Juneau: Wisdom Tree 4 by Nick Earls Page B

grandfather, with a circular motion like someone cleaning a window. It’s Alaska, it’s cold, I have gloves—that’s what she’s saying. He lifts his hand and waves back, making his wave into a rough semicircle to acknowledge hers.
    Yellow plastic temporary fencing is being unloaded from two utes parked on the boardwalk. By this afternoon, it will be set up to corral the five hundred passengers deciding to board at the last minute.
    â€˜So, do we get to pat them?’ Hannah’s saying to Lauren when my father and I reach them.
    They’re booked on an excursion to a husky farm, including a sled ride.
    â€˜Probably,’ Lauren says, her tone set for expectation management. ‘The website said probably, remember? Though it might just be the puppies at the end.’
    â€˜Puppies.’ Hannah claps her gloved hands together.
    â€˜As long as we also get the ride,’ Sam says, still looking down at his feet.
    He’s eleven, she’s seven—they are two different species of creature and Lauren and I hadn’t planned for that.
    Sam is not here for Alaska, not for an Alaska that limits the adventure excursions to people sixteen and over. He is on the trip for the five days at Anaheim, starting on Wednesday. He has already decided that they will be five solid days of being thrown around the rougher Disneyland rides—he’s seen the YouTube videos of the Matterhorn and Space Mountain—withhis best friend Charlie, who he misses terribly without ever being able to say it. Charlie lives in LA, at least until early next year. His sister, who is twelve, is trying to break into movies. Their father is back in Australia, presumably pumping cash across the Pacific to finance his daughter’s dream.
    Charlie and Sam skype every week or two, in a boy-to-boy code of half-sentences and nonverbal sounds that seems to fill some gaps without fully satisfying either of them. It will be good to see them running wild at Disneyland.
    â€˜I wish I could have Charlie’s life,’ is now Sam’s go-to comeback whenever he is pulled into line, or life forces anything dreary on him. Charlie does school remotely, presumably from a carriage on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Disneyland, while between movie premieres. He once saw Vin Diesel buying milk and sent Sam the photo to prove it. It’s a selfie, with awell-muscled T-shirted back and tanned scalp visible behind his shoulder, in the distance. It could be any guy under fifty who’s shaved his head and put in the gym time.
    Meanwhile, forty minutes from home, Johnny Depp is filming at the Gold Coast, a place awash with theme park rides, but that’s all boring. Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz have been sighted taking their kids around Movieworld.
    â€˜So, I think it’s over there that our minibus will pick the three of us up.’ Lauren points towards the Mount Roberts Tramway base, a dark red building with a white upper level jutting like a prow and sending cable car lines threading up and over the hill across the road. She checks the tickets in her hand. ‘J9.’
    There’s a turnaround area for buses, with signs designating the pick-up points for particular excursions—Mendenhall Glacier,chopper flights, glacier hikes, the huskies. It’s on the other side of the tramway base, which obscures all but three of the bus bays, but I saw the website over Lauren’s shoulder a month ago. There were a dozen options, maybe more.
    My father breaks from his stare at the buildings and looks at his watch. It’s eight-fifty.
    â€˜Should have made it nine o’clock,’ he says. ‘Or half past.’
    It’s the city museum that I think he’s been searching for among the buildings. We both know where it is on the map. It’s a Sunday, the one day of the week the museum is closed during May to September, but my father has lined up a volunteer called Hope to meet him there at