Nim at Sea (9 page)

N
IM HUGGED ERIN
and Ben goodbye. They’d see each other later, but they wouldn’t be able to talk. She gave Ben her green stone and Erin her bamboo cup, which had been in her pocket when she jumped off the cliff. Finally she gave Ben the bird bands, the Troppo Tourist jacket, and, most important of all, the key.

Then she dressed in her own clothes—her bright blue shirt and baggy red pants with drawstring ties and useful pockets—and went down to the Animal Room. She gave the caged animals love and breakfast, trying to let them feel her hope: “You’ll all be free soon!”

By nine o’clock there were more butterflies in her stomach than on the Butterfly Deck. It was time for the circus.

The Professor picked up his whip.

“You don’t need the whip,” Nim said bravely. “Grown-ups won’t like it and it will scare the kids.”

The Professor flicked a warning crack. “Then you’d better keep those animals under control—because I’ll be keeping it close at hand, just in case.”

Nim shut her mouth so hard her teeth hurt. It was the only way to stop herself from calling him every bad name she could think of. She opened the door.

“Selkie, walk!” she ordered. “Fred, follow!”

“Sorry,” she whispered as they started down the hall. “After today, I’ll
never
talk to you like that again!”

Selkie looked at her with her head on one side and Nim knew she understood, but Fred scuttled along behind looking as cross as an iguana can possibly look.

It was a tight squash in the elevator because none of them wanted to be next to the Professor and his whip. He got out at the Sea Lion Deck, but Nim, Selkie, and Fred went up to the Flamingo Deck above, where the café chairs were set up around the top of the waterslide, as if the deck were a theater balcony for the show at the pool below.

There was a person in every chair, and when Nim looked down she saw people sitting all around the waterslide pool and standing all the way out to the railings. There were more people than Nim had thought could fit on the ship. For a minute she wanted to turn and run. Fred forgot his sulking and scurried to her shoulder.

Then all three friends walked through the café to the top of the waterslide.

Fred rubbed his spiny head under her chin. Nim put her hand on Selkie’s shoulder. They were ready. They looked down to see the Professor on a stage beside the pool.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” he shouted. “Instead of my usual lecture this morning, I’ll be demonstrating how well I’ve trained a seal and a lizard—by allowing a mere child to do the show!” Dozens of kids waved and screamed, “Me! Pick me!” The Professor ignored them and sat down in a chair on the stage, his whip across his knees. “This had better be good!” he muttered.

Fred whizzed down the waterslide into the pool. Nim followed—and then Selkie
whoosh
ed down the curves and
whumph
ed! in with a tidal-wave splash. The audience squealed, clapped, and cheered. The people in the front three rows were soaked.

Nim climbed out of the pool to the front stage. She took a deep breath and wondered if her voice would come out at all.

Then she saw Erin and Ben in the very front row—and beside and behind them, all the kids from the Kids’ Klub. Suddenly she knew she could do it.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” she shouted. “May I present my sea lion friend, Selkie!”

Selkie pulled herself up on the side of the pool and bowed her head to the left, to the right, and straight ahead. Everyone in the audience felt as if she’d bowed to them.

“And,” Nim continued, “the handsomest, funniest, smartest marine iguana in the whole world: Fred!”

Fred had to scramble up the steps and onto Nim’s shoulder before he could nod at the audience, but when he did, Erin and Ben cheered so loudly that everyone else had to join in.

“Statue!” Nim shouted, and Selkie sat up as tall and still as the sea lions on the chessboard.

Nim threw four fish and Selkie expertly caught every one. Fred caught lettuce and chunks of fruit.

“Yay, Fred!” the kids all cheered.

Selkie kissed Erin, and Fred sneezed on Ben.

“Yuck, Fred!” the kids all called, laughing as they clapped.

Selkie, Nim, and Fred dived into the pool and played coconut soccer with a ball instead of a coconut.

Now all the audience cheered.

The ship was going slowly down a strait between mainland and islands. High in the distance was a dark speck that just might be a frigate bird.

“Throw the ball here!” the kids all shouted, until the Professor got out of his seat to glare at them.

Nim hopped out of the pool and threw a rubber ring back in. Fred nosed it up from the bottom and Selkie tossed it back.

“Throw something into the pool!” Nim called. “And they’ll play catch!”

A boy threw in his watch. “It’s waterproof!” he shouted, and the crowd cheered as Selkie tossed it back.

Nim looked at Erin. Erin nodded and threw in a banana.

Fred batted it, Selkie threw it—and Fred gulped it.

“Hooray for Fred!” Kelvin cheered. He still didn’t want to touch Fred, but he was glad he’d rescued him.

Out of the corner of her eye, Nim saw Ben slip away from the crowd and down the stairs, pulling on the Troppo Tourist jacket as he ran.

She also saw that the black speck in the sky had grown into a frigate bird outline.

There was only one fish left in the bucket.

