Hannah & the Spindle Whorl Read online

  HANNAH & THE

  SPINDLE WHORL

  Hannah the

  Spindle Whorl

  Carol Anne Shaw

  RONSDALE PRESS

  HANNAH & THE SPINDLE WHORL

  Copyright © 2010 Carol Anne Shaw

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission of the publisher, or, in Canada, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright (the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency).

  RONSDALE PRESS

  3350 West 21st Avenue, Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6S 1G7

  www.ronsdalepress.com

  Typesetting: Julie Cochrane, in Minion 12 pt on 16

  Cover Art & Design: Nancy de Brouwer, Massive Graphic

  Paper: Ancient Forest Friendly “Silva” (FSC) — 100% post-consumer waste,

  totally chlorine-free and acid-free

  Ronsdale Press wishes to thank the following for their support of its publishing program: the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Plan, the British Columbia Arts Council, and the Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Book Publishing Tax Credit program.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Shaw, Carol Anne, 1960–

  Hannah & the spindle whorl / Carol Anne Shaw. — 1st ed.

  Epub ISBN 978-1-55380-114-6

  1. Vancouver Island (B.C.) — Juvenile fiction. 2. Salish Indians — Juvenile fiction. I. Title.

  Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada

  At Ronsdale Press we are committed to protecting the environment. To this end we are working with Canopy (formerly Markets Initiative) and printers to phase out our use of paper produced from ancient forests. This book is one step towards that goal.

  Printed in Canada by Marquis Printing, Quebec

  for my mother,

  who has been telling me

  I could do this since

  I was seven

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  A big thank you to everyone who listened to me prattle on for years about this book idea, and then left me alone while I wrote it. I am grateful to Ron Hatch at Ronsdale for his infinite expertise, patience and wisdom. A tip of the cap also to Erinna and Veronica for their copy editing. I couldn’t have finished the writing without the unfailing support and friendship of Kristine Paton, eagle eye extraordinaire and fellow dreamer. Kris, I now fully comprehend the adage, “less is more.” To my blueboarder buddies, you guys are great! Finally, my biggest thanks go to the men in my life: Richard, Trevor and Nick, who put up with the dust bunnies, mediocre dinners and my occasional crankiness. I love you guys. I couldn’t have done it without you.

  1862

  THE FOG IS THICK and waist high. Moisture sits in the air, heavy and damp, and both the ocean and the sky are a deep slate gray. Gulls cry in the distance and, up on the point, a bald eagle screeches from the top of a tall cedar tree.

  Yisella shivers, and draws her cape in close to shield against the cold. But she knows it’s more than the damp that makes her shiver. Wind whips the surface of the water and sends a salty spray into the air, stinging her face. She narrows her eyes, and stares at the distant horizon, reassured now that nothing is out there. And yet, the dream will not fade.

  Yisella pushes through the mist, keeping her basket close at her side. She has been lucky this morning — the basket is full of butter clams. She and her sister, Nutsa, will carefully dry the clams and prepare them for trading with the people who live across the water. These people also provide the rare and soft goat wool that Nutsa helps to spin for warm woollen blankets. Their mother, Skeepla, weaves the best blankets in their village. The best blankets in all of Quw’utsun’. Skeepla is known throughout the valley and all the way across the water. Yisella is proud of her village and its status among the island people.

  As she makes her way over the rocks, the fog begins to clear. The first few rays of sunshine warm her hands and face as she nears her village of Tl’ulpalus. When she is closer to the village, she sees that several of the elders have gathered near the biggest longhouse. They are all admiring the freshly carved welcoming figure that’s just been erected. Yisella joins them, carefully placing her basket at her feet.

  The new welcoming figure is taller than any of the other carvings. The cedar tree, cut down and sacrificed for the figure, now stands straight and strong once again, its reddish hue rich against the colourless sky. His arms are outstretched to the sea in a gesture of friendliness, while his gaze scans the beach in front of him.

