The 'Geisters by David Nickle Read Free Book Online

photograph, and then at him, and said nothing.
    Were it not for the boat, they would not likely have moved to the new property so quickly. Their dad wanted to sail—wanted to make up for lost time, he said. And he wanted his children to sail also, and he was very keen not to waste the summer. So when school finished in June, they moved most of their possessions into storage, the family into the boathouse, and the
Bounty II
alongside the dock beside the boathouse.
    They didn’t take the
Bounty II
out every day. But it quickly began to feel as if that were the schedule. Their dad was an enthusiastic sailor, and was also pretty good at it, or so it seemed to Ann. He could find wind on a still July morning and he knew about sailors’ knots and he could read a nautical chart.
    They crossed the lake and back again, explored what little there was to see, waved at cottagers, and spent two nights on board, crammed into a space even smaller than the boathouse. Their mom knew how to play guitar, and the second night out their dad persuaded her to bring it along. They all sang old songs: “Puff the Magic Dragon,” and “Let It Be,” and most of “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” (until they cracked up laughing and had
to stop).
    They didn’t go out every day. But they got in quite a lot with the boat in the time they had with her.
ii
    It was July 19 th , and a Tuesday. The sky that morning was a clear blue bowl, and even on the lake, it was hot. Ashore, the contractors were putting up drywall between the master bedroom and the second-floor hall. The LeSages were out, on the
Bounty II
.
    Philip and their parents were up top in the cockpit, and that was fine with Ann. Their dad was intent on teaching him how to run the boat, so Philip was stuck behind the wheel while his dad swung the boom around and hollered for anyone topside to duck.
    Ann wasn’t topside. She was below, just out of sight of the companionway, making her own fun. She didn’t have a lot to work with—most of her toys were shut up in storage. But her mom had bought her a Barbie doll in town. And she’d finally had a look at that Len Deighton novel.
    So she did what she could.
    At 11:22 a.m. (by the clock over the stove), Barbie awoke: trapped in the hold of a big steamer bound to Egypt with a shipment of bomb parts that the master-spy Mr. Champion was sending to terrorists. Barbie was wearing her tennis outfit, because the last thing she was doing before the bad men had stuck her with a needle was getting ready to meet her spy handler Ken for a double set of tennis and a briefing. She wobbled back and forth unsteadily, coming to herself by degrees.
    “Don’t panic, girl, just figure this out—before they come.”
    “Panic and you’re through,” said Ann aloud.
    Outside, the weather was getting choppy, but Ann was okay with that. The steamer was going through a storm, crawling up huge waves and crashing down . . . lightning flashed between clouds blacker than . . . than, um, night. The darkest night! The men who’d captured Barbie were distracted, trying to keep the ship on course.
    It all gave Barbie precious seconds, as she worked out where she was—explored the space around the spare gas tank, clambered over the wooden keel and looked for ways out.
    “You’ll never escape, foolish girl.”
    Ann tried not to giggle. Philip was doing voices, she figured; she could feel the coolness as his shadow blocked the sun on her.
    And it was a great voice. She played along: “You can’t keep me here. My family will come get me!”
    “Your family? What makes you think your family is in any position to get you?”
    “My family has a helicopter,” said Ann (as Barbie). “It’s got a big machine gun on the bottom of it. And when it flies? It goes so fast!”
    “Never faster,”
said the voice,
“than when it’s falling.”
    “They have parachutes! Let me go or they’ll machine-gun you!” Ann made machine gun noises with her mouth: