by Kir Fox
“Yes,” Runa said firmly. Then: “Well, not exactly. Sort of?”
“Suuuure,” Jules said. “Your turn, Quincy! Truth or Propagan—uh, I mean Dare?”
Normally, Quincy would pick truth. And everyone knew Jules gave the most challenging dares. But to everyone’s surprise—including Quincy’s—he said:
“Dare!”
Davy’s eyes bugged out. “Really? I thought for sure you’d pick truth.”
“I guess I’m in a daring mood today,” Quincy said.
He watched as Jules turned in a slow circle, hands on her hips. “Aha!” she exclaimed, pointing toward the old bumper car rink. “I dare you to drive one of those bumper cars.”
“Okay!” Quincy said cheerfully.
His friends gathered outside the rink as Quincy chose a yellow car and climbed in. He spun the steering wheel a few times to warm up. Normally, he would press the pedal hesitantly, edging forward little by little. But not today.
Today, he was in a daring mood.
Quincy slammed his foot on the pedal, and his yellow car shot forward. “Wheee!” he exclaimed. His friends cheered. The little light at the top of his car’s rod glowed, and Quincy felt like he was glowing, too.
He zoomed around and around the rink until he got dizzy. Then he changed directions and zoomed around and around the other way.
As he passed a pink car, its rod began to glow. Suddenly it shot toward Quincy—without a driver!
“Yikes!” He managed to swerve at the last second. The pink car bumped into the wall instead, then spun around and faced him.
“Quincy!” Jules called. “Look out!”
“Where?” Quincy looked around. All the other cars were still empty—but their rods had lit up. They started to move.
Straight toward Quincy!
He swerved left. He swerved right. Then he bumped into the orange car, and its light went out. His friends cheered again, and Quincy beamed.
He spun the steering wheel hard, stomped on the gas, and zoomed toward the pink car. Bump! Quincy sped away, and the blue car zipped toward him. Quincy drove faster, and so did the blue car. Then he saw a flash of purple, and—bump! The blue car skidded out of his way.
But Quincy hadn’t bumped it—the purple car had. He stared in surprise.
“I think the purple car is trying to help you!” Jules called.
“Okay!” Quincy spun his car in a few fancy circles, then zoomed toward the green car. Bump! The purple car zoomed toward the orange car. Bump! Soon, Quincy’s car and the purple car were the only ones left with lights on.
Slowly, he drove up to the purple car and peered at the driver’s seat. Then he laughed. “It’s my spirit!” he called to his friends.
“I think my spirit’s in the orange car!” Runa exclaimed.
“And mine’s in the blue car,” Jules said. “I always wondered what our spirits do when it’s not Spirit Day! I guess they haunt the old rides.”
“Whew,” Quincy said, climbing out of the yellow car. “At first I thought the cars were full of ghosts!”
“Which car was my spirit driving?” Davy asked. “I, um, couldn’t tell.”
“The red one,” Quincy replied. “Yours was the first one I bumped.”
“Oh.” Davy looked relieved. Then he frowned. “Hey!”
After that, the kids headed back toward the beach. The ocean looked even more blue, and the sand looked even more sparkly, and the rock cats’ smiles looked bigger than ever. Quincy smiled back at them.
SHLARPP!!!
He turned just as Runa tucked something inside her art supply bag. She wiped her sandy hand on her jeans.
“Hey! Was that another bottle?” Jules demanded.
“Nope.” Runa’s eyes sparkled like the ocean, and Quincy was glad she seemed happy again. “Just an extra-large saber tooth for a collage I’m—”
WONK! WONK! WONK!
All the kids swiveled around and stared at the lighthouse. A single pink light on top flashed with every WONK that blared. Quincy’s smile flipped over and he clapped his hands over his ears.
“What does it mean?” Davy shouted over the WONKs.
Jules’s eyes were as big and round as two cupcakes. “I have no idea, but I’d better take notes.” She pulled out her notepad.
“Maybe it’s a new warning?” Runa said. “My uncle’s town has a new siren that goes off during the annual kite competition, so nobody will look up and think pterodactyls are attacking again—”
The lighthouse stopped WONKing. Runa stopped talking.
