The Face at the Porthole - Sculpture by John Whipple

The Face at the Porthole

A Teen Mystery Ebook


© 1996 by Clayton Emery

Permission granted to download the book
for reading only.  Do not copy, duplicate, or distribute.

"Face at the Porthole" sculpture by
John Whipple.  See his website for more amazing art.

Photo by Phil Douglis.  See his website for more fantastic photos.


Thanks To

The United States Immigration Naturalization and Immigration Service and the townspeople of Lubec, Maine.

Author’s Note

This fictitious story takes place around 1995.




Chapter 1


"Ouch!"

"Shhhh!"

Samantha had stumbled over something boxy in the dark.  Her sneaker lace was caught on the box, and it rattled and banged as she tried to get free.

"We have to be quiet!" Cam told her.

"I know!" Samantha hissed.  "But I can't get loose!"  She'd banged her shin on the box and it stung like fury.  Man, it was dark out here!

The two kids crept down the alleyways between the stacks.  Lobster pots made of plastic-coated steel mesh were stacked all around them.  They were used pots, crusted with salt and barnacles and strung with dried seaweed that crackled when Samantha's jacket brushed them.  Cam came to the end of the alleyway and scooched down.  Sam hunkered behind him.  She could smell garlic and strange spices on his clothes.

She rubbed her shin and whispered, "Anyone out there?"

Cam shook his head.  Across a muddy parking lot was a long peeling gray building, the Seamore Seafood Products Corporation -- a fish packing plant.  It had no windows except at the lighted office at one end.  The other end had a wharf that stuck out over the harbor.  A station wagon, a Jeep, and two pickup trucks sat in the lot.  At least four people were inside, Samantha reasoned.

There was no one out here.  The harbor was quiet, full of dark bobbing fishing boats.  This was Lubec, Maine, the easternmost town in the United States.  Across the bridge was New Brunswick, Canada.  A pretty dead place, Samantha thought.  Not much happening at ten o'clock on a Tuesday night in the middle of September.  And cold.  She could see her breath.  She buttoned her denim jacket to the top.

Sam whispered.  "Now that we're here, will you tell me why?"

Cam screwed around in place, his feet crunching on gravel.  By the faint yellow light from the office, his head looked bony as the skull in the Science lab.  Cam Nguen* was skinny all over.

-------------------
*  Pronounced Na-GUY-en.
-------------------

He was Vietnamese, a new kid to the junior high, with no friends yet.  Sam had never spoken to him until today, when he'd approached her with a strange request...






"Can I hire you to take pictures?"

"Huh?"

Sam blinked.  No one had ever asked her that before.  She juggled her books, slammed her locker shut, shifted her camera.  Sam carried her camera everywhere.  "I suppose so.  Why?  You getting married?"

Cam didn't smile at the joke.  She wondered if he understood it.  His English was perfect -- better than Sam's -- but he talked like a Kung Fu movie.  Like someone on a National Geographic TV special, Cam had a wide forehead and bony cheekbones with a narrow chin.  He was very skinny and shorter than Sam.  But so were most of the guys in the eighth grade.  He asked, "How much would you charge me?"

Sam pushed into the crowd in the hallway.  She had to get to English class.  Cam stayed with her.  "I don't know.  What do you want photographed?"

Cam hesitated, "I don't want to tell you right now.  But we would need to shoot at night down by the water.  Do you have a big lens?  A long one?"

"A telephoto?  Yeah, a middle-range one.  But what are you filming, drug deals?"

"No..."  Cam frowned.  "I don't think so."

Sam stopped square in the middle of the hall.  Kids brushed her sides, muttering "Get out of the way, stupid!"  She lowered her voice.  "Is it something illegal?"

"I don't know."  Cam shook his head.  "Do you refuse?"

"Refuse?"  Samantha laughed.  "I think it's great!  This might be my big chance!"  More than anything, Samantha wanted to be a photojournalist.  She wanted to travel the world working for CNN or Time or NPR, slogging in war zones and disaster areas, getting the story and broadcasting it to the world.  The idea of an actual crime here in town thrilled her, filled her with curiousity.  But she wasn't dumb.  "This is awful fishy."

The boy insisted, "We won't do anything illegal.  Just take pictures.  I'll pay for your time."

Sherri Carpenter, Sam's best friend, shot her a queer look from the other side of the hall, seeing her with "that weird Vietnamese kid".  Sam pouted.  Cam seemed sincere.  Whatever he wanted filmed bothered him.  Curiousity bit at Samantha like a bulldog.  I must have been a cat in a former life, she thought.  "Well...  It's the developing costs money."

"Would twenty dollars pay for it?"

"Probably.  I'll give you any extra money back."

"So you'll do it?"

Would she have the nerve to film something mysterious at night down by the waterfront with a strange boy?  Her father would kill her.  If he found out.

The hall was mostly empty.  The second bell rang.  Sam started jogging towards class.  "All right," she called, "but if you get cute I'll cripple you!"

She'd be late for English.  Oh, well.  It was a small price to pay for a budding career.  She rehearsed, "This is Samantha Salvador for CNN.  We've got a breaking story here at the Lubec waterfront.  A major drug bust has gone down..."






Now in the dark, crouched between lobster pots that stank of dead fish, Sam checked her camera and Cam Nguen talked.  His breath made white clouds.  His teeth chattered.  He wore only a thin baseball jacket.

He said, "I want you to take a picture of a man.  A Vietnamese.  I think they'll come to the office here."

Like a real reporter, Sam shot back a question.  "Why?"

"They have some -- business here, I think."

"How do you know that?"

Cam paused.  "I was down here on Saturday, collecting bottles and cans.  I was digging in the dumpsters over there."  At the end of the parking lot.

"Yuck!"  The word escaped Sam, and she felt ashamed.  "Umm...  I bet you can make a lot of money collecting -- that stuff."  Sure.  If you collected twenty of them, you'd have a whole dollar.

Cam was embarrassed, but he plowed on.  "I was in the dumpster when I heard these guys talking.  I thought I recognized a voice --"

He stopped.  Headlights splashed on the gray wall before them.  A truck roared into the parking lot, the diesel engine knocking.  It screeked to a halt by the office.  Three men spilled out.

Cam pointed to the truck.  He hissed, "Get them!  Get the Asian!"

Stiff with cold, Sam scrooched past Cam and leaned out of the alleyway.  She fumbled the camera to her eye and sighted at the three men.  Hold still! she thought.

There!  A face swooped into focus as she rotated her telephoto lens.  It was a big guy with short punk hair and a black leather jacket.  He leaned against the truck door and lit a cigarette.  Sam was surprised to recognize him.  It was Terry O'Brien, a high school crud who liked to set cats on fire and bash gays.

Cam joggled her shoulder.  "Shoot the Asians!"

"Oh, right," she whispered.  She swung the camera and the black background whizzed by.  There.  An Asian face, thin and pointed, probably Vietnamese.  He talked to Terry.  Sam checked her f-stop, focussed on the sharp line of the guy's forehead, and snapped the shutter.  Cam hissed at the click and whir of the film advancing.  The noises sounded loud in the night.  But the men were talking and didn't hear.

Sam swung to shoot the other man.  But his back was to the camera.

"Shoot!" Cam breathed.

"You want a picture of the back of his ears?"

Suddenly the man turned and grabbed the storm door.  He was going to duck inside.  Sam was afraid she'd miss him, so she hurried the shot.  The camera clicked and whirred.

The three men stopped talking.  Terry asked, "What was that?"

"They heard us!" Cam gasped.  "Run!"

Through her camera, Sam saw the two Asians duck into the office.  Then Terry O'Brien turned his ugly face and filled Sam's viewfinder.  The guy flicked away his cigarette, grabbed a club from the back of the pickup truck, and came thudding in his big boots across the parking lot.  Towards them.

Cam bolted down the alleyway between the lobster pots.  Sam held her camera high and ran after him.  "Wait for me!"






At the end of the alleyway, Cam came to a sudden halt and Sam almost piled into him.  Terry had dashed the other way and blocked their exit.

Terry slammed the club back and forth between the two stacks of pots, a noise like a machine gun.  "What are you clowns doing here?"

Cam stuttered.  Sam slung her camera behind her and hoped Terry wouldn't notice it.

Terry rattled the stick some more, as if threatening to break bones.  "You're trespassing, you know!  That's illegal!"  Then he recognized Sam.  "Hey!  You're the one carries the camera all the time!  You better not be taking pictures!"

Sam tried to laugh.  "Ha!  You're a big one to talk about what's legal, Terry.  You spend more time at that police station than you do at school!"

Terry pointed the stick at her.  "Are you taking pictures?  Cuz that's not allowed.  You got that, puke?"  He jabbed Cam in the chest with the stick.  Cam grunted.

"Big man, waving a stick around, beating up people smaller than you!"  Sam talked fast and tried to think.  What could they do?

Terry really was big: big as both of them put together.  The thug snatched Cam's shoulder and yanked the boy out of the way.  He advanced on Sam.  "You got a camera?  I want it."  Up close he stunk of cigarettes, like a dump.

Sam backed away slowly.  "You going to beat me up, now?  Big man, beats up little girls."

Terry jumped at her with the stick.

Sam couldn't help it.  She screamed.






Chapter 2


Terry feinted with the stick, pretending to hit her.  Quick as a snake, he jabbed at her legs, tried to trip her.  He wanted her camera.  Sam hopped back but banged into a stack of pots.

Terry suddenly grunted.  Cam had pulled down a lobster pot and chucked it into the thug's back.  These pots were big as a kitchen chair, but light because they were mostly wire.  Terry whirled and batted at another pot with his stick, but it was hard to see in the dark.

Careful of her camera, Sam dumped some pots of her own.  They fell with a rattly crash.  She nearly broke her finger snagging it in some mesh.  She grabbed at another pot.  Maybe they could bury Terry and run.

Except Terry was strong as a bull.  He kicked a pot straight at Sam.  Yelping, she ducked back.  The pot caught on the stack and fell at her feet.

Enough was enough.  She shrilled, "Cam, run!"  Then she sprinted down the alleyway.  Holding her camera with one hand, she ran into the mucky parking lot and pelted along the stacks of pots for the street.  A fearful clattering sounded behind as Terry smashed lobster pots out of the way.

Samantha left the parking lot and galloped down the tarred road.  Her breath sobbed.  There were only more dark warehouses and fishhouses along this side of the harbor.  Where to run?

The banging and smashing stopped, and Sam glanced that way.  She wished she hadn't.  Terry had climbed to the top of the stacks, seven or eight feet high, and ran along them like an ape.  A small dark shape flitted on the road ahead of her.  Cam.

There came a thump as Terry jumped to the ground.

Sam dashed up to Cam, grabbed his arm.  He was so skinny her fingers met.  "Where do we go?"

"There!"  He pointed at blackness between two buildings.

Trying to make their feet light and quiet, they pattered into an alley dark as pitch.  Sam put a hand out so as not bump anything.  Her fingers crumpled against a solid steel wall.  "Oh, no!"

"Wait!"  Cam squirmed around her.  "This way!"

Sam followed him into blackness.  The smell of dead fish made her gag.  Cam dragged her around a corner and into a tiny hollow.  Then Sam got it.  This was a dumpster full of fish guts, and they'd just slunk around it.  Cam must know every dumpster in town, she thought.

They waited, quiet.  Out in the road Sam heard Terry's boots clump to a stop, heard him swearing.  Then he clumped away, back towards the fish plant.

"Now?" Sam hissed.

"No, wait."

A moment later the pickup truck revved, clashed gears, then roared out of the parking lot.  It passed their alley and kept going.

"Now we can go."  Cam took a deep breath.  "Are you okay?"

Sam held her burning chest.  "If I'm going to be a reporter, I better try out for Track.  But hey, were those Asians the guys you wanted?"

Cam's voice came out of the dark.  "Develop the film and then I'll tell you."

"Ohhhh-kay..." Sam piffed.  "But I better get some answers if I'm going to risk a beating and a heart attack."

Panting, she followed him out the alley and down the dark street.  At the corner they grabbed their bikes and split up for home.






Sam squirmed as her own face recited the news from the TV screen.

"Welcome to the Six O'clock News.  I'm Samantha Salvador.  In London today another bomb went off in a dense shopping district.  No one is believed killed, but thirteen people were hospitalized.  The IRA has claimed responsibility --"

Mister Lecleire clicked the remote and froze Samantha in mid-sentence.  She gawped on the screen with her mouth open.  Six students watched.

They sat in a small room in the basement of the junior high school.  The walls were dull green and covered with black-and-white and color photographs.  A chalkboard listed The Five Ws.  This was Camera Club.

Mister Lecleire was a tall man with a weedy mustache and baggy tweed clothes.  But he was a good English teacher and a great advisor, a "shutterbug" himself.  These days the club was studying TV journalism, and each student had to make a demonstration tape of themselves reading the news.  Today was Sam's turn.

Their advisor said, "Okay, can anyone tell me what's wrong with that lead?"

Jim Degennaro tried, "She didn't get in the Five Ws?"  That was always a safe guess, Sam knew.  The teacher recited the Five Ws every five minutes.

"Right.  And what are they?"

The class recited, "Who, What, When, Where, Why or How."

"Good.  Watch Sam again."  He replayed Samantha's introduction.  "Okay.  Samantha got most of them, but a good lead gets them all.  Something like, `In London' tells us where.  `Just before noon,' tells us exactly when.  Samantha said only `today', which is vague.  `A dense shopping district' is acceptable, but she could have named a specific part of town or a street.  `Picadilly Circus' maybe..."

Samantha squirmed.  She felt like a frog being dissected.  But if she were going to be a photojournalist, she had to take criticism.  She forced herself to take notes while the club tore apart her bulletin.  And she had to admit their corrections made it sound more professional.

Enough practice, she daydreamed, and someday she'd be crawling below stone walls while bullets zinged off the top and automatic weapons crackled in the background.  "This is Samantha Salvador for CNN.  Here in southern Cravsneg, in the former Yugoslavia, just before noon today, the El Hadjmujadim wounded nine people..."

The bell rang, very loud in the confined basement.  The end of class.  Next up was -- double yuck -- Algebra.

Mister Lecleire called Sam's name, tossed the videocassette over the tops of kids' heads as they grabbed books and pens.  "Good work, Sam!  Three out of five in your first shot!"

"Thanks, Mister Lecleire!  I appreciate the help!"  She slung her Nikon and fought her way out the door as kids fought to get in.

Sam cruised through the day on autopilot.  She was an average student, which meant her grades averaged out.  She got As in Social Studies and English, because they were good skills for a photojournalist.  In other subjects, well... a reporter didn't have to know Algebra.

But mostly she fretted to get home and develop Cam's pictures.  She wondered if his guess about the Asians was right.  Whatever he was guessing.

Finally the day was over.  Sam slammed her locker, yanked on her jacket, and joined the crowd squeezing out the doors for the bus.  But right by the door, someone gave her a shove that bounced her off the tile wall.  "Hey!"

It was Ricky O'Brien, Terry's greasy little brother in another leather jacket.  He snarled at Sam.  "Terry says to tell ya'!  He sees you at the docks again, he's going to dance on your face!"

Sam straightened her camera strap.  "Tell your brother he doesn't own the docks, Ricky.  Tell him he needs a bath, too."

The boy stared as Sam ducked out the door.  But she wondered.  Terry O'Brien was a low-life slimeball, but even he wouldn't trash a girl, would he?  And what was he hiding down there?  She pondered on the bus ride home.

Until she discovered a strange car in her driveway.






Sam had lived in the same house her whole life.  Her father and mother had built the house themselves.  It was only a little cape, like most of the houses around, but she loved it.  It backed against the woods and faced out over the ocean.  When Sam wanted privacy, she had two directions to go in.  Sometimes, when she daydreamed about travelling the world, she remembered she'd have to leave home.  That was a weird thought, scary and thrilling at the same time.

And it was weird to have a stranger parked in her driveway.  The car was long and green with a DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE -- IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE seal on the door.  Sam's curiousity pinged.  Immigration?

A man got out.  He was short, chunky, with wire-rimmed glasses and a dark suit.  He looked like one of the guys who were always explaining government screw-ups on television.

"Samantha Salvador?"  His voice wheezed, as if he'd run here instead of driving.

"Yes."  She turned on her reporting skills.  "You are?.."

"Ron Reeve, INS."  He took out a wallet and flashed a big silver badge.  "I want to ask you a few questions.  About a boy named Cam Nguen."

"Cam..."  Sam's mind raced.  She set down her bookbag, stalling for time.  So that's what the immigration part was about.  "Yeah, I know him.  A little."

"Would you say he's honest?"

"Hunh?  Sure.  Why not?"

The man peered at her through his glasses.  "Do you know if he uses drugs?"

"Drugs?  No way!"

"Did you ever smell dope on him?"

"Dope?"

"You know what burning marijuana smells like, don't you?"

Sam piffed.  "Of course I do.  I've smelled it in the girl's room at school.  I smelled it in City Hall once, too."

"So you'd know if Cam Nguen were using drugs.  Some kinds of drugs."

Flustered, Sam shook her head.  She was supposed to be the reporter, but he was asking all the questions.  "Mister, uh, Reeve, I'll bet you a million dollars Cam doesn't touch drugs.  He's too smart.  And anyone who digs through dumpsters full of fish heads for bottles and cans isn't going to spend their money on drugs.  If you want drug dealers, try the jerks in Eastside Park.  Cam is honest as the day is long."

