Chapter 3
Strange Behavior
Weekends were normally a quiet, rather spontaneous affair. Not this weekend, though. With a house guest from out of the country, Minnie’s mother had been researching every tourist attraction that they could possibly drive to. It even seemed to work out for Minnie as well, as she had been granted a pardon from her grounding to be able to go with Hermione and her mother that weekend. Today, her mother had planned on taking Hermione to see, and seeing as Monica Wilkins was hardly one to go hiking, climbing over rocks, or snorkeling in the open ocean, Minnie would be tagging along to play tour guide.
Minnie’s parents seemed to have forgotten all about her being grounded. Sure, she hadn’t gotten her computer back, but no one said a word when she turned on the telly last night, and today, she would be going out sightseeing with her mother and Hermione.
“C’mon, Chunga,” she pleaded, dangling the squirming mouse in front of his face, “please eat.”
It had been three days, and Chunga had not eaten any of the things her dad had brought to feed him: crickets, mealworms, white mice, processed chemical food. Minnie had even tried to get more creative with his feedings, trying fish sticks, cherry sours, even her mother’s cold cream. Chunga wasn’t having any of it. And yesterday, when she had let him out of his cage to run around her room at least, he wouldn’t move an inch from where he had been set down.
“Minnie, are you up and ready?” she heard her dad knocking on the door. “Your mum and Hermione are going to want to leave soon, so if you want breakfast, you better hurry!”
Minnie sighed and dropped the mouse to the bottom of the tank. If the little creature hadn’t been eaten by now, it would surely be safe for a few moments while she ate her own breakfast.
Racing down the same two sets of stairs she did every morning, Minnie jumped the last step to the living room and ran the rest of the way to the kitchen. Just like her dad said, Minnie’s mum and Hermione were already at the table, clad in shorts and hiking boots, looking as though they were ready to explore the world, with Minnie, no doubt, playing their guide. Both women were each tucking away at a hearty breakfast, so Minnie grabbed her own cereal, feeling she was very much going to need it.
“Good morning, Minnie,” her mother greeted her, far more energetic than she was used to seeing her. “How are you doing today?”
“Chunga’s still not eating the mice,” she announced to the breakfast table. “We better stop by the pet store and get a cage, because if Chunga doesn’t eat them by tonight, I’m going to name them and start bonding with them.”
Minnie watched her mother’s jaw clench, but she was not quite sure if it was about her starving lizard or at the thought of more animals (or pests) living under the house.
“Maybe Chunga’s entering a sort of hibernation,” Hermione suggested over her coffee cup. “Reptiles don’t eat as much when that happens.”
“It’s summer!” Minnie shouted across the breakfast table, rising up with both palms flat on the table. “And Chunga lives indoors, and this is Australia! When was the last time it was cold enough here for anything to hibernate?”
“Minnie,” her mother warned under her breath.
Keeping in mind her still pending grounding, Minnie sunk back down into her chair to sulk with her cereal. Minnie’s mum and Hermione Weasley went back to their planning and the broachers they had spread over the breakfast table. Minnie snorted at them, but quietly enough so that the two women did not hear her. Planning, broachers, guides; that was no way to see the world! If you really wanted to experience anything, you just strapped on your shoes and jumped right in. Of course, knowing her mother, and having a fairly good idea of what kind of person Hermione was, Minnie had a feeling she was not going to convince anyone of that today.
The second Minnie finished slurping the last of her milk out of the bowl, her mother stood to her feet, clapping her hands together. “Alright, ladies, let’s move on out!”
The two older women marched towards the entryway while Minnie slumped behind them, only just now beginning to realize what kind of day she was likely to be in for.
“Just a sec, Mum,” Minnie said suddenly, rushing back toward the staircase. “I forgot to brush my bottom teeth.”
Minnie’s mother didn’t say anything, too distracted by her own plans for the day, but she did nod, informing Minnie that she was free to leave. Permission granted, the girl raced back to the staircase, nearly falling about three times as she climbed.
In reality, Minnie’s parents had drilled the importance of brushing since she first had teeth, never allowing her an opportunity to miss brushing any of them, but she also knew it would be the best excuse to use so that her mother would allow her back upstairs. Instead, however, when she reached the second floor, Minnie opened the door to the attic steps, climbed up to her room, and opened the top of the tank resting at the foot of her bed.
