didn’t seem the least bit shy about foraging through the cupboards, helping herself to whatever she found. The strangest foster kid we’ve ever taken in, Jack decided the day Bindy arrived.

It wasn’t about the way she looked, although that had been odd enough. Bindy’s tie-dyed T-shirt was wildly bright, with fluorescent swirls that splashed across her in neon constellations. Mousy brown hair had been pulled into a limp ponytail, and her too-tight jeans looked as though they’d fused onto her skin. Loud and boisterous, Bindy seemed to think she knew something about absolutely everything. When Ms. Lopez, the social worker, tried to speak, Bindy talked right over her, waving her arms as though she were on stage.

“Be patient with her,” Jack’s father, Steven, had told him later. “I know she can be a bit—overpowering—but she’s been through a lot.”

“’Cause her own parents don’t want her,” Ashley told Jack. “I heard Ms. Lopez tell Mom about it.”

“Please don’t say anything about that to Bindy!” Steven urged.

“Oh, I won’t. It’s just really sad. I don’t know what I’d do if you and Mom didn’t want me.”

Now, as Bindy settled into a chair next to Jack, he tried to imagine what it would be like to be 14 years old and dumped into a foster home, waiting to hear what the judge ruled about your life. How would it be to have your family reject you? How would it be to have your whole future decided by someone you’d never even met before? No matter how annoying she was, Jack knew he’d have to give Bindy some space. It was the least he could do.

“Ashley, sit there,” Bindy directed, pointing to a spot on the floor. “I get the chair because I’m older than you. Age before beauty!”

Ashley shot Jack a look, shrugged her shoulders, then dropped onto the carpet.

“OK. But we have to be quiet, Bindy,” Ashley whispered. “Mom’s on the phone.”

Though Olivia Landon normally worked at the Elk Refuge at Jackson Hole, she’d converted a corner room into a home office. The large oak desk was piled high with papers stacked into a double helix. A tall coffee mug and a glass of water sat next to the computer keyboard, something their father said was dangerous, but Olivia insisted she was careful enough to handle things in her own space. Books wrapped in every color of the rainbow filled an oversize bookshelf, all of them bearing scientific titles that twisted Jack’s tongue when he tried to read them out loud. The pale blue walls had been peppered with pictures of every kind of wildlife, from soaring eagles to bright-eyed foxes to coiled snakes, all photographed by their father, who dreamed of becoming a full-time photographer. Jack loved the clutter of it all. “Ideas ferment in here,” Olivia always told them.

“So there’s no sign of disease?” she was asking into the phone. She twisted her chair from side to side, paused, then asked, “When will the results be in?”

As Bindy noisily sucked the butter off each finger, Jack felt his teeth clench, but he willed himself to be patient. It sounded as though there might be bigger problems than an annoying foster kid.

“Hey, Jack-o, you want some popcorn?” Bindy asked, extending the bowl in his direction. “I made it the real way, with a pan and oil and real butter instead of that imitation-powder-microwave junk—”

He shook his head. “Shhhh. Mom’s talking to a biologist at Acadia National Park. They found more bodies on the beach, which brings the total to 12.”

“Twelve people? No way!” Bindy bellowed, slapping a thick thigh.

“Don’t be stupid,” Jack hissed. “A whale and some seals and stuff from the ocean. They’ve washed up dead, and the park people can’t figure out why. Nothing quite like this has ever happened before. Try to be quiet, Bindy. My mom’s talking, and I want to listen.”

“Can you cut off the heads and put them on ice?” he heard his mother ask. Nodding tersely, she scratched notes on a yellow pad. Her reading glasses rested on her thin nose like half-moons, while her hair swirled to her shoulders in dark, smoky curls. Olivia, a wildlife veterinarian, was frequently called in by the parks to solve animal mysteries. There was a good possibility that she’d now be asked to Acadia National Park in Maine, about as far as you could go from their home in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and still be in the continental United States. And maybe, Jack hoped, the rest of them would get to go, too. He’d never been to Maine.

Sighing, Olivia said, “It’s a big job, but you’ll need to cut off the whale’s head and cool it down fast. Decomposition hides details. Heads can yield valuable clues.”

Wrinkling her nose, Bindy cried, “Cutting off heads? That’s so gross.”

Ashley placed her finger to her lips. “Shhhh.”

“So, who’s Acadia?” Bindy asked Jack, not bothering to keep her voice low.

“Acadia is a park,” he answered softly.

Olivia gave the three of them a look and extended her hand in a signal that meant “be quiet or get out.” Flipping the page, she scrawled more notes.

