ISLES OF SHOALS (continued)

DAY THREE

It's breeding season on the island. Fluffy gray-speckled gull chicks are everywhere. The one we call Peep-peep lives under the late "Rozzie" Thaxter's one-room cottage, the only other building on the island. That's also where the lawn mower is stored. Retrieving it means getting dive-bombed by screeching gull parents. Gulls perch everywhere, walk everywhere, fly everywhere as if Hitchcock were directing it all from his grave.

During May, June and July, one travels about the island with a stick raised perpetually above one's head. Tourists find it an amusing concept until they start down the trail behind the Haley House, toward the stone wall, past the little cemetery and out toward the guano-streaked stones. Gulls are ferociously protective and will scream, dive, hover and squirt droppings. There is a small stabilizing hook in the center of a gull's webbed foot, I'm told. Those who have felt it across the top of their heads say it is a memorable and scarring experience, one easily prevented by a raised stick.

Maryellen's Connecticut nephews are fascinated by our primitive Lord-of-the-Flies world and bravely make the trip to the far end of the island three times in their short visit. Keeping the trail clear and well-marked is one of the steward's most exhausting tasks. The boys are up by 5:30 am, clothes hopelessly soaked from the night before, so they pull on wet sneakers and grab sticks. We head out for the cairn, a curved pile of rocks of unknown origin that is the highest point on the 27 acre island. Visitors are surprised how long the thin island is, two-thirds of a mile of rocks, bones, poison ivy, seaweed, wildflowers, thistles, muskrat holes, muskrat scat, scattered shells and gull poop.

Reaching the Eastern end of Smuttynose at dawn is a mystical experience. As the sky lightens pink and orange far beyond the breakers, thousands of gulls rise in a deafening roar and begin to circle. I swear that the cairn is a holy place for gulls. It is forever littered with ragged corpses of young and old, sacrificed to whatever gods gulls worship. Tommy Jr., aged 12, found a spotted egg, drilled open from the inside by the chick before the occupant died, its womblike cell invaded by a snake, perhaps, because the shell is empty. Michael, aged 8, was the first to see a large gull chick in the path on the return trip, a bloody clot where Its head had been pecked away.

"Out here on the islands," his father said. "There are no rules. Parents eat their young. And this sea air makes me very hungry -- so you two better behave!"

Michael ran ahead along the wet trail, his stick held high. We came upon him minutes later, tucked into a corner of the ancient stone wall. He had found two gray lobster claws that dangled from his sleeves in place of hands. He wore a bleached muskrat skull on his head, his own face hidden under his T-shirt.

"My son, my son," his father called out in mock terror. "What has happened to you?"

"I am no longer your son!" Michael laughed like a cartoon villain. He croaked from under his shirt, windmilling his claw-hands and staring with his little muskrat head. "Your son was eaten alive. Caw-caw! I am Lobsterboy of Smuttynose, King of the Gulls!"

TO BE CONTINUED  (click for Part Two)