Storm Warning

by Linda Sue Park

  It just didn't make sense. And Dan had spent enough time on the Clue hunt to know what that meant.

  Trouble.

  But for the moment, he had decided to put it out of his mind as much as he could.

  "C'mon, hurry UP!" he said, jiggling with impatience.

  "Sunscreen first," Nellie said, tossing him a tube.

  Dan threw his towel on the bed. He smeared a little sunscreen on his arms, stomach, and chest, then rubbed his greasy hands down the front of his legs. "There. Okay?"

  "No, not okay," Nellie said. "Your back, your neck, and the backs of your legs, too. And your ears."

  "I'll do your back," Amy said quickly.

  Dan threw her a glance. It was clear to him that she didn't want Nellie in their lives any more than absolutely necessary--not even doing sunscreen duty.

  "I can do it myself," he said, and did an even worse job on his back than he had on his front. Then he grabbed his towel. "I'm not waiting any longer--I'm going without you."

  He saw Nellie roll her eyes. "Check in with me at that Dolphin Inlet place at"--she glanced at her watch--"two. And don't lose track of the time. I'm sick of getting freaked out when I can't find you!"

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  He was out the door before she had finished speaking.

  Dan paid for his admission into the water park and got a rubber band to wear on his wrist. First stop: the Sun Palace waterslides. One of the slides looked almost perpendicular! He went down as instructed by the park workers at the top of the slide: legs crossed at the ankles, arms crossed over his chest.

  What a breathtaking ride! Literally. Water sprayed into his mouth and got blasted up his nose; by the time he splashed into the pool at the bottom, he was choking and coughing and spitting water. It was glorious.

  For two hours, Dan ran around the water park. He couldn't decide if he should first try every single ride once, or if he should do the ones he liked over and over again. This might be his only chance; there wouldn't be any time for fun once they got back on the Clue hunt.

  This thought made Dan feel a tiny bit guilty. On the way to the next ride, he spent a few minutes poking around the bushes, looking for a cat. Not just any cat--a calico cat, that was what Hamilton had said.

  Then he saw a sign stating that pets weren't allowed in the park. That meant, of course, that the hunt for the cat would have to take place outside the park. How many cats lived in the Bahamas? How were they ever going to find the right one?

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  But the next ride put any thought of cats out of his mind. He got on an inner tube and went down a steep slide. The slide leveled out and led into a long tunnel. Except it wasn't like the usual waterslide tunnels. This one was made of clear glass-- and it went through a shark tank. The sharks came really close--if the glass hadn't been there, he could have touched them!

  "It was WAY cool," he said to Amy when the threesome met up. He was only seven minutes late.

  "Yeah, well, this is way cooler," Nellie said. She held up a string bag full of weird-looking produce.

  Amy looked away, and Dan followed her lead in ignoring Nellie.

  But Nellie wasn't giving up. "You should have seen all the stuff at the market," she said. "Plantains, jack fruit, custard apples--I bought, like, one of everything!" She pulled out a handful of round dark brown nuts wrapped in what looked like red tentacles.

  "Whole nutmegs. The red stuff, that's mace. You can hardly ever find it whole back home--it's way better for cooking than the powdered stuff. Smell." She thrust her hand out at Dan, who immediately backed away.

  "No, thanks," he said. "They look like turds. Designer dog turds, like from some fancy miniature show dog."

  Nellie put the nutmegs back in her bag. "Why do I even bother trying," she muttered.

  "Wait till you hear this," Dan said. "When I was standing in line, some people were talking about how a shark once jumped OUT of the tank and landed on

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  the slide, can you believe it? And then it slid down and ended up in the splash pool!"

  Amy shuddered, and Dan knew that she was remembering Australia, where she'd had enough experience with sharks to last a lifetime. "Did anyone get hurt?" she asked anxiously.

  Dan shrugged. "Naw. It happened before the park was open for the day." His face fell a little. "But the shark died because of the chlorinated water."

  "Poor shark," Nellie said.

  "I wish I'd been there!" Dan said. "Just think, I could have gone swimming with a shark!"