"I thought you only knew him `a little'."  The agent was cool.  "And if he's so honest, why is he trespassing on private property by the docks and committing vandalism?"

Puzzled, Sam's mouth hung open.  "What?  Oh, you mean..."  Sneaking around the fish house.  Dumping the lobster pots.  But how?..

The government agent grinned at her surprise.  Very sarcastic, he muttered, "Thank you for your help."  He got in his big car and drove away in a spurt of gravel.

She watched the dust from the road blow out to sea.  She was disgusted with herself for caving in.  Barbara Walters would have zinged him some good ones, made him spill his guts.  Instead, she'd been gutted.

And now she worried about Cam.  What would the agent do?  Arrest Cam?  Deport him back to Vietnam?

And who told the government that Cam and Sam were sneaking around in the middle of the night?  Terry O'Brien, Town Terrorist?

Sam shouldered her heavy schoolbag and trudged towards the door.  Her reporter's instinct said there was trouble ahead.

But what kind of trouble, she couldn't guess.






Chapter 3


When Sam shoved the front door open, music blared and smoke billowed out.

Sam dropped her bag and ran for the kitchen.  Her sister jumped and twisted in front of the booming television.  "Bonnie!"

A covered pot spewed smoke on the stove.  Sam stabbed off the burner and grabbed the pot, tossed it into the sink.  The lid popped off and burned rice stank.  Sam drowned it with cold water.  Bonnie watched her from the kitchen doorway.

Sarcastic, Sam yelled above the TV noise, "Burned rice again?  Didn't you have that last night?"

Bonnie flounced back into the living room.  "That was burned Alfredo.  That's different."

Sam looked at the pot full of sopping black gunk, left it, went to retrieve her bookbag.  Bonnie had pushed the furniture back so she could dance to MTV.  Paula Abdul, all in black with her hair whapping around her face, hopped and spun across the wide screen.  Dad had installed a satellite dish in the backyard.  He watched ESPN, Sam watched CNN, Mom watched PBS.  Bonnie watched MTV.  All day and all night.

Bonnie was Sam's older sister, nineteen and already divorced.  She was beautiful, tall and slender, taking after Mom's French-Canadian side, but her hair was dyed bright blonde and she wore too-colorful clothes.  She looked like a TV hooker.

Sam took after her Portugese father, who was built like a dump truck.  Sam was short, and unless she gave up desserts forever, doomed to become a blubberbutt.  Her hair was dark and frizzed in damp weather, and here in Lubec, it was damp all year long.  Sam knew she shouldn't hate her sister for her good looks, but there were plenty of other reasons.

Like the way Bonnie would play dumb when it came to doing laundry or cooking dinner or washing dishes, so Sam would take over.  Well, Sam could play dumb too.  Dad was out fishing -- "on the hook" -- and might not be back tonight.  Or for several nights.  Mom was in Boston, staying with Aunt Donna, working on her MBA at college.  She only came home on weekends.  Bonnie was always on a diet, tubbo Sam was too, so neither of them needed dinner.  The dishes could sit.

Sam hunted through the refrigerator, found a chunk of baked haddock in Tupperware, nuked it and ate it from the tub with a fork.  As she ate, she watched her sister dance.

Bonnie hopped to MC Hammer.  The moves looked good on Hammer, who was short, but Bonnie just looked tall and gawky, like a frog trying to lay an egg.  Sam leaned into the room, stabbed the remote.

A soap opera jumped onto the screen.  Bonnie spun in the air and screamed, "Put that back!"

All innocence, Sam asked, "You mind turning that down some?  Some of us have homeWORK."

Bonnie snatched the remote.  "Do it upstairs!  I'm studying down here!"  Sam smirked and her sister's eyes flashed.  Bonnie's big ambition was to a rock star or MTV VJ.  Sam thought that was a huge joke.

Sam slugged milk straight from the jug and headed downstairs.  She didn't want to fight with her sister anyway.  She wanted to see Cam's film.






Sam locked the door of her darkroom, which was just a tiny cube in the cellar next to the laundry room.  She scooted to double-check that no light leaked in.  Even a crack of natural light could ruin a roll of film.

Satisfied, she clicked on the red bulb over the worktable, donned rubber gloves, and got to work.  She could develop the pictures, enlarge them, and dry them by six.  She'd agreed to meet Cam at six-thirty at the west side 7-11, since he didn't have a telephone.  She wondered where he lived and how his family survived -- they had to be dirt poor to have no telephone and go bottle-scrounging.

Carefully she ran the film and paper through the baths.  Because of the night shooting, she'd used black-and-white film, which meant she could develop it herself.  Color film was so complicated it had to go to a lab.  Black and white gave sharper images anyway.  All the great photographers -- Ansel Adams, Andy Warhol, Diane Arbus -- worked in black and white.  It was way cheaper, too.

She pinned the pictures to a line to dry.  Then she took a strong magnifying glass and studied the two Asian faces.

The first guy looked like a blind date.  He had a skinny face, buck teeth, and a dished-in bridge to his nose, as if someone had punched it flat.  His mouth was open as he talked to Terry.

The other guy was better-looking, a little like David Carradine in Kung Fu, though bony as Axl Rose.  Sam peered close in the dim red light.  The guy looked familiar.  But that didn't make sense.  She didn't know any Asians.  Except Cam.  Were these guys someone Cam knew?  If so, why didn't he just walk up and say hi?  He could be Cam's brother, they looked so much alike.  But that didn't mean much.  She and Bonnie were sisters and looked nothing alike.  Bonnie was gorgeous and Sam was -- plain.

She sighed.  But at least her curiousity would be satisfied at six-thirty.  She checked her timer and hurried to clean up.  She had to start her homework.






"Going out to 7-11!  Back in a little while!"  Sam slid the envelope of pictures into her bookbag.

Bonnie sat in the Barca lounger watching Thelma and Louise for the fiftieth time.  She were reciting the dialogue along with Geena Davis, pouting like a fish.  "Isn't this a school night?"

"That's right," Sam sneered.  "But you never let school nights stop you from going out."

Bonnie waved her away, as if shooing a fly.  "Bring me a rack of Tab."

"Sure I will."  Sam shrugged into her jacket.  "Want a newspaper too?  You could look for a job.  Under `Bimbos Wanted'."

"You wouldn't have room to carry my Tab anyway with all the chocolate-covered doughnuts you'll pack.  It's been, what, six hours since you had any?"

Sam made sure her camera case was snapped tight.  "Hey, I can't afford doughnuts.  Maybe I should marry some sucker and bleed him for alimony."

"Good idea, Woof-Face.  Except if you keep hauling all that pork around, you're gonna bust your bike frame."

Nonplussed, Sam could only snap, "Oh, yeah?"

"Good comeback, Potsy.  You started it."

Sam spluttered, stuck for something to say.  She spun for the door.  She'd be late.  And she had started it.

Outside the air was chill and salty with the evening sea breeze.  Leaves rustled in the trees on the hill.  Sam zipped her jacket higher.  It might snow before the month was out.  Which meant a long winter.

She wheeled her bike out of the garage, stepped on a pedal and vaulted to the seat.  Now she could find out who these mysterious Asians were.  If Cam would tell her.

She wheeled into town, a fifteen-minute trip.  Wednesday night was quiet, with few cars on the streets.  The red and green sign for 7-11 glowed.  At dinnertime, there was only one truck in the parking lot.  Sam looked both ways, crossed the intersection.  As she pedalled around the building, she saw Cam near the ice machine.

"Oh, crap."

Standing in front of Cam, trapping him in the corner of the ice machine, were Terry O'Brien and Joe Brzynzcy*.

------------------------
*   Pronounced "Brey ZIN ski".
------------------------

Sam rattled to a stop and hopped off her bike, but the two punks didn't turn around.  Joe Brzynzcy was another Terry O'Brien, square-headed, black-jacketed, a creep and bully, another member of the pathetic "Black Devils" gang, whose idea of a big time was to build a bonfire in the woods and drink beer.  And push helpless people around.

Joe had a plastic garbage bag that rattled when he swung it.  Probably full of Cam's bottles and cans, Sam thought.  Suddenly Joe snapped the bag and bopped Cam over the head.

Cam stayed tight in the corner, hands up.  There was no point in fighting back.  He'd just get trashed.

Joe snarled, "Like that, fishhead?  Hunh, slope?  My old man killed gooks like you in Vietnam!  He was a SEAL!  He burned whole villages full of slant-eyes!"

Terry O'Brien laughed.  He swayed as if drunk.  They probably both were.

Sam cast around the parking lot for help.  Inside the 7-11, back of the counter, fat old Jase Thibeault read the sports page and ignored the noise.  He wouldn't stir if the store caught fire, Sam knew.  There was a telephone on the outside wall.  She could call 911, but she didn't have a quarter.  And by the time the police got here --

The bag rustled again and Cam got whapped.  The poor guy wasn't taller than either punk's chin.  Those jerks, she thought, she'd like to bop them...

Or maybe something better.  She fumbled behind her.

Joe Brzynzcy slammed the garbage bag onto Cam one more time.  The bag broke.  Cans clattered and tinkled all over the ice machine, the wall, the sidewalk.  Having lost his weapon, Joe kicked Cam in the shin with his heavy work boot.  The Asian boy grunted in pain and grabbed his leg.

Sam called, "Smile, boys!  You're on Candid Camera!"  She raised her Nikon and popped the shutter.  The bright flash froze the three guys in their tracks.  "Good pose, Joe!  That'll look great in court!  And the front page of the newspaper!  Won't your mother be proud!"  She popped the flash again.

Terry O'Brien woke up a little.  He pointed a thick finger.  "Taking pictures again!  You're going to -- get your head -- busted, and your camera too!"

Sam snapped his picture again, blinding him with the flash.  "Nice, Terry!  Just like a wanted poster down at the post office!"

The two creeps looked at one another doubtfully.  Terry weaved suddenly, as if he'd throw up.  "Let's get out of here."

Joe waved a fist at Sam.  "We'll fix you later, you ---"  He turned and caught Cam by the throat, banged his head against the wall.  "And you stay away from Seamore!  Hear me, puke?"

The two stomped off to Terry's truck at the corner of the lot.  Terry fumbled with the door handle, got in and almost fell sideways in the seat, ground the starter.  He drove the truck over the concrete divider with a horrible scrape, then roared down the wrong side of the street.

Sam said after them, "Hit a pole and do the world a favor, guys."

Then she shouldered her camera and ran to Cam, who'd crumpled onto the sidewalk.







Chapter 4


Cam's scalp was sticky with blood.  Sam helped him to his feet.  He weighed less than she did.

"We'll get you to the hospital," Sam panted.

The boy shook his head, then grabbed it in pain.  "No health insurance.  I'm all right.  It just stings."

Sam sighed.  She had been half-panicked, but now that the danger was past, she was furious.  "Those bastards!  Those lousy stinking twerps -- We'll tell the police!"

"No," Cam muttered.  He held the back of his head.  "Ouch.  I have to pick up these cans."

"Oh, for heaven's sake."  But she helped him pick them up.  Cam had a single-speed junker bike with a rack on the back.  He fetched a garbage bag from a roll under the seat and they picked up the cans and plastic bottles.  Sam's fingers felt tacky.  The boy tied the bag over the back wheel.  It sagged down both sides.  Sam asked, "Where do you live, anyway?"

"Garden Heights on Willow Pond Road."

"Oh."  Sam knew the place.  Garden Heights was a crummy trailer park.  Willow Pond Road was the Dump Road.  "That's like five miles.  You can't bike there with a split skull.  Hey!  Let's swing by my house.  My dorky sister can drive you home.  She's useless, but she can at least do that."

Cam protested but Sam wouldn't listen.  She got on her bike and paced him as they rode out of town.  Sam muttered under her breath.  She'd inherited curiousity from her mother and stubborness from her father, and a temper from both of them.  "... them telling us to stay away from Seamore!  Sure!  They're hiding something, and I want to know what it is!  If those lowlifes think they can scare a reporter off a story, they've got another think coming!.."

She skidded to a halt in her driveway, still steamed.  Cam almost fell off his bike, he was so winded.

Bonnie was watching Ghost for the dozenth time, sitting slump-shouldered like Demi Moore, but she came to the kitchen as Sam and Cam stumbled in.  Sam put Cam in a chair at the kitchen table and hunted up a clean rag.

"Who's this?"  Bonnie nodded at Cam.

Sam wrung hot water out of a rag.  "Who's this?  It's a stray dog I found in the street!  I'm thinking of keeping him!  His name is Cam, if you must know, and it's pretty impolite to talk about someone in the third person!  Or didn't you learn that watching your stupid movies?"

Bonnie wasn't miffed at all.  "A mutt and a bitch.  You make a good pair."

Sam dabbed at Cam's head, too hard.  He winced.  Bonnie asked, "Who beat him up?  You?"

"Terry O'Brien and Joe Brzynzcy, that's who."

"Are those clowns still loose?  I thought they'd be in prison or the army by now."

Sam piffed.  "Go watch the Home Shopping Network.  Find yourself a deal in diamonds."  Bonnie flounced back to her lounger.

Sam poked at Cam's head.  His hair was jet black, straight as a string, and coarse as horsehair.  Sam wished her hair was this thick and straight.  "It stopped bleeding.  Does it still hurt?"  Cam nodded.  Sam pulled aspirin from the cupboard, gave him three and a glass of water.  Then she flopped in a chair at the other end of the table, not seeing Cam so much as steaming about Terry and Joe.

Then she remembered.  "Oh!  I have your pictures!"  She fetched her bookbag and the folder.  Cam peered around at the cheery kitchen as if he'd never seen one before.

"You hungry?" she asked.  "I could make you a peanut butter sandwich."

Cam nodded slowly.  "Please.  That would be fine."

The girl handed him the envelope, said, "Don't touch the surfaces.  Hold them by the edges."  She fussed in the cupboards and breadbox.  She slapped a sandwich together, threw a bag of Dorito crumbs on the table, put down a glass of milk, pulled some bread-and-butter pickles from the fridge, then some American cheese.  One thing she knew about boys -- they were always hungry.

But Cam just stared at the pictures.  He heaved a great sigh.

Sam looked over his shoulder.  It was the good-looking Asian.  "Is it someone you know?"

Another sigh.  "It's my brother Huan*."

----------------------------   
* Pronounced H'WAN
----------------------------   

So Sam had been right: the guy did resemble Cam.  "So what?  Is that bad?"

"Very bad.  He's supposed to be in Vietnam.  Eighteen thousand miles away."






"Are you sure it's your brother?"

Cam looked at her like a dog stuck out in the rain.

"Okay, you're sure.  Sorry if I ask stupid questions.  But why can't he be here instead of Vietnam?  You're here."  Sam suddenly bubbled with reporter-type questions.  "But why hasn't he been to see you?"

Cam looked sad.  "May I keep this picture?"

"Sure.  You're paying for it."  The idea that she was working for him seemed suddenly weird.  She pushed food at him to cover her embarrassment.  "Here, eat something.  We've got lots of leftovers."

Another question hit her and she couldn't hold it back.  "Why did you need a picture if you knew it was your brother?"

The Asian boy slid the photo into the envelope.  He ate his sandwich in four bites, dumped the Dorito crumbs on a plate, wolfed those.  Sam realized he was starved.  Still he was polite, and finished a mouthful before he spoke.  "I know it is confusing.  I need the picture to convince my parents Huan is here in Maine."

Sam went back to the cupboards for more food.  She put a jar of Oreos on the table.  "Your family must have some strange ideas.  Why wouldn't they believe you?  What are they, a family of cops, they don't believe you without proof?"

"My brother couldn't be here.  It's not right."

Sam felt flighty as a butterfly.  But instead of babbling questions, she waited.  Being silent was a good way for a reporter to get a response, she remembered, because people always filled a silence.

Sure enough, Cam began to talk.  "My family is Vietnamese, you know.  I was born there.  I don't know what you know about Vietnam..."

Sam shook her head rather than interrupt.  Not a lot, she thought.  Her dad had been too young for the war.  Her uncle Dave had been in the Navy during Vietnam, but he never talked about it.

"My country had thirty years of continuous war.  The communists of the north wanted to conquer the south.  First the French fought the communists, then the Americans.  The cities were bombed, the countryside was bombed.  Millions of people were killed...  But most of the land is jungle, with highlands and mountains in the west, and lots of rice paddies.  That didn't change much...

"Vietnam is a beautiful country.  It's got rivers miles wide and marshes full of birds and crocodiles.  There are forests that are still unexplored.  Some scientists just discovered the skulls of a mountain goat they'd never seen before.  Even the natives don't see them often.  There are tigers in the jungles, giant flowers, beautiful spiders big as your hand.  There are temples all covered with vines, so old no one knows who built them.  They're older than the pyramids in Egypt, maybe."

"Wow."

"But the country's government is a mess.  It had a terrible dictator during the war, then the Americans pulled out -- that was in 1975 -- and the communists took over.  The NVA, Ho Chi Minh's people.  They were just as bad.  They shot anyone who argued with them, or put them in detention camps.  Communism made everyone poorer, like in Russia.  Vietnam is one of the poorest countries in the world.  That's starting to change, a little.

"My father had a small factory near Saigon.  He built a machine that could make plywood out of laminated bamboo, when he could get the glue and stuff.  But the government sent `inspectors' down who would demand money for `licenses'.  They were just bribes.  My father had to pay them.  Then one day an army colonel came with some soldiers and closed the factory.  He said they needed it for the army.  That was all a lie, he just stole the place for himself.  But there was nothing my father could do.  He was locked out and out of work."

