Spoiled Rotten (2 page)

“Can you imagine living in the same house with her?”

Sara groaned. “But at least there's only one of her. Try living with my sister and brothers and see how long you survive.”

Dad and Patti came over. He looked me up and down and shook his head like he was embarrassed. “My daughter, the born-again hippie,” he said.

Patti was all gushy and smiley in her pale
blue suit. Her blonde hair was tucked into a blue hat that looked like an upside down cookie tin. She laughed. “I think they look nice,” she said and kissed me on the cheek.

Yuck. I hadn't seen that coming.

“I can hardly wait for our boat trip this summer,” she said. “I know we'll get to be such good friends.”

I looked up at my dad. But he was watching Patti with that stupid grin on his face. Some lottery.

After the wedding I had exactly one week left to enjoy my life. I stayed at Sara's place while Dad and his charming bride went off on their honeymoon. Now there's something I never want to think about.

“If you don't hate Patti, how come you're so depressed?” Sara asked me one evening. We were sitting in her room with the door locked so her little brother and sister couldn't get in to bug us. As usual, the baby was screaming. Their house was so tiny it was hard to get away from all the noise those little kids made.

“I don't know,” I tried to explain. “See, Patti was okay as a friend. After Dad met her she sometimes went for walks with me and we'd talk about…” I paused and took a deep breath. “You know, about things.”

“Like what?”

“You know. Things my dad would never understand.”

Sara nodded.

By the end of that week I was actually looking forward to Dad and Patti getting home. I figured one stuck-up eleven-year-old had to be better than Sara's madhouse.

Man, was I wrong!

The first thing Amy did was try to take over my room.

“Why should she have the biggest room just because she was here first?” Amy whined. She stood in the hall with a stack of blankets in her arms and a huge scowl on her face.

Her mother was bent over a box of dishes in the kitchen. “Whine all you like,” she said. “But I won't let you kick Jessica out of her bedroom. It wouldn't be right.”

“Oh, fine!” Amy tossed the blankets on the floor. “So I get stuck with a room the size of a closet! How am I supposed to move around in there with all my stuff?”

“I don't know, Amy,” her mother said. “If you can't manage we could give your desk to Jessica. I'm sure she could use it for her artwork.”

Amy's jaw dropped. “I'll manage.” She picked up the blankets and stomped off to her room.

There were only two weeks left until the big summer vacation, and Dad still hadn't told his dear wife that I wasn't going. It seemed to have slipped his mind. He kept talking about how much fun we were
all
going to have.

I didn't want to admit it, but I was beginning to weaken. I couldn't find any place to stay—one week at Sara's place had cured me of ever wanting to stay there again. And Dad would never let me stay home alone.

Then there was the problem of Amy. If Amy had three weeks to brainwash Dad and Patti, who knew what she might accomplish?
They could come home thinking she was the best daughter in the entire world. And I was just the opposite.

I refused to go down without a fight. That night at dinner I took a deep breath and jumped in. “Did Dad tell you I'm not going on the boat trip?”

Everyone stopped eating and stared at me.

“What do you mean?” Patti asked. “I thought you were looking forward to it.”

I shook my head, “I don't like boats.”

“But, your dad told me what a wonderful time you had last year on your canoe trip.”

I gave her
the look
. Eyes hard, jaw clenched, I rolled my eyes up toward the ceiling. “Key word,” I said, “canoe
.
You paddle a canoe and you sleep under the stars. You are not cooped up in a big boat with a noisy stinky engine that pollutes the water everywhere you go.”

Patti looked crushed. She put her fork down. “Well, I don't know what to say. You know, I thought about selling the boat this summer; it was my husband who really liked
boating anyway. But then your dad told me how much you would enjoy going up to Desolation Sound.”

I turned
the look
on my father.

“I thought it would be good for us,” he said, “as a family.”

“If we sell
Fanta-sea
,” Patti suggested, “we could use the money to take a trip we all planned together.”

“
Fanta-sea
?” I said
.
“That's the boat's name? You've got to be kidding.” My voice was lost in Amy's wail.