“Alright, Chunga,” she said, lifting the lizard out of its tank and carrying him down the stairs, draped over her shoulder. “I don’t know what you eat, and I don’t think either of us are going to live long enough to find out.”
Minnie jumped the last step, as she often did, holding what she believed to be the lizard’s ear up to her lips.
“So you’re getting let out so you can feed yourself,” she told him, setting him down on the floor. “Just make sure that big…big-ger Hermione doesn’t see you.”
“Minnie,” she heard called from the outside. She hadn’t even noticed that her mother and Hermione had gone outside.
“Coming!” Minnie shouted, turning back to wave at the still-motionless lizard. “Bye, Chunga!”
Again, Minnie spoke to the lizard as though she actually believed it could understand her. She almost found the urge to laugh at herself as she went out the front door to join her fellow explorers.
“Well, it will be nothing like the coral formations up north,” Minnie’s mum explained as she drove over the curvy road. “Victoria’s much too cold for the types you’d see at the Great Barrier Reef, but there is still some.”
Minnie was alone in the backseat. Every time her mother didn’t have an answer to one of these questions, she would gesture back to Minnie, having her answer instead, and then the pattern would be put right on track once again. Minnie’s parents attended a dental conference in Sydney once a year; one that was attended by the same doctors and held in the same hotel every year. It was usual enough that Minnie had been able to make casual friends with children of other dentists who were brought along as well. A good deal of these friends lived in the more northern regions of Australia and would always make a point to tell Minnie how miserably cold Victoria was compared to New South Wales or Queensland. Of course, her mother was right that the exotic, tropical reefs would not be seen on this expedition, but that certainly didn’t mean there was nothing to see.
“I forgot my snorkeling things,” Minnie suddenly remembered. “And Mum, you don’t have things to snorkel at all, and neither does Hermione.”
Minnie wasn’t sure why she said that, as though it had the smallest chance of ending in Minnie being taken back home. “We’ll get fins and snorkels from the rental shop,” she assured her daughter
Minnie scrunched up her face and stuck out her tongue, gagging. “I hate the rental shop! The guy who works there has freaky eyes!”
Hermione looked back over her shoulder at Minnie’s crude remark. The ten-year-old decided to elaborate.
“They’re turned like they’re the opposite of being cross-eyed, and one of them is all milky and there’s a scar from his eyebrow down to his cheek.”
Hermione snorted in a haughty sort of way, shaking her head at Minnie’s description. But that quickly changed as soon as they arrived at the rental hut and Hermione actually met Eddie, the milky-eyed snorkel gear rental…person. Hermione had tried not to stare, but Minnie could tell that she was disturbed by the eyes, just as much as Minnie was. Especially when, just as always, Eddie did everything he could to keep the three of them there as long as possible. Not that Minnie couldn’t understand why. The poor man was probably lonely. Minnie doubted she was the only one who tried to get away from the rental station as soon as they came.
Minnie’s mother, however, paid for their rental gear and left as though nothing out of the ordinary was going on, ignoring the demeanors of the two younger ladies beside her. She also ignored Hermione’s confusion when she only paid for two sets of snorkeling gear.
“Mum doesn’t really like the ocean,” Minnie explained as she helped to load the gear in the trunk. “Dad and I got her to go snorkeling with us once; a fish swam up against her leg, and she swam to shore in like four seconds.”
Once in the car again, more curved roads took them to Bunurong Marine Park. And displaying the fact that Minnie’s mother would not be joining them again today, she laid out a beach blanket on the sand and extracted a paperback from her straw bag. Just because Minnie’s mother was taking her guest on an Australian adventure did not mean that she actually planned on experiencing the ‘adventure’ part herself. That left it completely up to Minnie to serve as guide for the mysteries of the semi-deep.
Being born and raised on the coastline had taught Minnie that it was more or less impossible for even the most experienced snorkeler to walk with any amount of grace once their fins were on. Minnie knew she probably looked ridiculous herself, but that did not stop her internal laughter as she watched Hermione stumble her way across the beach with all the majesty of a drunk walrus.