"Bum-mer!"

"Then he didn't have a job, and the government doesn't like `parasites'.  They wanted to put him in a labor camp and work him to death.  Me and my brother too.  But my father went to another official -- he'd hidden some gold away -- and bribed the man to let us emigrate to America.  My father picked Maine because they had room on their quota list, and he figured he could get a job in a plywood factory.  But with the recession, it hasn't worked out...  And it gets so cold here.  I can't believe people live here, it gets so cold."

Sam sniffed.  "It only gets to thirty below here.  It's cold in Canada."

Cam had eaten everything on the table and half the cookies.  Sam realized Cam probably didn't get enough to eat at home, with his father out of work.  She went back to the cupboard.  "You like tuna fish?"  Cam nodded, embarrassed.  Sam opened two cans and made sandwiches.

She thought over his story.  "But what about your brother?"

"Oh, my brother.  He decided to make money the easy way.  On the black market.  Selling things illegally.  It's the only real market in a communist country.  It's where you get meat, tires, medicines, videos, anything, including guns and drugs.  I don't think he ever stole anything, but he drove trucks and sold things.  Of course, the police are always on the lookout.  They arrest you and then keep the contraband and sell it themselves.  Huan got an arrest record.  He went to jail, but his friends bribed him out.

"But the United States won't admit criminals.  They check your police record.  So Huan couldn't come with us to the US.  My family didn't want him to anyway.  He'd disgraced the family.  After he was arrested, my father said we must pretend he was dead.  We mustn't speak to him, or write to him, or even say his name.  He was like a ghost.  My father was really hurt because Huan was his oldest son.  That's special in the East."  Cam, the second son, sighed.  Sam thought of her glamorous older sister and sighed too.

"Anyway," the boy finished, "now Huan's here in the US."

Sam added, "Hanging around with jerks like Terry O'Brien, who never worked an honest day in his life.  But why don't you just go up and talk to him when those creeps aren't around?"

"I can't disobey my family's wishes.  Or orders."

Sam leaned forward and whispered, "You wouldn't have to tell them."

Cam shook his head.  Sam thought it was spooky a family could control you that much.  The boy said, "No, I couldn't.  Besides, if he's here, Huan's breaking the law again.  He's an illegal immigrant.

"Oh, right."  Sam nodded.  "Hey, that explains why that INS guy came around yesterday asking questions about you!  He must be looking for your brother!"

Cam snapped his head up, which made his skull hurt.  "What INS guy?"

They were interrupted as headlights washed over the wall.  Brakes squeaked in the driveway.  Sam said, "That's Dad.  I thought he was still on the hook."

Sam greeted her father at the door with a peck on the cheek.  Her dad was burned dark by a lifetime of fishing.  He had a bristly face, curly black hair with a touch of gray, wide shoulders and a solid gut.  His pants were filthy with salt and fish guts.  His coat was stiff with grease and paint.  He carried a big lunchbox and a spare coat.  Sam skipped backwards.  After five days of fishing, he reeked of body odor, bait, salt, coffee, and beer.

Dad took one step inside the house before he pointed a dark finger at Cam.  "Who's this?"

Sam sighed.  People would never believe they used manners in her house.  "That's Cam.  He goes to school with me."

Dad hooked a thumb over his shoulder.  "You.  Out."






Chapter 5


After a frosty argument, Dad agreed to drive Cam home.  Sam went with them.  They wrestled Cam's bike into the back of Dad's battered white pickup, laying it on oars, seat cushions, ropes, tools, paint cans.  No one said a word as they drove to Cam's house.

The Dump Road was dirt and bumpy, and the trailer park road bumpier.  The truck pulled up before a shabby green trailer surrounded by pine trees.  The door opened and a small woman stood in the light.  "My mother," Cam explained.

He dragged his bike and bag out of the back.  Sam stayed in the cab.  "See you tomorrow.  Oh, here."  She shoved a paper bag through the window.

Cam thanked them both and wheeled his bike towards the tiny trailer.  Sam shook her head.  This was deep-dirt poverty.

Dad put the truck in gear.  He spoke for the first time.  "What's in the bag?"

"Sandwiches.  He needs them."

"I'll say."

Back home, Bonnie's car was gone.  Dad went upstairs.  Sam went into the kitchen.  Neither had spoken again.

Twenty minutes later, Dad came down from a shower in his tattered blue bathrobe.  His curly hair glistened as if oiled.  Sam had cleared the table and washed some dishes.  Dad put on a pot of water.

Still steamed, Sam blurted, "You know, Dad, that was really embarrassing, tossing my -- school friend out on his ear."

"Don't blame me.  You know the rules.  No boys in the house when there's no adult home.  Simple.  Even Bonnie can remember that."

Sam pouted.  It was true.  That was a house rule.  Her parents only had a few rules, but they were firm ones.  Flustered, Sam asked, "Want something to eat?  There's some spaghetti left from the weekend."

Dad stirred cocoa mix in a cup.  "You mean Bonnie didn't eat it all?"  He smiled.

Sam smiled too as she dug in the fridge.  Casually, she asked, "You're not prejudiced against Cam, are you?"

Dad piffed.  "I'm prejudiced against any teenage boy.  They've got hormone problems."

"You used to be a teenage boy."

"Damn right, and I had only one thing on my mind, and it wasn't baseball.  What is he anyway, Cambodian?"

Sam loaded a plate into the microwave.  "Vietnamese.  Cambodians are coffee-colored."

"Jeez.  When I was a kid, it was a crisis if you dated a Protestant girl.  Everybody was white then.  But I don't care where someone comes from.  Hell, your grandfather was born in the Azores and your mom's side comes from Canada."

"Language, Dad."  Another house rule was no swearing.  Dad's mouth got saltier the longer he stayed at sea.

"All I ever care about is, that people work hard when they get here.  It's the -- buggers who come here and go on welfare and collect food stamps, then win the lottery that give me a pain in the -- a pain.  You show me someone who works as hard as us fishermen, I'll make him a blood brother."

Sam put a steaming plate of spaghetti on the table, fetched silverware and a napkin.  "Cam digs in dumpsters to find cans and bottles."

Dad twirled his fork.  "Okay, that's hard work.  He can visit during the day -- when I'm here.  What were you doing anyway?  Homework?"

Sam wiped the counters.  She wondered how much to tell, decided on a short version of the truth.  "Terry O'Brien and Joe Brzynzcy beat him up.  I was patching his head."

Dad buttered Portugese bread.  "There's America for you.  A good Irishmen and a Polack.  Their folks work hard, and look what proud citizens their kids turn out to be.  You tell the police?"

"No.  Cam's shy."

Dad mopped his plate with bread.  "What the heck.  Even working hard doesn't get you anything anymore.  The fishing's so -- rotten you wouldn't believe.  I don't think there's ten fish between here and Lisbon.  And now the feds are going to restrict us even more, let us fish only six months a year.  We can starve the other six, I guess..."

Sam yawned.  It had been a long day.

"...  And working these long hours is killing guys.  You remember Bruce Paul?  Big guy, works in Jonesport?"

"No."

"Well, you ain't gonna meet him now.  Piece o' tackle came off the mast last week, killed him deader'n a mackerel.  Somebody didn't tie something down.  They were too tired..."

Sam was quiet.  She didn't know many fishermen, but she could name four guys who'd been killed fishing.  They drowned when their boat capsized in a winter sea, or they slipped on the rocks periwinkling and bashed their head, or they were crushed stepping a mast.  Fishing was one of the most dangerous jobs there was.

"... this keeps up, no fish to catch, I don't know what I'm going to do."

Sam woke up.  "Hunh?  You're going to quit fishing?"

Dad rinses his plate in the sink.  "What'ya think I've been talking about?"

"The fishing's always lousy, Dad.  You've been poor-mouthing since before I was born, Mom says."

Dad rubbed his knuckles over his bristles, a sound like kindling snapping.  "Not like these past two-three years.  No one's ever seen it so bad.  I gotta find a new job, or some new way to get to market.  Maybe sign on with one of these salmon farms..."  He suddenly laughed at himself.  "Hey, once your mother gets her MBA, she can open a bank and support me.  I can trade my boat for a yacht."

Sam went to her dad and hugged him around his big middle.  "You couldn't sell your boat, Dad.  You'd just get into trouble if you didn't work."

Tony Salvador kissed the top of his daughter's head.  "Maybe.  But you better get used to the taste of short lobsters."  "Short" lobsters were undersized, illegal catches.  "And don't you have homework?  It's a school night, you know."

Sam kissed her dad's stubbly cheek.  "That's what Bonnie said."

Dad rolled his eyes.  "Bonnie.  Don't get me started.  Oh, here."  He went to the foot of the stairs and handed Sam a bundle: wool socks that had shrunk, long cotton underwear, two flannel shirts, even a patched down jacket.

Sam took it.  "What's this?"

"Old clothes.  But they're clean.  Give 'em to your boyfriend there."

"He's not my boyfriend!  And what for, anyway?"  Sam squinted at her dad, but he pretended to sort the mail.

He said over his shoulder, "That kid was wearing nothing but a denim jacket and jeans.  He needs to learn about longjohns or he'll turn into a popsicle."

Sam hugged her father from behind.  "Oh, Dad.  You're just a big softy."

"What soft?  This is muscle!"






Saturday afternoon found Sam at Waterfront Park setting up Bonnie's videocamera.

Thursday and Friday had been busy but uneventful.  Cam hadn't been in school and Sam wondered why.  Maybe he was depressed.  Maybe he was in trouble.  Maybe he was avoiding her.  Who knew?

For now, Bonnie wanted to cut a music video and send it to MTV.  "They love to get amateur videos.  They said so in a magazine."

"You're thinking of America's Funniest Home Videos," Sam retorted.

After some haggling, Sam had agreed to work the camera.  She could use the practice, and Bonnie was buying a stack of blank tapes -- which Sam could use later for her own filming.  For now, to conserve tape, Sam loaded the cassette with her practice broadcast from Camera Club.

They were filming in Waterfront Park for different backgrounds: the ocean, a grove of fiery maples, the harbor, a stone wall, plain grass.  Bonnie stripped to black tights and a purple-turquoise leotard, fluffed up her hair, and stretched to warm up.  Sam propped the videocam tripod before a low stone wall that overlooked the harbor, checked her light and settings, hollered she was ready.  Bonnie popped on a cassette player and began to dance, lip-synching like crazy.

Sam glued her cheek to the eyepiece.  Beyond her sister, a boat plowed into the harbor.  Bonnie had thought a real fishing boat would be picturesque.  This one had flaking green paint, streaks of rust, heaps of slimy lobster pots and rope, and seagulls hunting garbage from the air.  A floating eyesore.

But then, Bonnie's jumping around with ants in her pants wasn't any prettier.  Her moves were just aerobics.  Sam had argued that most of the MTV stars were professional dancers with years of experience -- which explained their so-so singing voices.  Now, filming, Sam suddenly felt sorry for her sister.  This was going to be one pathetic video, and Bonnie was going to be disappointed again.  Bonnie had never grasped the idea that hard work was what paid off in life.  She believed in luck: playing the lottery, mailing in contest coupons, sending in a video so some movie producer would recognize her genius.  Even her marriage had been a gamble.  She met a guy from out of town, an insurance salesman on a fishing vacation, married him, moved near New York, tried to get parts in plays, got bored, divorced the guy and come home.  She couldn't even work at a marriage, Mom had said.

They finished one tape and Sam plugged in another.  Two hours later Bonnie was bushed: red-faced, damp-haired, sweaty and chilled.  Out of two hours of footage, Sam didn't think they had three good minutes.

"Now I just need to edit the film and dub in the music," Bonnie panted.  They walked to the parking lot, near the commercial fishermen's wharf.

Sam eased the videocam into its case and set it on the back seat of Bonnie's old blue Escort.  "Edit and dub with what?  Magic?  You haven't got a dual-head VCR."

Bonnie tugged on her sweatsuit.  "I'll get one at Service Merchandise.  I can put it on VISA.  I'll need it to make a lot of videos."

It must be nice, Sam thought, to walk into a store and buy anything you "needed".  "I'm going down to see Dad.  You want to go?"

"Are you kidding?"  Bonnie ripped her comb through her hair.  "Go near bait barrels?  The stink gets in your pores and you can't wash it out.  I'm going to Louise's.  She's got some new fall colors."  She grabbed her purse and slammed the door.

"What about --"  Sam stopped.

Up at the head of the wharf, Terry O'Brien sat on a railing and smoked a cigarette.  He looked out over the harbor, not at them.  Sam wondered.  Had he been watching them film the video?  Why would he care, as long as they were nowhere near Seamore's fish plant?  Was he lying in wait for them?  He must have lain in wait for Cam before he and Joe shoved him around...  Or was she just being paranoid?

Sam decided to ignore him.  Making sure all the car doors were locked, she slung her camera and headed down the wharf.  She didn't look back at Terry.

But she did worry what kind of trouble he'd bring.







Chapter 6


"There's my princess!  You get your filming all done?"

Sam's father pumped diesel fuel at the dockside.  His boat was named The Black Leprechaun.  Dad had bought it from a pair of retiring fishermen, one black and the other Irish.  Sam thought it was a dopey name, but Dad thought it bad luck to change it.  His boat looked like a hundred others in the harbor.  It was a faded gray and white, thirty-two feet long with a high cabin and open in the back, piled with black-mesh lobster pots and hundreds of feet of yellow rope.

"Yep."  Sam grinned.  "Bonnie's probably packing for Hollywood right now."

Tony Salvador grinned back.  "It's okay with me if she moves out.  Did your mother call?"

Samantha hopped down from the dock into the boat.  "She left a message on the answering machine.  She should be home tonight.  She had to find something in the college library."

"So what's for dinner?"

It was Sam's turn to cook.  "Pork chops."

Dad tunked the gas nozzle inside the fuel pipe.  "Great.  Long as it ain't fish.  You want to take her out?"

"Sure."  Sam had learned how to pilot her dad's boat when she could see out the windshield.  Her dad watched her check the dials, turn the gas petcock, thumb the starter button.  Deep under her feet the starter engine ground, then the big engine throbbed, vibrating the whole boat.  Sam yelled, "Cast off, sailor!"  Dad grinned and obeyed.

Squinting in the setting sunlight, Sam checked around the boat and chugged away from the dock.  She didn't touch the throttle.  The boat puttered at a steady five miles per hour, the harbor speed limit.

It took fifteen minutes to crawl to Dad's mooring, a big red steel ball painted with the number 34.  Dad caught the line with a boathook and tied on.  Sam backed the boat and cut the engine.

Dad pursed his lips.  "Not bad."

Sam punched his arm, like belting a tree trunk.  "I didn't hit anything."

"Not bad for a girl, then."  She hit him again, harder, but he just laughed.  He locked the boat's hatch, then pulled in the little aluminum pram that trailed behind the fishing boat.  This was Sambo, Dad's little joke, a combination of Sam's and Bonnie's names.

The pram was only seven feet long.  Sam perched in the stern on a flotation cushion while Dad rowed.  He took the long wooden oars in his hammy hands and pulled for shore.  His brown forearms were thick as the pilings that supported the wharf.  Sam liked to see her father's strength.  It made her feel safe.

As usual, Dad started to gossip about other fishermen.  There were boats all around them, mostly fishing boats but some late-season yachts.  Dad pointed with his head.  "See that ding on John Craven's boat?  He came in drunk the other night and hit Dearborn's wharf.  And Tibbets almost lost a crewman the other day.  The guy was kicking pots off a float and got his foot tangled in the line.  Sank like a rock.  He had to use his belt knife to cut the line.  'Course, Tibbets screamed at him for losing the pots..."  Dad talked as he rowed.  Most of the fishermen up and down the coast knew one another.  There were always feuds and squabbles and deals going on, but any of them would drop their fishing in a second when someone got in trouble: on the rocks or capsized or swamped by rain or ice or waves.  The fishermen knew they had to take care of each other, no matter what.

They passed a sleek new racing yacht, long and shiny green, sharp at both ends with bright white sails.  Dad sniffed.  "Maybe I should get a job with the government.  That one belongs to some new guy who works in the Federal Building.  Immigration, or something."

"Immigration?" Sam blurted.  "Is that Mister Reeve?"

"Yeah, that's his name.  Do you know him?"

"Oh, I just heard about him somewhere."

Dad shrugged.  "Maybe his family died and left him a fortune.  That's a seventy thousand dollar yacht.  Sheesh..."

The pram gently bumped the dock and Dad shipped his oars.  Sam hopped to the dock and tied the painter around a cleat.  Dad toted the oars and seat cushions up the gangway to his pickup.

Not far from the dock sat the long shabby fishhouse.  Casually, Sam asked, "How's Seamore doing these days?"

"Those clowns?"  Dad dropped his oars with a clatter.  "They ain't hauling many lobsters."

"How do you know that?"

Dad pointed to the stacks of lobsters pots that -- though he didn't know it -- Sam and Cam had dumped on Terry O'Brien.  "Look at all them pots they aren't using.  You don't catch many lobsters on dry land.  They're probably --"

Sam stared.  Why hadn't she noticed that?  All those expensive lobster pots going unused?  She asked, "They're probably what?"

"Nothing.  I gotta stop at the marina.  You want a ride?"

"Hunh?  Oh, no.  Bonnie's car is just over there.  I'll wait for her."

"Okay.  See you at home."