Quincy smiled harder than ever. “Well, that was unpredictable,” he said. “Shall we get back to Truth or Dare?”
Earl Grey nudged Jules’s hand. “Snert? Snort?”
“Huh?” she said, glancing up from her notepad. “Oh, I’ll skip my turn.”
Suddenly Earl Grey let out a loud squeal and trotted down the beach as fast as he could.
“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings!” Jules called after him. “Sheesh. Watch hogs can be so sensitive.”
“No, I think he sees something,” Runa said. “Or someone.”
Earl Grey seemed to be heading for the endless pier. Right where it vanished into the fog, Quincy saw a tiny speck. Soon the speck became a girl-shaped blob. Then the girl-shaped blob became a girl.
“It’s Nia!” he exclaimed.
The kids reached the pier just as Nia jogged up. Earl Grey snorted and squealed happily. But Nia looked confused.
“What are you guys doing here?” she asked.
“What do you mean?” Jules said, pocketing her notepad. “We were right here at the beginning of the pier when you left!”
“This isn’t the beginning of the pier,” Nia argued. “It’s the end!”
“No, it’s the beginning!”
“It’s the end!”
“Maybe the beginning is the end,” Runa said. “Like the best stories.”
Quincy gazed at the pier. Then he turned to his friends.
“Truth or Dare?”
“Dare,” Jules said immediately.
“Dare,” said Nia.
“Dare,” said Davy.
“Dare,” said Runa.
“Snort,” snorted Earl Grey.
“I dare everyone to race to the beginning of the endless pier!” Quincy exclaimed.
Everyone grinned. Together, they raced down the pier, laughing all the way to the end.
Or the beginning.
Talise pressed her nose against her bedroom window. She could see a bit of ocean. For now, it looked perfectly normal.
But it wouldn’t for long.
“An Extremely High Tide is definitely coming,” she told the Town Committee for Lunar Consequences on the phone. “I’ve assessed every peculiar thing listed on the City Hall website, and I’m even more sure of it now.”
“Yes, mm-hmm,” the committee member replied. “I’ll file your tip with the others. Thank you for—”
“Wait! Can you please tell my parents to unground me?”
The committee member paused. “Your parents? Wait a second—is this the kid who sent all those letters and e-mails?”
“Yes, that’s me!” Talise said. “I know I’ve been quite persistent. But I can’t work on my boat while grounded, and it’s urgent that I finish before the . . . hello?”
The committee member had hung up.
Talise sighed. When Jules had published breaking news about the tide, Talise had thought her parents would unground her. But then the committee had called the news propaganda—and everyone had believed them.
Talise knew preparing for an Extremely High Tide was a lot of work.
So was evacuating the town.
But so was building a boat. At this point, Talise could never finish it in time. If she ever saw her boat again, it’d be a partially finished boatwreck on the ocean floor. If her parents ever allowed her to dive again, that is.
She squeezed her sea blob. A tear fell onto it.
There was a knock on
her bedroom door. Talise opened it, then went and sat on her bed. Her parents came in and sat on either side of her. They appeared Loving/Concerned, as usual.
“You have a visitor,” her mother said.
Talise felt mystified. “Is it the committee? Did they change their minds?” Then she narrowed her eyes. “It’s not another rubber duck, is it?”
“Fortunately not!” Clara smiled at Talise from the doorway.
Talise didn’t smile back. She liked Clara a lot, but she didn’t feel happy enough on the inside for it to show on the outside. “Hello,” she said. “How was Puerto Rico?”
“Lovely,” Clara replied, sitting in Talise’s desk chair. “Your parents tell me you’ve been grounded. Do you want to tell me why?”
“She’s not supposed to—” Talise’s father began.
“Sorry, but I’d like to hear from Talise,” Clara interrupted.
