Nim's Island (8 page)

It was horrible to trick me even if you didn’t mean to, because whenever I was really lonely or scared or bored I thought about what you would do and then I could do it too. Which was stupid if you’re not a Hero, and I wish I’d never done it and I especially wish that I’d never ever wished that you were my father instead of Jack.

I will never forgive you.

Goodbye for ever from Nim

Scrabbling in the dark, she found sticks and branches for a fire and when it was blazing, threw her letter on top so that the smoke would carry it far, far away to wherever
Alex Rover lived, and she would smell it and know just how angry Nim was.

Selkie and Fred crept up beside her. ‘Alex Rover lied to me!’ Nim told them, and threw another stick on the fire.

Selkie barked low in her chest.

‘Well, not exactly lied,’ Nim muttered, and rubbed tears on Selkie’s warm fur, ‘but she’s not a Hero. I thought I knew who Alex Rover was . . . he was my friend and now he’s gone!’

Selkie grunted comfortingly.

‘You won’t change into something else, will you?’ Nim asked, not sure whether she was joking or not. ‘I won’t wake up tomorrow and find out you’re a mermaid?’

Selkie grunted again, a little louder.

‘Alex thinks you’re a Saint Bernard . . . and she thinks Fred is a
poodle
! She must be crazy!’

Suddenly she began to giggle.

‘She thought you were dogs and I thought she was a Hero!’

The giggle became a laugh, the laugh became a bellow, and she was rolling over and over on the sand, hiccuping and laughing, or crying, she didn’t know which, until Fred sneezed and Selkie barked to make her stop whichever it was.

And she knew there was another reason that she’d sent the letter in a way that Alex couldn’t read it.

So when the sun came up next morning, she turned on the laptop again.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: Sunday 11 April, 6:45

Dear Alex Rover

Maybe you didn’t try to trick me. I wanted to know someone brave because I’m not.

I think maybe I accidentally tricked you too. Selkie and Fred aren’t dogs, but you will like them.

When are you coming?

From Nim

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: Sunday 11 April, 1:46

Dear Nim

Now.

Love, Alex

For two nights and two days Alex had been planning, sorting, packing.

Her time had switched to island time; she slept when it was night there and got up in the dark to turn on her computer at the island’s dawn.

She’d refused to think about what she’d do if Nim said no. Because she didn’t quite believe that Nim had stopped being lonely, and she didn’t quite know if Jack would really be home soon.

And because nothing in her life had ever been this important.

She packed a first-aid kit, her laptop and mobile phone, two notebooks and two pens,
The Swiss Family Robinson
and
Robinson Crusoe,
a toothbrush, hairbrush and soap, two T-shirts, two pairs of shorts, one pair of jeans, one jumper, three sets of underwear and socks, and the map with the island marked with a dot.

Then she picked up her suitcase and locked the door behind her.

T
HE FIRST PLANE
was a jet, big and solid, with nearly four hundred passengers and more crew than Alex could count.

‘Alex Rover!’ exclaimed the flight attendant. ‘The world-famous adventure writer?’

‘I guess so,’ said Alex.

‘Come and meet the pilot—he’ll be so excited!’

‘You,’ Alex told herself, ‘are a weak-kneed, spineless jellyfish.’

‘Pardon?’

‘I’d love to,’ said Alex, and followed her into the cockpit.

‘Alex Rover!’ said the pilot, blushing red as a stop light. ‘I always wondered—I mean . . . Would you like to fly the plane?’

‘No thanks!’

‘Not exciting enough for you?’ and he showed her interesting things about the jet’s instrument panel and engines.

All Alex could think about was what a very long way down the ground was; then the ground turned to ocean, and that didn’t make her feel happier at all.

They landed after the sun had set, and when Alex found
the little plane that would take her to the island nearest to Nim’s, the pilot said they couldn’t leave until morning.

‘I can’t land on that island in the dark,’ he said. ‘I’m not a daredevil like you!’

‘I’m not a daredevil,’ Alex wanted to say. ‘I just need to get to Nim’s island right away.’

In the hotel room the feeling was stronger. She felt like a tiger in a cage, trying to burst free.

Instead, she checked her email.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: Sunday 11 April, 18:28

Dear Alex

I can’t believe you’re really coming! How will you get here and how long will it take?

I forgot to give you my phone number before. It’s 022 446 579.

I’ve never talked to anyone before except Jack but I guess it works the same way.

From Nim

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: Sunday 11 April, 22:00

Dear Nim

Curses, curses! I can’t go any farther tonight, and now it’s too late to phone!

I’m flying to Sunshine Island at dawn, to meet a boat from the adventure-cruise company Troppo Tourists; they’ve been as friendly as a salesman with a sick car to sell—and have offered to take me right to your island, though I haven’t told them yet where it is.

Nim, it’s been so much fun writing to you—no matter what happens, I’m glad I tried to come and meet you.

See you tomorrow!

Love, Alex

N
IM WOKE UP
when it was still dark, excited as Christmas. She switched on the lamp and checked the email.

A
LEX HIT THE
alarm clock, and it went on ringing. She reached for her phone.

‘They’re the Bad Guys!’ a girl’s voice shouted. ‘Who?’ said Alex. ‘What?’

And then she realised. ‘The Troppo Tourists?’

‘They chased the whale when my mother died. Now they want to bring people to stare at us and bother the animals—and Jack hates them. You can’t bring them here!’

‘No,’ said Alex. ‘I think we need to fix them once and for all.’

