UNDERCOVER on the TITANIC (book 1)

Part 3 - Grandma

I looked around warily.   Everyone had vanished.   Even the Charlie Chaplin man on the corner had gone. 

I found my skateboard. The wind had buried it under a pile of maple leaves . . . in two pieces.  I stuffed the broken skateboard into my backpack and tried to think. Either I was hallucinating or someone had made a terrible mistake. Why would anybody want to kidnap me? Why did a Shakespearean actor need genetic material? Who knew there were undercover geese? I shivered. It was unbelievable, like a crazy nightmare. Dunc had mentioned my grandfather but I didn't remember either grandfather. Did he mean Grandma's ex-husband?

I couldn't ask my parents. Dad had disappeared in China while looking for oil and my intrepid mother had set out to find him.  Leaving me abandoned to the grim clutches of my grumpy Grandma. And she was plotting to transport me to the northern edge of the habitable universe . . . Ottawa, Ontario . . . I was doomed! 

I looked around again for some sign that it had really happened but the street looked perfectly normal. I stood there for several minutes trying to remember. But everything had happened so quickly. The events were already beginning to fade from my memory. Then, I couldn't think of anything else to do, so I resumed my journey - walking - toward the 13th floor apartment in an anonymous Toronto high-rise I called home. 

There was no sign of Grandma when I let myself into the apartment but Pacman lifted his head from his pillow, emitted a yip of recognition and promptly returned to snooze mode. According to Dad, Pacman was a rare Mongolian gopher hound but I had doubts.    About him being a dog, I mean.   With his oversize jaws and long black hair he looked more like a miniature musk ox crossed with a piranha. But, Pacman regarded himself as a member of the family and treated me like a dim witted younger brother.

Until Dad disappeared, I had been an ordinary school kid living in a boring suburb of Toronto. I had the usual kid worries. Was I a wimp? Or, was I a super kid abandoned at birth among a tribe of troglodytes?    

Grandma was bigger than the average troglodyte. In fact, she was built like a Mack concrete truck, big, square and unstoppable. She had a personality to match and absolutely no sense of humour.  She had never forgiven her daughter for marrying Dad. So when Dad disappeared and Mom decided to go search for him, there was a big argument and Grandma had reluctantly agreed to look after me. 

Grandma normally lived at a safe distance in Ottawa, 400 km from Toronto, where she was unable to terrorize me. So she had moved into our apartment planning to stay until the lease expired at the end of October. Not that Grandma did much of the looking-after. She decided the apartment needed cleaning and I was the one to do it. I didn't see the point, as we were moving out anyway, but she insisted I shouldn't leave a mess for the next tenant. So, she supervised while I cleaned the junk out of the apartment, washed dishes and pots, did the laundry, vacuumed floors and scrubbed the bathroom. I was glad to get away to school where I did the unthinkable, I begged the teachers for extra homework, so I could postpone doing housework.

Life with my grumpy Grandma wasn't much fun, but the only one, to whimper . . . was . . . But, I couldn't complain . . . no one wanted to listen. I was looking gloomily at my broken skateboard when the door crashed open and Grandma came stomping into the apartment. She greeted me with a grunt, like a brontosaurus belching after a good breakfast, dumped a laundry basket on the couch and stuck her head inside the fridge before throwing things into a garbage bag and grumbling about the junk food I ate. 

I started to worry when she mused about taking my favourite corned beef to the food bank. I started to protest but she glared at me. 'Well now that you finally got here, you can clear out your bedroom. It looks like a raccoon's nest. Oh, and don't bother looking for your computer. I gave it to the Salvation Army.'

I stared at her in dumb horror. She had given away my most prized possession, a birthday present from Dad. True, it was only second hand and the hard drive had crashed but what right had she to give it away!? I thought about protesting.

'And don't talk back to me!' she snarled. 'You waste too much time playing video games. It is about time you did something to earn your keep.' Our conversation was interrupted by the phone ringing. 

I ran to pick it up but Grandma snatched it from my hand.  'Underdink?   Under-duck . . . I can't understand you. Try speaking English . . . You are speaking English . . . No. You can't talk to him.' She banged the phone down and glared at me. 'Do you know this creep!?'

My first reaction was joy.   Onderdonk - Triple Oh - was real therefore I wasn't insane. But then, if it had really happened, then I was in big trouble. I thought about lying for two seconds. 

'Er, yes. What did he say?'

'Nothing sensible. It sounded like murder knows . . . Where did you meet him?'

'I met him on the way home from school . . . He has a pet goose.'  I quickly told her about Dunc without mentioning the kidnappers.

She snorted contemptuously, her version of a laugh.    'A goose told you he was your uncle MacFun? That's preposterous. Either you are crazy, or . . . Were you watching the Teletubbies?' 

I stared at her in horror. 'Grandma, I do not ever watch the Teletubbies!' 

 'But who is this Underduck,' she asked, 'a ventriloquist?'

'His name is Onderdonk and he's a biker.' 

'A biker!' Grandma barked suddenly. 'You are not to talk to him.' She was trying to look ferocious but for a moment I got a glimpse of something unexpected . . . fear. 

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