Free Navigating Early by Clare Vanderpool Page A

just saying the numbers end.”
    “THE NUMBERS DON’T END. PI IS NOT DEAD!” Early spoke with the same authority he used in calling out his coxswain directions. He grabbed his jar of jelly beans, spilled them out on the workbench, and started sorting. Green, blue, yellow, red, orange. His breathing was short and fast.
    I just needed to calm him down. “Early, let’s not worry about it right now. I’m sure Pi is fine. He’s probably had another mishap on his boat. But if we can fix the Sweetie Pie , surely he can get his boat up and running again. What was happening the last time we saw him?”
    “He was in danger.” Early’s breathing slowed a bit as we heard a pitter-pattering on the window. It was raining. I reached for a particular record and placed it on the turntable. A swell of music broke the tension, and Early beganhis story, this time with no numbers on a chalkboard. He knew the story by heart.
    And in the background of Early’s story was her voice. Her soul. Her sadness and longing. Because when it’s raining, it’s always Billie Holiday.

Plights and Perils

 
    P I FACED MANY DANGERS . Sharks stalking him for days, their fins gliding alongside his boat. Perhaps waiting for him to fall overboard. Perhaps hoping to drive him mad enough to jump in.
    But the bugs were more likely to drive him crazy. On a windless stretch of water, he encountered a swarm of stinging, buzzing insects so thick, the sky was darkened all around him. They hovered and burrowed while he slapped and scratched. By the time a breeze picked up, allowing him to sail away, he was so swollen that he could barely see or breathe, and the welts on his skin oozed and itched for days.
    One of his moments of greatest peril occurred in the balmy season, when the winds could whip up into gale force in minutes. His boat was sturdy and strong, and small enough that he could maneuver it quickly, tacking this way and that to steer himself clear of rough waters. But this time it was different. There seemed to be no end to the howlingwind and roiling water. Hours turned into days, until suddenly he found himself in an eerie calm. The waters were still. Too still. The wind had died down so quickly, it seemed to have sucked the very breath out of him. He had never experienced such a deathly quiet. Then, as quickly as it had come, the eye of calm was gone. Again he was blown and battered by the storm.
    Finally, his strength gave out and he was swept into the sea.
    His body floated amid the churning waves, and his mind floated between dream and reality. Was it really a whale that looked him in the eye? He had heard stories of people being swallowed by whales. One voyager even stayed alive for days before being spit out. Did this whale really swim beneath him, keeping him afloat? Would a whale nudge a body safely to shore? Had he really looked into the deep, somber eye of a big white whale? This was the memory Pi was left with when he found himself sprawled on yet another beach, surrounded by mangled driftwood, weeds, and the carcasses of fish that had not fared as well as he during the storm.
    The image of a benevolent whale was a pleasant one, but it was quickly shoved aside when he stood and raised his eyes to a great mountain with plumes of smoke and bursts of molten rock spewing from its gaping mouth.
    He recalled an expression from his village: Out of the kettle and into the fire .
    He wasn’t in the fire yet, but a glowing stream of it was on its way.

12
 
    T he morning of the regatta, I got two messages under my door. One was a notice that, due to an anticipated storm midday on Saturday, the opening race would start at eight a.m. instead of nine. No problem. I’d just have to find Early and tell him about the eight o’clock start time. I knew he wouldn’t have received a notice, as I was the registered rower. All the other boys were racing as singles. I’d been allowed to have a coxswain because I was a beginner, but with the extra weight