Or did I?
Takes all my strength to reach down and pick up the plastic bag with my bloody fingers and hold it up so I can see it. I’ll be darn. A plain old peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Bar of solid gold couldn’t look any finer.
My hands are so slippery and shaky, I have to tear the bag open with my teeth. Sandwich! Squished and soggy don’t matter when you’re starving. I eat the whole thing in one fat, wonderful bite. It tastes sticky and sweet. Better than candy. Better than anything.
That little bit of food clears my head and stops me shaking. It helps me decide what to do. Helps me think how to be smart and never give up, both at the same time.
What happens is I remember a true story Mr. Woodwell told me once, that happened long ago. In the old days they fished from schooners, big wooden ships with white canvas sails that took the fishermen far offshore to the Grand Banks fishing grounds. Each schooner carried a bunch of wooden dories stacked on deck, and when they got to the fishing grounds the men got into the dories and rowed away, looking for cod and haddock.
This one guy got lost in a winter storm and couldn’t find the schooner. He’s a hundred miles at sea and can’t find his ship. All his gear is washed away, except for his oars. He knows his hands will soon get frostbite and then he won’t be able to grip the oars. Before that happens he dips his hands in the cold water and freezes them to the oar handles so he can’t let go. And he rows all the way from the Grand Banks, off Nova Scotia, to Gloucester, Massachusetts. Lost his hands to the frostbite but rowed all the way home and lived to tell the tale.
He never gave up. He did what he had to do.
What I got to do is somehow keep my hands from slipping off the oars. So I cut two pieces of rope. Lash my left hand to the left oar and tie the rope with a good knot.
There. Can’t let go.
Lashing my right hand is much harder, so hard it brings tears to my eyes, but I finally manage to pull the knot tight with my teeth. Both hands tied to the oars. Can’t let go, can’t give up.
Ready?
Ready.
Pull.
Pull.
Pull.
One day near the end when my mom was really sick she called me into her room. Her voice was so small and quiet, I had to lean close and smell the sick on her breath. I didn’t care. I wanted to be that close. I wanted to feel her fingers feather-light on my cheek.
I know you’re still a small boy, Skiff Beaman, but I’ve got a big job for you.
Anything, Mom. Anything at all.
I want you to take care of your father. You understand?
Sure, Mom. Take care of Dad.
Swear on a stack of pancakes?
I swear, Mom.
Thing is, I’d have done that anyhow, without her asking. Mom knew that, but she wanted to hear me say it, to put her easy in her mind.
Comes to me that the only really good reason to keep on rowing is to keep that promise. And if I cut the fish loose I can get home sooner. Makes sense. Only thing, I can’t cut the rope because my hands are lashed to the oars. So there it is.
Pull.
Pull.
Pull.
One time we all went out for a picnic on the Mary Rose. Anchored behind Boone Island, out of the wind, and Mom put a checkered tablecloth over the engine cover and passed out fried chicken on paper plates and potato salad and pickles and stuff, and homemade blueberry pie for dessert. I ate so much, I like to bust and started complaining about a full stomach and too much food, and she said never complain about too much food, that’s an insult to the cook and an insult to all the hungry people in the world.
I sassed her and had to stay down in the cabin for the rest of the picnic. When we got back to the dock, Mom came down in the cabin and said have you got over being a smart mouth? and I said no. Mom shook her head and sat down on the bunk and said what am I going to do with you? Don’t care what you do, I told her, my stomach hurts and you don’t care. Mom said look me in the eye and say that and I looked her in the eye and I couldn’t say it because it wasn’t true. She smiled then and said, you have as much stubborn in you as a full-grown man. I hope someday you put it to good use.
That was our last picnic on the Mary Rose.
Pull.
Pull.
Pull.
When Mom got sick I kept wishing I had a time machine so I could go back and fix things. Take back all the mean words I ever said to her. Change what made her sick. Change myself into a better person that didn’t ruin picnics.