The water was barely up to her knees when Minnie dove under, her still unprotected eyes shut tight against the salt water. By the time she came up for air, there was at least three yards of distance between her and Hermione, who was up to her waist and still had yet to dunk her head under the water. She held herself in a very stiff sort of posture with her elbows at her sides, her arms up, and her fingers spread as though it would stop any small creature who might jump out of the water and attack at any moment. Minnie could easily recognize it because she had seen the exact same posture on her mother whenever she went in the water, or tall grass, or a freshly sprinkled lawn in her bare feet.
“Alright, you might want to practice standing in the water before you start swimming,” Minnie told her after she swam back to Hermione. “It’s pretty simple: you put your face in the water and breathe through your mouth, but not when you go underwater! That’s very important! And make sure your mask is on tight, or else water will leak in, and salt will get in your eyes, and you’ll be blind.”
While Hermione was contemplating the instructions given to her, Minnie took the opportunity to swim away while she still went unnoticed.
“Where are you going?” Hermione stopped her.
“Hey, I don’t need to practice! I’m going snorkeling,” Minnie said, kicking away, her fins creating a less than unintentional splash. “Don’t worry! I’ll be right here if you need me.”
Of course, ‘right here’ would be fairly liberally defined. Minnie certainly wasn’t going to see anything interesting in such shallow water. You might see a few minnow-type fish an inch or so below the surface, but the truly fascinating creatures were in the deep waters of the Bunurong Marine Park.
The water was unusually bare today. Normally, Minnie would see dull gray bass or schools of minnows; nothing spectacular, but still living, breathing life. Today, the ocean was completely still, even the rolling waves above seemed quiet, as though they were more interested in catching light than making noise.
Suddenly, Minnie felt the water level at her feet pulling at her slightly. When she looked down, she saw a large, dark mass rising up from the depths, opening its large mouth very wide. It was a basking shark! They came to the southern Australian coast every summer, but with the season almost over, Minnie had thought they had already left. But at least this one was still here and Minnie was happy to see it. She had never seen one of these creatures in real life, and she was pretty sure she would be the only student at Wonthaggi Primary, and possibly North Primary too, who had ever seen one of these.
What Minnie really wanted to do was swim down so she could see right into its mouth. One of Minnie’s friends, Nicole, had said more than once that she was afraid of these sharks, even though their teacher told them again and again that basking sharks only ate plankton. What Nicole was afraid of was that a shark would be swimming along, and it would swallow a person whole before the creature knew what it was doing. Minnie wanted to look into the creature’s mouth and look down its throat to see if that was even possible.
Luckily for Minnie, basking sharks fed close to the surface, so she wasn’t cut off from the oxygen supply provided by her snorkel. It was a wonderfully large specimen, nearly the size of a bus. Every so often, it would open its gaping mouth to feed, making it look all the more prehistoric. Still, she couldn’t get herself to a suitable place so she could see inside its mouth. Maybe if she could grab a hold of its fin, she could simply drag along with it until it made a turn, then she could dive down further to look into its mouth.
Sucking in a deep gulp of air, Minnie dunked her head down into the water and kicked her fins up in the air.
Suddenly, Minnie felt herself being dragged backwards through the water by her shoulder straps, almost as though she had been snagged by a speedboat. Except that this was a national park, and people most certainly were not allowed to take random boats out into the water, especially where people went snorkeling. She soon found herself pulled to the surface, and she came up sputtering and gasping from breath, more out of shock than a real need for oxygen.
When she finally slowed to a stop, Minnie noticed that she came to rest right beside Hermione, who was extremely frantic, more so than Minnie had ever seen a person in her life.
“We have to get out of the water!” she shouted, grabbing at Minnie’s shoulders and kicking wildly to stay afloat. “There’s a shark!”
When Minnie looked out onto the water, she was beginning to understand why Hermione was so paranoid. Not fifteen feet away, the basking shark’s large dorsal fin was poking up out of the water, moving in slow circles in a way the was oddly reminiscent of the Jaws movies. It most certainly could be terrifying…for someone who had no idea of what kinds of creatures did live off the coast.