“I still don’t get it,” Bindy pressed. “Why are the people in Acadia calling your mom? She’s a vet in Jackson Hole. Doesn’t she just deal with elk and other four-footed creatures?”

“Mom knows all about whales. She did a whole seminar on them when she was at College of the Atlantic,” Ashley whispered. “Now hush—”

It was too late. “Excuse me, Sean. I’m sorry to interrupt, but my kids are chattering and I can’t hear a word you’re saying.” Olivia covered the mouthpiece of the phone and waved them away. “You kids go outside for awhile. Better yet, start packing. Something’s really wrong in Maine, and I need to get out there fast. We’ll all go.”

“Me too?” Bindy asked, wide-eyed.

“You too. We’re going to Acadia!”

To Jack, it seemed that Bindy never stopped blabbing the whole trip. Luckily, the airlines provided earphones that could be plugged in to recorded music. Jack turned the volume as loud as he could, trying to drown out Bindy. The only time she kept silent was when she munched on the pretzels the flight attendants brought. Bindy never settled for one bag of pretzels; she always demanded three or four.

For just a little while, when they reached their motel, Bindy stayed silent. She stood on the little deck outside the room she was to share with Ashley, awestruck at the beautiful Atlantic Ocean. Gulls swooped down into the waves, picking up shellfish and dropping them onto the rocks on the beach—when the shells broke open, the gulls feasted on the critters inside.

A long wooden pier stretched from the shore, reaching like a bony finger about 60 feet into the ocean. It looked rickety, as though its support pilings had been eroded by decades of salt water. Halfway along its length there was a No Trespassing sign hanging from a chain that stretched between two posts. Except for one small rowboat near the shore, no other boats were tied to the pier.

“This is my first look at the Atlantic,” Bindy murmured. “It looks greener than the Pacific.”

“You’ve seen the Pacific?” Ashley asked.

“I used to live in California,” she answered. “In Hollywood, actually.”

Yeah, sure, Jack thought. In Hollywood, with movie stars, no doubt. He’d had enough of Bindy. The deck outside the girls’ room was connected to the deck outside his parents’ room, where Jack would be sleeping on a cot. With one hand on the banister, Jack vaulted over the railing onto his parents’ deck. Then he felt like a fool, because the sliding door to his parents’ room was locked. He was stuck out there, while the girls laughed at him.

Even though he’d been trying to avoid Bindy, later that evening Jack found himself knocking on the girls’ door. He’d had enough of watching waves lap the shore, and his parents weren’t being much company right then.

“Mom’s reading a bunch of research papers about whales and Dad’s going through his camera stuff, so I came to see what you guys are doing,” he told Ashley when she opened the door.

“Not much. We’re just flipping around the different channels.” With her arm straight out, Ashley clicked the channel changer button on the remote control again and again. Bindy had spread herself on one of the queen-size beds with a book propped under her chin. She didn’t bother to look up.

Suddenly Ashley yelled, “Hey wait! Look there—it’s one of my favorite movies. Melissa’s Dream.”

“You’ve already seen that about ten times,” Jack told her, wrestling her for the remote. “You don’t need to watch it again.”

Ashley struggled to keep the channel changer out of Jack’s reach, but his arms were longer than hers. “Jack! The movie’s almost over anyway—just let me finish watching it ’cause the end’s the best part.”

Lifting the changer so high that Ashley couldn’t reach it—considering that Jack was a good head taller than his puny little sister—he said, “OK, we’ll let Bindy decide. Bindy, do you want to watch the end of this dumb movie or….”

“It’s not dumb,” Bindy answered. “I was in that movie.”

There she goes again, Jack thought. “You mean you were into the movie,” he said sarcastically. “Like if you go, ‘I’m really into stock-car racing.’ Or ‘I’m really into extreme sports.’ Or ‘I’m really into potato chips.’”

Bindy shook her head. “I mean I was in the movie. I acted in it. I didn’t have the leading role, but I was the cute little girl next door.”

Staring at the screen, Ashley asked, “You mean Amanda? That was you? No way.”

“Amanda’s a redhead,” Jack protested.

Scornfully, Bindy slapped her book onto her bed. “Well, duh! You’ve heard of hair dye, haven’t you? I told the set’s hairdresser not to make me so red, but she wouldn’t listen because she said red was what the script called for, so red I would be. I told her it made me look like a pumpkin head. She got all mad when I said that, and then told me I didn’t know anything about the business, and the only words I should speak in her presence were the lines from my script. What a grouch!” Pointing a ring-clad finger, Bindy said, “See, there I am—right there. I just walked into Melissa’s kitchen. That’s me.”

