The Big Snapper Read Free Page A

are staying in Eddie’s room. There is Mr. Northorpe, who is thin and studious and is never without his binoculars. And there is Mrs. Northorpe, who is as restless as a bubble that can’t settle on a place to land. She wants to know everything about the Queen Charlotte Islands and all the best places to visit. Whenever Granddad suggests a place, she runs for her map, which she spreads across the floor. The Northorpes also have a daughter named Becky. She is twelve years old, and to Eddie, appears totally bored with it all.
    â€œYou have a girl staying in your room?” Jake scoffs. It is the final day of school, and their backpacks are loaded with crumpled exercise books and brittle erasers cleaned out of theirlockers. “How are you ever going to get it smelling normal again?”
    Eddie shifts the weight on his back. He has already thought about this. “I thought I might do some wood burning. I’m thinking of making a name for the new skiff Granddad’s building.”
    â€œWhat would you call it?”
    Eddie doesn’t take long to consider. “The Big Snapper.”
    â€œYeah, I suppose that might work.” Jake kicks a stone down the path. “I guess it depends on how long she stays.”
    Eddie has discovered that the worst part of having guests is not the space they occupy. It’s the things you can’t do in your own home. Like being impolite. Not that Eddie makes a habit of being impolite, but once in a while he picks the mushrooms from his chowder. Or he burps contentedly after downing a glass of Coke. Just to know that he can and that he won’t get killed, like he would if he was eating in a restaurant. Since Mom started the bed and breakfast it’s like eating every meal in a restaurant.
    Becky Northorpe doesn’t like fish. She doesn’t like the taste or smell of it. And she hates the beach. She can’t stand the crunch of barnaclesbeneath her sandals, and the hermit crabs scuttling between rocks give her the creeps. After beachcombing with her parents she uses up all the hot water in the cabin for a shower; then complains she still smells like sardines.
    â€œI have an idea,” Mom tells everyone at breakfast the next morning. “Mr. and Mrs. Northorpe are hiking to the Pesuta shipwreck today. Since Becky doesn’t like the beach, Eddie, why don’t you and Jake take her up to Spirit Lake?”
    Eddie looks up with a start.
    Mom is standing there, beaming, like she’s just come up with the theory of relativity. Becky continues to pick Grandma’s fry bread to shreds. Wearing broad hopeful grins, Mr. and Mrs. Northorpe have their eyes on Eddie.
    â€œBut I planned on going fishing with Granddad,” ventures Eddie. “He needs my help.”
    â€œOh, I think your grandfather can do without you for one day.” Mom rises from the table and begins collecting plates. “What do you say, Granddad?”
    Granddad agrees that he can manage, before glancing at Eddie. He raises his eyebrows in an apologetic way.
    Mr. and Mrs. Northorpe drop Eddie, Beckyand Jake off at the bottom of the hill on their way to Naikoon Park.
    Becky picks a stone from the toe of her sandal, tosses her blond ponytail over her shoulder and looks around. “So, where is this lake?”
    â€œWe have to hike to the top of that hill.” Eddie points to a break in the trees on the side of the road.
    Becky rolls her eyes.
    â€œHow did you get sucked into this?” Jake whispers to Eddie as they start toward the path.
    â€œI wasn’t given any choice.”
    It is a beautiful, sunny day—there are not that many on the islands. The dark forest is full of bright shadows and dappled sunlight, and in places where the underbrush is thin, shafts of light reach through the tall cedars and illuminate the forest floor.
    Becky doesn’t like the forest. Even on this particularly cheerful day when the recent rain has stirred up life, she