Dad drove off and Sam started for Bonnie's car.  She could guess what Dad hinted about Seamore -- they were probably smuggling drugs.  Sam knew from reading the newspaper that nowadays the Mexican border was so well-guarded Columbian drug barons flew cocaine into New Brunswick, Canada, just across the border.  From there, it was only a short drive into America, then to Boston or New York or Chicago.  The Royal Canadian Mounted Police picked up planeloads of cocaine, but lots got through.  And somebody had to bring it into America.  Somebody like Seamore fishermen.  Even honest fishermen had trouble resisting the offer of thousands of dollars to "haul square whitefish" and then buy themselves a new truck or a family vacation to Disneyworld.  One of Dad's oldest and best friends, Steve Daigle, had once offered Dad a chance to "make some easy money".  Dad had punched him out and never spoken to Steve again.

But if Seamore Corporation was smuggling, why didn't the police arrest them?

Sam got to Bonnie's car.  Something was wrong with the side window...

"Oh, no!"

A back window was smashed into a thousand blue pieces all over the ground and the back seat.

Bonnie's videocamera and tapes were gone.






"Yeah, sure!  Take her side!" Bonnie screamed.  "It's her fault my camera's gone!"

"It's not my fault!" Sam screamed back.  "The car was locked when I left it!  I can't help it if scumball Terry O'Brien breaks the window!  The police said it was probably him!  They're going to question him!"

"Girls..." Mom pleaded.  "Can't we have a quiet discussion?  For a change?"

"It's her fault!" Bonnie repeated.  "She's too thick to live!"  The older sister stamped up the stairs and slammed the door of her room.

Sam screamed after her, "Hey!  Just buy another one with your stupid VISA card!"

Mom sighed.  Theresa Salvador, Sam's mother, looked like Bonnie: tall and slim, pretty but dark-haired, the way Bonnie should be.  She turned back to the stove and checked the rice.  The kitchen filled with steam.  She asked, "Would you mind telling me this story from the beginning?  Without any accusations, please."

"Oh..."  Sam flopped into a kitchen chair.  She played with a butter knife, tapping her plate.  "Cam and I got on the wrong side of Terry O'Brien, that crud, and he's been after both of us.  I'm sorry this hasn't been much of a homecoming for you, Mom."

Mom poured corn into a microwave bowl.  She'd gotten home from Boston sooner than she'd expected, and enjoyed making a real dinner for her family.  She piffed.  "If you girls didn't fight, I'd worry.  What did you do to Terry?"

Sam fidgeted in her chair.  She didn't want to lie about poking around at the Seamore fishhouse, so she skipped that part.  "Terry doesn't like Cam because he's Asian, so he picks on him.  I photographed Terry doing it, and now he's after me."

"Terry O'Brien belongs in jail.  Yet his poor mother is so sweet.  I just don't understand.  How did you hook up with this Cam?  That's a boy, isn't it?"

More fidgeting.  "Yeah.  He's -- interested in photography.  He's an interesting guy -- for a boy."  Sam talked about Cam, about how smart he was, about his poor family in the trailer on the Dump Road, about how Dad had donated some clothes to Cam.  Mom nodded to all of it.

Mom said, "Tell you what.  Since they don't have a telephone, and this is Saturday night, how about if we drop over there tonight and you can introduce me?  It'd be nice to meet some new neighbors."

"Hunh?  Oh, sure.  I suppose..."

Sam shook her head.  Why was it that, kids could never surprise their parents, but parents could always surprise kids?







Chapter 7


Mom and Sam perched on the warped trailer porch and knocked on the rattly door.  Sam bit a fingernail.  She wondered if Cam even wanted to see her.  Had he stayed home from school to avoid her?

The door creaked open and a smell of strange spices rolled out.  A black-eyed girl not three feet high looked out.  Mom said, "Hi.  May we come in?"

The sister turned and chattered in Vietnamese.  Cam came to the door in one of Dad's old flannel shirts.  The boy gaped in surprise.  "Oh.  Please come in."

Sam found that while the outside of the trailer was shabby, the inside was spotless, cleaner than her own house.  Worn counters and walls and shabby rugs glowed from polishing or sweeping.  But the place was so small it reminded Sam of a kid's playhouse.  A squozed kitchen, a living room with barely enough room to walk through, and a itty-bitty hall leading to the back.  The only furniture was a breakfast table in the kitchen, two worn couches, and a black-and-white TV.  The couches were covered with people.

The television was turned off, and Mom and Sam were introduced to everyone in the place, shaking hands all around.  They started with the oldest, a grandmother, wrinkled as an orange, but smiling brightly despite having no teeth.  There were two high-school age sisters, a quiet one and a chatterbox.  They had schoolbooks on their laps.  Then Mom met Cam.  Then a little brother, all head and elbows, and two small sisters.  Mom and the kids all wore clean old American clothes, but the grandmother wore some kind of black pajamas.  Sam, who had never been tall, felt like the Bride of Frankenstein towering over these tiny people.  Mister Nguen was not home, Cam explained.

Smiling, the grandmother gabbled something in Vietnamese.  The language was full of Ds and Ks, but musical, like a bonging of bells.  A little sister said, "My grandmother says Cam has spoken well of you.  She says it's nice to see Cam make new friends."

"Th-thank you," Sam said.  She tried not to blush.  Cam's sisters giggled.

Sam was urged towards a seat.  Mom and Mrs Nguen went into the kitchen.  Mrs Nguen spoke halting English and a little sister helped translate.  They chattered like old friends.  Mothers can always talk about their kids, Sam thought, no matter where they came from.

After a little while, Sam was served a cup of tea and a tiny sliver of coffeecake that Mom had bought on the way over.  "I'm sorry I didn't have time to make the real thing, but I'll do better next time," Mom told Mrs Nguen, who smiled back.

Everyone was served, and they ate and drank as if this party were the biggest celebration of the season.  Maybe it was, Sam thought.  They probably didn't get many visitors.  Mom talked to Cam's mother about "community services".  "I don't want to pry, Mrs Nguen, but are you receiving food stamps?  You should be.  These days, half the people in Washington county get them.  It's certainly no disgrace.  Tony and I got them when I was carrying Sam."

Sam choked on a coffeecake crumb.  "What?  Mom, I never knew you got food stamps."

Mom sipped tea.  "Your father doesn't like to talk about it, but there was a time when I was pregnant, fishing was off, and Dad hurt his back.  We didn't have enough money for me to eat properly, so we got food stamps for about six months.  Everyone can use a little help now and then.  Now, Mrs Nguen.  Have you talked to the Department of Human Services..."  The mothers talked on.

One of the older sisters, the chatterbox, asked, "Excuse me, Sam, but what is `emancipate'?"

"Hunh?"  Sam noticed again the notebooks on the girls' laps.  They were studying on Saturday night.  Yuck.  "Um...  Emancipate means to free the slaves, doesn't it?  That's what the Civil War was about.  Why?  You got a history test?"

The girl shook her head.  She was very pretty in a bony way, like a model.  Her hair was long and glossy and black and fell almost to her waist.  She wore a baggy BUM sweatshirt.  "No, we're studying for our citizenship tests.  The whole family studies together.  We have to know American history."

"Then you'll probably know more than me.  But don't you have a dictionary?"  Sam could have bitten her tongue.  These people had almost nothing.  "Um, I can give you one.  I got an extra one for Christmas."  Sam more junk in her room than these people had in the whole house.

The girls and Cam talked some more.  Sam looked at their practice books and answered what questions she could.  She told them too about the Reference Room at the library.  They hadn't known that was free.  Before she realized it, Sam promised to meet them Monday after school and show them around.

It was talk of downtown that reminded Sam of her problem.  She asked Cam, "Can I see you outside for a minute?"  They grabbed their jackets and went outside "for a breath of air."  The sisters giggled again and Sam blushed.  After the warm spicy house, the air was sharp with pine sap.  The air was warmer than days before: maybe this was Indian summer.

Sam told Cam about the theft of the videocamera and tapes, and how she suspected Terry O'Brien.

"Him again.  He cost me two days of missed school because of the bump on my head."  He looked sheepish.  "Any time I get in trouble, my mother keeps me home where it's safe."

"We call that grounded, and I know all about it."

Sam mentioned her dad's hints that Seamore might be smuggling drugs.  "It's a big building and people go in and out all day and night.  Creepy people like Terry.  They could be smuggling elephants for all anyone knows."

"We can't do anything about that."  Cam added sadly, "I hope Huan isn't involved.  But he must be."

"What did your family say about him?  You showed them the picture, didn't you?"

The boy shook his head.  "Not yet.  It will break their hearts to hear that Huan is in America illegally.  Hey, who's this?.."

Headlights shone in their eyes as a big car pulled up to the trailer.  A small Asian man got out.  It was Cam's father.

The driver was Mister Reeve of the INS.  He called, "... Remember what I said.  I'd hate to do it, but rules are rules."

The car drove off.  Cam introduced Sam as "a friend from school".  Mister Nguen shook her hand, glad to meet her.  Even tired, he had a twinkle in his eye, like Sam's father.

Cam asked, "How did the job-hunting go today, Father?"

Mister Nguen shook his head.  "Much the same.  I may get a job in a fish packing plant, but it's in Machias.  I don't know if the bus runs there."

"Why did you --" Cam hesitated, but finally asked, "Why did that man give you a ride?"

Mister Nguen sighed.  "He is with the INS.  He asked me some questions.  About the family."  Sam wondered if he'd mentioned Huan.

Cam asked, "What did that last part about `rules are rules' mean?"

Mister Nguen clearly didn't want to answer questions.  But he said, "He says... we may have to return to Vietnam if I can't find work soon.  We may be deported."







Chapter 8


"What?" Sam blurted.  "He said that?  No way!  That's a lie!"

The man and boy stared at her.  Sam plowed on.  "I mean --  I don't know much about immigration -- I don't know anything about it -- but we don't just throw somebody out of the country without a decent chance!  This is America!  Sir.  If you come to this country and you work hard or try to work hard, you get to stay and that's all there is to it!  That's what my dad says, and my mom too."

Light spilled over them as Mrs Nguen opened the front door.  Mister Nguen smiled as if nothing were wrong.  "I am encouraged to hear you say that, young lady.  Thank you.  Excuse me."  He shook Sam's hand again and trudged to the trailer door.

Sam snorted.  "That Mister Reeve gives me a pain.  You know he's got a seventy thousand dollar yacht?"

Cam stared.  "Seventy thousand dollars?"

"There's something weird going on, Cam."  Sam huffed, her temper fading again.  "And it started when we snuck down to the Seamore fish plant.  There's something fishy down there, and no joke."

"Snuck?"

"Sneaked.  Since then, we've been chased, you've been slapped around, I've been robbed, and we've both been threatened.  We oughta go poke around some more.  Sneak inside if we have to.  Cripes, my dad will kill me if we get caught.  But I'd get a story out of it, like a real reporter.  And you might find out about your brother.  We'll do it tonight.  Are you on?"

Cam looked back at the trailer.  Then he nodded.  "Okay."

They shook on it.






Once again they slunk between stacks of lobster pots.  Sam wondered if the Seamore guys would be watching out here.  Or would they figure they'd scared her off?  How did spies keep from going crazy?

Sam hadn't given her parents a reason for going out.  Bonnie was off on a date, and Mom and Dad had slipped upstairs.  Sam could have biked off packing a gun and suitcase.  She didn't know what Cam had told his family to get free.

The two kids studied the building.  It was dark as ever.  Even the office lights were off.  At the other end was a short wharf, and Sam knew the whole other side of the building stood directly over the harbor.  It was quiet for a Saturday night, and warmer than ever.  After days of wearing jackets, people would be back to T-shirts soon.  The only sounds were cars on the road, slappings of waves under the pier, clonking of boats against their moorings.  But from inside the building came a humming and rushing noise, like a bumblebee.

"Forklift," whispered Cam.  "With a butane tank for power."

"How do you know that?" Sam hissed back.

"I used to drive one in my father's factory.  An old one left behind when the Americans retreated."

"So there's at least one guy in there."

"Working.  Busy."

Sam's hands were shaking with nervousness.  "Let's go before we change our minds."

They looked in every direction, even up, then scurried across the parking lot.  They scooched in front of the office steps, feeling like idiots, then Sam took a breath and yanked open the screen door.  Up the steps they went, and inside, not breathing.

Sam's heart thumped so hard it almost knocked her over.  They peered around in the dark space before the office.

The warehouse was one giant room full of stuff.  They could see by a strip of lighting that ran along the ceiling.  Only one of the three strips was lit, so the big room was dim.  The dark office was at this end, behind them.  It had glass walls and one door.  Along both walls for a ways were wide wooden doors with stainless steel handles.  Sam knew they were coolers: giant refrigerators.  Ten coolers, each the size of a small garage.  Down the middle of the room were long steel tables for cutting and packing fish.  Then the rest of the warehouse was filled with square gray plastic bins big as dumpsters.  The bins were stacked three- or four-high like kid's blocks.  Near the end of the warehouse, two hundred feet away, a forklift driver shuffled bins, picking them up and moving them around.  A set of double doors down there were closed.  The floor was cool concrete.

The whole building smelled like one giant dead cold fish.

Far down, the forklift swivelled back and forth.  Sam hoped that was the only worker.  Or guard.  Panting, she grabbed Cam's arm and pulled him into the office.  They scooched below a desk and felt safer.  A little.

"What now?" Cam panted like Sam.

"I don't know!  Look for clues, like the Hardy Boys!"

The office had three cluttered desks, a large safe in the corner, a plain worktable, a row of file cabinets, a printer against one wall.  Sam looked around and felt ridiculous.  How were they supposed to find anything useful?

Hunched over, she poked her head up alongside a desk and peered at papers in the dim light.  They had the names of companies and restaurants and tons of numbers.  She tried a drawer.  Locked.  What if somebody came in here suddenly?  She'd die.  How many laws were they breaking?  What did they do to kids they caught?  Send them to reform school?

She jumped a foot in the air when Cam hissed, "I've found something!"

Sam scooted in his direction.  The boy had a box on the floor.  "I found this under the worktable.  Look!"

Inside the box were bottles of rubber cement, sheets of clear plastic, and Polaroid pictures.  Sam squinted at one.  It was the face of an Asian man standing against a white wall.  He looked Vietnamese and very serious.  He had lank hair hanging almost in his eyes and a black mole on his left cheek.  Sam hissed, "Do you know this guy?"

Nervous, Cam snapped at her.  "No, I don't know him!  Am I supposed to know everyone in Asia?  You're American.  Do you know Madonna?"

Sam bit her tongue.  "Weird stuff for a fish packing plant.  I don't think these guys work for Seamore.  They don't have any Asians."

"They've got my brother," Cam grunted.  "These are all Asians.  Hmm..."

Sam was so nervous and scared she wanted to cry.  This was stupid!  Here was some kind of clue -- maybe -- and she didn't know what to do with it.  Suddenly she just wanted to go.  "Let's get out of here."

"Okay."  Cam slapped the boxtop on, slid it back into place.

Sam crept to the office door.  The forklift sat at the end of the warehouse, still running, but the driver was gone.  Then Sam saw a flicker of red at an open door, where the wharf was.  A cigarette.  No smoking in the warehouse, she thought.  Fish was food.

Another flicker of red caught Sam's eye.  Down the left-hand wall, on the harbor side, a red light glowed like a ruby.  It was next to a cooler door.  What did that mean?  She pointed it out to Cam, but he didn't know either.

Sam's knees were quaking, but her curiousity was ready to go.  The guard had closed the door.  She heard a chipping sound, chopping ice.  "Stay here!"

Trying to make herself pancake-thin, Sam slunk down the wall towards the red light.  Up close, she noticed each cooler had a big round thermometer.  The first registered forty degrees.  There were dials under the thermometer, and a light switch.  And a big bar that could swing across the door to lock it.

Carefully, Sam grabbed a door handle and tugged.  Then she jerked.  The latch clicked and the door swung open.  Cold air washed over her.  It stayed dark inside: the light wasn't automatic, as with a refrigerator.  By the dim overhead light, she saw the cooler held two bins full of ice and lobsters.

But what did the red light down there mean?

Hugging the floor, she slunk towards that red light, as if it were a dragon's eye that hypnotized her.

Finally she reached the last cooler, the one with the red light.  Its thermometer registered sixty-five degrees.  A funny temperature for lobsters, she thought.  Glancing towards the far end, listening -- the guy was still shoveling ice -- she jerked the handle.

Light spilled over her and she almost screamed.

So that's what the red light indicated!  The inside light was on!  Hurriedly she pushed the door shut.

But her brain buzzed at what she'd seen.

"Cam! C'mere!"






Cam almost slid on his belly like an alligator.  "What is it?"

Sam indicated the door.  "When I open this, hop inside.  It's okay, there's a handle on the inside too.  Ready?"

"What?  Inside?"

Sam jerked the door open, shoved him inside, jumped after him, and slammed the door.

"Wow!" gasped Cam.

The cooler was actually a bunkroom.  There were four bunkbeds built along the walls, eight beds in all.  There was a plastic portable toilet and an electric heater.  A television sat on a wire stand with a VCR.  Under the bunkbeds were boxes filled with cans of food, magazines, and videotapes.

Still in a whisper, Cam asked, "What is this place?"

"Some kind of hideout, I guess."  Sam whispered too.  "Maybe for creeps like Terry O'Brien when the police are looking for him.  What are those faces for?"

Cam walked over to a bunkbed.  The posts were two-by-fours, and someone had carved funny faces with round cheeks and pointed noses into the wood.  "This is something Asians do to kill time.  Like grafitti.  It's supposed to be good luck."