“I know, Hermione,” Minnie replied, annoyed. “It’s a basking shark. It doesn’t eat people, and it’s certainly not going to hurt us.”
Hermione’s eyes were wide to the point where they were perfectly round as she watched the circling dorsal fin. “It’s giant!”
“But not dangerous!” Minnie tried to tell her. “People go snorkeling with these animals all the time.”
Hermione remained unconvinced. “It could knock you around with that tail like a housefly!” she argued. “We’re going back to shore!”
Well, that was certainly the last thing in the world Minnie wanted to do. Minnie wanted to get closer to the shark, maybe catch a ride on its dorsal fin like she had heard older snorkelers claim they had done. And really, really wanted to find out if it was possible for a basking shark to swallow a human being. But she was also convinced that if she didn’t do as Hermione Weasley said, the woman would swim back to shore, inform Minnie’s mother that her only child was swimming in shark-infested waters, and then she would have the Australian Navy to deal with.
Yes, it was all-around just easier to go back to shore and hope to see the basking sharks next summer. Or the summer after that…or after that.
Minnie was sure she was a stronger swimmer than this British woman, but she was also certain that if she did try to escape and Hermione went back to shore and told her mother on her, her mum would have a heart attack right there on the sand. Relenting, Minnie swam alongside Hermione back to the shore, and learned for a fact that she really was the stronger swimmer of the two, from how incredibly easy it was to keep up with Hermione’s slow-set pace.
When the two of them waddled back onto shore, struggling to take off their fins as they stood, Minnie’s mother looked up from her paperback. “What’s going on?” she asked, marking her place by bending the corner on the top of her page. “You two were barely out there for twenty minutes.”
“We had to get out,” Hermione told her, gasping for breath. “There was a shark in the water.”
Minnie suppressed a groan as she watched her mother turn five shades paler in less than three seconds. “A shark?”
“Basking shark, Mum,” Minnie clarified. “Plankton shark, plankton shark. Oh, I wish I’d had a camera with me!”
But when frightened, Minnie’s mother was never one to listen to reason, especially when it was coming from a ten-year-old. She herded the little girl and the young British woman, barefoot all the way up the path to the car without a tangible word or stopping to go back for anything they hadn’t left behind. Minnie felt thankful for the small favor that she had brought anything with her to the shore.
“Why did we have to leave?” Minnie asked finally, after they had spent about five minutes on the road. “We wasted a perfectly good day!”
Minnie’s mother shook her head and nearly convulsed. Minnie was surprised the violent reaction didn’t send the car off the side of the road. “Minnie! There was a SHARK in that water!”
“Plankton shark!” Minnie emphasized once again. “There are people out there who would have considered swimming with a basking shark a once in a lifetime experience.”
Minnie’s mother, however, did still not look convinced. “And now that you’ve had your once in a lifetime experience, we’re going into town where it’s safe!”
“There are poisonous snakes that sometimes hide in the town garden plots,” Minnie reminded her mum, even though she wasn’t quite sure why she did, because all it accomplished was having her mother decide that instead, they were going to spend the afternoon taking a car ride, where she could run over anything that might have posed a danger to them. Not content to spend her entire afternoon with her legs sticking to the car seat, Minnie instead decided to stay quiet and allow her mother a few moments to calm down.
But she couldn’t resist getting in one more potentially upsetting question. “Can a person actually be swallowed by a basking shark?”
The car swerved slightly once again, and Minnie’s mum took a deep breath in through her nose. “You can ask your teacher when school starts up again.”
Minnie reclined against the back of the car seat and waited for her mother’s nervous breakdown to pass, hoping for good songs on the radio.
Minnie threw the front door open and was the first of the women to storm into the house. Minnie had pouted the entire car ride home, making sure to keep a constant glare on Hermione, even though she wasn’t completely sure the British houseguest had even noticed. She knew Hermione was responsible for yanking her away from the basking shark, even if she couldn’t prove it. And even if she didn’t know how she had managed to do it from fifteen feet away.
“Hi, girls,” Minnie heard her dad say from out on the patio. “How was the ocean?”