Talise felt surprised. Her parents had never let her fully explain. “I’m not supposed to dive in the deep-deep sea without a buddy,” she began. “So I found one! Her name is Runa, and she has black hair cut into angles. She’s also an artist, but I trusted her because I thought she trusted me underwater. But seventy-four minutes was too long to wait. Now I realize I shouldn’t have trusted her in the first place, because she tells a lot of stories, and stories are just another kind of lie.”
“I see,” Clara said.
“You do?” Talise’s parents said.
“I’m getting better at understanding Talise’s dialect.” Clara winked at Talise, then turned back to her parents. “But I think there was a misunderstanding between the three of you. Did you specify that Talise’s dive buddy needed to dive underwater with her?”
Talise’s mother glanced at Talise’s father. “Did we?”
“I thought we did,” he replied. “Now I’m not sure.”
“See?” Talise said. “I didn’t break any rules.”
“Not technically,” Clara agreed. “Then again—when your parents told you not to dive in the deep-deep sea without a buddy, did you understand what they actually meant? Even if they didn’t specify it?”
“NO, I—” Talise paused. Then she sighed. “I suppose I did. But my parents should trust me. As a bathymetrist, I know more about the ocean than any kid in Topsea—”
“And all the grown-ups, too!” her father said. “We know. And we are so proud of you.”
“But even the most experienced scuba diver in the world can run into trouble sometimes,” her mother said. “What if you got stuck? Or your fancy vest malfunctioned?”
“I am quite vigilant about BCD maintenance,” Talise said.
Then she frowned.
“It’s not that I don’t want to dive with a buddy—even on shallow dives! But nobody expresses any interest in it. Not even you, Mom and Dad.”
Then she sighed.
“Maybe I’d have a diving buddy if I had a best friend. I’m the only kid in Ms. Grimalkin’s class without one. Usually, I don’t mind—but sometimes I do. There’s just nobody who shares my interests.”
Then she sniffled.
“Or in the case of my boat, nobody who even believes me!”
Talise’s parents and Clara glanced at each other. “I think you’d be surprised,” Talise’s mother said.
As they entered the living room, Runa bounced up from the couch. “I’m sorry I told on you, Talise,” she said. “I really do trust you!”
“Thank you,” Talise said. “I am no longer extremely upset.”
“It’s just, sometimes my imagination runs away with me,” Runa said. “Believe it or not. While I was waiting for you on the pier, I imagined a sea serpent coiled around your BCD and air tank, squeezing until it burst and you had nothing in your regulator except seawater, and meanwhile seaweed stole your weight belt, and nitrogen bubbles formed in your joints. . . .”
Talise’s parents stared at Runa in horror. But Talise grinned. “You’ve been reading the dive book?”
“I have! And I started The Great Book of Boatbuilding, but I didn’t get to finish before Jules wanted it back.”
“Jules was reading The Great Book of Boatbuilding?” Talise said. “But she’s never any expressed interest in boatbuilding! Nobody has.”
Runa and Clara and Talise’s parents glanced at each other. “I think you’d be surprised,” Runa said.
Talise walked to the beach with her parents, Clara, and Runa. The air was approximately 74 degrees Fahrenheit, while the ocean was closer to 62 degrees. She could see the sun and moon at the same time.
Visiting the beach always made Talise feel thrilled on the inside, even if she usually knew what to expect. She definitely didn’t expect Quincy and Davy and Nia and Jules and Finn and Earl Grey!
“We’re all here to help you finish your boat!” Nia exclaimed, clapping her hands.
“My boat?” Talise felt disbelief. “But why?”
“Because it’s important to you,” Runa said.
“Because we trust you,” Quincy added.
“Because you know more about the ocean than anyone in Topsea,” Jules said. “Especially the Town Committee for Lunar Consequences and Totally Slanderous Accusations.”
“And also, because of this.” Runa signaled to Earl Grey, who trotted over. Talise noticed he had something in his mouth.
SHLORPP!!!
Runa tugged the bottle from Earl Grey’s mouth, then handed it to Talise. “I found it the other day on the beach! I kept it a secret, like our other one.”
“I knew that wasn’t a saber tooth,” Jules said.
Speechless, Talise examined the bottle. It looked even older than all the others. She pulled out the cork and shook out a rolled-up piece of tree bark.
