| Little Follies
Do Clams Bite? Chapter 8: Rowing the Waterways of Memory |
by Eric
Kraft, as Peter
Leroy
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YOU CAN READ THE FIRST HALF
YOU CAN ORDER THE
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WENT UP TO THE BOW and sat there watching the docked boats, the waterside
houses, the Flying A station, and the Municipal Dock slip past. It
was always a pleasure, however mixed with fear, to see the bay suddenly
open before us when we passed the dock, where boys my age sat fishing safely.
It was a clear day, and I could see across to the flats.
The flats were a broad expanse of the bay where the water was waist-deep or lower for Grandfather, depending on the spot and the tide. In the flats were numberless small islands, some just dots of land, others large enough to hold a shack. They scarcely rose above the surface of the water. In fact, what height they had was largely an illusion, since it was composed mostly of grasses, not the sand in which the grasses grew. As much as I disliked the flats at the time, I loved the islands, and as much as I feared clamming I loved crabbing with Grandfather along the network of narrow waterways that ran among them. Grandfather slowly, silently rowed the Rambunctious’s dinghy while I watched for a scurrying crab along the overhanging edges of the islands, a flash of white in the shadowy water, so quick that I reacted not to the crab itself but to the memory of it, and darted my net at where it had been, much as I’m rowing the waterways of memory now, snatching at flashes in the shadows. I liked the pace of crabbing too: the lazy pace, barely more than drifting, and the whispered conversation, which wandered as we did, in and out and around the islands. If, just then, I had been asked to choose a perfect life for myself, that is what I would have chosen, and Grandfather and I would be there now, whispering, barely moving. |
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Little Follies is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, dialogues, settings, and businesses portrayed in it are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author. “My Mother Takes a Tumble,” “Do Clams Bite?,” “Life on the Bolotomy,” “The Static of the Spheres,” “The Fox and the Clam,” “The Girl with the White Fur Muff,” “Take the Long Way Home,” and “Call Me Larry” were originally published in paperback by Apple-Wood Books. Little Follies was first published in hardcover by Crown Publishers, Inc., 201 East 50th Street, New York, New York 10022. Member of the Crown Publishing Group. YOU CAN ORDER THE
For information about publication rights outside the U. S. A., audio rights, serial rights, screen rights, and so on, e-mail the author’s imaginary agent, Alec “Nick” Rafter. The illustration at the top of the page is an adaptation of an illustration by Stewart Rouse that first appeared on the cover of the August 1931 issue of Modern Mechanics and Inventions. The boy at the controls of the aerocycle doesn’t particularly resemble Peter Leroy—except, perhaps, for the smile. |
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