Minnie watched her mother race to follow the voice so she could tell her husband exactly what their daughter had been up to today. As soon as she was gone, Minnie actually did turn and glare at Hermione face to face.
“I’m sorry for making your mother such a nervous wreck,” she finally apologized to Minnie, when she at last saw how angry the young girl was, “but even if that shark you saw wasn’t a meat-eater, it still probably isn’t a good idea to get so close to such a large creature.”
But Minnie wasn’t ready to listen to whatever reason Hermione Weasley might have had for dragging her away from the amazing creature.
“I don’t like you,” she said plainly.
Hermione sighed and shook her head in exasperation, following Minnie partway up the stairs.
“Minnie, I was just like you when I was young,” she said to her.
Minnie snorted. “I doubt that!”
“It’s the truth,” Hermione argued, only to have Minnie roll her eyes at her.
“I mean that I was always finding myself in situations where I could have gotten myself killed.” Hermione shifted uncomfortably on her feet, becoming more anxious the longer she spoke. “We have a lot more in common than you might think.”
That was something Minnie could simply not accept. “You’re from Britain! What could you have possibly done for that to happen?”
Hermione seemed a bit insulted by that remark, but Minnie couldn’t help it. No instantly poisonous snakes or spiders, no dingoes or emus, and no meat-eating sharks or box jellyfish. What could there possibly be on that island that could kill someone? “You would be shocked.”
“Try me,” Minnie challenged, waiting for the woman to begin listing off all these near-death situations she bragged about. Hermione stared off to the side, but said nothing.
“I knew it!” Minnie sneered at being lied to. And before Hermione would say anything else to her, Minnie stomped up the stairs and locked herself safely in her attic. At the very least, she knew her animals wouldn’t do anything that could surprise her.
But speaking of animals, on her way up the steps, she suddenly remembered she still didn’t have anywhere for her new pet mice to live. Minnie nearly kicked her foot against the wall before stopping herself, remembering exactly how much help it had done the last time.
Spot-Spot was sleeping, and so was Chunga. Bidgie and Bickie, however, were both wide awake and keeping vigilant, right alongside Minnie. It was very late at night, well past eleven, and both her parents had gone to sleep ages ago. She wondered if Hermione went to bed this early as well. She was on vacation, so it didn’t make sense that she would obey a strict bedtime. She was an adult, though. She wouldn’t have to do that if she didn’t want to anyway.
Why was she even devoting any time to thinking about the woman anyway, when it only did more to agitate her? Even Mrs. Foster who starved her and her third grade teacher who had called Minnie a half-wild suburban savage who should run away and join the Aborigines had not earned this amount of the girl’s attention.
Minnie needed something to take her mind off the houseguest.
Minnie fell backwards against her bed, bouncing about four inches in the air as soon as she landed. It was slightly amusing, so she sat up and began bouncing where she sat, which soon led to her climbing to her feet and making small jumps on the bed. It didn’t take very long, however, before Minnie was bouncing at least two feet into the air with every jump, laughing and gasping for breath. It was easier for her to understand why jumping on the bed proved such a tempting idea for little children, but less easy for her to understand why she had ever stopped.
Taking a momentary break to catch her breath, Minnie jumped to the floor and raced towards her radio. She fiddled with the knobs for tuning and volume until she finally found a very loud Hannah Montana song and cranked up the sound as loud as she could stand it. The animals all woke up and started voicing their complaints. Minnie was sure everyone in the house could hear her, though she now wasn’t sure her parents were even inside. They most certainly weren’t doing anything to stop the noise.
Over the music, Minnie vaguely heard the sound of tapping on the floor. It was then that she remembered that her bed rested directly over the guestroom and Hermione was probably listening to every noise she made. Minnie reached over to her nightstand and turned the music up louder before she began jumping once again, at a much more vigorous pace.
The music got faster and so did the jumping, Minnie’s heart racing at what must have been a thousand beats per minute. And through the floor, Hermione was still knocking against the ceiling, trying to put a stop to the racket. This only succeeded in making Minnie jump up and down even harder, and even started singing along with the music. It was this horribly happy, sugary, bubblegum pop song that, normally, Minnie couldn’t stand, but if it was something that annoyed Hermione, she was willing to put up with it.