Sam slid out a box of videotapes.  "Boy, these are strange."  Two of the tapes were action films, Arnold Schwartzenegger and Bruce Lee.  But the rest were Sesame Street, Dr Seuss ABCs, and Mister Rogers.  There were also two blank tapes, good-quality, like the ones Sam had bought for Bonnie's MTV video.

"Who would watch kid vids?" Sam asked.  "They'd get awful bored --"

The latch snapped and Sam's heart banged so hard in her chest she thought she'd explode.

The door jerked open.  Standing there was the forklift driver in blue jeans and a red shirt and a Black Devils leather jacket.

"What are you doing in here?"

Completely rattled, Sam couldn't breathe, let alone talk.  Cam stood like a stone statue.

"Never mind!" the guard grunted.  "The boss'll fix you."

He slammed the heavy door.  The bar dropped in place, locking them in.

Then the light snapped off and plunged them in blackness.







Chapter 9


Blind, Sam fumbled, hands in front of her.  She pronged a finger on the television, finally poked the right switch.  The set winked on.  Sparkly TV-snow lit the room.

By the flickering white light, she looked for Cam.  He sat on the edge of a bunkbed.  His knuckles were white on the wood.  Sam flicked the channel selector for better light, but got only static.  "A cooler's not a great place for TV reception."  The joke fell flat.

She plunked down on the rough blanket beside him.  She fought not to cry.  "What do we do now?"

"Uh, maybe I can pry the door open."  Cam shuddered, "If I can find a tool..."

"No way, Jose'.  I heard that bar slam.  We're locked in.  And nobody knows where we are."

"The guard knows."

Sam hugged her knees.  "Great."

Cam got up, stiff as an old man.  He hunted under the beds.  "I need a tool."

"It won't do any good!"  Sam suddenly screamed at him, crying.  "It's hopeless!  We're trapped!"

Cam slid boxes from under the bed.  "Yes, yes.  But we must do something or we'll go crazy.  Why don't you check the VCR?  You're the camera person."

"It was cameras got me stuck in here.  And my own stupid curiousity!"  Sam hiccuped, then took a deep breath.  Cam was right.  She better keep busy.

She crept across the floor and slid out the stack of videotapes.  Kids' tapes and action films.  Useless.  But she wondered what the blank tapes held.  She picked one, powered on the VCR, and slid in the tape.

Cam found a butterknife and attacked the latch.

Sam asked, "Can you get it?"

"I don't know.  Maybe I can twirl the screws out..."

Both of them jumped as a cheery voice sang out, "Welcome to the Six O'clock News.  I'm Samantha Salvador.  In London today another bomb has gone off in a dense shopping district.  No one is believed killed, but thirteen people were hospitalized --"

Cam dropped the butterknife.  Sam jerked down the volume.  She almost snapped the switch off, she was so surprised.  The screen flickered, and suddenly Bonnie was dancing along the stone wall in the park.  A fishing boat cruised into the harbor with seagulls trailing behind.

Sam shook her head.  "This is my tape, the one they stole out of Bonnie's car with the videocamera..."

"So what?"  Cam scratched his black head with the butterknife.  "Terry O'Brien works here, and he probably stole your tape."

"Boy," Sam sighed, "I'll bet he knows everything that's going on..."

Cam picked at the door hardware.  Sam sat and thought, feeling very stupid.  Seeing her sister made her suddenly homesick.  She wished she'd never come near this place --

In the quiet came a loud snap.  The door creaked.  Slowly, Cam put out a hand and pushed.  The door swung wide.

Sam wanted to shout, but hissed instead, "Cam!  You did it!"

"I didn't do anything.  The door opened by itself!"






"Never mind!"  Sam jabbed the EJECT button on the VCR.  The tape slid out of the machine and Sam stuffed it into the black case.  She grabbed Cam's jacket and almost jumped out the door.

"Quiet," he warned.  "I hear voices."

In the office, forty feet away, four men stood in the dark and argued about something.  Sam wondered if one of those men had unlocked the door -- but why would they?

Cam slid past her and nodded towards the far end of the warehouse.  "Come on!"

Sam gulped and nodded.  She slid the videotape box into a flap pocket of her jacket and slunk after him.

They didn't get far.  A wall of plastic fish bins blocked their way.  If they went around, they'd have to step into the central aisle down the middle of the warehouse -- right under the light.  The guys at the office would see them.

Cam whispered, "Up!"  He made a stirrup with his hands.  Breathing so hard her chest hurt, Sam stepped in his hands, grabbed a plastic edge, and climbed.

These plastic bins usually had square tops that clamped on for shipping, but not tonight.  Climbing to the top bin, Sam found a ton of green-silver wall-eyed cod staring at her.  Chips of ice surrounded the fish.

Sam had seen plenty of dead fish in her father's boat, but she'd never had to get close.  Now she gritted her teeth and put out a knee.  It sank into a squishy slimy fish and she almost gagged.  She crawled on, over the fish and ice.  The ceiling was only about two feet above her, and she hoped the guys at the office didn't see her up here.

She eased across the bin and climbed down the other side to the floor.  "Blech!" she hissed.  Her palms and knees were chilled with slime.  She'd never feel clean again.

With a swish and a clump, Cam dropped down beside her.  They were in another alleyway, facing more bins, but this stack didn't touch the back wall.  Sucking in their breath, they squeezed around it.  Sam's jacket dragged in slime and dirt.  She'd have a lot of explaining to do when she got home.  If she got home.

They had to climb over the next stack, iced lobsters this time.  Sam dropped to the floor, and Cam was halfway across the top, when a shout crashed on their ears.

"Hey!  They're getting away!"






Cam jumped from the top of the bin, almost landing on Sam.  His feet crashed on the concrete floor so hard Sam thought he'd sprained both ankles.  But he grabbed Sam, spun her around, and pushed.  "Run!  For the end doors!"

"What about you?"

Another sharp shove.  "Go!"

Sam stumbled out of the alleyway between bins to find three men clattering after her.  She dashed for the end of the building and squirted around the forklift, which the driver had left chugging.

The doors across the end of the building led out onto the dock.  Sam shoved at them.  They were big as barn doors, and they didn't move.  Sam saw why.  They were sealed by a huge steel lock.

Desperate, feeling like a rat in a trap, Sam looked for another way out.  The only other exit was a long sliding door that faced the harbor.

It was locked too.  Now she really was trapped.  Bins on one side, the wall to the other, the long door behind her.

The three men ran into the space after her.

The first was the Black Devil guard.  Another was a local fisherman.  And the last was an Asian in a yellow jacket.  He looked like one of the men in the box of Polaroids.

The Black Devil came at Sam slowly, his hands out for protection, as if she were a tiger.  Sam felt more like a kitten, a blind one.  She was crying with fright now, but she didn't care.

The guard stopped five feet away.  "Okay, baby, settle down.  Where's your buddy?  What are you guys doing in here?  We can't let you run loose, you know that?"

Sam wanted to scream.  He was only talking so he could get close and grab her.  The other two men watched, as if unsure what to do with a trespasser.

The guard hopped and snagged Sam's wrist.  She whapped at him with her free hand, but he caught that too.  Fishermen were incredibly strong.  When he squeezed her wrists Sam thought they'd break.  He was so close she could smell cigarettes on his breath.  "Come on, baby, we're not going to hurt you --"

A roar sounded behind him.  A gear chunked and the forklift whined.  The three men glanced over their shoulders.

Cam sat on the forklift, the black wheel clenched in two hands.

He raced the hot engine.  And charged right at the four people.






The two men in back yelled and flattened against the wall and bins.  The guard tried to tug Sam to one side.  But Sam fought back, pulling him off-balance.  The man let go to get out of the way.  Sam mashed herself into the corner.

Cam raced full tilt at the door.  The small rubber wheels squeaked.  The long steel forks, sticking straight out like giant sword blades, flashed by the cowering people.

The blades hit the door and punched twin holes with a splintering noise.  The front face of the forklift smashed into the door with a horrendous crash.  The door leaped off its track and splashed into the harbor.

Cam and the forklift went with it.

The front wheels of the big machine dropped over the lip of the floor, the body screeked along the wood, then the end flipped high and the forklift pitched out the splintered hole.

A thunderous boosh sounded.  The machine disappeared into the water.  Sam glimpsed Cam diving out of the driver's seat, but she lost sight on him in the dark.

The guard stood stunned, staring at the hole.  Maybe he was trying to think what he'd tell his boss.  The other two men stayed against the wall.  Sam wondered if Cam were all right.  The water below the door was deep enough for fishing boats, so was probably safe to dive into.  But it would be bone-chilling cold...

The guard remembered Sam.  He grabbed at her.

"Oh, dear," said the girl.  She slipped past the guard and jumped out the hole.

Into blackness.






Sam hit with a crash.  She plunged deep, and the water closed over her head.

After a warm summer, the salt water was still only fifty degrees.  Very cold.  The icy shock clamped around Sam like a giant fist and squeezed out every ounce of breath.  She almost sucked a lungful of water in her surprise.  But she remembered enough to kick and stroke, and she broke the surface, gasping and wheezing.

Out of breath, her lungs deflated, she started to sink again.  She forced her aching arms and legs to churn, treading water.  I better start swimming, she thought wildly, or I'll go to the bottom and stay there.

Floundering like a crippled gull, bogged down by her soaked jacket and jeans and high-top sneakers, she aimed for the town dock.  Chilled and numbed as her brain was, she knew better than to crawl onto Seamore property: those guys would just be waiting for her.  And it was only -- holy mackerel! -- two hundred icy feet to the town docks.

As she plowed through the water, her body felt a little warmer.  But her hands flailed the surface like a bunch of sausages.  Steadily she pushed on, surprised the cold didn't kill her.  The evening breeze felt like hailstones bouncing off her forehead.  She kept her eyes fixed on the streetlight that illuminated the town dock.  How long did it take to freeze to death in cold water?

Once she saw a flash of creamy white nearby.  Was that Cam?  Did he even know how to swim?

A wave slapped in Sam's mouth and she choked, swallowed bitter seawater.  How much further?  She was so tired all of a sudden.

Something hollow boomed near her head.  An aluminum rowboat.  There were dozens of them tied around the town dock.  But was this one tied to the dock or out at a mooring?  How much further?

A black thing loomed on her right.  Another boat.  If she wasn't careful, she'd bash her skull in.  She veered around that boat, every muscle hurting, but almost ran into another boat.

Where was the dock?  Gasping, she shoved through the bobbing boats.  Then she saw the streetlight overhead, then the gray line of the dock's edge.  She had made it!

Treading water, she batted a hand up onto the dock, trying to grab a cleat or rope.  But her fingers couldn't grab hold.  They bounced off the dock without closing.  Her hands were dead with cold.

Oh, great, she thought.  I'm going to drown one foot from the dock.

A wave flicked off a boat and slapped her in the mouth again.  She choked and lost what little breath she had.

Chin deep and deflated, Sam slipped below the surface.

This time it would be forever.






Chapter 10


Panic rang in Sam's brain.  She was half-frozen, full of sea water, sinking like an anchor, and all alone.  She was going to die out here.  Her reporter-mind pictured the headline: LUBEC GIRL DROWNS OFF DOCK.  Or NOSY IDIOT GETS WHAT SHE DESERVES.  God, she'd been so stupid!

She kicked back to the surface, wildly now.  She sobbed for air.  "Help!!!"

Something grabbed her hair and wrenched.  Pain ripped through her skull.  But her head stayed above the surface.  She snatched a breath of cold, sweet air.

Someone grabbed her jacket.  With water in her eyes and pain in her head, she couldn't see who was hunched over her.  A man leaned from the dock.  Oh, no!  One of the Seamore thugs!  She'd go right back to the cooler, a prisoner!  But at least she wouldn't die, and she'd be warm...

"Come on!  Help, stupid!  You're heavy!"

It was Cam.

Grabbing as best she could, with Cam hauling, she flopped on the dock like a beached whale.  Water ran out of her clothes in streams.  The cold air hit her like a baseball bat.

"I'm not heavy!"  Sam coughed and retched.  "I was full of water!"

"Come on!  We've got to hide!"  Cam yanked as if he'd rip her arms off.  His teeth chattered so hard Sam could barely understand him.  Her teeth clicked so hard they hurt.

She pushed to her feet.  For a scary second she thought she'd fall into the water again, but she tottered after Cam down the dock.  Their feet left sloshy footprints that glistened in the streetlight, as if sea monsters had invaded the shore.

They sploshed up off the dock and into the public parking lot.  Sam had been here just hours ago when she visited her father.  It seemed like years.  There were only five or six cars in the lot, and they'd be locked.  They couldn't hide in them.

The boy caught Sam's sleeve.  He towed her in a circle so their feet slid on gravel.  "What are you doing?"

He didn't answer.  He aimed straight for a knee-high stone wall.  Along the top of the wall was a screen of pine trees.  Cam shoved among them and Sam followed.  The line of trees had a chainlink fence behind it.  The kids scooched down by the fence and peered through the trees.  The smell of pine resin filled their noses.

Moving had made Sam warmer, and her teeth stopped chattering.  Mostly she just wanted to rest.  But she was afraid she'd freeze solid.  "How'd you -- get out -- of the water?"

"I climbed up the -- launching ramp."

Of course, Sam thought.  The concrete ramp was where people backed their trailers and launched their boats.  The slope was so gentle a baby could crawl up it.  Why hadn't Sam thought of that?

"We've got to -- get -- home," Cam chattered.  "Get warm."

"We should -- get to a -- hospital!" Sam corrected.  "Didn't you take -- CPR -- in Boy Scouts?  Hypothermia?  Pneumonia?  I almost -- drowned!"

"Shh!"

They heard voices down at the dock.  Three men, Sam guessed.  (But there had been four men in the warehouse.  Where was the fourth guy?)  The men kept their voices low.  Sam squatted behind the trees.  Not much protection if the guys really looked, she thought.

One man shone a flashlight around.  Someone spotted their shiny wet footprints and yelped.

"Oh, g-great," Sam whispered.  "Here they c-come."

The men trotted into the parking lot.  They were fifty feet from the trees.  But they lost the footprints in the gravel Cam had led Sam through.  The man with the flashlight peered inside the parked cars.

Then Sam ducked.  The light flickered across the pines.  An American voice called, "Look in those trees!"






"They'll find us!" Sam hissed.

But the searchers were interrupted as a truck horn blared in the night.  The man pointed the flashlight away.

Sam guessed the truck was over in the Seamore parking lot.  The three men listened.  A fourth man shouted from the distant parking lot.  Sam held her breath.  Who was tooting the horn?  And why?

The leader with the flashlight grabbed one of the other men, and they dashed off.  The man left behind started towards the pine trees.

Cam plucked at Sam's sleeve.  Together they eased along the chainlink fence.  They tried not to brush against the pine branches, but in some cases the branches stuck through the links and they had to crawl under.  The rustling sounded like a tornado to Sam.

They crept along, half-frozen and stumbling, for twenty feet.  Then Cam tripped and fell.  He snapped off a pine branch.  It sounded like a pistol shot.  The man in the parking lot came running.

Sam pulled Cam to his feet.  "C'mon!"

They bulled past pine branches, reached the end of the screen, and hopped down the knee-high wall into the parking lot.  The thug -- any Seamore guy was a thug -- clattered after them in heavy boots.  Sam's thoughts raced.  They couldn't fight the guy, and they couldn't outrun him.  They were cooked.

Cam suddenly turned to fight.  "Go ahead, Sam!  I'll stay here!"

Sam stopped too.  "Don't be stupid!  He'll --"

They were interrupted by the roar of a truck engine.  Headlights blinded them.  Brakes squeaked, tires scrunched on gravel.  The truck swept by them, almost grazing them with the bumper.  Then it screeched to a halt.

We're toast, Sam thought.

The driver bounded out of the truck, but he didn't run after the kids.  Instead, he ran at the thug pursuing them.  The kids couldn't see more than the man's outline in the semi-darkness near the truck headlights.  He seemed tall and thin.

The driver yelled something at the thug, a foreign command.  The thug stopped, puzzled.  He pointed at Sam and Cam.

The driver suddenly grabbed him.  The two men grappled.  Then fell.

Cam stared, fascinated.  Sam banged his shoulder.  "Move!"

They moved, pelting down the street, keeping to the shadows along the fronts of the warehouses and fishhouses.  They were warm by now.

They found their bikes parked in a fishhouse alley.  Sam pushed hers into the road and threw her leg over the top.  Behind her, Cam mounted his squeaky junker.  He called, "Who was that guy?"

"I don't care!  I'm going home!  And I hope my parents don't kill me for almost getting killed!"






The house was mostly dark when Sam pedalled into the driveway.  She left her bike outside, too tired to open the garage door, and crept in quietly.

The living room was dark except for the blue glow of the TV.  Bonnie turned and looked at her.  "Where have you been?  It's late!  And you're all wet!"

"Shhh!!!"  Sam's teeth chattered still.  "Wh-wh-where are M-Mom and Dad?"

Bonnie rolled her eyes at the stairs.  "Upstairs, with the door closed.  They're `engaged'."

"G-good."  Sam started for the stairway.  "P-pretend you didn't s-see me."

"But what happened?"

"I f-fell off the d-dock."

"Are you crazy?  That water's freezing!"

Sam squished her way upstairs.  "You're a g-genius, B-Bonnie."

Five minutes later, Sam was in a blazing hot shower, slimy greasy salty clothes and all.