Jack studied the girl on the small screen. If he squinted, maybe that girl did look a little bit like Bindy, but she was a lot younger and she was—thin!

“Oh, come on. You’re just teasing…,” Ashley began.

“No. It’s me. I swear!” Flopping onto her stomach, Bindy crossed her ankles and propped her chin in her hand. Then, amazingly, she began to recite the lines at the same time the girl in the movie was saying them. Word for word, without hesitation, her lips moved in perfect sync with the dialogue on the screen. Even if she was faking it, Jack had to give her credit for a good memory.

When Bindy finished, she shot them a triumphant look. Ashley stared at her. “So that really was you!”

“Of course,” Bindy said matter-of-factly. “I don’t lie. OK, now it’s over. Here come the credits. There’s my name—Belinda Taylor—that’s me.”

“But your name’s Bindy Callister,” Jack broke in.

Rolling her eyes, Bindy sighed loudly. “Bindy is short for Belinda. And my name used to be Taylor until I was adopted. Before my real mother died.”

“Oh,” Ashley murmured. “I’m sorry….”

“Yeah, well, it was a long time ago, and I don’t like to talk about it.” Jerking her fingers through her thin hair, Bindy seemed to shift gears. “So anyway, I acted in seven TV commercials and one sitcom, and I had parts in two movies. The first movie was just a small part, but in Melissa’s Dream my role was a lot bigger.”

“Wow!” Ashley blurted. “That is way cool. Tell us about it. Tell us everything. Did you meet famous stars? What were they—”

Throwing up her hand like a traffic cop, Bindy demanded, “Wait! First things first. Is there anything to eat in this room? ’Cause I’m starved. If I’m going to do any talking, I need something to eat. And a can of something to drink—anything but diet. I hate diet soda.”

“There’s a candy machine at the end of the hall,” Jack told her. “I have some change.”

“So get me two Butterfingers and a can of orange soda,” Bindy ordered. “Thanks, Jack-o. You’re a real pal.”

CHAPTER TWO

Sheesh! She was so bossy! Jack hurried down the hall to the candy machine, halfway eager to hear Bindy’s story, but three-fourths of the way doubting that whatever she told them would be true. After all, Bindy was a known liar.

The evening Bindy had arrived at the Landon home, Jack had overheard his parents talking about the reason she’d been placed into temporary foster care. Olivia and Steven were at the kitchen table in terrycloth robes, sipping mugs of hot tea, their voices barely above whispers as they discussed Bindy’s situation. Jack had hung back in the hallway, just until they were finished talking. It wasn’t exactly eavesdropping, he’d told himself. He just didn’t want to interrupt.

“…Bindy’s brother Cole,” Olivia was telling Steven. “According to Ms. Lopez, the tension between Bindy and Cole goes way back. Apparently he’s some kind of a football star.”

“More like a superstar,” Steven countered. “Ms. Lopez told me Cole has already been offered full scholarships from colleges all around the country.”

“Did you know that after Bindy’s accusation, the football coach and his teachers all wrote letters of support for Cole, saying he was an honest and decent kid who couldn’t possibly do such a thing? Ms. Lopez said no one came forward to defend Bindy.”

When he craned his neck ever so slightly, Jack could catch a glimpse of his father. Steven shook his head and took another sip from his mug. “So, Bindy’s adoptive parents believe Cole is telling the truth and Bindy is flat out lying. How sad for Bindy.”

“I know. Still, it’s possible she invented the whole thing, Steven. Ms. Lopez says Bindy comes up with one fantastic story after another. Even Ms. Lopez isn’t sure how much of what Bindy says is true.”

Steven set down his mug. “Having said that, it’s still no excuse for what the parents are doing. I mean, how could anyone try to get rid of their own child, even if she’s adopted?” Suddenly, his head jerked up and he looked toward where Jack was standing. “Wait a minute—Jack! Why are you lurking out there in the hall?”

Shuffling his feet, Jack emerged from the shadows. For the next ten minutes, his parents gave him a verbal going-over. Jack should never listen in on their conversation. They respected Jack’s privacy, and he should do the same for them. They told him to keep everything he’d heard to himself because Bindy’s private affairs were just that—her own private affairs. Since the social workers and the therapists didn’t know what to make of Bindy’s story, Jack shouldn’t judge it, either. Instead he should give Bindy the benefit of the doubt.

He was not to tell any of this to Ashley. Finally, if Bindy wanted to share her own story with Jack, that was fine, but he should in no way ask Bindy about her court case. Let her come to you, was how his mom had put it.