  Amy made a noise in her throat, fear and loathing combined. "Can we change the subject?" she said. Then she glared at Nellie. "If you'll excuse us--"

  Nellie flipped her sunglasses down and shrugged. Amy pulled Dan away a few yards, then held up a brochure.

  "Wow. A brochure," Dan said. He mimed a yawn.

  "Just listen," she said. "It's the Jolly Codger Pirate's Cove tour. You go on a boat to the smaller islands." She opened the brochure and read aloud from it: "'... islands known to have been frequented by famed pirates like Henry Morgan, Blackbeard, and'"--she paused for dramatic effect-- '"Jack Rackham!"

  "Jack Crackem? Good name for a pirate."

  "Rackham," Amy corrected him. "The pirate Anne Bonny joined up with. If we look around the places he's been, maybe we'll find something!"

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  Dan took the brochure from her and skimmed it.

  "Listen to this part," he said. '"Dig for buried treasure! Use of metal detectors and spades included.'" Then his face fell. "Wait, there's this asterisk and it says, 'Coins unearthed on the tour may be redeemed at any resort gift shop.'"

  He snorted. "Fake treasure," he said in disgust. "If they want a real challenge, they should try hunting for clues instead."

  Amy swallowed a smile. She was pretty sure that not long ago, Dan would have been digging for those coins himself.

  They walked back toward Nellie. "We're going on a tour," Amy said. "No need for you to go with us--we'll be back in a couple of hours."

  "What kind of tour?" Nellie asked.

  "Does it matter?" Amy parried.

  "Yes, in fact, it does," Nellie said. "Amy, like it or not, I'm still your au pair. You're my responsibility. That means I get to ask what kind of tour, and you have to answer. If you don't--" She stopped and shrugged.

  It was easy to figure out what that shrug meant. It meant back to Aunt Beatrice.

  Dan whispered into Amy's ear. "Remember what we said? We can tell her where we're going but not what we're doing."

  Amy nodded at him, then looked at Nellie. "Okay. We're going on the Jolly Codger boat tour."

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  "A boat tour," Nellie repeated. "As in, out on the ocean?"

  "Um, yeah."

  "Then I'm coming with you. And you don't have a choice about that, either."

  Amy clenched her fists, struggling to keep her face expressionless. She was forcing herself to act cold and angry so she wouldn't burst into tears. The truth was, ever since Nellie's revelation on the plane, there had been half a dozen times already when Amy had felt like crying.

  Nellie wouldn't win any awards at the Au Pair Olympics, if there ever were such a thing. She was careless sometimes, and drove like a maniac, and let them eat too much junk food. But she had always been there for them, and Amy was only now realizing how much she had come to depend on Nellie's presence.

  Dan touched her arm. "Come on," he said. They turned away from Nellie and hurried down the path toward the marina.

  Nellie followed. They didn't see her turn to glance at a man hidden behind a stand of bougainvillea.

  The man nodded at her, and she nodded back.

  With a dozen other tourists, the trio boarded a big catamaran called the Jolly Codger. As instructed by the crew, they sat around the edges of the tarp that stretched between the two keels. Amy made sure

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  that she and Dan sat several yards away from Nellie.

  It was a wonderful day on the water, with a breeze just strong eno
ugh to fill the sails and keep the sun from feeling too hot. Amy stared over the edge of the boat. Before, when she had seen photos of the Caribbean Sea, she always thought the pictures must have been retouched, that the water couldn't possibly be such an amazing shade of blue. She was wrong. The water really was that incredible.

  She thought of the different names for blue colors: azure, turquoise, peacock, cerulean. None of them was quite right--the color of the ocean she was looking at needed its own name, one that hadn't been invented yet. A combination of all those blues.

  Azure plus turquoise ... az-tur-

  "Az-tur-pea-lean," she mumbled. She was pleased; it sounded like the name of a fancy color. Maybe if she used it, it would sort of catch on and become a real word someday. "Azturpealean," she repeated.

  "Asked her what?" Dan said. "I mean, asked who what?"