“Definitely a boat,” Clara said.
Talise nodded adamantly. “Indeed. I am thrilled you finally see it! Each message seems to be a schematic for a different type of boat. The first one was a motorboat. The second one was a sailboat. This one appears to be a tugboat, because it has a wheelhouse and a mast and—”
“Also, there’s a drawing of a tugboat,” Runa said, pointing.
“Ah, yes,” Talise said. “That is also helpful.”
“I’m sorry I ever doubted you,” Jules said. “I should’ve trusted your hunch—especially since you trusted mine.”
“Where should we start?” Talise’s father saluted her. “You’re the captain!”
Talise couldn’t believe her eyes. But then they filled with tears. So did her parents’ eyes. Also Earl Grey’s eyes. Even Clara sniffled a bit.
“I am very grateful,” Talise said. “Building a boat alone is hard work. With eleven assistants, it might be finished a little sooner. Possibly even before arrival of the Extremely High Tide.”
Quincy gulped. “I hoped everything would be okay.”
“It will be okay!” Nia patted his curly head. “It always is. As long as we batten all the hatches in time.”
“Okay,” Talise said. “First, everyone grab a plank from that big pile of wood.”
“What pile?” Runa asked.
Talise turned around. Her boatbuilding supplies were where she had left them—but where her giant pile of wood had sat, there was only a giant, woodpile-shaped dent in the sand. Only a few twigs were left—along with a sign on a thick piece of paper:
BOATS ARE DANGEROUS
and should be avoided
“Someone must have taken it!” Talise said. She knew her anxiety was showing on the outside. “We can’t finish the boat without any wood!”
“Where can we get a lot of wood quickly?” Davy asked.
“I have a friend who lives in the beach forest!” Finn exclaimed. Then he glanced at Runa, his dialect switching from Friendly to Mouse. “Um, a new friend.”
“Your friend lives in the forest?” Runa gasped. “That explains your aura! Why didn’t you just tell me about them?”
“I should have. It’s just . . .” Finn shuffled his feet. “He’s a little unusual.”
“I missed you too.”
They hugged. “On the bright side,” Runa said, “it gave me the chance to get to know Talise better, too. Just wait till I tell you about all our adventures . . .”
Talise shook her head. But she couldn’t help smiling. Whatever Runa’s dialect was (Baffling/Amusing?), Talise was starting to enjoy it.
While the other kids combed the beach for more driftwood, Finn led Clara and Talise’s parents to the beach forest. In record time, they returned in Clara’s truck piled with logs. A boy stood atop them. He had disheveled white-blond hair and wore a crown of sticks and leaves, just like Finn’s. His eyes were two different colors, Talise noticed. That was quite unusual.
Finn introduced the feral child to his friends. “Thank you for your help,” he said. “Don’t feel obligated to stick around, but . . .”
“I’m right where I’m supposed to be,” the feral child said. “In fact, I’ve read quite a few library books about boatbuilding. Do you have an adze? Or maybe an awl and gimlets?”
“In every size,” Talise replied.
As a bathymetrist, Talise had already known more about the ocean than anyone in Topsea. Now she knew more about boats than anyone in Topsea, too. And with so much help, the boat came together in no time.
Best of all, everyone brought their own talents to the table.
Runa showed Jules how to draw diagrams in the sand. “Now that my vision has cleared, I’ve been getting into technical drawing.”
Davy organized an assembly line to speed up the process. “My mom is an assembly line manager at the seaweed cracker factory,” he explained.
Nia and Earl Grey took charge of the heavy lifting, although they paused every few minutes to jump for joy. Quincy ran back and forth from his house with as many baked goods as he could carry.
Carla and Talise’s parents took charge of the sawing, and everybody hammered until their arms were sore. The feral child climbed the mast and secured the sail.
Runa stood back. “Needs more bells and whistles and glitter and whirligigs,” she said.
“We have glitter, at least!” Davy grabbed Runa’s spray glitter and sprayed until the whole boat shimmered. “Oops, that’s kind of a lot.”