Now, when Jack returned to the girls’ motel room, he found his sister working Bindy’s hair into stubby braids. Smiling brightly, Bindy held out her hand for the Butterfingers.

“Here,” Jack told her. “Catch!”

She caught one neatly and tore off the wrapper, then took a big bite. With her mouth full, she said, “Ashley’s been asking questions about my so-called career, but I told her to wait until you got back. That way I can double my audience, ha ha.” Pulling herself into a seated position, she proceeded to tell them about her life B.C.—before the Callisters.

She could hardly remember her father. He was killed in a speedboat accident off the coast of California when she was only three.

Back then, Bindy was cute—everyone said so—with nice round cheeks, big blue eyes, and curly blond hair. Her mother signed her with a casting agent who arranged for Bindy to make a few commercials, but the jobs were few and far between. Bindy and her mother lived in a tiny apartment over a garage two blocks from Hollywood Boulevard. “Then I got my first movie,” she said.

“And after that you were rich and famous,” Ashley stated, believing it.

“Ha! I wish! I had about a dozen lines to say in that movie. Mostly I had to jump rope to ‘Down by the river, down by the sea, Johnny broke a milk bottle, blamed it on me….’ We must have shot that scene 20 times, and when I got so tired I started to cry, my mother took me on her lap and told me this was my big chance, and I had to be brave. So I kept doing it, over and over.”

“How old were you?” Ashley asked.

“Seven. I didn’t get the part in Melissa’s Dream till I was nine. By then, my mother already had cancer.”

Each day, Bindy said, her mother managed to take her to the studio where the movie was being filmed; each night they returned to the cramped apartment over the garage and rehearsed the script again and again until Bindy learned her lines. She had to be perfect; she couldn’t lose that job, because they had no other income and no hospital insurance.

“That must have been awful for you,” Ashley sympathized.

“No it wasn’t, because we were a team. My mother loved me!” Bindy said fiercely. “We were always together—she stayed with me on the set every minute. It was months before Melissa’s Dream was released in the theaters, and my mother kept getting sicker, but finally we went together to see the movie. Two days later, she died.”

Jack felt his throat tighten as he thought of what Bindy had been through. If Bindy Callister—or Belinda Taylor—wasn’t telling the truth, she was one fabulous actress. But she stayed dry eyed as she sat there telling them the rest of her story, which only got worse.

“So Aunt Marian came to Hollywood to take me home with her—she was my mother’s sister. She’d seen Melissa’s Dream, too, and she thought if she adopted me, she’d get a pretty, talented little girl to be part of her family, along with her handsome, smart, athletic son, Cole. A perfect Barbie to go with her perfect Ken doll. Hey, throw me that other Butterfinger, would you, Ashley?”

“So…so what happened?” Ashley whispered.

“Well, I didn’t want to be part of Aunt Marian’s perfect family. I hated Cole on sight, and he hated me, too. So…I ate. And the more I ate, the more upset Aunt Marian got. Twice she dragged me back to Hollywood to get me into another movie, but the casting director took one look at me and said no film needed a prepubescent girl with weight issues. That’s how they talk in Hollywood.” Bindy threw back her head and laughed a laugh so full of anger it made Jack feel creepy.

He wanted out of there. Reading his mother’s thick books on whales would be better than hearing Bindy talk about her awful life, even if it was all made up.

Someone was moving around in the room. Jack opened one eye to stare at the digital clock on the lamp table. 12:35. Barely past midnight. He’d been asleep for only one uncomfortable hour, because the cot he was on felt lumpy.

Hair stood up on his arms as he watched the deep shadow glide silently across the floor. He could make out the outline of his parents in their bed, so it wasn’t one of them who’d gotten up to go to the bathroom or anything. The shadowy shape, moving so soundlessly through the room, had to be an intruder. A thief! His fingers trembled as he watched the shape move closer. Should he call out and wake his parents or just keep quiet and let the thief take whatever he wanted?

His heart thumping so loudly the thief might hear it, Jack opened his other eye. Whoever the intruder was, he seemed awfully small. Then the shadowy figure bumped into Jack’s cot and muttered, “Ouch!”

That was Jack’s chance. He leaped up and grabbed the person, who wiggled and yelled, “Let go, you dork!”

“Ashley?”

“Who’d you think it was? Freddy Krueger?”

By then Jack was feeling pretty stupid—for the second time in the past six hours—so he grumbled, “What the heck are you doing sneaking around in the dark?”

“What’s going on?” Olivia asked, turning on the bedside lamp. Her dark hair sprang from her head in wild curls. Blinking hard, she asked, “Where’s Bindy?”