  Amy reddened. "Never mind."

  At that moment, the ship's first mate called out, "Ahoy, everyone!" He was a fit-looking young man wearing cargo shorts and a tank shirt that showed off his perfect biceps. Nellie sat up straighter, and to Amy's amazement, she actually took out the earbuds.

  "I'm going to tell you a little about where we're heading today," he said. His accent was singsongy and

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  seemed to fit perfectly with his smile and easy manner. "I hope you're going to have a great time--maybe you're already enjoying yourselves!"

  The tourists nodded and smiled.

  "Our first stop is coming up soon. It's called Boucan Cay. Boucan is an old French word. A boucan was a kind of grill used for meat. When European sailors first came to our islands, they would roast their meat on a boucan. So the French started calling those sailors 'boucaniers.'"

  "Buccaneers!" Amy said.

  "That's right," he said. "In English, we say 'buccaneers'; we've got a very smart young lady there."

  The first mate continued his speech. "The Bahamas was a pirate haven for a long time. Captain Kidd put in at Exuma Island, not far from here. And maybe the most famous pirate of all--Blackbeard? His real name was Edward Teach. He visited the Bahamas often."

  Amy cleared her throat. "Calico Jack Rackham was here, too, wasn't he?"

  "Yes, young lady, Jack Rackham, too. Everyone loves the Bahamas!" he joked. "You know the famous skull-and-crossbones flag? Some say it was Jack Rackham who first used it."

  Amy poked Dan. "Jack Rackham!" she whispered fiercely.

  The catamaran dropped anchor in a beautiful little cove. The crew loaded gear into a motorized rubber

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  raft; everyone else jumped off the boat and swam in to the beach.

  Once ashore, most of the kids grabbed metal detectors to hunt for the "buried treasure." Some of the tourists donned snorkeling gear while others, including Nellie, put their towels down on the sand in preparation for some hard work on their tans. Nellie made herself comfortable at once, sunglasses and earbuds firmly in place.

  "Young lady!" The first mate waved at Amy. "And you, too, young fella. I have something for you."

  "For us?" Amy said. They walked over to where he was working, unloading the raft.

  The man reached into one of the pockets of his cargo shorts. "A friend of yours came by before we sailed. He said to give this to you on the island." He handed Amy a folded piece of paper.

  "A friend?" Dan echoed. "Did he say his name?"

  The mate shook his head. "Sorry."

  "What did he look like?"

  The mate frowned a little, trying to remember. "He was an older gentleman. Wearing a gray shirt, I think."

  "Was he Asian?" Dan asked. Amy knew exactly what he was thinking because she was thinking the same thing: Could it have been Alistair Oh? Or maybe even his uncle Bae?

  "I'm afraid I didn't see his face well. He had a hat on and sunglasses, too. Sorry." He smiled. "Will you be wanting snorkel gear?"

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  "Not right now, thanks," Amy said.

  "Actually, yes," Dan contradicted her. He took a mask and snorkel for himself and handed her one, too. "Just in case," he said to her under his breath.

  The man gave them a friendly wave. "You tell your friend"--he gestured toward Nellie--"to move her towel if she doesn't want to get wet. The tide will be coming in soon."

  Amy and Dan headed away from the other tourists to one side of the cove where there were rocks to sit on. With Dan looking over her shoulder, Amy unfolded the piece of paper.

  "Code," Dan groaned. "Why does it always have to be so hard? Why can't we just get what we need straight up for once?"

  Amy sighed, too. "We don't even know if it's good or bad." Mysterious hints like this one had surfaced before. Some had been helpful, but others had led them straight into traps.

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  "Either way we still have to figure it out," Dan said.

  "Let's get started," Amy said. "First letter, V. V for victory? What other words start with V--vegetable, valentine--"

  "Right. Someone's sending us a valentine in the middle of fall. Someone who wants us to be victorious. And eat more vegetables."

  "Very funny," she said. "At least I'm trying."

  "We'll never get it that way," Dan said. "Not by guessing--it's way too random. There has to be some kind of pattern."

