Copyright 1968 by Carl L. Biemiller
Published by Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, NY
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 68-25597

CHAPTER FOUR

The State Park on the south end of the Hook was collecting people as Kent and his father drove through it on their way home to Rumson. The Fourth of July holiday weekend was almost at hand. That summer the last day of June fell upon a Thursday. By Friday night the traffic would stream, choked and smelling, over the Shrewsbury Bridge to the park. It would inch beneath the tourist-landmark towers of the Twin Lights of the Navesink, which first flared their direction beacons to the sea in 1828.

The thought of that traffic stirred Kent.

"I should think that the more people who knew about the albino blue, the more that would look for him, the quicker he might be found." He paused. "Not that I'm in any hurry, Dad."

"Thoughtful sportsmen might help," said Dad. "They understand the relationship between science and sport. But not the summer mobs, not the funny types, not the …oh, you know…."

Kent felt his inside chuckle bubble.

"Respect everybody, you taught me. Everybody's equal rights," said Kent.

John Palmer frowned through the windshield. "Okay," he said. "But learn to be choosy, too. Learn to know the difference between people with sound standards and those who have yet to learn a few. I wish I knew where you could get a course in snobbery. Honest snobs, people who simply know that some people are better human beings than others, are going to have to come back to save the country."

"You've lost me again," said Kent.

"Well, to tell you the truth, I'm really thinking about the fish. But how would you like to have an army of people who never fished before, turning the ocean into a trash-filled circus, looking for a white blue when they never saw any live fish before at all?"

Sometimes, Kent thought, fathers needed cheering up.

"Young people are better than ever," he said.

"For that I'll take you out to lunch," said Dad. "Something mighty may be about to overtake us."

"One thrill a day is enough for me," said Kent.

John Palmer Esquire was usually more right than wrong, however.

At the Marine Laboratory, Dr. Vernon and John Colin shared a secret with a few of their fellow biologists. They were all specialists. All of them were engaged in the study of migratory game fish, blues particularly. All of them knew the importance of keeping the news of the albino within the Laboratory. None of them bothered to mention the fact.

But in every organization-business or government rumors move about. People snoop. They gossip. They overhear telephone calls, which aren't any of their business. Messenger boys read memoranda, which they don't understand, just because they are curious. There are temporary or short-term employees who are enthusiastic about their work and love to talk about it.

The Marine Laboratory also employed college students during the summer. They worked hard and well toward degrees, which would lead to careers in marine biology. Some thirty of them lived right at the Lab in dormitories.

Nobody knows to this day how the secret of the albino bluefish became public knowledge.

But it did.

Kent and his father did nothing to make it public.

They were spending the weekend of the Fourth around the house. Kent cut the grass. He played a baseball game on the morning of the holiday. He and a friend, still in their baseball uniforms, took an old TV set apart to see if the company, which made it had wired it right. Dad napped and announced a cookout. They decided firmly against the beach. There was simply too much traffic. "People with beards on motorcycles," he muttered.

"The telephone rang in the late afternoon. A man asked to speak with Kent. He said he was a newspaper reporter from a North Jersey paper.

"Are you the boy who discovered a rare fish?" he asked.

Kent was surprised. Surprise kept him silent for a long moment. It gave him time to think. Dr. Vernon had said don't talk about it. But then how did the man know? Kent called his father and handed him the phone.

"Yes," said Dad firmly, "yes, yes. But if you say you got the information from the Marine Laboratory, I suggest you call there for the details. No, we have nothing to add to your information. Goodbye."

Dad looked at Kent.

"You were smart," he said. "That man knows something, but he doesn't know exactly what he knows as yet. And the Lab is closed today, you know. So what do we do now?"

"I'd call Dr. Vernon or Dr. Colin at home," suggested Kent.

"Then I will, and right now. I'll call both of them."

Dr. Vernon was taking a nap and planning a cookout. His advice was to say nothing, don't lie, but don't admit or deny, and, unless they were expecting a very important telephone call, don't answer the phone.

