A Bone to Pick. Gina McMurchy-Barber

what does Peggy know about being a cook’s helper?” She looked at me when she said that.

      “I know, that’s what I said, too,” I agreed sheepishly. “But I do know how to peel potatoes and carrots. And, besides, you’re the one who said cooking’s easy.”

      “Found them,” Mom said, rattling her keys as she dashed down the hall toward me and the door. “Sorry, Margie. I don’t have time to argue about this again. As I said, they were looking for someone who could go immediately. This is Peggy’s big chance. I had to take it.” She kissed Aunt Margaret and pushed me and my suitcase out the door. “C’mon, c’mon, we’ve got to get going.”

      “Wait,” insisted Aunt Margaret. A moment later she came out to the car and handed me a book, Cooking Made Easy for Kids, along with a toque and mittens. “After your experience in the kitchen the other day, I got this cookbook as a little surprise.”

      Oh, wonderful, I thought, just the kind of surprise every kid likes to get!

      “Now that you won’t be around, you might as well take it. Might come in handy.”

      I seriously doubted it, but did my best to give her my out-of-this-world happy look.

      “You don’t fool me. I know you’d be happier if it was some book about bones or arrowheads. Anyway, basically it’s true, cooking is easy — if you follow the recipes. I stuck in GAB’s best chili in the world recipe, too. Don’t lose it!”

      “GAB?” Mom questioned.

      “GAB … short for Great-Aunt Beatrix,” I explained. Suddenly, all three of us were snort-laughing our heads off like a pack of piglets. When we finally pulled ourselves together, I asked, “What’s with the hat and mitts?”

      “You’re going to Newfoundland, Peggy,” Aunt Margaret said.

      I was about to remind her that it was summer when she put her hand over my mouth.

      “Trust me on this one. If it’s overcast and windy, even summer in Newfoundland can feel cold. There will be days when you’ll be glad you have them.” Then Aunt Margaret shoved them into my carry-on case, and I thought for once it was best not to argue.

      As we drove to Vancouver International Airport, Mom gave me my flight itinerary and all the instructions I needed to get to Deer Lake, Newfoundland, where someone from the field school was meeting me.

      “I know it might look overwhelming, but you’ll be in the care of airline staff the whole time. They do that for underage travellers flying on their own,” explained Mom. I’d only been on a plane once before and that was with Mom when we went to Edmonton for my cousin Ava’s wedding. “So you’re flying to Toronto and then have a one-hour layover. From there you’ll fly to Deer Lake.”

      I did the math on my fingers. A four-hour flight to Toronto, plus a one-hour layover, plus a three-hour flight to Deer Lake. “That’s not so bad. I’ll be there before suppertime.”

      “Ah, well, actually more like bedtime — a very late bedtime. Don’t forget, there’s a four-and-a-half-hour time change, and, well … there’s a bit of a drive from the airport to the field camp.”

      “A bit of a drive … like what, an hour?”

      “More like five hours,” she said, wincing.

      “What? No way! Five hours. That means I won’t get there until way after midnight!” I could already feel my sore butt.

      After lots of hugs and kisses, Mom passed me over to a flight attendant who promised I would be in safe hands. I was lucky to get a window seat. During the flight, I spent most of the time with my nose pressed against the window, watching the Canadian landscape change from mountains to rolling hills to fields of wheat to what looked like an ocean but was really Lake Superior. I followed our flight path on the screen in front of me, too.

      When I boarded the small jet in Toronto that would fly me to Newfoundland, I was surprised to see there were only about twenty other people on the flight. I was equally surprised when we arrived at the Deer Lake airport. Within minutes of landing, the plane was empty and the other passengers had disappeared faster than ice cream on a hot day.

      I stood outside the terminal, waiting for my ride. Mom said someone named Robbie was coming for me. She didn’t know if Robbie was a girl or a guy or what kind of vehicle to look for. But the moment I heard rattling and then saw a smoking Datsun come billowing through the gates I had a feeling I would soon find out.

      “Hey, are you Peggy?” asked a girl wearing a Viking helmet with horns and tattoos all down her arms. “’Cause if you are, I’m Robbie and I’m here to get you.”

      I remembered what Mom had said about the ride to L’Anse aux Meadows being five hours long and wondered if Robbie’s old beater would really get us there. “Yes, I’m Peggy.”

      “Great. Well, come on, kid. We’ll grab some burgers from McMoodles down the road and then get going. If we don’t run down a deer or moose, then there’s a good chance we’ll be at field camp by two-thirty or so in the morning, but lights will be out ’cause they shut off the generator at ten-thirty.” While I was trying to get a sideways look at Robbie’s tattoos, she was studying me, too. “It’s kinda unusual for a kid to want to come all the way across the country like this. You like cooking, do you? Are you some kind of Martha Stewart wannabe?”

      “Martha who? Is that the cook’s name?”

      Robbie snickered at my question. “No, Bertha is camp cook. She’s a fantastic cook, too — just a little rough around the edges, if you know what I mean.”

      I wasn’t sure I did know what she meant, but I wasn’t planning to be around much, anyway. I figured I’d put in an hour or two stirring soup, peeling potatoes, or serving up food, then I’d take off to see if I could get in on the excavation part of field school. It was perfect, really. I’d miss all the boring lectures and go straight over to the dig. That was where I’d show those university students I wasn’t really a cook’s help, but an experienced archaeologist — well, amateur archaeologist.

      We rattled down Viking Trail Highway. When I glanced in the side rearview mirror, I saw white clouds puffing out our rear end like smoke signals. And after the first fifty kilometres, Robbie was more interested in singing than talking.

      “You like Guns N’ Roses?” she shouted over the music blasting from the speakers. “This is my favourite number — ‘Dust N’ Bones.’”

      I didn’t know Robbie well enough to tell her that her rowdy old-school rock music was giving me a headache. But after three albums of it I finally stuck my fingers in my ears and tried to focus on the scenery — what I could see of it in the gloom.

      A few hours later we stopped for gas in a place called Gunners Cove. Out on the water, floating mountains of ice glistened in the moonlight. I’d seen pictures of icebergs but never knew just how powerful and huge they were in real life.

      “Somethin’, eh?” Robbie said when we got back into the car. “Some people call this coastline Iceberg Alley.”

      “Yah, I knew that. I also know that 90 percent of an iceberg’s mass is actually below the water.”

      “Sure. But I bet you didn’t know that icebergs aren’t salty —”

      “Of course, they aren’t salty. They’re glaciers and were formed from snow,” I said. She looked annoyed, maybe because I was smarter than she thought. “I also know that the Vikings reached North America five hundred years before Columbus and that they never wore horned helmets.”

      Robbie gave a nasty smile and knocked her helmet with her fist. “You’re kind of a little know-it-all, eh?”

      My cheeks suddenly burned. “What? I was only sharing information I got from Eddy, geez.”

      “Of course, I knew Vikings didn’t have horned helmets. It just so happens I love touristy junk and couldn’t resist owning