Pride (36 page)

But I get up and hand Cannibal to Mom. She can play with her or put her in her little cage. Laurel is jumping up and down the way she does when she's excited, with her arms up and flopping at the wrists. She's been doing that as long as I can remember, even from before she could walk. She'd sit on the floor, laugh and smile and flap those wrists. It's sort of like the way a puppy wags its tail.

Dad turns around and heads down to the edge of the water, maybe ten feet from where the water comes up. I try to act as if I
want
to play ball. I keep expecting him to toss it to me. I'm afraid of being hit in the face by a ball even though it's only a little light tennis ball. I don't know what Laurel's so excited about; she still can't catch a ball unless I bounce it to her, and on a beach you can't bounce a beat-up old tennis ball like this.

Dad gets down on his hands and knees and starts digging in the sand. At first I think he's going to make some kind of a base and we'll be throwing the ball and running back and forth. He looks over at me.

“Give me a hand with this, Dickie. First we have to build up a regular mountain of sand, high as we can get it, and pack the sand tight as we go.”

Dad's scooping big handfuls and piling them up, packing them down.

“What're we making, Dad, another sand castle?”

“Something even better than that, you'll see. This'll be something you've never even seen before.”

After we've piled up a regular pyramid of sand, Dad pushes the ball onto the top of the hill, then slowly circles it around the hill, rolling the ball and at the same time pushing down and packing a path about halfway around the hill.

Laurel's jumping up and down. Dad rolls the ball from the top, along his path to where he stopped.

“Now look, Dickie. We're going to make a tunnel through our mountain from right here.”

He gouges out a little hole where he finished with his ball path. He runs around to my side of the mountain. He looks over to where he made his gouge and measures with his eye.

“To over here.”

He makes another gouge on that side, but down lower.

“Now you dig very carefully through the mountain from here, making it go uphill a little bit, and we'll try to meet in the middle.”

I nod my head.

“Boy, this is going to be neat, Dad.”

“Laurel, I want you to dig a small tunnel right near our mountain here on the ocean side. Dig carefully so everything won't cave in.”

Beside our mountain and downhill from it, he scoops up sand and builds a smaller hill. He starts two small scoops so she'll know where to dig. Then he starts digging on his side of the big hill and I begin pulling out sand from my side.

“This is going to take some engineering, Dickie. Keep in mind just how high my hole is compared to yours and see if we can make a straight tunnel between us. We've got to be careful we don't dig at a wrong angle and miss each other completely.”

I'm pulling sand out. I'm already in past my elbow when I feel something moving in there and it scares me at first until I realize it's Dad's fingers. He's smiling at me over the top, around the mountain, and he grabs hold of one of my fingers inside the hill.

“We got it just right there, Buster. You'll make a great engineer someday. Now let me clear out some sand so the tunnel's big enough.”

He looks over at Laurel. “How's it coming down there?”

Laurel's on her stomach pulling sand out of her tunnel; she's in deeper than her elbow but she hasn't started the other side.

“That's enough on that side, honey.”

He gets down on his knees and starts the second hole for Laurel.

She comes around and kneels beside him.

“Gee, Daddy, I want to work on the
big
mountain, this is only a little hill and isn't so much fun.”

Dad pulls her to him and gives her a soft hug. For one minute there I'm almost afraid he's going to give her a “rub,” but he just kisses her on the forehead.

“It's all part of the same thing, Laurel. Your tunnel is just as important as any part of this whole project.

“Watch.”

He takes our ball and puts it in the little dent and gives it a push. It starts down his path and goes round then into the tunnel and out my side. I run to catch it before it gets wet.

“Gee, that's neat, Dad. Do it again.”

The next time I wait at my end of the tunnel and catch it as it comes out.

“O.K., now for the hard part.”

Dad starts making another path, or ramp, building up high sides on the outside. He goes almost halfway around our mountain of sand again. He keeps checking to see the angles, goes along, then, when he's just on the other side of the mountain from Laurel's tunnel, he stops and digs a few handfuls out of the hill. He runs around to the other side.

“Now, Dickie, you hold your hand up just over from where that hole goes in.”

I line my hand up with the hole and Dad checks, then drops down, digging his hole near the bottom of the hill. Laurel runs up to him.

“Daddy, I got through. I came through to my other hole. I have a real tunnel, come look.”

Dad goes over to Laurel's tunnel. He pulls out a few handfuls of sand and rolls the ball into her tunnel and it gets stuck inside. He pulls the ball out, then scoops out more sand. On the downhill side, near the ocean, he starts cutting a path in the sand with his hands.

“Now, Laurel, cut a path deep enough so when the ball rolls into your tunnel it can come out on this side and roll down the beach.”

Laurel begins digging sand out of the trench. We're close enough to the water so that each mark of each finger shows like a claw mark. Dad looks up at Mom and waves his arms. She waves back. I wave, too. Dad looks quickly up and down the whole empty beach and along the boardwalk. I know what he's doing, watching out for that lion.

“O.K., Dickie. This time you dig from the high side there and I'll dig up from the low side. Dig at just about the same angle down as you dug
up
last time, and we'll try to keep in line.”

I dig until I'm dug all the way up to the top of my arm. The only way I can get my arm in any farther is to tilt myself and lift one leg up in the air. I look over and Dad's got his long arm all the way in as deep as he can go, too, with
his
leg up in the air. He pulls out and slides sand out of the hole. He smiles at me.

“Maybe we bit off more than we can chew here, Dickie. Let me take another try at this.”