John Colin was washing river muck from his sailboat and planning a cookout. His advice was the same as Dr. Vernon's. "Most of the people calling are probably Jersey sports writers and outdoor writers," he added. "I don't have to tell you that fishing news is a big part of summertime in our state, but lets see how it goes."

On Tuesday, which was a warm day, Kent struggled into a jacket and slacks and went into New York with Dad who had business in the city. They left the house in charge of Mrs. Lillian Jones who came in once a week to clean up things.

"Move the dust around some, Mrs. Jones," said Dad as they left, "and there might be a few phone calls more than usual."

"You handling another big law case, Mr. Palmer?" asked Lillian.

"We have our fish to fry," said Dad.

"Very funny," said Kent.

They had dinner in the city. It was evening when they arrived home. Mrs. Jones had left a list of telephone callers written upon a brown paper bag in the kitchen. Two of them were local newspapermen whom Dad knew. Two others' were outdoor columnists from Newark and Jersey City. One caller represented a magazine named Sports Illustrated. Dr. Vernon's name was on the list four times.

Dad called Dr. Vernon at home. He motioned for Kent to take another phone in the kitchen so they could all talk.

"We were busy at the Lab," explained Dr. Vernon. "One of our young people gave the tip to an outdoor writer from the Newark Star. Just told him about your visit and that an unusual fish had been reported. He had no other details to give the writer. But the thing could grow into another sea-monster story. However, we handled it in routine fashion. We acknowledged that a rare bluefish had been reported to us, that we actually had not seen it, that we were neither believers nor disbelievers, but that your reputation and your son's led us to assume that an albino bluefish had been caught and tagged."

"You had to give our names to your callers?" snapped Dad.

"We are a government office," said Dr. Vernon sadly, "and even the Pentagon has to release a fact now and then."

"Faddle," said Dad. "You're right, of course. But I suppose young Kent will have to go into hiding for a week or so until the news looks less important."

Dr. Vernon chuckled. "Let's not lose a sense of proportion," he said. "This story is a box on page one, not the announcement of World War III. It is a sports story, and then a science story, but above all it's a summer fish story too, and it might not blow over as fast as we think. The bluefish is the sportsmen's staff of life on this coast. An albino one is a major conversation piece to fishermen. And it's quite possible that the story will have publicity uses for an area, which depends upon tourists for income. The boy will be badgered."

"Why can't I just tell what happened once and forget it?" asked Kent.

"Won't work that way," said Dad.

"I have a small suggestion which has some relation to your idea of making Kent less available, and you are both marine enthusiasts anyhow, as well as fishermen. Would Kent care to live out at the Lab for a time? He can help in the search for his fish. He can learn something about the work. He might even get paid a dollar an hour for his time. He can live in a dorm. And, of course, we'd have some sort of control just in case of ah, ah, developments. Nobody gets in the Lab without calling first, and then a military pass is necessary to get into Fort Hancock."

Dad laughed. "If an albino blue can hide out in Lab waters, Kent should be able to if he likes the idea."

"I think it's great," said Kent. "I hope it will be that is."

"You'll be in on the hunt at the same time you're being hunted," added Dad.

"I think I can promise that there will be little future talk at the Lab," said Dr. Vernon. "However, who knows? Who ever saw an albino bluefish for that matter?"

"Us," said Dad.

John Colin stopped by for Kent on Wednesday morning. He didn't mind being a little late for work, he explained. He was full of soft advice.

"No good clothes. No neckties, lots of shorts, sneaks and maybe some high-top shoes or boots. Bring sweaters. We may send you to sea, and that ocean sometimes never realizes that it's summer. Oh, jam the stuff in a duffel bag. You aren't a million miles from home. The point is that you are going to work. The work is messy and hard. Any work in the natural sciences is messy and hard."

"When do I get my dollar an hour?" asked Kent, his Indian face like a dark carving.

"When you do an hour's worth of work," grinned Dad. "Goodbye."

John Colin who was in complete charge of most of the Lab's work-a-day routines talked about some of the things in mind for Kent on their way out to the Hook.