Pull.
Pull.
Pull.
Can’t feel my arms. Can’t feel my hands. All I can feel is the weight of the skiff and the big fish and the fog pressing down. Brain ain’t working right. Something wrong but I don’t know what. Almost like I’m asleep but I can’t be asleep because I’m still rowing. My eyes are wide open but the compass has gone blurry. Am I still headed for shore?
Pull.
Pull.
Pull.
Can’t stop. Want to give up but can’t. Now I’m watching me pull on the oars. Like I’m floating just above, watching Skiff Beaman row and row and row. Crazy boy, where’s he think he’s going? Going to Boone Island for a picnic. Going to get it right this time.
Pull.
Pull.
Pull.
Can’t see the compass, can’t see the fish, can’t see the end of my oars dipping into the water. Only thing I can see is the funny-looking giant striding high above the fog. Tall thing with skinny legs and a bright white halo shining behind its head. Do giants have halos? Can’t be a giant. Giants don’t exist, do they? Must be an angel. An angel in the mist with eyes like beams of light.
Don’t matter. Must keep rowing.
Then the angel comes out of the fog and it’s a boat not an angel and the halo is a spotlight shining down from the tuna tower and a man shouts from the tower but I can’t understand what he’s saying and it might be a dream tempting me to give up so I don’t stop rowing, I never stop rowing until my father jumps down from Fin Chaser and picks me up, oars and all, and carries me to sleep.
SMALL BOY HARPOONS BIGGEST FISH
Portland Press Herald — The largest bluefin tuna taken by harpoon in Maine waters this season was caught by twelve-year-old Samuel “Skiff” Beaman, Jr., of Spinney Cove. The 900-pound fish fetched a record price but very nearly cost young Mr. Beaman his life. After harpooning the trophy tuna and securing it to his ten-foot skiff, Beaman ran out of fuel and rowed from Jeffrey’s Ledge to within five miles of shore, a distance of twenty-five miles, in unusually heavy fog.
The Coast Guard cutter Reliance and a number of commercial fishing vessels had been searching through the night for the young harpooner when he was found by his father, Samuel Beaman, Sr., aboard Fin Chaser, a private tuna boat owned by Jack Croft of Spinney Cove. Mr. Croft reports that the boy was badly dehydrated by the time he was discovered, and that he had apparently been rowing without pause for more than twelve hours.
The boy was treated at the Maine Medical Center in Portland and released the next day. He is expected to make a full recovery.
The newspaper article is in my scrapbook now, along with a photocopy of the check from Mr. Nagahachi. Too bad they didn’t take a picture of the fish, but everybody was so worried about me, I guess they forgot. Dad says not to fret, there will be other fish and we can take a picture then. Have to wait until next year, at least, what with getting the Mary Rose fixed and school starting and things to do around the house.
Today Dad vacuumed the living room, which is a first. We’re cleaning up because Mr. Woodwell has been invited to supper and Dad says it don’t matter if the old man is halfway blind, he still knows dirt from dirt. Plus he’s an honored guest and I’m lucky he didn’t have me arrested for stealing the harpoon.
The deal is, Dad is going to show me how to make a new harpoon for Mr. Woodwell, to replace the one I lost. Also I’m supposed to help the old geezer around the shed for nothing, for
as long as he needs me. Like I mind, right? When the truth is I’d rather be in that boat shed than almost anywhere else in the world. Except out in a boat, of course.
The other good thing, besides fixing the Mary Rose, is that Dad is going to meetings to help him stay sober. Says he has to take it one day at a time. Says that looking for me in the fog scared the beer right out of him. We’ll see. So far, so good.
As for Tyler, the lying weasel, he swore up and down he didn’t cut my traps, but his father didn’t believe him, so he lost the use of the Boston Whaler for a year. Big deal. Dad says Jack Croft doesn’t know what to do with the boy and probably wishes he had me for a son, but somehow I doubt that. Blood is blood, and you got to keep together with your family, even if they mess up. Friends, too. Like Dad says, he found two things in the fog, me and his old pal Jack, who didn’t think nothing of risking his boat for a true friend.