Chapter 11


Bundled in a blanket, sipping hot tea, Sam sat in front of the television set and sighed.  By now, noon the next day, a Sunday, Sam felt a little warmer, though she believed her liver was still frozen solid.

She thumbed the remote control again.  She had had to screw apart the videocassette, rinse the film in the sink, then dry every inch with her hairdryer and rewind the tape by hand.  The heat from the dryer had felt wonderful, but it had taken hours.

And all for nothing.

Clunky Bonnie jumped, pranced, stretched, and hopped like a bunny.  That same stupid lobster boat chugged by and the same stupid seagulls followed.  Sam didn't see anything on the film that might interest Terry O'Brien or anyone else at Seamore.  Why steal the camera and tape in the first place?  What were they hiding?

I'm wasting my time, she thought.  Straining my eyes for nothing.  Maybe there isn't anything.  Maybe this is the wrong tape: there had been two.  If only she had a bigger screen...

"Hey!"

Sam grabbed the phone and called Sherri Carpenter.  "Sherri?  Sam.  Hey, what are you doing right now?"

The sound of chewing gum smacked in Sam's ear.  "Nothing.  What is there to do on a Sunday afternoon?  Study?"

"Want to watch a video?"

Smack, snap.  "Sure.  What is it?  A new release?"

"Nooooo... it's something I shot myself.  It's got Bonnie dancing on it and -- other stuff."

More smacking.  "What the heck.  Bring it over.  Hey, see if a box of Fiddle Faddle and a bottle of Dr Pepper are attached."

Sam laughed.  "Oh, yeah.  Right here, stuck to the back of the box.  Special introductory offer.  Hey, can I bring a friend?"

"Male or female?"

"Uh, neuter."

"Like my cat?  This I've gotta see.  You better make it quick, though.  My father and brothers are going to hog the set for the game later on."

"I'll be right over."

Sam boxed the tape.  Now she just had to talk her sister in giving her a ride.  She smiled.  Easy.  Bonnie wouldn't be able to resist putting her face on wide-screen TV.

Sherri was Sam's best friend, honest and unsneaky, but she spent way too much time reading Seventeen magazine to decide how to dress and fix her hair.  Her eyes bugged like a cartoon character when she saw Cam.

"Oh, wow!  I mean -- wow!  Come on in, Sam, and uh..."

"Here's your junk food."  Sam shoved a bag into Sherri's arms.  Cam crept in, uneasy in such an expensive house.  Bonnie sailed in like a queen.  The Carpenters had a big house, new cars, a garage full of boats and sports equipment, and every electronic gadget money could buy.  The projected-screen TV was as wide as the wall of the den.  Speakers taller than Sam flanked the sides.  Terminator 2 was cranked.  The sound shook the house like an earthquake.  Arnold and his motorcycle looked life-sized and twice as dangerous.

In the kitchen, Sherri dropped the bag, pulled out the soda and the Fiddle Faddle.  "Hey, uh, Sam.  You been hanging around with, uh, Whatisname long?"

Sam shucked her jacket.  She helped Sherri chunk ice in glasses.  "Save the ditzy blonde act for the boys, Sherri.  His name is Cam.  You know that."

"Uh huh.  You guys, uh, working on a project together?"

"Sort of."

"Uh, you know, it's none of my business..."  Sherri tore at a box with her teeth.  "But people will think it's weird you hanging around with him.  They'll think you're going steady."


"So what?"  Sam shrugged.  "I'm not going with him.  And I don't care what people think.  Much.  Besides, he's a nice guy.  He's sweet, smart, he doesn't get grabby, and he's funny, too, when he relaxes."


"Oh, yeah?"  Sherri peered into the den at Cam.  "Too bad he's not..."

"What?  White?"

"Hey, no way!" Sherri bleated.  "No, it's too bad he's not -- taller."

"Me-ow, Sherri."

Moving into the den, Sam popped her videocassette into the two-deck VCR on a rack near the giant television.  Her practice broadcast came on: she groaned and grabbed the remote.  It was big as a schoolbook, with more buttons than the space shuttle dashboard.

Sherri plunked down on the couch alongside Sam.  Cam perched on a hassock as if he'd run away.  Bonnie hugged a bowl of candy popcorn to her chest and crunched.

"So what subject is this for?"  Sherri asked, "I want to get a boy assigned to me, too."

Sam grabbed Sherri's wrist.  "Sher, can we be serious a minute?  We need to study this film."

Her friend swigged Dr Pepper and burped through her nose.  "Phew!  Sorry!  Sure, what the heck.  Hey, that's Bonnie.  Oh, wow!"  She giggled at the dancing.  Bonnie glared at her.

Sam shushed her and watched.  The images were startling: they almost jumped off the screen.  Colors sparkled like a house fire.  Sam thought she'd go blind after ten minutes.

People were quiet.  In large format, the video looked worse than ever.  Bonnie danced like a cow on its hind legs.  With the enhanced sound, they could hear her grunt the lip-synching.  Even Bonnie could see she was terrible, and Sam felt embarrassed.  She might hate her sister most of the time, but now she felt sorry for her.

Bonnie slammed the empty bowl on the table.  "I'm sick of this.  Let's go."  She fished her keys out of her pocket.

Sam stopped the tape.  "Uh, Bon.  I wanted to study, uh, my technique."  Actually, she wanted to look for clues, but she couldn't say that.

"Be my guest!"  Bonnie was already down the hall.  "Find your own way home!"  The front door slammed.

Sam got up, but Sherri promised one of her brothers could give them a ride when they came for the game.  Relieved, Sam sat down.  Typical of Bonnie, she thought, to strand her here in a snit.  Over her own lousy lack-of talent.

"Wow," Sherri said.  "With dancing like that, Bonnie could make a guest appearance on Wild America.  She looks like my cat with a bug stuck in her nose."

Sam laughed.  At least with Bonnie gone, they could make fun of her.

They studied the tape all the way through.

And saw nothing much.

"Cam?" Sam asked.

The Asian boy shrugged.  He'd eaten all the remaining junk food, as much as the three girls put together.  "I didn't see anything special.  You shot in front of the Seamore building for a while.  Maybe that's it..."

Sherri tucked gum in her mouth.  "You still haven't told me what you're looking for.  What's the Seamore building?  Isn't that a seafood plant?"

Sam nodded dully.  She rewound the tape to the building and then advanced the film frame-by-frame.  They could see a dozen trucks parked in the building's parking lot when Bonnie's dancing didn't get in the way.  Maybe one of the trucks belonged to a known criminal, Sam thought.  She jotted down the plate numbers she could see, all Mainers.  She backed the film to the beginning of Bonnie's dancing.

Cam burst out, "Look there!"

"What?"  Sam stopped the film where the rusty lobster boat chugged into the harbor.  It was like any other fishing boat, painted green and streaked with rust, heaped with pots and lines.

Cam ran up to the screen and put his finger on the boat's cabin.  "Back up, back up!"

"I don't see anything!"  Sam reversed the film frame-by-frame.  The boat jogged up and down in the water like a kid's tugboat in the bathtub.  The gulls flicked their wings.

"Right -- there!  Stop!" the boy called.  Sam and Sherri came up close and squinted at the screen.  Cam had his finger on the boat's cabin.

There was a face at a porthole.

Sam squinted.  Up close the picture was so grainy it looked like a jigsaw puzzle.

"Hey, watch this."  Sherri snatched the remote from Sam's hand and pointed it at the screen like a gun.  A white dot appeared at one corner of the porthole, then another dot at the opposite corner.  A click, and the porthole exploded on the screen, magnified ten times larger than life-size.

Framed in the porthole, like some fish in a tank, was an Asian face.

"Who's that?" Sam asked.

Frozen, blurry, the man's face looked anxious as he peered out the porthole at something on the shore.  The Seamore building? Sam wondered.

"We know this guy!"  Cam pointed to the man's cheek.  A dark mole sprouted there.  "His picture was in the box in the Seamore office!"

"Oh, yeah!  I remember the mole now!..  But what's he doing on a lobster boat?  No Asians work on lobster boats, I don't think.  And he sure isn't taking a cruise..."

Sherri hopped in place like a little kid who had to pee.  "What are you guys talking about?"

Sam just looked at her.  "I don't know."






Chapter  12


Sam took a deep breath and pushed open the front door.  The smell of baking lasagne greeted her.  The aroma made her homesick even though she was home.  Maybe it was paranoia making her miserable.  All the way home, in Sherri's brother's car, she have felt as if someone were watching her, out to get her.  She felt like a deer on the first day of hunting season.

It was time to clue in her parents.

They were in the kitchen.  Dad read the Sunday paper, keeping his wife company as she made a salad.  Mom wore an embroidered blouse and flowered skirt, dressed up just a little for dinner.  "Hello, honey.  What have you been up to?"

Sam took a carrot stick and crunched on it.  She almost blurted the whole story right then and there, but a reporter had to stay cool.  Make the story clear and short, she thought.  And don't let your voice tremble.

"Oh...  I was poking around near the water.  Hey, Dad, do any Asians work on fishing boats?"

Dad dropped his paper.  He had shaved for dinner and put on a dressy shirt.  "No.  Why?"

Sam remembered she wasn't the only curious person in the family.  "I saw a guy on a fishing boat coming in.  He was Asian, maybe Vietnamese, like Cam.  He wouldn't be a passenger, would he?"

"No."  Dad crinkled his paper.  "Whose boat was it?"

"Um, I couldn't see the name.  It's a green boat, rusty, all piled with pots."

The paper went up like a curtain.  "Only about a hundred boats are green and rusty.  Who knows?  Maybe the guy's a tryout.  We got every kind of guy working boats.  We even got one black guy, Les Halley."

"Why all the curiousity, hon?" Mom asked.  She chopped carrots on a wooden cutting board.

"I'm just poking around, like a real reporter."

Dad dropped his paper.  He frowned.  "Poking around where?  You stay away from them fishermen if I'm not around.  Some of those guys are animals.  They get drunk, half in the bag, they'd drag you into a cabin before you could scream."

Mom said, "Tony..."

"It's true!  The dock's no place for a girl alone.  Where've you been `poking around'?"

Sam felt a flush creeping up her face.  Nervous, she began to stammer.  "I was -- watching the Seamore fish plant.  There's something funny going on in there."

Tony Salvador dropped the paper entirely.  "Damn straight there's something funny going on there.  Those guys are a bunch of crooks!"

Mom said, "Tony, you don't know that."

"Everybody up and down the damned coast knows it!  They're always smuggling something, or picking other guys' traps, hauling God knows what out to sea to dump for the Mafia --"

"Tony," Mom's voice was gentle.  "Watch your language."

Dad stood up and pointed a thick finger like a fish gaff at Sam's nose.  "You better stay the -- stay away from Seamore.  What have you been up to?"

Sam had backed against the wall between the microwave and the telephone table.  She was trapped.  "Look, Dad.  We know they're up to something illegal.  They always are.  You said so.  Cam and I -- we snuck in the other night and we found some photos, little square pictures of Asian guys.  And inside one of the coolers there's this bunkroom, a hideout, with beds and food and everything.  So they've gotta be --"

She didn't get any farther.  Her father had gotten red, and had started to quiver.  Like a volcano.  Now he exploded.  He didn't swear -- he had too much to say.  "Are you out of your mind?  That's trespassing!  Breaking and entering!  You could go to jail for that!  And do you know what those guys do to their girlfriends, girls they like, at their parties?  You wouldn't believe it!  They could grab you and you'd disappear!  They'd dump your body at sea!  You're crazy!  You're nuts!  You're --"

He ranted on and on as Sam shrank lower into the corner.  She was crying, but she didn't care.  She looked to her mother for support, but Mom was pale.  Her eyes were closed, which meant she backed Dad.  Sam wondered if her father would belt her.  Maybe she deserved it.

Her father started to run out of breath, so he finished, "You're grounded!  Grounded!  Permanently!  You're never going to go anywhere for the rest of your life!  You're going to go to school and you're going to come right home!  You're not going to watch television, you're not going to talk on the telephone, and you're not going to see this sneaking meatball Cam, either!"

Sam squeaked, "What about Seamore?  Breaking the law?"  She didn't dare tell her parents Terry attacking her, and the guards chasing her.

Dad shouted so loud spit hit the wall.  "I'll talk to the police tomorrow!  You're not going to do it, because you're going to be in your room!  Starting right now!  Forever!  So get up there before I knock you up the stairs!  GO!"

Sam galloped up the stairs.  Bonnie watched her go by from the living room, too smart to tease her and catch hell herself.

Sam crashed her door open, slammed it closed, and flopped down on the bed.  "I'm not going to cry!  I'm not!"

But she did.






The next day at school, Sam was not sad but mad.  Steamed.  Sam banged everything she could get her hands on.  She slammed her books on her desk, slammed her locker door, slammed the door of the girl's room stall.  She was steamed at being treated like a child, at being not listened too, at being grounded for trying to solve a crime.

Cam wasn't in school all day.  Sam guessed his parents had grounded him, too.

Swell.  Now she had no one to talk to.  Even Sherri told her to lighten up, that she was probably imagining "this Nancy Drew stuff".  Sam snarled at her, and pretty soon everyone stayed out of her way.

Good, she grumped.  Everyone was stupid and blind besides to miss what was going on right in front of them.

All the way home from the bus stop Sam rehearsed the speech she'd give her father.  Her mother had left for Boston at three this morning.

"Look, Dad, you're just not being fair!  You're treating me like a child!  I listen to everything you say, so it's only fair you listen to everything I say!  And I say there's something going on and it should be investigated!  Cam's long-lost brother is here in Maine breaking the law and Terry O'Brien and his jerks are terrorizing people -- no, I better say causing trouble -- I mean, don't you have any sense of justice? -- no, make it, aren't you curious about --"

There were no cars or trucks in the driveway.  Sam found the house empty, except that Bonnie had left the television on.  Sam zapped it off.  It got very quiet.

Sam wanted to spit.  She had a million things to say and no one to yell at.  She banged things as she straightened the house.

"... fine for you, but I'm not going to take this kind of harassment lying down...

Hours later she'd picked up the house, done her homework, baked a tuna casserole, watched the news.  At six, she ate a lonely supper.  She was wondering if everyone on Earth had been kidnapped by aliens when the door slammed.  She dropped a plate and called, "Hey, Dad!  I have a couple of things -- Oh, it's you."

Bonnie.  Her sister said, "`Oh, it's you?'  Who were you expecting, Christian Slater?"  Her sister shucked her jacket and zapped on the TV.

"Where's Dad?  Is he out to haul?"

Bonnie came sniffing around the kitchen, dished herself a plateful of casserole.  "No.  He said he was going to work on the boat all day.  He was gonna tune the heads or turn them or something."

"So where is he?  We have forks, you know."

"I don't know."  Bonnie mopped up noodles with her finger.  "I can't keep track of everybody in this house."  She dug a fork out of the drawer and headed for the living room.

"It's not like Dad to miss dinner if he's in port."

Bonnie flopped into her lounger.  "Maybe he stopped off for a few beers."

"Gimme a break!"  Sam's voice rose.  Panic welled inside her.  "He's always home in time!  He never misses dinner!"

"Maybe he'll eat somewhere else."  Bonnie stopped zapping at a Cheers rerun.  "You could get indigestion eating here, with all the screaming and fighting."

"You bitch.  Don't you care if your father's missing?"

"The language around here is upsetting, too."  Bonnie switched to a M*A*S*H rerun.  "This place is going to hell."

"Maybe it's time to get married again!" Sam snapped.  She grabbed her coat.

"I thought you were grounded."

"You never thought anything in your life!"

Sam slammed the door.






Down at the waterfront, the on-shore breeze was cold.  The night was dark with no stars.  Some fishermen were still about, unloading crates of fish at the public dock.  Keeping one eye cocked for Terry O'Brien, Sam tripped down the public wharf and looked for Dad's pram, Sambo.  She found it, empty.  She craned her neck and stood on tiptoes.  Down the harbor, The Black Leprechaun rode at its mooring.  The pram here, no lights there.  Dad wasn't on his boat.

And his truck wasn't in the parking lot.  So he was driving around somewhere.  But where?  He should be home, eating her tuna casserole.  Did he hate her enough to not come home?  Or did only kids do that?

She walked up to two fisherman stacking crates of fish.  Father and son.  Sam knew the younger guy, Mike Lozito, a football player who knew everyone.  Sam asked, "Hey, Mike.  Have you seen my dad?"

Mike humped a crate of fish that weighed a hundred pounds.  "Nope."

"Not all day?"

Mike bobbed his Red Sox baseball hat.  "Nope.  But we been out.  Where's he supposed to be?"

"I don't know, that's the problem."

"D'ja try Lucy's?"

Lucy's was the store on the other side of the harbor where fishermen got fuel and supplies.  But Sam could see it from here, and there were no pickups parked outside this late at night.

Mike climbed out of the boat.  His father asked, "D'ja try Mormon Head Marina?  He was gonna grind his valves, I heard."

The marina was where Dad got his parts, had engine work done that was too big to do himself.  "They'd be closed now," Sam said.

Mike shrugged and walked away to fetch his truck.  His father said, "Can't help you, hon.  Sorry."

Sam climbed the slope of the parking lot.  She looked over the harbor.  The chilly breeze made tears on her cheeks.  "Oh, Dad.  Where are you?"






Chapter 13


"Chief, I think my dad's missing."  Sam's voice quavered.  She was going to cry soon.

The police chief leaned both elbows on the big counter of the police station.  He frowned.  "Lost at sea?"