“That’s what I came to tell you,” Ashley answered calmly. “She’s gone.”

Steven sat upright. “Gone? Gone where?”

Plunking herself down on the end of Jack’s cot, Ashley replied, “I have no idea. I heard a door close, and at first I thought it was the bathroom door and Bindy had just gone in to…you know. I was kinda sleepy, so I don’t know how much time went by, but then I looked over at her bed and it was empty. I got up and looked into the bathroom, and that was empty, too.”

Both Steven and Olivia were on their feet so fast it was as though they’d been shot out of a cannon.

They practically dove into their jeans and then pulled sweatshirts over their heads, yanking them into place as they ran through the door that connected Ashley’s room to theirs. In less than a minute they were back, looking grim.

“I’ll check at the front desk,” Steven said.

“It’s after hours. I doubt anyone will still be there,” Olivia said.

Jack suggested, “Maybe she just couldn’t sleep. She could have gone out on the beach to look at the waves.” Before he even spoke the last word, Steven rushed out the door. Jack listened for the clatter of his father’s footsteps going from the front deck down the wooden stairs to the parking lot, then remembered that his dad hadn’t bothered to put on shoes. Steven’s feet were going to get awfully sore clambering barefoot over the rocky beach.

Olivia had begun to page through a phone book, muttering, “I’m calling the police.”

“Don’t you think you ought to wait a little while?” Jack asked her. “At least until we look around the motel. Maybe she just went for a Coke in the drink machine.” Or a couple more candy bars, he thought.

Olivia slammed down the receiver, saying, “You’re right. Kids, get dressed. We’ll do a thorough search. Then I’ll call the police. And grab your dad’s shoes on your way out. He’s going to need them.”

After catching up to Steven and handing him the shoes, Olivia and Ashley left to scour the grounds of the motel while Steven and Jack walked along the shore, peering inside weathered boats and searching protruding rock formations that seemed to bubble up from the water’s edge. Lights from a few distant buildings twinkled in the darkness. Jack would have felt cheered if it hadn’t been such a serious situation. Olivia’s faint voice wafted to them. “Anything?”

Steven called back, “No!” Then, to Jack, he grumbled, “This is ridiculous. Where could she be?”

Suddenly, Jack snapped his fingers. “Hey, wait a minute—did you check the pier?”

“Of course I checked the pier.”

“But did you go past the No Trespassing sign? There are steps way at the end of the pier—I could see them from our balcony. Bindy might be sitting at the bottom of the steps just looking at the waves. She said she likes the Atlantic,” he finished lamely.

Steven sighed and ran his fingers through his thinning blond hair. “I went to the point where the chain blocks it off. I couldn’t see too well, but I called for her. Nothing. She’s not there.”

“Except she might not have answered you. She’s really weird. Maybe she’ll answer if it’s me. Dad, you just keep looking around. I’ll be right back.”

“All right. I’ll give you two minutes. Then we’re going back to the motel to get help.”

“Right. Two minutes!” Broken seashells crunched underfoot as Jack made his way to the pier. Tall enough for larger boats to load and unload, the pier had a row of rickety stairs that descended from the far end to the water’s surface. At the halfway point, a metal chain had been strung across to prevent access, with the No Trespassing sign hanging from the links and a smaller sign reading “Enter at your own risk” beneath that. But no signs would keep Bindy out. She did what she wanted to do and went where she wanted to go.

Moving along the creaking, splintery slats, Jack called out her name into the night sky. Only the sound of waves and the groan of the wooden pier echoed back. As he squinted into the darkness, he saw what he thought was a dark shape, a deep patch of black turned toward the sea. “Hey, are you there?” Jack cried. The shape seemed to move farther away, hovering at the pier’s end, then disappearing.

Glancing around quickly to see if his dad was watching, Jack easily climbed over the chain. A sudden wind whipped his face, ballooning out his shirt as though it were a shroud and rocking the pier like a trapeze. For a moment Jack wondered whether there might be any missing boards underfoot that he couldn’t see in the dark. He didn’t want to fall through onto the rocky beach beneath, where waves could grab him and soak him to the skin. With every motion the sun-bleached boards creaked under his feet, as the cold and insistent wind tried to push him backward. But someone was down there. It had to be Bindy.

He cupped his hands again against the wind and called out, “Is that you?” After waiting a beat, he shouted again. The boardwalk stretched into darkness. Jack could hear, rather than see, the water beneath him, rushing against the timbers before receding back to the sea.

