The Secret Sea (42 page)

Authors: Barry Lyga

BOOK: The Secret Sea

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Gazing out at the East River as it lapped gently at the bulwark beneath his feet, he knew that he would never look upon the water the same way again.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Most booksâwell, most of
mine
, at leastâbegin with some nugget or kernel of truth, some bit of reality upon which to build my fiction.

In the case of
The Secret Sea
, there were many kernels. There was Hurricane Sandy, which devastated New York City and surrounding areas in 2012. I had a broken foot at the time and couldn't evacuate, so my wife and I crossed our fingers and stuck it out. Until the storm killed the cable, we watched the storm on the news, including a flood washing through a PATH station. I filed the image away for the day I would need it.

TTTS (twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome) is an actual medical condition. Happily, with early intervention and treatment, many babies with TTTS are born safely and can live long, productive lives. I read about it and I paid attention because my wife is an identical twin. She never had TTTS, but it didn't matter. It stuck with me, and that, too, I filed away.

The most exotic, perhaps, of the truth nuggets that formed the basis of the novel, though, is the ship found under the wreckage of the twin towers. People are usually astonished to discover that this wasn't the product of my imagination, that it actually wasâand isâreal. I first learned about it in 2011 through a
Discovery News
article on
Discovery.com
:
http://news.discovery.com/earth/plants/secrets-of-wtc-ship-revealed-110907.htm
. I just stumbled upon the article, purely by accident. Just as I happened to read something about TTTS; just as I happened to be sofa-bound when Sandy pummeled New York.

People ask authors all the time, “Where do your ideas come from?” Sometimes the answer is, “Sheer coincidence.”

The boat fascinated me. At the time of its discovery, the scientific community was baffled. The boat didn't adhere to the most common shipbuilding standards of its day. Dating it was difficult, though not impossibleâjust harder than it should have been. And most important of all: What the heck was it doing under the World Trade Center?

Workers carefully excavate portions of the boat to preserve as much of it as possible. After being underground for more than two hundred years, much of the boat has been degraded and worn away.

Recently (I'm writing this in early 2015), some of the secrets and mysteries about the boat have been sussed out. We've learned, for example, that it was a sloop and that its wood came from the same forests used to build Independence Hall. By examining the tree rings of the lumber, scientists determined that it was most likely built around 1773 (
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/07/140731-world-trade-center-ship-tree-rings-science-archaeology/
). The best scientific estimates tell us that the boat was in service for only twenty or thirty years before it sank. There is speculation that worms ate at the timbers, leading to its relatively early demise. Or maybe it was deliberately sunk to add to landfill at the end of lower Manhattan (
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/30/world-trade-center-ship-mystery_n_5634280.html
).

After workers cleared rubble and dirt over three days, the boat's timbers and structure are evident. As hard as it is to believe, this boat once sailed the ocean!

I think what I love most about the boat is this: When I first read about it back in 2011, we didn't know much at all. We know a lot more nowÂ â¦ but still not everything.

Just like we don't know how to stop another Hurricane Sandy from flooding New York.

Or how to prevent TTTS.

It's the things we don't know that I obsess over, that I seek to explain through made-up stories. Because, yes, I know that Godfrey didn't ride that boat from one universe to another. The truth is more mundane than that, I'm sure. Someday, someone will have explanations for
all
of it.

But I will still prefer my own.

TTTS is real. Subways
can
flood. There really was a boat under the World Trade Center.

The Secret Sea probably does not exist.

Then againÂ â¦

Photos courtesy of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. Preservation of and research regarding the World Trade Center Ship Remnant is funded by a Community Development Block Grant from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. Used with permission.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Writing is a solitary pursuit.

Except for the small army of other people who make it all possible.

You can't write a book like
The Secret Sea
without some help from the experts. I want to thank Dr. Leanne Magee for consulting on child psychology, Dr. Dave Morgan for being my go-to physics guy (sorry for taking so many liberties with reality, Dave!), Stephanie Kuehn for connecting me with Dave in the first place, Dr. Deborah Mogelof for advising on medicine, and Jack Norris for help with Latin.

And then there are the early readers, who encouraged me along the way: Morgan Baden, who read the book in chunks as I typed it. Eric Lyga, who pointed out an early fatal flaw. Paul Griffin, whose early enthusiasm was like sunshine and rain to a flower. Gordon Korman, who found a hole and suggested how to fill it.

At Feiwel and Friends, I am eternally indebted to Liz Szabla for her faith and vision, as well as to Jean Feiwel. Also, special thanks to Rich Deas, Liz Dresner, Christine Ma, and Christine Barcellona. My thanks go out, too, to everyone in Sales, Production, and Marketing who made this book possible. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

And thank
you
, too, for reading. I'll see you on the waves.

Thank you for reading this Feiwel and Friends book.

The Friends who made

THE
SECRET SEA

possible are:

JEAN FEIWEL,
Publisher

LIZ SZABLA,
Editor in Chief

RICH DEAS,
Senior Creative Director

HOLLY WEST,
Associate Editor

DAVE BARRETT,
Executive Managing Editor

ANNA ROBERTO,
Associate Editor

CHRISTINE BARCELLONA,
Associate Editor

EMILY SETTLE,
Administrative Assistant

ANNA POON,
Editorial Assistant

us online at
mackids.com
.

OUR BOOKS ARE FRIENDS FOR LIFE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Barry Lyga
is the author of a slew of books for young adults and adults.
The Secret Sea
is the kind of book he always imagined himself writing when he was Zak's age. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and daughter and his own collection of voices in his head.
barrylyga.com
. Or sign up for email updates
here
.

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