Which brings me to the biggest fish. The fish that almost drowned me and then saved me and then took me for a ride, and then nearly killed me all over again. The biggest fish in the big blue sea got flown to the other side of the world and was served up at weddings and ceremonies and birthday parties all over Japan, where they call the giant bluefin tuna hon maguro and believe that it melts in your mouth and into your soul.
All except the tail. The tail I nailed up above the outhouse door, where everybody can see it. Dad offered to tear down the old outhouse so nobody would think to sing that stupid song again, but I said leave her be.
I like things just the way they are.
The author wants to thank Paul Brown, of Kittery, Maine, for his insights into the fine art of trapping lobsters. Also, some of the amazing physical abilities of the bluefin tuna were gleaned from Douglas Why not’s book Giant Bluefin.
About the Author
After years of writing mysteries and suspense thrillers for adults, Rodman Philbrick decided to try his hand at a novel for young readers. That novel, Freak the Mighty, was published in 1993 to great acclaim and stellar reviews. In addition to being named an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and winning several state awards, it was also made into the Miramax feature film The Mighty in 1998. Rod returns to Maxwell Kane’s story in a sequel, Max the Mighty, a fast-paced cross-country odyssey.
Rod takes young readers to the American West in his exhilarating tale of two brothers on the run in The Fire Pony, winner of the Capital Choice Award, and on to a land where nothing is as it seems in the science-fiction adventure REM World. His thought-provoking novel The Last Book in the Universe, also an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, takes place in a futuristic world where no one reads anymore. Rod thought back to his New England roots and knowledge of boat building to write The Young Man and the Sea. School Library Journal praised its “wide-open adventure” and “heart-pounding suspense” and named it a Best Book of the Year in 2004.
Rodman Philbrick has also written several spine-tingling series for young readers with his wife, Lynn Harnett, including The House on Cherry Street and The Werewolf Chronicles. Rod and Lynn divide their time between homes on the coast of Maine and in the Florida Keys.
Q&A with Rodman Philbrick
Q: You started writing when you were in the sixth grade. Did you always want to be a writer? Do you remember any of your first stories?
A: I always wanted to be a writer, although at various times I also wanted to be an astronaut, a doctor, a lawyer, and so on. The first short story I remember completing was a five-page, trick-ending thing called “The President’s Barber.” Each day the White House barber gives the president a shave with a straight razor, and each day he secretly decides whether or not he’ll let the president live, or cut his throat.
Q: Have you always written for kids?
A: No. For the first fifteen years of my career as a novelist, I wrote only for adult readers — mysteries, suspense novels, thrillers, and so on. Then I stumbled on the idea for a story that had been happening in my backyard, so to speak, and wrote Freak the Mighty in the summer of 1992. Since then I’ve published books for young readers as well as novels intended for adults.
Q: Did you have a hard time getting your first book published? What other jobs did you have when you were first starting out as a writer?
A: I had a lot of trouble getting published. I wrote my first novel at sixteen and then wrote eight more before I finally found a publisher at age twenty-eight. During those years, I worked as a longshoreman, a carpenter, a roofer, and a boatbuilder.
Q: Is Freak the Mighty based on a true story?
A: The idea for Freak the Mighty was inspired by the personality of a real boy. Like Kevin, one of the book’s two main characters, he suffered from a disease that made him very short. Like Kevin, he had a big friend who sometimes carried him around. And, like Kevin, the real boy was highly intelligent and interested in both language and science. His mother, like the Fair Gwen, was and is quite beautiful. There the similarity ends — the plot of the story is pure fiction.
Q: Max, the other main character, is also unusual. What inspired you to create him?
A: I’d seen my little friend riding around on the shoulders of one of his big buddies. I didn’t know the big guy, so that allowed me to invent an entirely fictional character. I thought it would be interesting if he had some darkness in his past — a father in jail, his mother dead.
