Nim at Sea (3 page)

Fred sneezed again, harder, and they jumped back.

Kristie came back inside and the kids turned to her.

“Look what the Professor gave her!”

“Of course!” Kristie exclaimed. “You must be the Professor’s kid!”

Nim didn’t know what a Professor’s kid was, but she knew that it might be the disguise that would let her save Selkie.

“All right then, why don’t you tell us about your little friend here.”

“He’s a marine iguana,” Nim began. “He can swim and dive….”

“Does he do tricks?”

“Show us some tricks!”

Nim thought fast. Fred could do lots of things. He could gulp down coconut so fast he wouldn’t even notice a rare coconut pearl inside. He could play coconut soccer. He could sink like a stone to the bottom of Keyhole Cove. He could ride on Nim’s shoulder and sneeze on her neck.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” Nim began, imitating Alex’s best storytelling voice. “Allow me to present:
Fred!
”

Fred stuck his head out from behind her neck to see why she was calling him, saw all the people staring, and stared back even harder.

It wasn’t exactly a trick, but: “Fred here is a champion starer,” said Nim. “He can stare hard enough to make anyone look away!”

“Not me!” said a red-haired boy. He came closer and stared into Fred’s eyes. Fred stared back. The boy moved closer. Fred sneezed.

“Gross!” shouted the boy, and jumped back into the crowd.

Everyone laughed and clapped.

“Thank you, Fred!” said Nim. “What would you like to do for your next trick?”

Fred stared at her. His mouth opened and shut as if he were eating.

“I don’t have any coconut,” said Nim.

Fred brought his face right up to hers and stared harder.

Everyone laughed again. “Does he really understand?” asked a girl in a sunflower hat.

“No,” said Kristie. “I went to the Professor’s lecture on reptiles and he said they don’t understand language.”

“Is he really hungry?” Erin asked Nim.

“Fred’s always hungry,” said Nim.

Erin reached for a plate of fruit on a table and held out a segment of mandarin. Fred snatched it, started to gulp—and spat mashed mandarin across the room.

Kids jumped, yelled, and laughed. All except Erin, and Ben, who’d finally got off the jolting motorbike and was watching quietly. “I’m sorry, Fred!” Erin said, and gave him a kiwi fruit. Fred didn’t like kiwi fruit either. Chomps of green mush flew across the room and everyone laughed harder.

Erin looked as if she was going to cry. “He likes strawberries,” said Nim.

Erin offered a strawberry. Fred gulped it down—and didn’t spit it out!

Everyone clapped.

“Fred has lots of other tricks,” said Nim, “but he mostly does them with another performer. In fact, he needs to go rehearse with her now.”

Fred settled himself back on her shoulder, and Nim marched out the door.

Oh, Selkie!
she thought.
Where are you?

J
ACK STILL HADN’T
figured out what to say to Nim.
Let her be happy a little longer,
he decided, and went on staring out at the empty sea.

Alex was still frozen in her seat, clutching the envelope the pilot had handed her just before she’d jumped on board.

She knew it held the first copy of her new book, but she wasn’t ready to see it. There was also a credit card, a passport, and a thick contract saying that her apartment and furniture had been sold. She’d asked Delia to do that, but she was surprised that there was no letter explaining it.

Just as she remembered that there
had
been a letter, which was probably floating in the water at the island now, the little red seaplane bumped gently down onto the waves and pulled up beside the Sunshine Island wharf. Alex wiped her eyes and climbed out.

It was three months since she’d landed here on her way to rescue Nim. She’d been nervous then, afraid of flying, afraid of crowds, afraid of the sea—but it had been exciting too, because she’d been turning into someone new. But now that Nim didn’t want her on the island anymore, there was nothing to do but go home.

Except that she no longer had a home.

You still have to go somewhere!
she told herself.

“Can you take me to the airport on Isla Grande when you’ve refueled?” she asked the pilot.

He shook his head.

“I’m afraid my old plane needs a complete service after such a long flight. It’ll be too dark before I’m finished—and I’m not a brave adventurer like you, Alex Rover! My seaplane and I don’t fly at night.”

“How about in the morning?”

“I’m going on holiday,” the pilot said. “I’d have left already if Delia Defoe hadn’t talked me into doing your supply drop first.”

“Okay,” said Alex. “I guess I’ll have to find the pilot who flew me here from the big island before.”

She took a bus to the little airport.

“Sorry, miss,” the man in the terminal office said. “The Thursday flight to Isla Grande left half an hour ago. We won’t be going again till Tuesday.”

“Five days!” Alex exclaimed. “I can’t wait that long!”

“Well, there’s a cruise ship coming in this afternoon.”

“I’ll take it,” said Alex.

“It’s going all the way to New York City, if you like.”

“I’d like,” said Alex.

As the man processed her ticket, Alex looked around the terminal. In a little bookstore just across from her, she saw a sign:

COMING SOON:

THE NEWEST BOOK BY ALEX ROVER!

NO DETAILS REVEALED

UNTIL PUBLICATION DATE: JULY 14!

BUY IT HERE SOON!

“What’s the name on the ticket?” the man asked.