The inky night at the pier’s end seemed denser now. As the shape blocked his view of whitecaps on the dark waves, Jack noticed a pale, orange glow. It illuminated the shadowy figure’s head. The shape was bigger than Bindy, taller, broader in the shoulders—or was Jack being deceived by the darkness? He took another step. “Bindy?”

When the shape turned, Jack’s breath sucked into his throat. This wasn’t Bindy. It was a man, dressed in black, with a black wool coat that skimmed the tops of his boots. A rectangular metal box—a suitcase?—rested inches from his feet.

“What do you want?” the man growled. His knit cap had been pulled down onto his thickly featured face. A cigarette hung from his lips, the lit end dancing in the night. The light from the cigarette let Jack see the man’s expression, and the look made his mouth go dry.

“I asked you a question. Are you going to answer me?” The man took a drag from the cigarette, then flicked it into water.

“I want—nothing,” Jack stammered. “I’m looking for a girl. Have you seen her?”

“I dunno. What’s she look like?”

“She’s 14, she has light brown hair, and she’s…uh….” Jack made a half-hearted gesture.

“Kind of chunky?” the man finished.

“Yes! So you saw her?”

“No, I didn’t see anyone like that. I came down here for a private smoke,” he answered, lighting up another cigarette. “No one indulges anymore, so I have to find places where I won’t bother anyone, and no one will bother me. OK?”

“It’s just that she—the girl—is missing. Have you been up here long?”

“No.” Taking another drag, the man blew it between his teeth and asked, “Why?”

“I’m asking just in case maybe you saw her walking along the beach. We’re really worried about her.” Smoke curled toward Jack, and the smell hit him, acrid and pungent. How could anyone suck that stuff into their lungs? It was gross.

Suddenly, the heel of the man’s boot struck hard on the boardwalk as he took a step forward. “Where are you staying?”

The question caught Jack off guard. “At the Seaside Motel. Up there.” He gestured.

“Yeah? What’s your name?”

“I—I don’t think you need to know my name. Anyway, I’d better go.” There was something wrong here, something Jack couldn’t quite put his finger on. The man had only taken a single step toward him, and yet Jack felt his muscles tense in a “flight or fight” reaction.

He was relieved when he saw his father halfway down the beach. Steven spotted him and waved his arms in the air. “Jack!” he yelled. “I told you not to go past the chain. Come back here right now!”

The man snorted. “So it’s Jack, is it? Well, Jack, I guess it’s time for you to go. To answer your question, I didn’t see anything, I didn’t hear anything. And Jack—it’d be smart if you did the same.”

What did that mean? Spinning on the toes of his sneakers, Jack began to climb the stairs. With his back toward the man, he felt exposed, as if something might hit him between the shoulder blades at any moment. Don’t be stupid, he chided himself. The man’s just weird. With Bindy gone, the Landons had bigger problems. Swinging himself over the chain, he hurried along the pier to join Steven, who had a look of panic on his face.

“Dad—there’s this guy up on the pier—”

“Did he see Bindy?”

“No.”

“I can’t find her anywhere. Let’s move it. We need to look around the motel.”

The four Landons checked all the halls, which were strangely empty. “What if she’s gone into someone’s room?” Steven worried.

Olivia groaned, “I can’t even deal with that possibility. I’m calling the police right now!”

CHAPTER THREE

Jack could hear only one side of the conversation as his mother stated, “Her name is Bindy Callister. B-I-N-D-Y. Short for Belinda. Fourteen, blondish hair, a bit overweight.” With her hand over the mouthpiece, she asked Ashley, “Do you know what she had on?”

Ashley shrugged. “The last time I saw her, she was wearing a sleep shirt. She was reading in bed with the light on. Then I fell asleep.”

Olivia had turned all her attention to the phone again, concentrating so hard it looked like she might shoot through the phone lines, like Trinity in The Matrix. “Yes,” she was saying. “Yes, that’s right. Fourteen. She is? You do? Oh thank—We’ll be right there. Uh…where is the police station? We just arrived this afternoon, and we don’t know anything about Bar Harbor.” Grabbing a ballpoint pen from the desk drawer, Olivia began to scribble directions. Then, slowly, she returned the phone to its cradle.

“Good news or bad news?” Steven asked.

“Both. The police have her. But they picked her up in a bar.”

Had Jack heard that right? “Did you say they picked her up in Bar Harbor?” he asked.

“No, I said in a bar. A place that serves alcohol. Oh, Steven,” Olivia cried, reaching for his hand, “maybe we’re in way over our heads with this girl. She was able to sneak out right under our noses. When I imagine what could have happened—maybe she’s too much for us to handle. We’ve never dealt with anything like this before.”