Q: You’ve said that Freak the Mighty is about a writer learning to find his voice, and that theme recurs in your novel The Last Book in the Universe. How did you find your voice?
A: Over many years and over many thousands of pages. Learning to write a readable, compelling story was hard work for me.
Q: What inspired you to write The Last Book in the Universe?
A: The editor Michael Cart asked me to contribute a story to an anthology called Tomorrowland. At first, all I came up with was an intriguing title, “The Last Book in the Universe.” Then I had to think up a world where there might be a “last book,” and think about why people had stopped reading. After finishing the short story, which was eventually published, I couldn’t stop thinking about the world the narrator, Spaz, lived in and I set about making it a full-scale novel. No doubt many of the “sci-fi” elements came from my love of movies like the original The Time Machine, and from my adolescent fascination with comic book adventures.
Q: Did the short story change a lot when you expanded it into a novel?
A: The short story is pretty much confined to Spaz and his mentor, Ryter. To make it an interesting novel, I needed more characters and more adventure. So I invented Eden and populated it with people who had “improved” themselves genetically. Then I added Spaz’s sister, Bean, put her in peril, and the adventure began.
Q: You’ve written books that are based in a familiar setting, like Freak the Mighty and this one, and others that take place in lands you’ve invented, like REM World and The Last Book in the Universe. Which is easier to write about?
A: Imagined worlds are always a bit more difficult for me. I can’t write about a place until it seems real in my own head, so that obviously takes a leap of imagination that’s not required for the real world.
Q: The characters in your books have such interesting, evocative names: Gram and Grim, Loretta Lee, and Killer Kane from Freak the Mighty; Spaz from The Last Book in the Universe; and Skiff Beaman from The Young Man and the Sea. How do you come up with them?
A: Names are important to me. I can never really get started on a story until the characters have names that mean something to me. Sometimes the names come out of thin air, other times from newspaper articles or songs.
Q: You’ve written several books with your wife, Lynn Harnett. Is it hard to write a book with someone else?
A: It depends on who you’re writing with! Lynn has been my only collaborator, and she is an experienced writer and an editor. When my publisher asked if we’d like to write a series of scary stories for young readers, we said yes. Our first series was a haunted house trilogy called The House on Cherry Stre
et. So far, we’ve written ten books together, but we continue to write books on our own as well.
Q: What inspired you to write The Young Man and the Sea?
A: The notion of a boy harpooning a giant bluefin tuna came to me when my younger brother, Jonathan (a teenager at the time), worked as a crewman on a tuna boat. He told me tales of the giant fish and it always stuck in my mind.
Q: The title of the book brings to mind Ernest Hemingway’s 1952 novella The Old Man and the Sea. Are the similarities in the title intentional?
A: Before I had a definite title, my editor and I called this “the young man and the sea book” because I had mentioned that Hemingway’s famous story about an old man and the sea had inspired the part of my story that involves going after a big fish in a small boat. My original title for the book was “Lobster Boy,” but people kept expecting a kid with claws for hands, sort of the “lobster version” of Edward Scissorhands. Finally we decided that The Young Man and the Sea worked best as a title because it openly acknowledges Hemingway’s influence. Oddly enough, the British edition of the book reverted to the old title, Lobster Boy.
Q: Is the character of Skiff Beaman based on a real person? What about Mr. Woodwell?
A: Parts of Skiff’s personality were drawn from people I knew as a kid. There actually was a Mr. Woodwell. When I knew him he was an elderly gentleman, a retired schoolteacher who was rebuilding an old Friendship sloop. As a young man I sailed Down East with him. We were headed for the race at Friendship, Maine, but got fogged in in Casco Bay. I combined Mr. Woodwell’s wise and gentle nature with that of another, highly skilled boatbuilder who lived up the river from me, a man who had a boat shed very much like the one in the book.