Free The Briny Café by Susan Duncan Page A

pups on the ferry this morning. Right at my feet. Just leaned sideways and out they popped, one by one. Like squeezing pips out of a cherry.”
    â€œYeah right, Mum. Pull the other one.”
    â€œHonest as, love. Six pups. Did you know that Dottie waxes her legs? Never heard of it before. Must hurt like heck.”
    One summer day, she ran down the jetty to meet him, faceflushed with what he knew must be big news. He tried to guess. A shark in the bay? A giant fish on the line? Maybe a decent dinghy washed up at high tide that he might be able to keep if they couldn’t find the owner?
    â€œThe bay ran dry today,” she told him. Breathless. In the same incredulous tones you’d use if an alien had just dropped out of the sky.
    â€œYeah. Yeah.” Sam was disappointed. Didn’t his mother know he was too old to fall for dumb tricks?
    â€œNo, love, no joke. I was looking out the window while I did the breakfast dishes and the whole bay emptied. Like someone had pulled the plug. Got a bull’s-eye view. Soldier crabs on the march, not sure which way to turn and crashing into each other. Water tanks. Rotting hulls. A cannon. A whole universe of sea creatures clinging to our rubbish and turning it into homes. Rent free!” She laughed, delighted with the thought. In the Scully family, the monthly rent payments regularly flattened the fizz in the household savings account. “A bold, new landscape. And a wee bit ghostly.”
    â€œThen what happened?” he asked, eyes narrowed.
    â€œWell, I waited. Sort of paralysed with shock. I thought later that if I’d had my wits about me I would’ve run for the hills because it was crazy! Bays don’t empty, not around here. Not unless some catastrophe is about to happen. I stuck my head out the window and watched, wondering if I was in a dream and didn’t know it. Suddenly, the water came back in a mad, frothing rush. Fish were tossed high. Driftwood flew through the air. Water came up to my knees in the boatshed. The whole event took about ten minutes, and within fifteen it was as though it had never happened.”
    Sam grinned, sure now that it was a hoax. “You’re havin’ me on, Mum, aren’t ya?”
    She didn’t reply. Instead she reached for his hand and walked him along the jetty to the beach. Then she pointed to a few dead tiddlers stranded way above the seawall.
    â€œHow do you think they got there?”
    Sam was flummoxed. He trusted his mum, but she’d always told him to question what he hadn’t seen with his own eyes. To seek the truth before making a judgement. And this was downright spooky. Fish didn’t fall out of the sky. No way.
    â€œDid Dad see it?” he asked, thinking witnesses were the only way to go.
    â€œNo. He was in the city. He doesn’t do a ferry shift on Wednesdays, remember?”
    â€œAnyone else see it?” No witnesses, no deal.
    His mum smiled then, and pointed to a peeling old shack across the bay.
    â€œThe Heggartys were home. Want to row over in the boat and ask them?”
    Sam dithered. The Heggartys were ancient and a bit potty. Once they got yacking, he’d be trapped for the rest of the afternoon. Still, old Mrs Heggarty cooked a decent shortbread biscuit and kept a good supply in a jar on the kitchen counter next to the tea. He had nothing to lose. He set off.
    Two hours later he returned. “Tsunami,” he said, looking at his feet, cranky he hadn’t twigged earlier. “Mild. Caused by an earthquake a long way away. It’s the second time the Heggartys have seen it happen here.”
    His mother looked vindicated but she wasn’t the type togloat. “Mrs Heggarty have any biscuits?” she asked.
    He shook his head. “She was about to make a batch when I turned up.”
    His mother ruffled his hair. “Come inside.” She pulled a tray of scones out of the half kerosene tin perched on a gas ring that