“Now calm down,” he said. “Let’s all pile into the car and find the police station.”

That’s what they did, heading onto the highway that led to Bar Harbor, since the Seaside Motel was located about five miles from the town proper. In the back seat, Ashley held a flashlight while Jack tried to follow the street map of Bar Harbor, and Olivia studied the directions she’d scribbled. The town wasn’t all that big, but it had a lot of quirky little side streets that confused Jack. “I can’t really tell…,” he muttered. “Wait, turn here,” he told his father, who was driving. After a couple more turns they found the police station, a pale brick building, squat and square and plain, as if it, like the state of Maine, would tolerate no nonsense. Lights radiated from inside the building, casting a greenish glow onto the street. What a scary place for Bindy to be! Steven must have been thinking the same thing, because he didn’t even bother to parallel park. He left the car sitting with one tire on the curb and the headlights still on, as the family hurried into the station.

The first thing Jack saw when he walked in was Bindy. She sat alone on a wooden bench, elbows resting on her knees and her head in her hands. Her mousy hair had fallen forward to cover her features. When she looked up, Jack could see fear in her eyes.

A policewoman, stifling a yawn, stood up from behind her desk to approach the Landons. “Sorry to drag you folks in here in the middle of the night. I’m Officer Bartlett. Is this the girl you phoned about?”

“She’s the one,” Steven answered grimly.

“Officer Wilson picked her up in Smokey’s Bar about an hour ago—the bar’s up the hill, not too far from your motel. Anyway, the bartender had called us, saying he had a minor on his premises. He said she was a lot more underage than what he usually gets—which is, you know, 17-or 18-year-olds. That’s why he didn’t want to throw her out alone into the night. So we told him to just leave her there and not say or do anything until we sent an officer.”

Olivia’s brows knit together as she asked, “Is she being charged with a crime?”

“No. She didn’t try to order any alcohol; she said she just went into the bar to use the pay phone. We could charge her with breaking curfew, but…let’s just say she convinced us all that she’ll never do it again. Your girl can be very persuasive.”

Steven and Olivia sat down on either side of Bindy. Jack could tell that his mother was trying to keep her voice calm as she said, “That sounds pretty lame, Bindy. The pay phone? If you wanted to make a call, why didn’t you just use the phone in your room?”

Squeezing her eyes tight, Bindy answered, “I didn’t want Ashley to hear. It was a private call.”

“To whom?” Steven demanded. “Who were you trying to call at midnight?”

“Why should I even answer? I know you won’t believe me. Nobody ever believes me. Except these kind officers here. They listened.”

“Try us,” Steven said. It was Olivia, though, who reached out to cover Bindy’s hand with her own. Maybe she’d noticed the tears welling up in the girl’s eyes. Even from across the room, Jack had noticed that. Real tears? Or part of an act?

Her words came out in a rush. “I wanted to call Aunt Marian, but I never even got to use the pay phone because this jerky man was on it and he wouldn’t hang up—he kept talking to someone about a boat and he was going on and on and on. I was in a booth right behind him, and I waited and waited, and then he turned and looked at me and said—” She stopped for breath, then muttered, “Forget it—it doesn’t matter what he said.

So I went to ask the bartender if I could use his private phone and I’d pay him for the call, but before I could, the policeman came in and arrested me.”

“Why did you want to call your aunt?” Ashley broke in. “You told us she was really mean to you.”

Olivia shook her head, trying to cue Ashley to keep quiet, but too late—Bindy dissolved into tears as she wailed, “Because I want to go home. When we were watching Melissa’s Dream, I started thinking about my mom, and—and I started to miss having a family. Aunt Marian and Uncle Jim and Cole—they’re the only family I’ve got left.” Her voice quivered as she spoke, but she seemed to will herself to go on. “OK, so she loves Cole way more than me, but I can live with that. At least with them I had a home. Now I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. No one wants me. The only one whoever really loved me is dead.”

Both Olivia and Steven put their arms around Bindy and raised her to her feet. “It’s all right,” they were telling her. “You’re with us now. Let’s get back to the motel. It’s late, and we have to check on a dead whale tomorrow.” To the officer, Steven said, “I guess it’s all right for us to take her with us, isn’t it, since she’s not being charged with anything.”

“You have to sign some papers,” Officer Bartlett answered, “and then she can go. Technically, we could charge her with theft, but we’ll let it go—at least this time.”

“Theft!” Steven exclaimed.