  As Yisella makes her way over the driftwood, heading for the cedar-plank house where she lives, she turns for one more look. The arms of the welcoming figure cast long shadows upon the shore. He stands silent and still on this land warmed by the sun.

  1

  Cowichan Bay

  MY NAME IS HANNAH. I live with my dad on a houseboat, the third one down on the left, dock five. I like the sea and I like falling asleep to the sound of waves slapping against the side of our houseboat. I sleep in a loft above my father’s writing room. Yep, there’s only room for my bed, my dresser, and a small table I use for drawing and homework — stuff like that — but that’s okay. It’s cosy and sunny, and when I lie on my stomach on my bed I have a perfect view of Cowichan Bay and all the neighbouring boats. I like the view best in the early morning, just as the sun is beginning to rise. The water is usually still, and the smells of coffee and hot muffins often drift over from the Toad in the Hole bakery, which sits on the shore. Skinny cats slink down the docks looking for boat decks to nap on after a long night of prowling behind the restaurants and bait shops. The first few cars headed for the larger cities, like Duncan or Nanaimo, begin to appear on the old road that snakes in front of the shops.

  Our houseboat is made of scraps. Really. But it looks pretty cool. The cedar shakes were split from some logs taken off my dad’s friend’s property, and the windows were salvaged from a restaurant just before it was torn down. That’s why my bedroom window has the words “Bird’s Nest” written on it. That was the name of the restaurant. The rest of our houseboat is made from odd bits of lumber that Dad got from an old sawmill and Mr. Petersen’s barn. We have a wood burning stove in the front room, and there’s a funky winding staircase leading up to my sleeping loft. Dad built it out of twisted bits of driftwood. But the front door is definitely the best part. It’s made of maple, and has a fern and periwinkle stained-glass window made by my Aunt Maddie.

  My dad carved the posts and lintel out of clear yellow cedar. It took him almost a year to finish that doorway. It’s full of carvings of all kinds of living things you might see in and around Cowichan Bay: sea stars, gulls, anemones, crabs, you name it. If you can find it on our beach, it’s probably carved into our doorway. My favourite carving is the one on the top left, a little otter floating on his back in a bed of kelp. Sometimes in the mornings, when I’m watching out my Bird’s Nest window, I’ve seen an otter just like the one on our door. He often floats on his back, too, between dock six and seven, and he’s always curious about Ben North’s fishing boat.

  I could stay watching for a long time, wrapped up in my quilt, but then Dad usually bangs on the stair railing with a wooden spoon and yells, “Come on, Hannah, you’ll miss your bus!” He says this almost every school morning and, of course, I always remind him that I never do.

  The school bus stops just outside the Toad in the Hole bakery, so if I’m organized and ahead of time, I run down the dock and up the stairs and push through the screen door of the Toad where Nell is baking the last of
the day’s bread. I love Nell. She’s pretty old, at least fifty. She has this crinkly face and wild grey hair. And she makes the best bagels I’ve ever had. If I’m really lucky, she’ll push a hot cinnamon bagel straight into my hand before the bus comes.

  The bus ride takes about twenty minutes and I usually sit at the back because I’m one of the first on. No one talks to me that much. I know that lots of kids think I’m kind of weird — probably because my hair is red and corkscrew crazy. And I live on a homemade houseboat with a father who writes in his sweatpants all day. Or maybe it’s because my favourite shoes are boys’ Wal-Mart black-and-white basketball high-tops, and everybody knows it isn’t cool to wear those when you’re a twelve-year-old girl. But I don’t care. Not that much anyway. My running shoes are my favourite things, along with the lime-green knitted slippers Mom made me just before the accident. They’re pretty ratty now and have tons of holes in them, but I wear them all the time because they remind me of her. I did have a best friend, Gwyneth, a while back. She was great. She made these amazing electronic gizmos and was a total science geek, and she never once made fun of my shoes! But she moved to Ontario six months ago so right now I’m kind of without a best friend. Michael and Wesley live two docks over on a big fancy houseboat, but they’re more into fighting with sticks and playing zombie video games than exploring the woods with me.