“Al…” Alex looked at the sign again and shuddered. “Alice. Alice Dozer.”

She signed for it quickly so he wouldn’t notice that it wasn’t exactly the same name as on her credit card.

Then she went to the dock to wait for the ship.

“It’s simple,” Nim told Fred. “All we have to do is search the ship, and we’ll find Selkie.”

The Kids’ Klub was in the stern, so they walked past the long rows of locked cabin doors to the set of stairs and elevators in the bow.

“Up or down?” Nim asked Fred.

Fred couldn’t decide, but the animal buttons in the elevator showed that the Armadillo Deck was the tenth one above the water and there were only three more decks above it. The next level up was the Sea Lion Deck.

Aha!
Nim thought, and raced up the stairs.

They came out into bright sunshine and saw a small pool with a flat rock in the middle and a wall around the edge saying
SEA LION DECK
.

But there were no sea lions inside it.

Grabbing her shell whistle, Nim blew two long, shrill notes that would call Selkie in from the farthest reef at home on the island.

But Selkie didn’t come. Nim looked for her in the huge swimming pool with the long, curving waterslide and in the hot bubbling pool where people lazed the way Nim liked to float in her own Rainforest Pool. The only sea lions she could find anywhere were plastic, set out on a giant chessboard with other life-sized animal pieces.

And beyond the ship, whichever way Nim looked, there was nothing but empty sea. Her island was far, far away.

“Even if we find her,” she said to Fred, “how are we going to get home?”

Fred stared hard.

“You’re right!” Nim said. “The important thing is to find her—we can figure out how to escape once we’re all together.”

The next deck up was the Flamingo, where two long-legged pink birds stood in a shallow pond inside their narrow cage. People at white tables sipped drinks while others
whoosh
ed screaming down the waterslide into the Sea Lion Deck pool. Nim thought about how much Selkie would love the slide. Fred tickled under her chin to say he’d like to try it too.

Upstairs, at the very top of the ship, there was only a half deck, where joggers in shorts ran on a track through an aviary of eagles.

“So now we have to go down,” Nim said. She decided to take the elevator—and even though her stomach still flip-flopped, it wasn’t quite so bad now that she knew it was going to happen.

They went down past the Flamingo and Sea Lion decks, past the Armadillo Deck, where the Kids’ Klub was, and got out on the Toucan Deck. It had a path outside, where people leaned over the railing to gaze out to sea, and inside was a hall down the middle with cabins on either side.

In every deck’s hall was a cage, tank, or pool with the animals the deck was named after. After the toucans were chin-chillas and then parrots, but the one that made Nim feel the saddest and sickest of all was the cage with six frightened baby spider monkeys.

And on the Monkey Deck, down the outside path on each side of the ship, was a row of lifeboats, hoisted high on strong steel frames, with a cover like a little roof on top of each one. Most were big enough to hold lots of people, but in the middle was a small inflatable motorboat with a canvas cover on top, just like the one that had picked Nim up this morning. Exactly like the one that had seal-napped Selkie.

Nim blew her shell whistle again, loud and clear, under that boat and under the one on the other side of the ship.

But there was no answer, not the slightest
thump
or
whuffle.

Nim ran on down to the Butterfly Deck, which was full of rooms with things to buy and rooms with food and drink—but most of all, full of people.

People, people, people!
Nim thought.
So, so, so many!

It was like being in the middle of sun-baking sea lions, but noisier.

She opened a door to a wonderful library full of books and quiet, but she couldn’t hide there until she’d found Selkie. Behind another door, amidst a room of smiling people, a woman with a long white dress and flowers in her hair was walking up the aisle to a man who looked so happy he was nearly crying.

A wedding!
Nim thought.
I’m seeing a real wedding!

She felt like crying too, but not because she was happy.

Nim and Fred looked in cafés and restaurants, beauty salons and barbershops, dress stores and pajama stores, sports stores and toy stores. On the next deck, they watched a cougar snarling as it paced its cramped cage in a room with bright lights and red velvet. They searched in video arcades, piano bars, and theaters. They were back down on the deck where they’d come on board, but there was still no sign of Selkie.

Fred rubbed his spiky back against Nim’s neck.

“You’re right,” she said. “We’ll find her. We just have to keep going.”

Down the stairs Nim ran, down to the lowest deck of all.

There weren’t any people on this deck; the engine’s deep
rumble
was louder and
thump
ed more strongly through her feet, with a smell that reminded her of the seaplane. And instead of a picture of an animal at the bottom of the stairs, this deck’s sign said
CREW ONLY! NO PASSENGERS ALLOWED
!

Nim put on her Troppo Tourist jacket.

A man in gray overalls came out of a doorway. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“I’m…I’m taking him back to the Professor,” Nim said, pointing to Fred on her shoulder.

“His door’s behind you.”

“Thanks!” said Nim, hoping he wouldn’t hear her heart, which was
thump
ing as hard as her feet on the cold steel floor. She turned to the door that said
FOUNDATION FOR RESEARCH ON INTELLIGENT, UNIQUE, AND INTERESTING ANIMALS. DANGER: KEEP OUT.

Nim went in.