He comes over to my side and puts his arm in the hole. He digs out until he's run out of arm again.

“Well, either we've missed each other entirely, up and down or sidewise, maybe both; or this tunnel is longer than twice the length of my arm.”

I watch his eyes: they look up and down the beach again once more, scanning the boardwalk. Laurel runs between us.

“Watch, Daddy. It works. Look.”

Laurel gives the ball a push into her tunnel, it goes down then comes up with just barely enough speed to start in her track and go along almost down to the water.

“That's great, Laurel. Dickie, I want you to look for a stick at least a foot long. I'll work with Laurel. Don't go too far. Stay right near the edge of the water. That's where you'll have the best chance to find a stick washed up.”

I start running along the beach. I know Dad wants me to stay close to the water because of that lion. I only go about twenty steps when I find a stick. It's all smoothed by the water and at least three feet long. If we wanted to play stickball, it'd make a good bat. I run back. Our hill doesn't look so big against all the whole beach and the ocean.

“Look what I've got, Dad.”

“That's great. Look at what Laurel and I have rigged.”

Dad rolls the ball with hardly any push from the inside of his hole in the mountain. The ball rolls perfectly, turns a curve, goes down into Laurel's tunnel then up out the other side and down to a hole Dad's dug at the end of her trench. It's like watching a model train.

“Gee, that's great!”

“Now if we can only get our main tunnel through, we'll have it just right.”

Dad takes the stick and pushes it in the top hole, wiggling it around, twisting it from my side. Then he goes around to his side and starts doing the same thing.

“Dickie, you put your arm in at the top and feel for the stick.”

“I feel it! Dad, we've made it. The tunnel is all the way through.”

“O.K., now we get the sand out.”

Dad works fast now, pulling sand with his stick and then smoothing the tunnel and making everything even along the ramp to Laurel's tunnel. Dad stands up, brushes the sand off his bathing suit.

“O.K., Dickie, go up and get Mom. We're going to have the first demonstration of our sand ramp.”

I run up for Mom. She looks scared as I come up.

“Mom, Dad wants you to come down and see what we've built. It's really terrific. Dad should be an engineer or an architect or something.”

When we get down there, Dad lifts Laurel up and shows her how to put our ball in the little dent on top and give it a slight push.

That ball starts out on the first path going around the mountain; then it ducks into our first tunnel and, after what seems a long time, comes out the downhill side and turns slowly around the side of our mountain and rolls into our big tunnel. I'm about to think it's stuck in there when it comes out again, gets in Laurel's runway, down the hill into her tunnel, up the other side, then on down to the end, like a ball going into a hole in one of those miniature golf courses.

Mom applauds and laughs. Laurel and I are jumping up and down. Dad runs to get the ball.

“O.K., Laura, now it's your turn.”

Mom puts the ball on top and gives it a light tap. It rolls slowly and swings around going into the first tunnel but keeps going all the way through everything down to the final hole.

Mom goes back up and brings her towel. She also brings Cannibal in her box down to watch. We run the ball through, over and over. We even make little detours for the ball to go on so it can go through different tunnels and come out different ways.

By now it's beginning to get chilly. Mom's put Laurel's sunsuit on her and then her sweater on top of that. She makes me put a shirt on over my bathing suit. Dad doesn't seem to get cold, and Mom must know because she doesn't ask him to put on a sweater. Dad looks at Cannibal in her box.

“Hey, before the ocean comes and wrecks this ball ramp, let's give Cannibal a turn at it.”

I look in her box and she isn't asleep. I let her out wondering what Dad's going to do.

“First, we'll get her interested in the ball.”

Dad gets down beside Cannibal and rolls the ball back and forth in front of her. Cannibal tries to attack it. Dad keeps pulling it just out of Cannibal's reach. He's almost mean the way he never gives her a chance.

Then, when Cannibal's really getting mad, he puts his hands under her stomach and lifts her up. She bites at his finger but, as usual, he doesn't notice. He puts her right on top of that sand mountain with the ball in front of her face. He lets the ball go and it rolls slowly down the path. Cannibal goes after it, almost knocking it off before it goes into the tunnel. Cannibal dashes into the tunnel after the ball and comes out as it starts through the long tunnel. She hesitates a moment then goes bravely into that long tunnel under the sand.

I'm scared the whole hill might fall in and smother her, but then the ball comes out again with Cannibal just behind it, pushing along the path with her paws, trying to catch up. The ball rolls down into Laurel's tunnel and Cannibal follows. As it rolls slowly along the last part, Cannibal is striking and jumping at it until it gets to the final hole. Then when it's down in there Cannibal keeps reaching in trying to fish it out, but the hole's too deep. Dad reaches under and lifts Cannibal up to his face.

“You're a brave little devil, all right. I tell you, Laura, we'll never have any trouble with rats or mice at our place again. This here's a champion mouser, even now when she isn't much bigger than a mouse herself.”

Mom's worried about it getting cold, so we pack up and go home to our room.

Back there, we get out of our swimming suits, and after we've all showered we hang them up to dry. Even Mom showers this time although she wasn't in the water and was hardly in the sand even. She comes up from the shower all wrapped in towels. She has a towel wrapped around her head. She climbs into bed without getting dressed. Dad's already in bed.

“You kids must be tired so we want you to take a nap. Your father says we can go out on the boardwalk this evening if you two take a good nap. You especially, Dickie, after getting up so early these last couple of mornings. We're going to nap, too. But if either of you gets up or doesn't go to sleep then we don't go out and take any rides or buy any salt-water taffy or anything. Do you understand?”