  Amy looked sheepish. "You're right. Sorry, I was being stupid."

  Dan raised his eyebrows, surprised by her apology. "Okay, let me think a minute." He stared at the paper for a few moments, then spoke again.

  "What if every letter stands for a different letter, like the code we had in South Africa?"

  Amy's face lit up. "Yeah. See the V all by itself? It has to stand for either I or A--those are the only two words in English that have just one letter."

  "It's probably not even English," Dan moaned. "It's probably from some language that has hundreds of one-letter words."

  Amy shook her head. "Chances are it's in English. Somebody wanted us to have it, and it wouldn't make sense if we couldn't figure it out."

  "Okay, but look. The V has a period after it. 'I,

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  period.' Or 'A, period.' Neither one makes sense."

  Amy sighed. "So we're back to guessing again?"

  "No, wait. What if the V isn't a letter? What if--" Dan paused. His eyes began to gleam. "What if it's a number?"

  "A number?" Amy echoed. She furrowed her brow. Dan was almost twitching with excitement now, but he let her have a moment to figure it out.

  "OH!" she exclaimed. "Roman numerals--it's the number five!"

  Dan hopped down off the rock. He found a stick of driftwood and began writing in the damp sand.

  "Five," he said as he worked, "that's the key."

  * * *

  A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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  "Now we take each letter and count five, and that should do it! What's the first word?"

  Amy read aloud. "J - F - X - Y."

  "Wait, not so fast, f--that's an O ..." Dan wrote again on the sand. "O ... then F equals K ... X, C ... Y, D." He stared at the letters. "OKCD? That's not a word." He scuffed his feet in disgust and kicked the sand to obliterate what he had just written. "I was so sure I'd figured it out."

  Meanwhile, Amy was still sitting on the rock. Dan had written the alphabet while facing her, so she was seeing it upside down.

  "Hang on a second." She glanced back and forth between the paper in her hand and the alphabet on the sand, sometimes tilting her head to read the upside-down letters.

  Then she looked up at him.

  "You did figure it out," she said.

  "Huh?" He stopped with his foot in mid-stamp.

  "Just go the other way," she said. "Count backwards." She hopped down off the rock to join him, reading what was on the paper while he counted out the corresponding letters and wrote them in the sand.

  It didn't take long. They stared at the completed message.

  "Oh, no," Amy said--at the same time that Dan said, "Cool!"

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  CHAPTER 4

  * * *

  Natalie Kabra had been having nightmares for more than a week.

  The same dream every night, in perfect clarity and detail: Amy Cahill--her hair looking like it had never been styled in her entire life--and her brother, Dan, (ditto) in an airplane hangar, tied to chairs, helpless as the propeller of a plane came closer and closer.

  But there was no noise.

  Their mouths were wide open, screaming, and the propeller was whirling at top speed. Yet the silence was complete, as if someone had hit the mute button on a TV remote.

  In the dream, Natalie was standing right next to them. She wasn't tied to a chair, but she couldn't move, either; she was frozen where she stood. She could see Ian beside her mother, his face ashen with dread. The propeller would hit Dan first, then Amy, and then--

  The volume came back on again, full blast.

  But still no propeller noise, no screaming. Just one sound.

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  Laughter.

  That sound always jerked Natalie out of sleep. Instantly, she was heart-thumpingly, sweat-drenchingly awake. She would turn on her bedside lamp immediately. She had to reassure herself that she was in her own room, every inch of it designed by the same decorator who worked for the British royal family. The familiar paintings on the walls (originals, of course), her custom-made desk and chair in their usual positions, her perfect couture outfit for the next day hanging on the closet door. Despite these reassurances, it always took her a long time to fall asleep again.

  And every morning, the dream seemed foolish, as bad dreams so often do. The horror faded, and Natalie imagined that she had remembered it wrong, that she wasn't standing next to Dan and Amy but in her proper place, alongside her mother and brother.

  Yes. She was, after all, a Kabra. The very best kind of Cahill. None of the others even came close, most especially Dan and Amy.