"No, here in town.  He didn't come home.  I think he's in some kind of trouble.  I think we all are."

Lubec was a small town and the police chief took his night shift like every other cop.  The police station had a shiny tile floor and a long black counter with a sheet of glass with holes in it.  Behind the counter was a massive radio setup and switchboard.  The chief had come out of his tiny office down a hall as soon as Sam walked in.

Chief Larouche had a big gut and a gray walrus mustache.  He wore a bright blue shirt with shiny badge and buttons, a black belt with an automatic pistol.  The chief had known who Sam was: he knew everyone in town.  But he called her Samantha.

The chief's frown deepened.  "Who's `we'?  And you better come back here."  He unlatched a door through the counter.  He escorted her into his office, then sat down himself.

Sam perched on the visitor's chair.  "Me and Cam Nguen."

"Nguen..."  The chief sorted through his mental file.  "Lives in a trailer on the Dump Road.  His father's trying to get a job in a lumber mill or sumpin'."

"Right, Chief."

"So."  The chief leaned back and his chair squeaked.  "Your dad's missing and it's something to do with you and -- Cam, is it?  Sounds like you better start at the beginning."

Urged by panic and the cop's patient questions, Sam spilled everything.  She told about their first scouting of the Seamore Corporation, the picture-taking, Terry O'Brien's threats, the discovery of Huan being in Maine illegally, their sneaking into the building and finding the Polaroids and bunkroom, being locked in the bunkroom and then being mysteriously sprung, being chased, even how Cam broke through the doors with the forklift.  She wound up telling how Dad had grounded her, then said he'd talk to the police himself.  She repeated Dad's smuggling theory, though they didn't know what was being smuggled.

The chief frowned a lot now, and tugged at his mustache.  Finally he said, "If anyone's in trouble, it's you, young lady.  You're putting a lot of faith in this smuggling theory, and to prove it you're breaking and entering, trespassing, committing theft and property damage large enough for grand larceny.  I don't know what we're going to do about that.  I'm surprised your dad hasn't whaled the tar out of you, though you're kind of old for spanking.  I'll bet he wasn't too happy to hear all this --"

Mention of Dad started Sam crying, sobbing.  "Chief, please.  I know I'm dumb.  I should have come here first.  I'm sorry.  But Dad said he'd talk to you and now he's gone --"

The chief tugged at his mustache.  "Hush up, now, honey, and don't cry.  He didn't talk to me, or to any of my officers.  And I haven't seen him around town...  He hasn't been gone long enough for a Missing Persons bulletin.  But Tony's not the type to just take off, either..."

Sam grabbed the corner of his desk.  "Please, Chief, we've got to look for him!  I know something's going on!  It's got to be the Seamore guys!  Couldn't you just go down there and look around?  Please?"

The chief hoisted himself out of his creaking chair.  "Wellllll....  It won't hurt to go down and talk to them, I suppose.  You've got me wondering what's going on."

Sam hopped to her feet.  "Can we get Cam too?  He's got lots of ideas!"

"I don't think so --"  The chief raised a hand quickly.  "Okay, okay.  We'll get him.  Just don't start crying again."






The police car thumped over the potholes of the Dump Road and squeaked to a halt in front of Cam's trailer.  Sam flew out of the car and thudded up the teetery steps to rap on the door.  One of Cam's high-school sisters opened the door.  Sam smelled the foreign blend of spices, almost a homey smell now.

The girl saw the police car and bleated in Vietnamese.  Within seconds the whole family was framed in the doorway.  Sam saw terror on their faces: she remembered that in Vietnam the police were always bad news.

Cam wore the other flannel shirt Dad had given her, and seeing it gave Sam a pang in her heart.  All the way out here, Sam had thought she'd never make a good reporter: her stomach hurt too much from worrying.  The boy asked her, "Sam, what's going on?"

"My dad's missing.  The chief is going to look for him.  Can you come?"

The boy looked at his family.  Sam noticed they had books in their hands.  He mumbled, "We were studying for our citizenship papers..."

The Chief came to the door, a huge man compared to all these tiny thin people.  He bid the family good evening, then asked Mister Nguen, "Your son's not in any trouble, Mister Nguen.  I just have a few questions for him about some proceedings down at the waterfront.  May I take him with me?  He should be back in a couple of hours."  Sam noticed how calm the chief sounded, and how he was careful not to mention Huan's being in Maine.

The father's black eyes were wide.  He looked at his son as if Cam were going to be shot.  He finally gulped and nodded, "Of course, sir."

Cam said something else, then caught up his coat -- the old down coat Dad had given him.  "I'm ready."

As they slammed the doors and the chief gunned the engine, he told the kids, "One thing.  You guys keep mum unless I ask you a question.  I'm curious to see how the Seamore guys view you two.  But you stay piped down.  I'll do the talking.  Got it?"  The kids bobbed their heads.

The chief snapped on his radio.  "Base 900, this is 401.  I'm going on a short patrol down by the public waterfront."  The dispatcher crackled back at him.

Sam wished the chief would use the siren, but the patrol car only crawled down the rough road.  Sam beat her fists on her thighs and prayed her father would be all right.






The chief parked the cruiser so its headlights shone on the Seamore office door.  He let Sam and Cam out of the back, then rapped on the door with his nightstick.

No one came.  Cam nudged Sam.  The forklift was roaring inside the building.  The chief pulled the door open and they went in.

The kids found the place looked the same as ever, but not as dangerous with the big chief here.  At the end of the building a green forklift idled.  A worker sat on it, looking at some blue paper.  He looked up when the chief hallooed, got off the machine and he clumped towards them.  His boots echoed.

The guy was dressed in work clothes and a knit hat, but he was no one Sam had ever seen before.  He called, "What's up, Chief?"

The chief humphed.  "We're checking on some rumors, asking around for someone who might be missing.  You mind if we look around?"

The guy spread his hands, all innocence.  "Sure.  Look anywhere you like.  Nothing here but fish."  Sam thought his attitude was too calm: wouldn't he wonder why two kids were trailing the chief?  They sure weren't junior patrolmen.  But the guy just pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose.

The chief looked in the office.  Sam checked, but the blue box of photos and tape and Polaroids was gone from under the worktable.

The chief grunted and pointed.  "Which one is the magic cooler?"

Sam walked right up to it, the last one on the harbor side.  The red light was out.  The chief put a hand on the door and looked at the workman, but he just spread his hands as if to say, "Go ahead."

Sam's stomach sank.  She knew what they'd find.

The inside of the cooler was dark, but a strong stink hit them.  Sam flicked on the light.  A plastic bin filled the cooler.  It was jammed with fish heads and guts, garbage for the landfill.

There was nothing else in the room.  The walls and floor were bare except for dings in the wood where nails had been pulled out.  The marks could have been from anything.

The chief opened the other coolers, but there were just bins of fish or lobsters or else nothing.

The chief walked to the end of the warehouse.  The forklift was yellow-green and brand new.  The one that sank, Sam remembered, had been red.  The hole for the sliding door was scabbed over with plywood.  The chief asked, "What happened to the door?"

The guy smiled as if embarrassed.  "I, uh, hit it with the new forklift.  Didn't get the hang of the pedals right away."

"What happened to the old forklift?"

"Got traded in.  It was getting old."

"Where was it traded?"

The guy pushed his cap up to scratch his head.  "Gee, I don't know.  The boss traded it.  They don't tell me anything."

The chief grunted.  "What's your name, son?  I don't remember seeing you around town."

"Moe Dykstra.  I'm new.  I was working down in Boston at our retail end.  Didn't like the city, decided to try Maine for a while."

"Uh, hunh."  The chief took another look around, muttered thanks, then marched out to the patrol car.  Sam and Cam trotted after him.  The workman watched them leave with a smile.






Outside in the parking lot, the chief stared at the dark building, frowning.  "Well, that guy's a liar or I am.  But I can't arrest him just for lying.  I'd have to put everyone in jail.  I'm curious whether there's a forklift still on the bottom of the harbor.  But it wouldn't take much for a lobster boat to winch it out of the water and drop it at sea..."

The chief thought out loud.  Cam wandered off.  Sam wanted to scream at them to do something.  Her dad was missing and time was flying.  Sam saw Cam climb up into one of three dumpsters at the end of the parking lot.  She snorted: this was no time for rooting up cans and bottles.

The chief was quiet, thinking.  Sam clutched her jacket across her throat and shivered, though not from the chilly wind.  "Chief, we've got to keep looking!  Dad's somewhere!  We can't give up!"

The chief looked like he wanted to spit.  "Not much else I can do, honey.  I don't --"

"Hey!" called Cam from the dumpster.  "Come here and see this!"






Chapter 14


The dumpsters reeked of foul water, putrid fish guts, spoiled cartons of junk food, and other crud.  But the boy perched carefully on something solid as he tugged and pulled.

With a grunt, he ripped up a long piece of wood, a two-by-four.  He tipped it out of the dumpster.  It thonked on the ground by Sam's feet.

A face looked at them from the two-by-four.  A funny carved face with puffy cheeks and a pointed nose.

Sam yelped, "That's from the bunkbeds in the hideout!  In the cooler!  These faces were carved on the posts!  Cam said it's something Asians do when they're bored, instead of writing grafitti!"

The chief took the dirty two-by-four gingerly by two fat fingers.  "Wellll...  It's hard evidence, it helps corroborate your story, but it's still not connected with any crime.  And it doesn't help find your dad."

Cam thumped to the ground beside them.  Sam bit her lower lip.  "I know!  Jeez, this is terrible!  Where could he be?  He never came to see you this morning?  He said he was going to, first thing."

The chief shook his head, still studying the carved face.

"Well, if he didn't go to the police, where did he go?"

Chief Larouche looked up at the dark sky.  "If he suspected smugglers, maybe he went straight to the source.  That would be Custom's jurisdiction.  They're in the federal building."

"You mean the post office building?"

"The second floor.  I suppose you want a ride there too?"

Sam jumped up and down and wrung her hands, pleading.  "Please, chief?  I know he's there somewhere!  I can feel it!"

"Let's go, then."  The chief nodded.  "We'll take Pinocchio with us."

The two-by-four wouldn't fit in the trunk, so the chief angled it across the back seat with Sam and Cam.  Then he drove around the harbor to the federal building.

It was a two-story brick building outside the downtown, not far from the waterfront.  The post office took up most of the lower floor.  Sam didn't know what was on the second floor: she'd never been up there.

The building had bright spotlights on in front and the sides and back.  The second floor was black.  The chief drove around back to the parking lot.

Sam screamed.  "There's Dad's truck!"

There was a fleet of mail trucks parked back here, a shiny silver Mercury, and Tony Salvador's battered white pickup.  The chief pointed his headlights at it and got out with his flashlight.  He let the kids out of the back of the cruiser.

Sam ran to the truck.  Sambo's oars and seat cushions were in the bed along with other junk.  The chief shone his flashlight through the window at the driver's seat.  Sam peered with him.  "What are you looking for?"

"Evidence."

Sam felt cold all over.  "You're looking for blood, aren't you?"

The chief tsked.  "Settle down, Samantha.  You've been watching too much TV.  There's nothing here.  The door's locked, no keys."  He swung the flashlight idly around the parking lot, up onto the federal building.  "So he was here today.  He might have spoken to Customs early on..."

Sam asked, "Could we call someone from Customs at home?  It'd be easy to figure out who they are, right?"

"I know who they are, and yeah, we could call them."  The chief rubbed his nose.  "But we don't want to start a panic...  Let's see, who else is here?.."

He counted off windows in the second story with his flashlight, which shot a beam like a laser.  "That's the IRS.  The federal courtroom.  Immigration --"

"Immigration?" asked Cam.  "The INS?"

"Oh, my God!" Sam gasped.  "I know where Dad is!"






When they reached the public dock, Sam ran all the way to the farthest end.  The wind was stiff, and blew her hair back.  Boats bobbed in the harbor, tugging at their moorings or grinding against the fenders of the slips.

Sam grabbed the chief's arm.  "Look, see?  That big yacht?  It's green!  And it's got a light on in the cockpit!  And look, he's starting up!"

All three could see steam boil behind the yacht from the underwater exhaust.  Sam almost ripped the chief's jacket sleeve.  "He's going out to sea!  He's got Dad aboard!  I know he does!  Mister Reeve of the INS has kidnapped my dad!"






Minutes later Sam was perched precariously in the bow of the pram Sambo while Cam was tucked into the stern.  Chief Larouche rowed.  His thick forearms made the pram scoot through the water.  Sam had thought to grab her father's oars and seat cushions from the back of the truck and bring them in the police car, though they'd stuck out the side window as they circled the harbor.

All the way out, Sam and Cam told what they knew about Mister Reeve.  Sam called him a creep and liar.  She told the chief how Reeve threatened to deport Cam's family if Mister Nguen didn't find work soon.  The chief grunted.  "That's a plain lie.  He's abusing his authority."

The chief had called the Coast Guard, requesting they bring their cutter out of its slip to intercept a suspect boat.  But they were upharbor in Eastport and could take twenty minutes to get to the harbor mouth.  Meanwhile, the green yacht had upped anchor and headed towards the open ocean.  Sam had suggested they take the The Black Leprechaun and chase the yacht, and the chief had agreed.

"We're still just going to talk to this guy," the chief insisted.  "Though it's pretty queer to take a pleasure boat out of harbor in the middle of the night.  Pretty suspicious."

The pram closed with the Leprechaun, and Sam clambered aboard.  As the chief and Cam climbed in, she snatched a screwdriver from the compass housing and unscrewed a small plate off the dashboard.  In this secret compartment was a spare set of keys.  Sam cranked the engine, gasped when it caught.  "Cast off!"

Wake bubbled and snorted as Sam spun the wheel and aimed the Leprechaun like an arrow at the green yacht in the distance.  She yanked out the throttle.  The powerful boat dug in its heels like a frightened horse, dipped as the screws chopped water, and surged ahead, throwing a bow wake that shone white in the night.  Sam weaved between other boats and yachts as if she were racing.

The chief stood in the cabin behind her, his hands braced on a stanchion.  He looked behind them.  Their wake was tossing boats for hundred of feets in all directions.  "I thought the harbor speed limit was five miles per hour!"

Sam snorted.  "Tell that to Mister Reeve!"

The chief laughed.  He was enjoying the chase.  "The harbor master will have a fit."

Sam tried to guess their speed.  Flat out, they were going ten or twelve miles per hour, fast for a fishing boat.  Up ahead, maybe half a mile off, the yacht puttered along.  The sailboat would have only a small motor for pushing itself around a harbor or limping home if becalmed.  That tiny engine would have a top speed of perhaps five miles per hour.  Travelling two or three times faster, the Leprechaun would overtake the ship in minutes.

As they closed, Sam peered through the wind-sprayed windshield.  She could see Mister Reeve in the cockpit.  A pilot light shone over the wheel like a tiny spotlight.  The INS agent must have seen the fishing boat chasing him, but he pretended not to notice, concentrated on getting to the mouth of the harbor.  Sam thought his lack of curiousity as suspicious as that forklift-driving crud in the warehouse.  Curiousity was a good trait, she decided.

The chief told Sam to pull alongside the yacht, but she shook her head.  Instead, she pulled up almost behind the yacht, off to one side.  In that position, her huge white bow wave created a trough under the yacht's stern.  With the water pushed aside, the yacht's screws lost the water and raced with a scream.  A little of that racing, Sam knew, and the yacht engine would tear itself to pieces.  If she was lucky.

The chief waved a hand.  Sam closed, twenty feet from the yacht.  She slowed the boat to match the yacht's slow speed.

Mister Reeve finally noticed the big boat looming on his tail.  He wore a yellow slicker.  His glasses were wet with spray.  The man looked over as if surprised.

The chief of police shouted, "Heave to!  I'm coming aboard!"

"You can't do that!"  The man's voice was squeaky.  Scared, Sam guessed.

The chief belted back, "Like fun I can't!  I have jurisdiction anywhere in this harbor!  Pull over -- I mean, heave to!  Idle your engine --"

The chief froze.  Mister Reeve pulled a shiny gun from under his oilskins.  He levelled it at the fishing boat and fired.

Sam saw bright sparks fly straight at her.






Chapter 15


The fishing boat's side window exploded into a shower of glass.  Then one of the front windows leaped in its frame, splintered into fragments that whisked around the cabin.  Rattled, Sam let go of the wheel and ducked.  Wake from the yacht heeled the fishing boat away sluggishly.

The chief crouched below the gunwale.  He ripped out his police automatic and jacked the slide.  But he didn't shoot.  He yelled, "Reeve, knock it off!  You're in enough trouble!  Throw that over the side!"

There was no answer.  Sam's curiousity gnawed at her.  What was Reeve doing?  Squinching her forehead, praying not to get a bullet through it, Sam peeked over the gunwale.

The fishing boat had hooked through the quarter-circle, angling away from the yacht.  Mister Reeve had extinguished the pilot light, but the yacht steamed south on its glowing wake.  Mister Reeve was crouched down too.  His yellow arms steered.

The chief grunted.  "He's spooked.  He doesn't know what he's doing."

"Well, heck," Sam groused.  She took the wheel, yanked out the throttle, and aimed for the yacht again.  Glass scrunched under her sneakers.

Chief Larouche yelled at Reeve without effect.  He snarled, "Pull alongside him, Sam!  I'm going to jump aboard!"

Sam watched for the flash of Reeve's gun.  "Can't you wing him?"

"Don't start with the television stuff!  You can't wing anybody!  Look out!"