‘How?’

‘I’ve got four hours—I’ll think of something.’

The strangest thing, Nim thought when she hung up, was that it hadn’t felt strange talking to Alex.

B
Y THE TIME
the sun was properly up, Alex had showered, dressed, eaten a hotel breakfast and was waiting at the airport, but she still hadn’t thought of how to get to Nim’s island and keep it secret from the Troppo Tourists.

‘Any daredevil plans?’ the pilot joked as he started the engine. ‘Going to parachute out halfway for your next book?’

‘That’s not a bad idea,’ Alex muttered. ‘I couldn’t be more scared jumping out of a plane that staying in.’

The pilot went as pale as Alex’s knuckles. ‘But there’s no land between here and where we’re going!’

Alex studied the map and decided he was right: Nim’s island was too far away for a detour in this little plane. Besides, she still had to meet the Troppo Tourists—the real bad guys, the reason that Nim didn’t have a mother. If Alex didn’t turn up, they might go on looking for Nim’s island.

This time they might find it.

Alex’s fear disappeared, as suddenly and completely as if it had fallen out of the plane without a parachute.

Instead she was angry. For the first time she knew exactly how her Hero felt when he was fighting the Bad Guys: ‘And,’ she muttered, ‘I’m going to win!’

The pilot was still worried that she was going to jump out the window. ‘We’re nearly there,’ he said. ‘The airport’s just past the sailing school—you can see the little boats now.’

Alex stared out and tried not to notice that her stomach
was diving faster than the plane. That’s interesting, she thought. I can feel angry and sick at the same time!

‘Do they give lessons?’ she asked, because if she was talking she mightn’t throw up.

‘Give lessons, sell boats . . . Is your next book about sailing?’

‘Partly,’ said Alex. She couldn’t talk very well because a sneaky little fear had crept back and she was holding her breath to help the plane land.

T
WO HOURS LATER
she was wetter than she’d ever been and knew more than she’d ever wanted to about the way small sail-boats flip upside down and how it feels to be the person flipping off them. But she also knew how to get back on and push the boat right-side up, and how to pull the sails and steer.

And she was the owner of a small blue sail-boat.

‘Not bad for a beginner,’ the sailing-school owner said, pocketing her money. ‘But don’t go too far from the shore!’

Alex tried to smile.

‘Funny,’ the woman continued, ‘you’ve got the same name as the adventure writer. But I don’t reckon he’d need sailing lessons!’

‘Neither do I, now!’ Alex told herself. ‘I’m ready to go!’ And she tried to believe it.

She loaded her suitcase into the little boat and sailed out of the sailing-school cove, around the corner to the pink-and-purple Troppo Tourists ship.

‘Ahoy there!’ she shouted, jumping onto the wharf and standing up as tall and brave as she could.

The captain came running down the gangplank. ‘
You’re
Alex Rover? But you’re . . . what a delightful surprise!’

‘Are you going to write a book about us?’ asked one of the crew.

‘Maybe,’ said Alex.

‘We’ll have to make a good impression,’ the captain smiled, trying to suck his stomach in behind his Troppo T-shirt.

‘I’m sure you will,’ said Alex. ‘Do you mind if I bring my little boat?’

‘You there!’ the captain shouted at two of the crew. ‘Hoist this boat up on deck.’

‘Now,’ he went on, rubbing his hands excitedly, ‘can you tell us where this island is?’

Alex pointed to a spot on the chart, a little way east of Nim’s island.

‘We’d love to hear more about it,’ the captain said, and started the motor.

The crew gathered round as Alex began.

Alex was a storyteller. She spent her life telling stories on paper, and she made people laugh and cry and hold their breath, but she had never told a story as important as this.

She spoke quietly, and the crew huddled nearer, caught in the net of her words.

‘Long, long ago, when the world was young, a volcano began to grow, deep under the sea. It grew slowly, day by day and year by year, pulling lava from the heart of the earth—rolling, boiling, melting rock, hotter than fire, hot as the sun.

‘Then, one bright summer day—a day just like today, a day just like a million other bright summer days—the mountain under the sea
exploded
.’

She hissed the word out, her hands and eyes opening wide. The crew shivered.

‘With a roar that shook the earth, a storm came: thunder crashed and lightning flashed; winds howled, and waves towered. From the heart of the volcano, melted rock and boiling lava poured up and out, higher and higher. And when it had finished and the boiling rock had cooled to stone, the tiny underwater mountain had grown to a full-grown island with its head poking out from the sea.

‘Now, some islands,’ Alex went on, as the Troppo
Tourists sat silent and still around her, ‘become peaceful once they’ve been born from the sea. But this island didn’t. This island stayed hot and angry.

‘Its volcano still shoots fire; boiling lava still tumbles down its slopes and the stench of hell floats in its mists. Its rocks are black and sharp and its cliffs are steep.’

‘No golden sand?’ the captain asked hopefully.

‘A little,’ Alex admitted. ‘But in front of the sands, curved from the rocks at one end to the cliffs at the other, is a maze of rocky reef—a treacherous, sword-sharp, boat-ripping reef.’

The crew shivered.

‘Lions of the sea,’ Alex continued, ‘live on the rocks: the smartest sea lions you will ever meet, the fiercest and bravest in all the world, ready to fight to protect their home.

‘And if a boat could pass the sea lions, and find its way through the sword-sharp maze, and not choke in the rotten-egg gas or fry in the boiling lava, when it reached the beach it would meet the dragons.’