by Kir Fox
As usual, the Extremely High Tide had strummed and stirred and swept all kinds of undersea things into town. Usually, the tide brought them back out again, but it always left some behind. Including a few sea creatures who hadn’t swum to lower ground, or secured themselves with kelp leashes.
Like the sea creature beached on the beach down below.
Earl Grey leaped off the boat—HWEE!—then galloped over to help, teacup bouncing wildly.
It was a big lump of a creature. More blobby than a seal. More shapely than a sea blob. The long, fancy sort of tooth growing from its head looked an awful lot like a unicorn horn. It was a magical animal.
A narwhal.
Not a stuffed narwhal like Nia’s friend Davy had won for Earl Grey at the arcade. But a real, live narwhal. A beached one.
A narwhal-in-distress.
Earl Grey fell in love instantly.
Flip. Flip. Flip. Flip.
Talise ran toward the sound of Earl Grey’s alarm as fast as she could. Which wasn’t very fast, because of her flippers.
She passed lots of brand-new tide pools filled with fascinating marine creatures that had just washed in.
She passed shells and teeth in all sorts of shapes and sizes.
She passed little pockets of sand that bubbled and blorped, as if they’d just swallowed bottles with secret messages.
But Talise didn’t stop to look at any of these things. She only had eyes for her boat, bobbing up and down right where she’d left it.
“The S.S. Sea Blob!” she cried.
Talise saw Nia sprinting toward her boat from the other direction. She only had eyes for her watch hog, standing not far from the boat.
“Earl Grey!” Nia cried.
She looked as overjoyed as Talise felt. Earl Grey must have used the S.S. Sea Blob to stay safe during Extremely High Tide! He was a very capable watch hog, indeed.
“HWEE-HWEE!” Earl Grey cried. He sounded overjoyed, too. He only had eyes for . . . for what?
Talise rounded the boat’s stern, then skidded to a halt beside Nia and Earl Grey. She gasped.
“Wow.”
Davy, Quincy, Runa, Jules, and Finn caught up seconds later, all out of breath and rubbing stitches in their sides.
“Wow.”
For a moment, nobody spoke. They just gazed in awe at the enormous creature washed up on the beach. It was black and white with gray spots and a long, straight tusk that gleamed in the sunlight. Its shiny black eye blinked and blinked.
“It’s a narwhal,” Talise said at last.
She’d seen numerous pictures of them. But she’d never seen one in real life. Not in the deep sea, or even the deep-deep sea. No, this narwhal must have come from an even deeper sea than that.
“A narwhal?” Davy’s brow furrowed. “I always thought those were just mythical. Like dragons. Or, um, dogs.”
“Me too,” Jules admitted. “But factually, they must be real, because we’re looking at one.”
Runa sighed. “It’s so pretty. Look at that giant tooth!”
“Isn’t it a tusk?” Finn asked. “Or maybe a horn?”
Quincy grinned. “Like a sea unicorn!”
“Technically, it’s a tusk and a tooth,” Talise said. “An elongated tooth. Marine creatures always secure themselves or move to lower ground during Extremely High Tide. Why didn’t this one?”
“What are you doing?” Nia asked Earl Grey.
The watch hog appeared to be nuzzling the narwhal’s face. The narwhal shifted, as if it wanted to move closer . . . but it barely budged an inch. It made a sound that was somehow big and little at the same time, like a whimper from a whale-size kitten.
“This is all my fault!”
The kids all turned. A woman stood behind them. She looked tall and graceful. Her black hair was swept up into a bun, and she wore a long navy dress with two rows of brass buttons that started at the collar and went all the way to the hem just above her ankles. Her feet were bare.
Jules let out a little squeak. “You’re the lighthouse keeper! Aren’t you?”
The lighthouse keeper nodded. Talise noticed Jules’s hands were shaking as she flipped open her notebook, dropped it, picked it up, flipped it open again.
“Why were on you vacation for so long?” Jules asked. “No, wait. What were all those warnings about? No, wait. What do you mean, this is all your fault?”
“It’s a long story,” the lighthouse keeper said, toying with a chain around her neck. “It started when I went for a swim. A rather long swim.”
Talise glanced at Runa, who smiled knowingly.
“During my swim, I lost something very important. This narwhal promised to look for it, and return it to me. I hitched a ride with a clam boater—but on the trip back, I realized an Extremely High Tide was on its way. So I began flashing a warning—”
“For the narwhal!” Jules’s pen flew over her notebook. “You knew it might get swept up in the Extremely High Tide. And the narwhal was responding!”