But then Erin pulled out the basket of papier-mâché fish she and Nim had made. She threw the first one to Nim, twirling it high in the air. Nim caught it and threw it the same way to Selkie, who tossed it to Fred, who tossed it back to Nim as Erin threw the next one to Selkie.

The Professor stood up to take a picture, his whip tucked under his arm.

Nim threw the fish to him.

The crowd gasped as an enormous black bird, wings as wide across as the Professor was tall, swooped in to snatch the papier-mâché fish. The Professor gasped and ducked as the bird’s left wing brushed his face and its head went through the loop of the dangling whip.

“Introducing Galileo!” Nim shouted, throwing him the last real fish for a reward.

Galileo dropped the papier-mâché fish onto the Professor’s head, caught the real one, and soared upward with the whip bouncing on his bright red chest—till it slipped away and sank into the cold waters of New York Harbor.

The Professor bellowed with rage. He was so angry he forgot to even pretend that he was in charge of the show.

“If you planned this…,” he screamed at Nim.

Selkie leapt up and smashed down so hard in front of him that the front rows got soaked all over again. The Professor was drenched, standing in a puddle of water.

“I’m warning you!” the Professor shrieked.

“Play nicely, Selkie!” said Nim, and threw her the ball again.

Selkie leapt up as she hit the ball back, straight and hard at the Professor. He threw his arms up to catch it, skidded in the puddle of water, and fell down hard on his bottom.

Fred scurried to Selkie’s head and sneezed in the Professor’s face.

The audience laughed and cheered louder than ever, as if it were a clown act.

“Naughty Selkie!” Nim said lovingly. “Naughty Fred!”

“Yuck, Fred!” the kids shouted gleefully.

Selkie
whuffle
d and put her flippers up to her face as if she was crying.

The audience cheered louder.

The Professor’s eyes went narrow and his face was purplered. “That’s the end of the show!” he shouted.

Now the ship was going under a bridge. The land was close enough that they could see the cubes and rectangles of buildings, but there was still a bit farther to go.

“Encore!” shouted Erin.

The whole audience took it up. “Encore, encore! More, more, more!”

Nim blew her shell whistle. Selkie pulled herself out of the pool. Fred scrambled up beside her.

“I said the show is over!” the Professor screamed.

“Encore, encore!” the audience screamed back.

Selkie and Fred climbed onto the stage.

Nim blew her whistle again. Selkie dived in, rolling and porpoising around the pool, as if she were loosening up for the swim of her life. Nim dived in and Selkie dived under her so that Nim was riding on her back.

Nim blew the whistle again and Fred dived too, right onto Selkie’s back and up to Nim’s shoulder.

The audience cheered, the Professor glowered, and Nim, Selkie, and Fred climbed out of the pool.

The ship slowed down still more.

The Professor moved toward Nim. His eyes were as narrow and glinting as a knife. “These animals are going back to their cages,” he snarled. “Get into the elevator.”

Nim, Selkie, and Fred headed toward it, very, very slowly.

“Wait!” Erin screamed. “I want to pat Selkie goodbye!”

“And Fred!”

“We want to pat Selkie!”

“Me too, me too!”

The kids swarmed around them, patting Selkie and Fred and hugging Nim. Some of the adults joined in, and a few who couldn’t get close handed Erin some money to give to Nim. “That show deserves a good tip!” said one soaking-wet woman.

Erin shoved the money into Nim’s extra-safe pocket, then whispered something to the little pigtailed girl from the Kids’ Klub. The girl ran to the Professor and tagged him on the back. “Spider!” she shouted.

Then Erin and Nim jumped into the elevator.

As the doors shut, Nim saw the mob of kids squeal and surge toward the left-hand rail, with the Professor spluttering and bellowing in the middle of them, locked in as firmly as if in a cage.

Nim pushed the button for the Dolphin Deck, the lowest level with an outside deck. The elevator stopped.

“Ready?” asked Erin.

Nim couldn’t speak. She nodded.

Erin burst out of the doors and raced to the left-hand side of the ship. “The Statue of Liberty!” she screamed. “Look at all the birds around the Statue of Liberty!”

There weren’t many passengers down on this deck, and most were already staring out over the left-hand side at the great green statue. Now everyone turned too, as an amazing flock of brightly colored birds—parrots, rainbow doves, flamingos, eagles, and toucans, all led by an enormous black frigate bird—came soaring into the blue sky and began wheeling around the torch in the statue’s uplifted hand.

Not a single person looked to the other side. If they had, they might have seen a sea lion and a girl with an iguana on her shoulder slip out of the elevator to the right-hand side of the ship.

So they all missed the most spectacular trick of all, the one where Selkie flopped onto a deck chair against the railing and pulled herself into her best-ever flipper-stand. They missed seeing Fred climb on her flippers and be launched from his own personal diving board when Selkie dived over the ship’s rail and down, down, down into the water of New York Harbor.

And they missed seeing Nim take the biggest breath of her life—and jump.