  I have this feeling when I get up this morning that it’s going to be a different kind of day. Not an ordinary, go-to-school, come-home, eat-supper, do-homework, go-to-bed kind of day. Nope, I feel like something is going to happen. Don’t ask me why. I just get these feelings sometimes. Dad says I’m “clairvoyant” like Aunt Maddie. I’m not entirely sure what that means, but I think it has something to do with being a vegetarian and wearing sandals in the winter.

  But this is different. Like when I look out my window, everything looks really clear and blue, and sharp. What’s even more strange is that I don’t feel like lying in bed until the last minute, or writing one single word in my journal. And that’s not normal for me. I get up right away, get dressed, and leap down the stairs to the kitchen where my dad is hanging over the counter, staring intently into the coffeepot.

  “What are you looking at?” I ask him.

  “The elixir of life,” he tells me, scratching his head.

  “Huh?”

  My dad is always saying bizarre stuff like that and quoting famous dead people.

  “The elixir,” he goes on, “the tonic, the stuff of life, the ambrosia of the modern world, the— ”

  “Oh.” I cut him off. “Coffee. Got it. Are there any waffles?”

  “Waffles? Oh really? Her ladyship desires waffles, does she? On a school day, no less. Whole grain with fruit? Freshly squeezed juice to accompany your meal, madam?”

  I get the message and reach for the Cheerios and milk. I decide that I’ll visit Nell on the way to the bus and see if she’s feeling particularly generous with the tomato-basil bagels. I’m just about through my cereal when Chuck, our orange tabby, jumps onto the table and starts in on what’s left in my bowl. I don’t really mind. Neither does Dad. I know some people who would totally freak out to have an animal on the kitchen table eating out of a bowl. Sometimes, when we have company, Dad goes into his “proper parent mode” and says things like, “Shooo! Chuck! What the devil are you doing, you crazy animal?” But more often than not, he’ll give me a wink when no one’s looking. Actually, for a parent, he’s pretty cool. He does a lot of “wrong” stuff. Like sometimes, he lets me stay up late on a school night and read his work, and eat chocolate chips straight out of the bag. And once we had a food fight with spaghetti, and the tomato sauce ended up on the ceiling. He doesn’t care about stuff like mud on your shoes or grass stains on your clothes.

  Yep, things are a bit different at our place — Chuck is crazy too. For a cat, anyway. He’ll eat anything. Cereal. Cold tea. Carrot sticks. Even cold mashed potatoes. And then he’ll go to sleep in the laundry basket, on his back with his legs in the air. This morning I only have to fling him off the table once before he gets it and retreats to the laundry room.

  2

  Max

  “I EXPECTED YOU TO stay horizontal for a while longer this morning,” Dad says, finally sitting down with a mug warming his hands.

  “I just felt like I needed to get up.”

  “I see. Women’s intuition?” he asks. But he’s got his head in a pile of papers already and I can tell he’s having what he calls “a brainstorm moment.” Which means that in a few minutes he’ll only be able to say things like, “Uh — mmm — that’s nice,” without much enthusiasm. It doesn’t really bother me. He is a creative genius, so it’s allowed.

  “Nope. I just get the feeling there’s an adventure waiting for me today,” I tell him, noticing that Chuck has already grown bored of the laundry basket and found his way back to the table. I carefully place a soggy Cheerio on the end of his nose. It sticks.

  “Uh — mmm — that’s nice,” Dad says vaguely.

  As I walk down the dock toward the shore, I can really smell the bread from the Toad in the Hole bakery. Raisins, too, which usually means cinnamon-raisin scones! I walk a little faster. When I stick my head in through the door, Nell has both her hands buried in a big green bowl.