"You'll see all the bluefish projects we can possibly show you," he said. "You'd do whatever the boss of the project wants you to do. Now, we have a little room for you at the top of the main building. I think they kept mops in it when the place was a hospital. You'll have one roommate. He's a very bright boy. Younger than you are, too. He's thirteen."

Kent curled himself up inside and thought about that all the way to the Lab. He also wondered how people get into the things they get into.

The room at the top of the Lab was small. It had one big window. It contained two cots, an iron bar, which linked the angles of a corner to hang clothes upon, a twelve-inch screen; portable TV set on an up-ended crate, and a boy.

"Get acquainted," said John Colin. "See you both later."

He left them staring at each other.

The boy matched the room. He was small, slight and wispy. He wore shorts, sneaks and a pale-gold tan the color of rich cream in a farmer's pitcher. He was as blond as Kent was dark. His eyes were bright and new-grass green, and at that moment they sparkled, alertly and with curiosity. He was not a bit shy. He reached out a hand to Kent, and said, "I'm Leo Lipsky."

Kent was wooden. "Kent Palmer," he said.

"Pick a cot," said Leo. "I'm as new in this room as you are. I was over in the big dorm before now. They moved me to keep you company."

Kent was in no hurry. He had a notion that he didn't count for much if they gave him a small Boy Scout for a roommate. He studied the cots as though he'd never seen any bed before.

"If you take the one nearest the window," said Leo Lipsky, "notice that the window has no screen and you'll be first bite for the mosquitoes."

"I'll take it," said Kent.

"Notice also," said Leo, "there is no overhang on the roof eave above us. You'll be the first wet when it rains."

"I'll take it," grunted Kent.

"Notice also that the mattress has a small hole in it with some kind of hair sticking out of it, which will scratch right through any sheet."

"Do you want that cot?"

"Yes," said Leo.

"You got it," said Kent, and his inside smile emerged and lighted his face.

It was matched by the sunburst grin that crinkled Leo's.

Kent hung what clothes were hangable and stacked the rest on the floor at the foot of his cot. Leo sat on his cot. They talked, feeling their way with small words, but easily and not at all strange with each other.

"I know why I'm here," said Kent. "But how about you? Are you somebody's son here at the Lab?"

"I know why you're here, too," said Leo. Most of us do now." He looked a little awkward. There was just a touch of an anxious look on his lean face. "I'm a summer student," he explained. "I work here."

Kent looked at him thoughtfully. He knew that the Lab employed summer help. Two Rumson High School seniors once drove trucks there. Leo Lipsky did not look like a truck driver; neither did he look like a boy who cut grass. Perhaps he was a messenger boy.

"You go to school around here?" he asked. "Long Branch? Asbury Park or someplace?"

"No," said Leo. "I'm from Boston. I go to school up there. I'm a freshman."

"High school?" Prep school? Grammar school?"

"Harvard University," said Leo.

Kent rearranged his face.

"I'm ahead of myself for my age," said Leo soothingly.

"How would you like a punch in the nose?" asked Kent pleasantly.

Leo was vastly relieved. He smiled again.

"Just don't get mad," he said.

"So what do you do around here?" asked Kent?

"Right now I'm mounting bluefish scales on glass slides for study under a microscope. It's delicate work, but then I have skinny fingers. Fish scales are sort of like human fingerprints. They tell all sorts of things to the experts. The scales have rings, like rings in tree trunks, which show the age of fish and how they grow. The rings are called annuli."

Kent listened with interest. This little kid didn't look so little and childish after all.

"It takes a lot of time to learn how to get the story of a fish from scales," said Leo. "The rings aren't perfect. They pile together, for instance, when the fish is spawning. Maybe they would be slow to form at all if the fish had to live in cold water for a longer time than usual. But, anyhow, that's what I've been doing. Sticking scales on slides."

"Hmmmmm," hummed Kent.

"But I'm supposed to show you around some this afternoon."

"Like where do we eat," said Kent.

"By special arrangement for us, we mess with the Army at Fort Hancock," said Leo.

"Well, let's go, Harvard."