The lighthouse keeper nodded. “My sweet but stubborn friend here insisted on returning my ring despite the risk.”
Jules stopped writing. “Sorry, did you say ring?”
The lighthouse keeper pointed to the narwhal’s tusk. Talise saw a ring sparkling on the very tip. The gold band was wide and shiny, with two silver strands coiled around either side.
“Oh.” Jules stared at the ring. “It’s . . . oh.” Her dialect had changed, Talise noticed. Instead of Smart/Overbearing, she appeared Shocked/Confused.
Gently, the lighthouse keeper pulled the ring off the narwhal’s tusk. She hung it on the chain around her neck. Then she placed her hand on the narwhal’s face, just below its eyes.
“I’m sorry this happened,” she whispered. “I’ll find a way to help you home.”
Earl Grey snorted and moved closer to the narwhal.
“But I think Earl Grey is in love!” Nia said, clutching at her heart. She turned to Talise. “A narwhal is a mammal, right? So it breathes air. It just needs to stay wet, You have that deep soaking tub—maybe the narwhal could live with you!”
Talise looked at Earl Grey and the narwhal. They did make an attractive pair. Maybe they had complementary auras? That was probably a good joke, but Talise knew jokes were all about timing. Right now it was best to tell the truth.
“The narwhal is a marine creature, not a land creature,” she told Nia quietly. “It can’t survive here, even in a bathtub.”
“Land is no place for marine creatures,” the lighthouse keeper agreed. She glanced at the rocks, where hundreds of yellow eyes stared at the narwhal. They appeared hungry. “Our friend must return to the ocean.”
Nia’s shoulders slumped. “My heart is shattering. But I get it.”
Earl Grey shook his head. He looked quite defiant. But then the narwhal whimpered again, and the watch hog’s shoulders slumped, too.
“Snoooort-sighh,” he snorted.
Talise understood. “Earl Grey also wants to help the narwhal get home,” she translated. “Even if he feels like his heart is shattering as well.”
“We’ll all help,” Davy said. Quincy, Runa, Jules, and Finn nodded. At last, Nia nodded, too.
“Unfortunately, there are complications,” Talise said. “Narwhals can weigh over three thousand pounds. Even with nine of us pushing, we won’t be anywhere near strong enough to move it.”
The lighthouse keeper gazed at the narwhal. The wind whipped a few loose strands of hair around her face. “Even if we could push,” she said, “we wouldn’t be able to push the narwhal out to the deep-deep sea. But if we release it in shallow water, the tides would bring it right back to shore.”
The narwhal sighed. It missed the ocean. Talise could translate easily, because she knew how it felt.
All of a sudden her heart started pounding hard against her ribs.
“What about a boat?” she asked.
Runa stared at Talise. So did the lighthouse keeper. So did Nia, Jules, Davy, Quincy, Fi
nn, Earl Grey, and the narwhal. Everyone was staring at Talise.
But for once, she didn’t mind.
“The S.S. Sea Blob is a motor-sail-tugboat,” she explained, her voice trembling with excitement. “The sails catch the wind and help the boat move speedily. The motor gives the boat more power. And the tug is designed to move much larger vessels. . . .”
Talise took a deep breath.
“Theoretically, the S.S. Sea Blob is powerful enough to tug a beached narwhal back into the ocean!”
The lighthouse keeper looked from Talise to the S.S. Sea Blob, then back to Talise. “Is that your boat?”
Talise nodded. “I built it. We built it,” she corrected herself.
Her friends smiled.
“But mostly, it was Talise,” Runa said. “She dove a hundred thousand miles under the sea and studied all kinds of boats, and she memorized twenty million books about boatbuilding, and now she knows more about boats than anyone in the universe.”
“Is that true?” the lighthouse keeper asked Talise, her eyes wide.
Talise paused. A lot of what Runa just said wasn’t true. But that didn’t mean Runa was lying. She’d embellished the truth, but she meant every word. At long last, Talise knew Runa’s dialect.
Runa was Imaginative/Sincere.
“It’s the truth, plus a little extra truth,” Talise said, and Runa grinned.
“Amazing!” the lighthouse keeper exclaimed. “What should we do to prepare the S.S. Sea Blob, Talise?”
Talise stood up straighter. “Runa, Finn, Davy, and Nia, secure the end of the main towline around the narwhal. Earl Grey, supervise and make sure the narwhal is comfortable. Jules, you read A Great Book of Nautical Terms—do you remember how to tie a slipped buntline knot?”
Jules flipped through her notebook. “Yes! I drew a how-to diagram.”
