Bomb Island by Stephen Hundley

Author:Stephen Hundley
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9798885740326
Publisher: Hub City Press
Published: 2024-01-12T00:00:00+00:00

At the site, Whistle dropped the anchor off the bow. “I’m sorry, you won’t be able to swim down,” she said. She nodded to the green cast on Celia’s arm.

“This is alright,” Celia said. “I’ve never seen it before.”

She was sitting on the bench seat and leaning over the glass bottom, staring at the gray blur that was the bomb. She thought of her father’s railing at the stupidity of allowing people to tour, what he said, was a live weapon, but, more often, he complained of the monopoly Whistle and John-Elvis had on the tours.

The old woman slipped off her thong sandals and drew off her white sun cover to reveal a black one-piece swimsuit. Celia had seen her swimming naked this morning and rubbing her body with fine gray sand that she scooped from the bottom. Whistle’s muscles pulled and threshed like thin steel cables beneath her sun-spotted skin.

The bomb looked small and sleepy from the boat. An undersea wind kicked up sand, and the steel shell disappeared altogether. Celia didn’t see what the big deal was. “You’re going in?” she asked.

“Yes, while the water is calm.”

“You aren’t scared the police will come get you?”

“Why would they come get me?”

“For, like, having a tiger. If they knew, they would come, right?”

Whistle sat down on the bench seat. “Celia, you don’t need to worry about that. It’s impossible to keep a tiger secret forever, and soon Sugar will be off the island. I’ve seen to it.”

Celia opened her backpack and pulled out Derbier’s yellow envelope. “I need to show you this.”

Inside the envelope were green-and-gray-tinted photographs of Sugar and Whistle. In most of the photos, the tiger was crouched in the dunes or lying on the beach, and Whistle meditated on her reed mat. They were together in one of the pictures. Whistle’s white head was looking at Sugar, who seemed to be jumping in the air. It was the clearest of the batch.

“He was catching shells,” Whistle said.

“What?”

“Sugar, in that picture. I was throwing shells to him, in the dark, and he was catching them in his paws.”

“Derbier took these,” Celia said. “My dad.”

“I know, dear. I’ve seen him around. If he could have done anything with those”—she pointed to the pictures—“he would have done it.”

“I guess.”

Whistle opened the small gate-door in the stern and climbed down a small ladder to get in the water. “I know it,” she said, and slid beneath the water.

Celia watched the old woman swim. She moved so naturally that she seemed to slide rather than push her way to the bottom. She waved up at Celia, and Celia waved back. Who was this lady?

With Whistle’s body providing a sense of scale, the bomb seemed to double in size. It was nearly as long as the boat. Maybe longer. Celia leaned down and pressed her face to the glass bottom, but she couldn’t see much better. There were no symbols painted on the bomb. It looked to Celia like an enormous manatee buried in the sand.

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