“No-oo. You can't sell
Fanta-sea
just because of her!” Amy had a whole different
look
from mine. Her bottom lip quivered, and big fat tears rolled down her face.

My father's eyes shot daggers again. “How can you be so selfish, Jessica? The three of us are all excited about going cruising to one of the most beautiful places in the world. And you want to ruin it for everyone.”

I looked from his anger, to Patti's hurt, to Amy's tears and knew I was beat. But I didn't need to be happy about it. “Crap!” I shouted and pushed my chair back.

“Watch your language,” Dad said.

I stood up. “If I go, you can't make me enjoy it!”

I turned and stomped out of the room.

Tears, one.
The look
, zero.

Steering a boat is not like driving a car. In a car you pull over, hit the brakes and stop. Simple. Boats don't have brakes. You need to take the current and the wind into account when you pull up to a dock. So, I had to hand it to Patti: She did a good job of steering the boat up to the gas dock at Powell River.

It was our third day out, and Dad sat beside her on the command bridge, watching, so he could learn what to do. I stood
on deck, clutching the bow rope, ready to jump. Amy had disappeared. She was probably reading. Amy was always reading.

We were about two meters from the dock, coming in dead slow. Patti shifted the engine to neutral and let the boat drift in. I watched the gap narrow. My bare toes curled over the wood trim. I waited for the right moment.

“JUMP!”

Dad's shout caught me off guard and I started to fall forward. Dark water stared up at me in the narrow gap between boat and dock. It was either jump or fall in, so I pushed off with my toes and leapt through the air.

I landed heavily on the rough wood of the dock. Somehow I tripped over the rope in my hand and fell sideways. But I never let go of that rope. I scrambled to my feet and eased the boat against the dock.

Dad stepped off to tie the stern rope while I tied the bow. I waited for him to say, “Nice work,” or,” Well done,” or maybe, “Sorry I yelled at you,” but he didn't even
look my way. He patted the pockets of his shorts. “Anyone seen my wallet?” he asked.

Amy appeared from nowhere. “I'll get it, Dad,” she said and disappeared into the cabin.

I stared after her.
Dad
? Since when was he her
dad
? This kid wanted everything that was mine.

Amy jumped onto the dock with the wallet in her hand and a self-satisfied smirk on her face. She glanced at me slyly.

“Thanks Amy,” my father said.

I turned away.

While Amy and her mother went to buy groceries, Dad and I filled up the gas and water tanks. I kept thinking about the way Amy called him Dad
.
It burned me up.

If they thought I would ever call Patti Mom
,
they had better think again. Patti would never replace my mom. My mother died when I was eleven. I still missed her so much that sometimes, when no one was around, I cried.

Mom had long, shiny black hair, soft brown eyes and a gentle smile. She loved
the outdoors. We used to hike in the rain forest and paddle our canoe in the sea. She taught me about the birds and animals of the West Coast. She told me stories about my Native grandmother. Mom was so proud that I looked like my grandmother.

No one would ever believe I belonged in this family. Patti and Amy were both blue-eyed, blonde, and—I hated to admit it—pretty. My father had blue eyes and light brown hair. The three of them looked like they belonged together. I was the odd person out.

I thought about that as I sat on the dock at Powell River and watched Patti and Amy walk back from the store, their blonde hair shining in the sun. Amy wore bright pink shorts and a white T-shirt. She had a stupid pink scrunchy on top of her head to hold her hair back from her face. I hate pink. I figured that's why all of Amy's new clothes were pink.

My father was coiling up the water hose. His blue eyes flashed with anger.

“Why don't you get up and help your mother?” he demanded.

“My mother's dead,” I snapped. Suddenly my throat hurt and my eyes burned. I waited for him to start yelling, but he only looked back at me with something like pain in his eyes.

I ran to help with the groceries.

Sun sparkled across rippled water. There wasn't a cloud in sight. I sat on the bow and leaned against the cabin window to sketch a bald eagle. Broad wings outstretched, it glided effortlessly above the tall cedars that grew right down to the water's edge.