“I needed money for the pay phone, so I borrowed a bunch of quarters off a table,” Bindy cried. “I had three dollars in my pocket—I was going to put the bills back on the table to replace the quarters. Honest!” When Olivia looked skeptical, Bindy added quickly, “I just didn’t have time before I was arrested.”

The ride back to the motel was silent, except for Bindy’s sniffles. Jack couldn’t tell if she was still crying or if she was pretending. With Bindy, the actress, it was hard to separate truth from fiction. Yet her tears in the police station, when she’d sobbed that nobody wanted her, had seemed real enough.

Jack was ready to agree with his mother. Bindy Callister might be more than the Landons could handle.

Everyone in the rental car stayed quiet. They’d had less than five hours’ sleep from the time they got back from the police station until the alarm clocks buzzed in both their motel rooms at 7:30 a.m.

That is, everyone but Bindy, who chattered just as much as usual. “…so when I found out they were shooting the movie in New Zealand, I thought maybe I could get a role as a hobbit, just to get away from my aunt. After all, kids at school kept telling me I looked like a hobbit—short and wide. One guy even asked me to take off my shoes so he could see if I had hairy feet. So I did. I took off one shoe and hit him over the head with it. Too bad it wasn’t a spike heel….” And on and on.

If Bindy hadn’t yapped so much, Jack could have enjoyed the scenery more. The park covered 35,000 acres of much larger Mount Desert Island, named by the French explorer Samuel de Champlain, who landed there in 1604. They hadn’t reached the park boundary yet; instead, they drove on a winding two-lane road through hills bedecked with greenery—beautiful but impossible to appreciate because Bindy the Blabber showed no signs of winding down.

Finally, to shut her up, Jack asked, “Mom, what about these marine mammals that are stranding?”

Before Olivia had a chance to reply, Bindy said, “Mammals. That must be where the word ‘mamma’ comes from. Mammals, mamma. Mamma, mammals.”

Olivia answered, “Those words aren’t connected, Bindy. ‘Ma’ is one of the easiest sounds for a baby to make. Proud mothers tell you, ‘Oh, she’s so smart. She’s only four months old, and she’s already saying ‘Mamma,’ but it’s only baby babble. It doesn’t mean anything.”

Bindy smacked her forehead and cried dramatically, “Oh dear! Another illusion smashed!”

Sheesh! Tired and cranky, Jack decided he’d had enough of Bindy’s theatrics. “Will you please keep quiet long enough for my mother to answer my question about the strandings?” he demanded.

“I do talk a lot, don’t I. When I was making movies—”

“Just—shut—up!”

“Jack!” his father warned, frowning at him in the rear view mirror—the three kids were in the back seat of the rented Ford Taurus, crowded tight because of Bindy’s width.

“Sorry,” Jack mumbled. “Mom, please tell us about the strandings.”

His mother twisted around from the front seat to face him. “First, Jack, I don’t like you being rude to Bindy. Second, I want to finish what I was explaining. The word ‘mammal’ comes from the Latin word—”

Oh, crud! Jack knew where the word “mammal” came from, and he knew exactly what the Latin word meant—it had to do with how female animals fed their babies. It would be so embarrassing to listen to an explanation of mammary glands while he was jammed thigh to thigh beside Bindy. “Let her look it up in the dictionary,” he muttered, but his mother ignored him. He covered his ears with his hands and started making soft na-na-na noises inside his throat until Olivia finished her lecture, but he could still feel his cheeks growing hot.

“You are such a dork, Jack,” Ashley told him, reaching across Bindy to smack him on the knee. “You just acted like you were about three years old.”

For once, Bindy said nothing, but Jack could see that she looked a little embarrassed, too.

“Now about strandings,” Olivia went on. “As you know, Bindy—or maybe you don’t know—marine mammals like whales and dolphins and porpoises and seals live in the water, but they have to breathe air.

They stay submerged for a while, then every so often they surface to take a breath. If they didn’t, they’d suffocate, just as you or I would drown underwater if we couldn’t breathe.”

Sitting twisted around like that must have made Olivia uncomfortable, because she turned to face forward again. Since she never missed a chance to teach something to kids, she pulled down the car’s sun visor and spoke into its mirror, looking at the kids’ reflections while she talked.

“To answer your question about the strandings, Jack, marine mammals strand for a variety of reasons—injury or disease or harassment from humans or pollution in the water or getting tangled in nets. And if baby whales become separated from their mothers, they’ll often strand because they can’t find food by themselves.”

Steven added, “Sometimes stranded marine mammals are already dead when they wash ashore. Other times they wash ashore first. And then they die.”

“Do they always have to die? Can’t anyone save them?” Ashley pleaded.

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