to drive a nail into an argument, or break a sermon across my knee. Kind of a joke in a scary sort of way.

"Hand up the hatchet," I called. "I don't see how it'll do any good, but I'll try it anyway."

Fatty lifted the hatchet high and stood up on his toes. I started to slide down the mast. The purring from the box became a whine.

Just as my stretching fingers closed around the hatchet handle, the box on top and the box on the bottom of the boat began going clinkety-clangety-clung. It reached clung and I was no longer doing it to the mast. I was on top of Fatty and he was spread-eagled on the deck.

I had a glimpse of the hatchet sailing over the side.

"Wh-what f-for you wanted to d-do th-that," Fatty gasped as I rolled off him and we both groaned upright. "C-couldn't you tell me you w-wanted to get down fast? I'd have moved away, honest!"

"Wasn't my fault," I said. "I was pushed."

Fatty wasn't listening. He was staring at something else. And, when I noticed it, so was I.

A lot of sea-water had splashed into the cockpit. Some of it had wet us.

All of the water on deck rolled into a little lake abaft of the mast, the water on our bodies dripping down and joining it. Then, the entire puddle rolled to port and spilled off the deck. The boat was perfectly dry again. So were we.

"This I'm beginning not to like," Fatty commented hoarsely. I nodded my head, too. Under the circumstances I didn't feel easy in my mind.

Stepping very delicately, as if he were afraid he might fracture a commandment, Fatty moved over to the side and looked out. He shook his head and looked down.

"Paul," he said after a while in a low voice. "Paul, would you come here? Something I—" he choked.

I took a look. I gulped, one of those really long gulps that start down from your Adam's apple and wind up squishing out between your toes.

Below us, under the water and the gray haze, was a slew of darkness. Beyond that, at a respectable distance, I could see the Atlantic Ocean and the New England coast line with Cape Cod hooking out its small, bent finger. New England was moving away fast and became 

 Prev. P 10/25 next