Sara would love it here! We could sketch together, hike into the hills, go snorkelling, whatever.

I turned to a fresh sheet in my sketchbook and wrote:

Dear Sara,

If only you could be here instead of The Spoiled Brat, we'd have a great time. You can't imagine what she's like…

“Look at that, Jessica!” my father called.

We rounded a narrow point of land and entered a different world. Ahead, outlined
against a bright blue sky, was a chain of jagged mountains bluer than the sea. Their highest peaks were blanketed in snow. The mountains rose straight out of the sea to fifteen hundred meters above our heads. I felt like a tiny speck, a chunk of driftwood floating on the ocean.

We cruised through a channel with forested islands on both sides and those soaring mountains dead ahead until we came to a narrow inlet. We headed up the inlet. On either side of us sheer rock faces rose up to craggy peaks. Little streams and waterfalls gushed down the rocks, disappeared in forests and splashed out into the sea.

We had traveled up the inlet for over an hour when we spotted a small bay and a rocky beach. It looked like the perfect place to stay for a few days to relax, swim and explore.

I stood on the bow as we inched toward shore. That's when I spotted the river. Behind the beach, almost hidden by trees, white water tumbled toward the sea. A zigzag path of light green alder trees through the
darker green rain forest marked the river's course down the mountainside. High above everything a mountain peak loomed, white with snow.

I could hardly wait to explore the river. Dad would come with me; he had to. How could he resist?

We dropped anchor in the bay. When Patti shut the engine off everything went quiet. The only sound was the murmur of river water rushing over rocks.

“The bottom is rocky here,” Patti said, “and it's so deep the anchor rope goes straight down. To be safe, we'll need to tie a stern rope to shore.”

“I'll go,” I offered.

“Amy will go with you,” Dad said.

“Aw…,” we both said at once.

“Amy can hold the dinghy while you tie the rope,” Dad said firmly.

I didn't bother to answer; I knew when I was beat. So I climbed over the stern onto the swim grid and pulled the dinghy close.

Amy sat in the dinghy's stern with a book on her lap. I rowed while Amy held one end of the rope, and Dad fed the line out from a coil on
Fanta-sea.
A brisk wind made the water choppy and a strong current pushed us sideways. I had to row hard to make headway.

“Hurry up!” my father yelled.

“I'm rowing as fast as I can!” I yelled back.

“The wind is pushing us sideways. If you don't hurry, we'll be on the rocks!” he shouted.

I ignored him.

When the bow bumped against the rocky shore, Amy handed me the rope. I climbed out, leaving her to hold the dinghy. On top of a low bank was a big fir tree with a root
that curled out of the ground. I climbed up. The root was strong and solid so I tied the rope around it.

“Okay!” I called.

Dad pulled on the rope until it was tight and
Fanta-sea's
stern swung toward me. Then he disappeared inside the boat. I knew he and Patti were making sandwiches and I could hardly wait to eat. I was starved.

I climbed back down to the beach and saw Amy sitting on a big rock, her nose in her book. Behind her the dinghy bounced over bright waves, drifting away with the current.

“Hey, Amy!” I called.

She looked up slowly and smiled that funny little smile of hers. “This is the best book!” she said. “Want to borrow it when I'm done?”

“You didn't tie up the dinghy!” I yelled.

Her face crumpled. “I thought you did.”

“That's what you came for!” I shouted. “You had one simple thing to do. Couldn't you at least hold onto the rope?”

“I guess I forgot,” she said and turned to look at the dinghy.

Furious, I ran and snatched the book from her hands. “You better start swimming!”

“Give me my book!” She grabbed for it.

“Not until you bring the dinghy back.” I held it over my head, out of her reach.

Amy jumped up and down like a flea, but she couldn't get it. So she stood very still, did the lip quiver thing and whined, “I can't swim!”

I knew she was lying. I mean, give me a break! This kid was almost twelve and spent her summers on a boat.

The dinghy drifted quickly along the shoreline. Someone had to go after it right away or it would reach the river mouth and be pushed out of the bay.