It was horribly petty, but Minnie still had a few more years for such an attitude to still be acceptable.
Suddenly, Minnie came down on her last jump a lot hard than she expected, her song turning to screaming, and Minnie landing flat on her back.
“MINNIE!”
Despite her heavy disorientation, Minnie forced herself to look up and see who had called her name. It was Hermione, standing on top of a chair, her fist hovering just below the ceiling. Minnie pushed herself to sit up a bit and surveyed her surroundings. She was lying on a bed, but it was not her bed. This bedspread was the boring, hotel room-style stripe pattern that the guestroom bed had. In fact, upon further examination, Minnie became certain that she was in the guestroom.
“Wha-what?” Minnie stammered.
Hermione stared at her, eyes wide, with her back against the wall. “You fell through the ceiling!”
Minnie was confused. “I fell through a hole?”
“No hole,” Hermione clarified. “You fell through the ceiling!”
Minnie, at first, was convinced she was being lied to, until her eyes drifted upward to where she was able to see some evidence proving Hermione’s claim. There was her quilt, hanging unevenly above her as though it had been pulled through a very fine crack. Listening to Hermione, it easily appeared as through Minnie had dragged part of the quilt down with her, but it had gotten stuck as soon as Minnie was through. As soon as Minnie saw this sight, her fingers clenched at the comforter below her.
“What do we do?” Minnie asked, somewhat stunned by it all.
Hermione rushed forward, keeping her eyes up at the ceiling. “We get rid of any evidence before Mum and Dad see it, that’s what.”
From one of the dresser drawers, Hermione pulled a wooden rod; one of the interesting objects Minnie had seen in Hermione’s suitcase when she first arrived and she had gotten in trouble for trying to touch. And down the quilt came, dropping over Minnie’s head.
The quilt barely rested over Minnie’s head for a moment before she began clawing at it like a wild animal, and came out gasping for breath.
“You did this! I knew it!” Minnie shrieked, not sharing Hermione’s concern over her parents noticing anything they weren’t supposed to. “You caused that explosion I heard, you pulled me away from the shark, and you made me fall through the ceiling!”
Hermione sighed in a resigned sort of way. “The first two, yes; but that last one was all on your own.”
There she was going again, lying to her. “So you didn’t just make my quilt drop from my bedroom?”
“Yes, I did that to,” Hermione said slowly, clarifying. “I’m talking about you going through the ceiling!”
Minnie chewed at the inside of her cheek, trying to contemplate exactly what she was going to say next. She knew she hadn’t done anything to make this happen, but she didn’t think that Hermione would have any more idea of it than she did.
“It was magic, Minnie,” Hermione told her in a tone that felt far too calm for what had just happened. “Natural, uncontrolled magic that every child like you experiences at your age. And I don’t think this is the first time, either.”
Minnie stared up at the British woman, feeling her eyes go as wide as five-cent coins.
“You’re a witch, Minnie,” Hermione said plainly. “The kind that’s born to parents who aren’t. I know because we are exactly alike, in more ways than you think.”
A witch? As in, broom flying under a yellow moon with a pointy hat and a black cat? Granted, Minnie had no explanation for it either, but her being a witch was most certainly not the answer!
“You’re insane!” Minnie screeched, scrambling backwards on the bed. “The minute I tell my parents about what you just said, you’ll be on a plane back to Britain so fast, your head will spin!”
“They’re my parents too!” Hermione blurted out in an uncomposed way that sounded as though she hadn’t meant to.
The room went dead silent. Even the springs in the mattress went completely still. Neither Minnie nor Hermione knew what to say to follow that last statement.
“What?” Minnie finally was able to gasp, even though no part of her was ready to hear whatever it was that this woman had to say.
“Wendell and Monica Wilkins used to be John and Jean Granger,” Hermione Weasley nee Granger explained slowly, “and they’re my parents.”
Hermione by OliveOil_Med
Chapter Notes: An adventure to the ocean goes sour when Minnie encounters a great creature in the water, only to be yanked away by something she can't even see. And that is not even the last of the day's strange events.
Thanks are a must to my beta, Riham, and to Lydia, my Australian dialogue advisor!