As the boats closed, Reeve popped up like a rabbit from a garden and snapped off a shot.  Everyone in the fishing boat ducked, but Sam didn't see or hear any damage.  The chief levelled his pistol at arm's length, supporting one hand with the other, and squeezed off a shot.  Sam saw a long yellow splinter gouged from the woodwork near the wheel.  The agent scooted down again, like a Muppet.  He didn't put his hands back on the wheel.

"Reeve!  Heave to!"  Then he grunted to himself.  "We could do this all night.  Samantha, pull in closer!  And keep your head down!"

Sam didn't know how to do both, but she tried.  She gunned the engine to get closer.  Suddenly a hand grabbed her shoulder.  Cam's.  She'd forgotten all about him.

"Did you see?" the boy asked.

"See what?"

"Something at the porthole!  On the yacht!"

Sam shook her head, squinted at the yacht portholes.  There were five portholes the size of dinner plates, all dark.

Cam pointed.  "There!"

Sam gawped.  Something white flickered at a porthole.  A face.

"It's Dad!"

In the yacht cockpit, Mister Reeve popped up again, one hand on the wheel, one waving his shiny pistol.  The boats were not fifteen feet apart, and Reeve threatened to fire again.  Cam bleated at the chief, "Shoot!  Shoot!"

Everyone crouched.  The chief growled, "I don't shoot people!"

Nothing happened, and when they peeked, they saw Reeve had steered away slightly.  Sam's temper -- inherited from her father -- suddenly flared white-hot.  That bastard had her father locked up and he was running away...

Almost without thinking, Sam yanked the throttle and spun the wheel.  The big fishing boat leaped, the steel hull swung --

The two boats collided with a brong like a bellbuoy.  The lobster boat's steel hull cracked the green fiberglass yacht in a hundred places.  Both boats jumped and slammed back into the water.  The chief and Cam were knocked off their feet.  Sam only stayed upright because she held the wheel.

Mister Reeve was bowled over.  Yellow arms flailing, glasses flying, he stumbled backwards against the railing and disappeared over the side.  He didn't have time to howl before he hit the icy water.

Chief Larouche snatched at a boathook tied alongside the cabin and ordered Sam to close.  The girl twirled the wheel again and thumped alongside the yacht, actually pushing it sideways through the water.  The chief hooked on and jumped for the cockpit, leaned over the far side to fish out Reeve.

"Take the wheel!" Sam called to Cam.  She hopped onto the gunwale, took a deep breath, and leaped after the chief.  She had a scary moment when the yacht bobbed upwards -- if she missed, she'd be crushed between the hulls -- but she thumped into the cockpit.

She fumbled at the latch to the cabin below.  With a grunt she slammed it open.

The interior smelt of mildew and salt, fried food and plastic.  At the end of the cabin, sprawled on a bunkbed, sat Tony Salvador with his hands tied behind his back.  He looked bedraggled, his hair wiry and sweaty, but he grinned.

Sam tried to say something, but she choked up.  She hugged her father tight enough to break his ribs, sobbing.

With his hands tied, Dad could only lean over her.  He croaked, "I thought you were grounded."  Then he was crying too.






The rest of the night passed in a flash.  Sam sat in a folding chair in the corner of the police station between Cam and Dad and took crazy notes like a real reporter.  She drank coffee for the first time in her life.

The police station was lit up like a mall at Christmas.  Cops from Lubec, Eastport, Machias, and the state were there.  The police dispatcher wore a nightgown under her uniform shirt.  Policemen's wives came to the station with sandwiches and doughnuts.  Baggy-eyed lawyers showed up with briefcases, asking questions.  Phones rang constantly.  The radio crackled like a lightning storm.  Chief Larouche barked at everyone.  Sam wrote it all down.

The arrests started.  First was Mister Reeve, wet as a herring in his soggy yellow slicker.  He was clapped in a cell for "kidnapping, endangering, felonious flight" and other crimes.  Blue-jacketed Lubec cops marched in with Moe Dykstra, the forklift driver from the fishhouse.  He was charged with obstructing justice, then booked, fingerprinted, and slapped into a cell.  Not long after, a couple of green-coated Maine State Troopers stomped in with Joe Brzynzcy.  He snarled that Terry O'Brien was running for Boston.  He even gave them an address to try.

Dad found another ham sandwich and wolfed it.  He'd told his side of the story first thing.  Guessing the nature of the smuggling, Dad had gone this morning to the INS at the federal building.  Unfortunately, he told his story to Mister Reeve.  The agent pulled a gun, tied and gagged Dad, and locked him in a closet.  After hours, when the building was deserted, he forced Dad out to his car and then to his boat.  Gagged, with numb arms and legs, Dad couldn't fight back.  Reeve got Dad aboard.  He claimed he was heading for Boston, and would strand Dad there, but Dad suspected Reeve would dump him at sea.  Sam was glad she'd dumped Reeve into the harbor.  She wished he had drowned.

At one point in the long night, Sam was shocked to see Cam handcuffed between two cops.

Sam stared, horrified.  "What?...  Oh."

The real Cam walked up to the arrested man.  It was Huan.  Sam had never seen him close up.  He looked just like Cam, but was taller and more filled out, solemn as an undertaker.  The cops let Cam speak to his brother, and Sam listened in.

The boy said only, "Huan."

Huan looked like a corpse in a coffin.  "I thought you weren't allowed to speak to me.  I'm dead, remember?"

Cam shook his head sadly.  "We'll get you a good lawyer, Huan.  The family will help."

The older brother's face twitched.  Sam thought he was going to cry.  "Don't bother.  They can't afford it.  I'll be all right."

Cam said quietly, "It was you that let us out of the cooler, wasn't it?  And you raced that truck, stopped that guy from catching us?"

"Yes," his brother said woodenly.  "I didn't want you to get hurt.  You're my -- brother, after all.  We used to have fun together.  You used to really like me."

Cam told him, "I still do."

The two brothers stared at each other a moment longer.  Then Huan was led away.

Sam put a hand on Cam's shoulder.  "I'm sorry about your brother."

Cam wiped his eyes on his sleeve.  "Me too.  He's cut off from his family.  The worst thing that can happen to an Asian.  He really thinks he's dead."

More people streamed in.  Three camera crews with minicams.  Men in suits from the Maine State Police and Boston branch of the INS.  Even Royal Canadian Mounties.  The station was jammed with people, all talking.  Sam tried to copy down everything everyone said, but her notes kept fuzzing as if she were writing with a feather.  Funny, she didn't feel sleepy, though she did feel as if she were floating.

Much, much later, around ten o'clock in the morning, Chief Larouche called a press conference.  He couldn't explain everything, he said, because they were still pursuing some members of the gang, but he could give a brief explanation of the charges involved.

The parts the chief left out, Sam could guess.

What was being smuggled, the chief explained, were aliens.  Mostly Asians who made it into Canada and wanted to come to the USA, but couldn't gain admittance or sponsorship for whatever reason.  The aliens assembled on the Canadian coast, up at Saint John's and elsewhere, then boarded Seamore fishing boats in ones and twos.  They were brought to the Seamore fishhouse and hidden in the bunkroom.  There they could rest, eat, sleep, and watch children's videos to polish their English.  While they stayed, the gang made up fake passports.  (Which explained the box of photos and plastic and glue in the office, Sam realized.)

After days or even weeks, the illegal aliens were hidden in Seamore trucks full of lobsters and fish.  The trucks drove to restaurants in Boston, including the small Chinatown, where the aliens could hop out to Asian-American connections.  Sometimes the trucks drove to New York City, with its even bigger Asian population.  A reporter asked what Seamore got out of the deal.  The chief had found books showing amounts of ten thousand dollar entries.  People whistled.  If the company smuggled fifty aliens a year, the gang made five hundred thousand dollars -- a cool half-million.

Sam whispered to Cam, "Where would poor people get that kind of money?"

Cam shrugged.  He was depressed over seeing his brother.  "They're not all poor.  Many are wealthy criminals, I think.  And even poor people can save up and borrow.  Friends in the old country dig up gold coins they've had for years.  Or you could work in the black market and make it."

"Wow."

The chief said it "appeared" that only one INS agent was in the scheme.  Mister Reeve stole blank passports and got them stamped and into the computer.  He also steered suspicion away from Seamore.  Sam whispered, "He'd be crazy to think he could do it forever."

"With that kind of money, he could take a chance.  And he could control people.  He threatened to deport our family -- that was probably to keep Huan in line."

"Wow.  This guy's a regular Dracula."  Sam made a note, then said quietly, "I wonder what will happen to your brother."

Cam sighed, worn out.  "He'll probably go to prison.  For years.  And my family won't even let me visit him.  Or write to him."

Tony Salvador joined them, hugging his daughter from behind.  "How's it going, Connie Chung?  You get the story?"

Sam hugged her dad's big middle.  "Yeah, but all these other reporters will scoop me."

"But you know things they don't.  From your `investigating'."  Dad kissed the top of her head.  "I'm sorry for blowing up at you.  You really were onto something.  I should'a listened to you."

Sam hugged her dad again.  "I'm sorry, too.  Sorry for disobeying."

Dad laughed.  "If you hadn't disobeyed, I wouldn't be here.  What kind of a lesson is that for a parent to teach their kid?"

He stuck a meaty hand towards Cam.  "And you, son, I'm sorry I tossed you out.  House rules are rules, but you're welcome to come by and visit anytime you like -- as long as there's an adult around."

Cam grinned and shook.  "Yes, sir.  Thank you, sir."

"Tony," Dad told him.

A glaring light interrupted them.  A female broadcaster in a suit and gobs of makeup thrust a microphone towards Sam.  "Are you Samantha Salvador?  I'm Sarah Bright, Channel 6 News.  We understand you helped break the smuggling ring.  We'd like to interview you."

Sam disentangled from Dad's hug.  She brushed at her hair and flipped her notebook to the first page.  Then she stopped.

An idea had struck her.

Sam began, "Well.  You came to the right person.  I know all kinds of inside things.  But we need to make a deal..."






Chapter 16


Sam fidgeted.  Her collar was too tight, makeup made her face itch, her hair was gummy with hairspray.  She shuffled her paper for the hundredth time.  The camera aimed at her looked like a cannon.

All around the tiny television studio technicians made sound checks, electricians coiled power lines, stage hands tilted white walls and lights, a station manager watched the clock.  The only one not moving was Sam.  She began to wish she hadn't negotiated this deal.  The newscasters had screamed and pleaded and bargained, but Sam was insistent.  She wanted to broadcast the story.  Finally, desperate for the scoop, they caved in.

Now Sam wished she'd been easier to push around.

The station manager listened to a headphone.  He waited for the signal from downstate in Bangor, where the regular news originated.  At his signal, the transmission would cut to this tiny local station in Eastport.  Cut to Sam, where everybody in the state of Maine would see her.  Sam hoped she didn't throw up in front of a million people.

"Thirty seconds, Samantha," the station manager called.  "Watch for the red light.  You'll be live then."

Sam knew that.  They're rehearsed it five times --

"Here we go.  Five.  Four."  He signalled, Three, Two, One, and the red light atop the camera winked on.

Head spinning, Sam read.

"Here in Lubec, Maine, on the Canadian border, at 6:04 this morning, an alien smuggling ring was broken by the arrest of its ringleader, an INS agent named William Reeve.  Lubec Police Chief John Larouche made the arrest after a boat chase in Lubec Harbor.  Also arrested were --"

She read, on and on, wondering when it would end.  It was supposed to take three minutes, but it felt like three hours.  Eventually she reached the bottom of the page.  "...  This is Samantha Salvador, special correspondent, in Lubec."

The red light winked off.  Sam closed her eyes and gulped a breath.  She was dizzy.

Applause made her jump.  The whole staff -- station manager, electricians, stage hands, and others -- were clapping.  And her family: Dad, Mom, Bonnie.  And the Nguens were there too: Mister and Mrs Nguen, Grandmother, a slew of kids.  And Cam.  They all clustered around here in the tiny space of the studio.

Even Mister Lecleire from Camera Club was there.  "You got all the Five Ws into the lead, Sam!  Congratulations!"

"You were terrific!" Mom gushed.

Dad clapped her on the back.  "You can skip college and go right to work for CNN."

The station manager called, laughing.  "She can start training here in, oh, six years."

"You did look good, Sam," Bonnie pouted.  "They covered up the bags under your eyes, anyway."

Sam felt so good she didn't take offense.  She grabbed Bonnie by a slim hand.  "It should have been you on TV, Bonnie.  You'd look so much better, you're so glamourous."

Bonnie shrugged.  "One of us had to luck out."

"It's not luck, Bon.  It's plain hard work."

For the first time, Bonnie frowned as if she were thinking something over.  "Well... maybe."

The Nguens had hung back, but now they stepped forward to shake her hand, every one of them, even the tiny grandmother with a hand like a baby bird.

Sam ended up facing Cam.  Somehow shaking his hand didn't seem enough.  She said, "Aw, heck, gimme a hug."  She threw her arms wide and grabbed him.  He was warm and skinnier than she was, and he smelled of cooking spices.  He hugged her lightly and then they sprang apart, both blushing.

In the lull, Sam looked at her watch.  Where were they?

Tony Salvador stepped next to Mister Nguen.  Dad rubbed his chin.  Sam knew that was "dickering" coming on.

"Mister Nguen," Dad began.  "Sam tells me you used to run a factory in Vietnam."

"Please.  My name is Ho," the man replied.  "And yes, that is true.  Why do you ask?"

Dad rubbed his chin, his tough knuckles rasping on the stubble.  "Welllll...  I was talking to a federal guy today.  They found evidence the Seamore bozos smuggled drugs now and then, besides aliens.  That means the DEA can seize the whole magilla and sell it at public auction.  Now I got to thinking... if I had a partner, someone who knew how to run a factory, we could form a corporation and buy the place, run it as a fishhouse or maybe something else.  Then we'd be protected when the market was lousy.  'Course, it's always lousy.  But if you were willin', I figure..."

"I see..."  The Asian man nodded.  "Yes, that sounds like a good idea.  Of course, we would have to write out a contract..."  Sam smiled.  Mister Nguen also rubbed his chin as he dickered.  They'd get along great, the girl thought.

Sam poked Cam in the ribs.  "Our dads are going to be partners in crime.  I wonder if they can use a forklift driver?"

"Yes, it's wonderful."  But Cam's smile faded.  "Too bad we can't all be here.  Seeing my brother Huan reminded me of what a great guy he was before he got into trouble.  I -- oh, my..."

Everyone fell silent.  Standing in the open doorway of the studio was Huan.  He wore a winter coat over a set of prison blues like pajamas.  He was handcuffed, a big Lubec cop holding his arm.  Cop in tow, Huan shuffled forward slowly.  Sam imagined he was marching to the electric chair.

The family stood like statues.  Huan stopped before them.  No one spoke, so Sam did.  "I, uh, asked the chief -- if -- Huan could see his folks before -- before they took him away.  He agreed -- so here he is..."  Her voice trailed off like water down a drain.

No one moved.  Finally Huan cleared his throat.  He spoke at his father's feet.  "Father, mother, grandmother, brother, sisters.  I wish -- to apologize for my behavior.  I -- I am sorry if I have brought disgrace upon my family and upon our ancestors.  I know what I did was wrong, that I took a shortcut to make money, that I broke the law.  I'll be punished for it, and I should be.  I have been luckier than I deserve.  The judge has been lenient because I helped Sam and Cam.  I will not go to prison, but I will be deported back to Vietnam, never to return...

"I wish to explain.  I fell into a way of coming to America as I fell into the black market, by a bad decision.  In searching for a path to America, I met with smugglers.  They decided because I spoke English I could act as an interpreter, to help them and the immigrants.  And having a family here might help too.  I know it was wrong, but I hoped that somehow I might see my family again, if only briefly and from a distance, and in secret.  I know you consider me dead, and that I have no real family, but I -- I --"  He broke off, unable to continue.

Through his recitation, Sam watched not Huan but his family.  His mother and sisters had tears running down their cheeks, but they didn't wipe them away.  Mister Nguen stared at his son's bowed head, his throat twitching.  Cam only looked sad.  Sam could guess how he felt: she was ready to cry, and she wasn't even related.

In the silence, Mister Nguen cleared his throat quietly.  "It is true that we considered you dead, my son.  That was a Vietnamese custom we had to follow.  But these days we study to become Americans, and we learn new customs."

Huan lifted his head, puzzled, surprised his father had spoken to him.

The father went on, "In the spirit of these new American customs, we shall start over.  We, your family, forgive you.  You are our son once more, my first son.  Perhaps -- perhaps if in Vietnam you work hard and honestly, you may someday acquire a visa to come and visit.  In the meantime, we will support you as best we can."  He set a hand on Cam's shoulder, squeezed it.  "And I know at least one person in our family will write you regularly."

Cam turned and smiled up at his father, smiled at his brother, then came forward and hugged him.  As best he could with his hands cuffed, Huan hugged his little brother.

Sam wiped her eyes.  She cried now, but everyone seemed weepy.  Even the Lubec cop looked misty-eyed.

Sam hoisted her Nikon.  "Hey, this is way too serious.  Look, let's get a family picture.  Both families.  Huan, you stand there.  Cam, you get next to him.  Grandmother, you in front, please.  Dad, squeeze in there.  Suck in your tummy.  Mom, Bonnie, c'mon, squeeze!"

The families mashed together until Sam could see them all through her eyepiece.  Huan's handcuffs were hidden behind his grandmother.

"And... smile!"

She snapped the shutter.


THE END