  “Hey, kiddo!” she calls out. She has flour in her hair, but it’s hard to tell because her hair is pretty much the colour of flour anyway.

  “I smelled cinnamon.” I smile.

  “Well, anyone up this early needs something to keep her strength up,” she tells me, and hands me two big warm scones from a cookie sheet beside the biggest oven. “Here, one for each hand.”

  “Wow! Thanks!” I stuff half of one straight into my mouth; not exactly proper, but I just can’t help myself. The raisins are warm and sweet, and I think to myself how much better the scones are than a lame bowl of cold cereal.

  “Where are you off to so early, Han?” Nell takes a big jar of walnuts off a shelf by the sink.

  “School, I guess. I just had a feeling I should get up early today. You ever get a feeling like that?” Then I feel really dumb because Nell is up half the night, baking all the delicious treats for the next day.

  But she just chuckles and looks out the window for a moment. “Nope. Although I sometimes think I should lie in bed for about thirty-four hours straight and do nothing but read books and drink really good French coffee.”

  What is the big deal with adults and coffee anyway? Personally, I think it’s gross. I’ll never drink it. Not in a million years.

  Nell and I chat for a long time, until eventually I hear the school bus braking just outside of Joe’s Bait Shop. That means I have just five minutes of freedom left. I lean against the Toad’s doorway until I see Wes and Michael coming along their dock, bashing each other over the head with their backpacks and yelling rude things at the seagulls.

  Sabrina Webber is sitting at the front of the bus, just as she always does, scowling as usual. Sabrina never has a nice word to say about anyone, so I’m secretly thrilled when, after I sit down, she realizes that I’ve been watching her pick her nose for the last two minutes. She looks horrified. My intuition was right. It is going to be a good day!

  Mrs. Elford is my grade six teacher. She’s probably the best teacher I’ve ever had, except for maybe Mr. Butler, who I had back in grade four. He used to tell us stories of how he river-rafted down the Amazon with his brother and his German shepherd named “Ox.” He could also juggle devil sticks and speak four different languages.

  This morning in math, Mrs. Elford stops us just as we’re about to start our page on fractions and goes to the door. Mr. Wallace, our principal, is standing outside the door with a kid. After a few moments, Mrs. Elford brings the boy inside and says, “Class, we have a new student joining us today, all the way from 100 Mile House. This is Max Miller. I know you’ll all make him feel welcome.”

  The boy has dark straight hair and is looking like he’d rather be anywhere bu
t standing at the front of this classroom. I feel sort of bad for him because it must suck to have to start a new school in June when the year is practically over. He’s wearing a green sweatshirt printed with a log cabin logo that says Flying U Ranch. His jeans are baggy and one of his shoelaces is untied. I can see Sabrina looking down her nose at him. Her shoelaces would never come untied in a million years.

  “So, Max, do you have any brothers or sisters here at Elliot Elementary?” Mrs. Elford asks him.

  “Yeah. I have a sister in grade three. Her name’s Chloe,” Max says quietly, and I notice he’s kind of red in the face. Sabrina snickers into her hands and then looks innocently out the window when Mrs. Elford gives her a look. I see Max raise his eyebrow at Sabrina and then she goes red in the face too.

  I think I’m going to like Max.

  3

  A Kindred Spirit

  MAX SITS IN THE ROW beside me and I smile over at him. He looks grateful. When I’m halfway through the questions on page sixty-eight of my math workbook, I glance over again and notice the doodles on the edge of his notebook. There are beautiful drawings of a fish, a bear, a moose and a hummingbird. Each one is totally detailed and shaded, so it’s only natural that a person would stare. But then I notice that Max is looking at me, and all of a sudden I feel like I’m spying or something.

  “You’re a really good artist,” I tell him.

  “Thanks,” he says.

  “How’d you learn to draw like that?”

  “I dunno. I like animals, I guess. I watch them a lot.”

  “Have you ever seen a bear up close for real?” I ask.