Inflating a Dog (The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy) by Eric Kraft (novels to read for beginners .txt) 📗

suppose that the war is over. Buster Leroy has not come home. But Bert has. Your mother is despondent over the loss of Buster, and his death has made her realize how much she loved him.”

“Yeah.”

“But she’s also happy — because Bert has come home.”

“Right.”

“She and Bert meet. They’re awkward at first. Bert feels guilty about having made it through the war when Buster didn’t. Ella is worried that her feelings for Buster show.”

“Mm,” I said.

“And then it happens.”

“What?”

“I don’t know exactly, but it’s something as small as a shrug or a laugh, something that makes Ella see how much of Buster there is in Bert.”

“Oh,” I said. “I’m beginning to see what you mean.”

“I’ll be Ella. You be Bert.”

“Aw, no,” I said. “Not that.”

“Come on,” she said. “It’s an experiment, remember?”

“Okay,” I said, with no enthusiasm for this particular experiment at all.

“Oh, how I missed you, how I missed you,” she whispered. She held my head in her hands and looked deep into my eyes and said, “I am so happy to have you here with me,” and then she began proving that she meant it.

What followed was bliss. She threw herself into the experiment with a reckless passion that I hadn’t seen before. I was delighted to accept every gift she gave me, and it never bothered me once that she kept murmuring, “Oh, Buster, Buster.”

Chapter 51

Chance Brings an Opportunity

Chance, my friend and master, will surely deign to send again, to help me, the familiar devils of his unruly kingdom! l have no faith, except in him — and in myself. Particularly in him, for, when I sink, he fishes me up again, and grips and shakes me like a rescuing dog, whose teeth every time meet in my skin! So that every time I sink, I do not expect a final catastrophe, but only some adventure, some trivial, commonplace miracle which, like a sparkling link, may close up again the necklace of my days.

Now this is faith indeed, with all its half-sham blindness and its jesuitical renunciations — faith which makes me hope even at the very moment when I cry, “Everything fails me!”

Renée Néré in Colette’s La Vagabonde

WE COULD SEE the end of summer coming. Mornings began to turn cold, and there were fewer boats on the bay. School would be starting soon. It was time to decide that the season was over.

We spent a couple of days preparing Arcinella for the winter, and while we worked I made a troubling discovery.

“She’s sinking faster than ever,” I said.

“Is there anything you can do?” asked Patti.

“I don’t know. During the summer, the engine bailed the bilge in the daytime, and I did a little jet-pumping at night, so it was pretty easy to keep her afloat, but now, while she’s just sitting here, and we’re in school — she’s going to sink.”

“If you could get the jet pump to work on its own — ”

“Yeah, after I take a correspondence course in hydraulic engineering.”

“You could ask somebody who lives around here to run the pump for you while you’re in school.”

“But then that somebody would know that she’s sinking, and — wait a minute. There is something I could do. I could install the jet pump somewhere out of sight where it could rest in the bilge — maybe under the planks inside the hull — and run the two hoses to concealed locations where I could get at them easily. Then I could start the pump every morning on the way to school and turn it off every afternoon.”

“Sure!”

“Of course, the docks aren’t on my way to school — ”

“I could — I think I can persuade one of — somebody — to give you a lift.”

“Yeah,” I said, reluctantly. “Okay.”

“I’ll pick somebody too stupid to figure out what you’re up to.”

“Let’s get to work.”

An hour later, we were well into the work, with the front hatch off, the planking removed and stacked on deck, the pump in place and water running through it to test it, when a delivery truck pulled up at the side of the road and Mr. Yummy got out. Mr. Yummy was not his real name, but it was what my friends and I always called him because he made deliveries for the Yummy Good Baked Goods Company and his truck said on the side, in large blue letters, “Here comes something yummy!” Many of Babbington’s housewives considered the slogan an understatement.

He got out of his truck and stood on the bulkhead for a couple of minutes, watching Patti and me at work, and then he cleared his throat and asked, “What are you doing?”

“Cleaning the inside of the hull,” I said.

“Cleaning the inside of the hull?”

“Sure. To get her ready for the winter.”

“Oh.”

“Not everybody goes to this much trouble,” I said.

“Yeah. I guess not,” he said.

“Personally,” I said, shaking my head, “I just don’t understand how people can be so lax.”

He watched us for another couple of minutes, and then, in a flat voice, in a matter-of-fact manner, he asked, “You know if there are any boats like this for sale around here?”

“ANY BOATS LIKE THIS for sale around here?” I would like to be able to report to you that my first impulse was to say to him, “Oh, sir, you wouldn’t want a boat like this, because it’s sinking,” but I had no such impulse. My impulse was to laugh, out of relief, and out of gratitude to the great god, chance, the only one I believed in by then, for having sent Mr. Yummy our way. The impulse was so strong that I actually did laugh, and when I had myself under control again I said, “Forgive me for laughing, sir, but it’s just that, well — first of all — there aren’t any boats like this.”

“Huh?” he said.

“Oh,” chuckling indulgently, “I suppose to the casual observer one clam boat looks pretty much like another — but this boat — this boat is something really special.”

“Oh, yeah,”