“Use that knot to attach the other end of the main towline to the mooring hitch,” Talise went on. “Miss Lighthouse Keeper—”
“Suvanna,” the lighthouse keeper said. “My name is Suvanna.”
“Suvanna, will you please come on board with me?” Talise asked. “I need someone to lift the anchor while I manage the wheelhouse.”
“Of course,” Suvanna replied.
Talise looked around at her friends. “Does everyone understand their tasks?”
“Aye-aye, Captain!” they said in chorus.
All the kids got to work. With so many hands, they finished their tasks in no time. Talise stood on the deck, the happiest she’d ever felt on dry land.
“Is everyone ready?” she called.
“Not everyone,” Nia said, motioning to Earl Grey. His tail drooped, teacup dragging in the sand as he nuzzled the narwhal one last time.
“It’s a terrible curse,” Suvanna said sadly, “to be stuck on land when your heart lies with the sea.”
Talise knew exactly what she meant. Then she had an idea.
“Earl Grey!” she called. “Maybe you can’t live in the sea, but you can visit. I can take you out on the S.S. Sea Blob anytime you like. You could even get a diving license, if you don’t mind a little bookwork.”
“Squee-oink!” Earl Grey exclaimed. The narwhal made a similar sound, its dark eyes sparkling.
Nia clasped both her hands to her heart. “He said thank you so much, and you’re his all-time favorite sea captain!”
Talise grinned. “Yes, I understood him as well.”
She waved to her friends. Then she headed back to the wheelhouse. Once she was in position behind the steering station, she stuck her head out of the window. “Anchors aweigh!”
The lighthouse keeper heaved the rope, pulling the anchor out of the sand.
SCHLORRRP!!!
Talise pushed the throttle forward. The propellers began to whir—and with a ceremonial water salute that streamed high in the air, the S.S. Sea Blob started moving forward.
Back on shore, everybody cheered.
Talise tilted the lever that controlled the rudders, and the boat turned slightly. The whole entire great big ocean spread out in front of her as far as her eyes could see. Wow! She’d spent so much time in the ocean, she’d never realized how much fun it could be to spend time on the ocean.
It really floated her boat.
Talise smiled. That was definitely a good joke.
Once the S.S. Sea Blob was a good, long distance from shore, Talise pulled the throttle back. The boat slowed to a drift.
She joined Suvanna at the stern of the boat. “Jules did an excellent job with this knot,” she said, patting the towline secured to the mooring hitch. Then she pulled it. The rope came undone, freeing the narwhal.
The narwhal gathered the rope around its tusk. It lifted it just high enough for Talise to reach.
“Thank you,” she said.
The narwhal let out a soft, bleating noise. Talise understood it was saying “thank you, too.” Then it dove beneath the waves and swam in a long, slow arc around the boat.
Suvanna sighed. So did Talise.
“I always wished I was a marine creature,” Talise confessed. “Instead of a land creature. So I could stay in the ocean forever and ever.”
Suvanna was silent for a moment. “If that’s what you want . . . I can help you.”
“Really?”
“I didn’t tell the whole truth about my vacation earlier. But I sense you and I are kindred spirits, and I trust you.” The lighthouse keeper unclasped the chain around her neck and tipped the gold-and-silver ring into her palm. “Before I came to Topsea years and years ago, this ring allowed me to live in the ocean.”
“Like a mermaid?” Talise waited for Suvanna to laugh at her joke.
But Suvanna didn’t laugh. She only smiled.
Talise frowned. “Are you saying this ring is . . . magic?”
Suvanna handed the ring to Talise. “I’m saying, if you want to live in the ocean forever and ever—you can.”
The ring felt warm and tingly in Talise’s palm. She squeezed her hand closed around it and breathed in the salty air. She imagined slipping into the water like the narwhal, and swimming off to explore the ocean forever and ever. The deep sea. The deep-deep sea. The deep-deep-deepest sea of all.
The idea made her feel happy.
Talise squeezed the ring again. In Topsea, she had Clara and Ms. Grimalkin and Principal King. She had two Loving/ Concerned parents (even if they were occasionally a bit Mystified).
And that wasn’t all she had.
Back on shore, six kid-shaped blobs and one watch-hog-shaped blob stood at the water’s edge. They waved at Talise.
Now Talise felt more than happy. She felt joyful.
“Living in the ocean used to be my lifelong dream,” she told Suvanna, handing the ring back. “But not anymore. I would miss my best friends too much.”
Suvanna tilted her head. “They must be wonderful friends if they’re worth staying on land for.”
Talise beamed. “They really are.” She handed the ring back to Suvanna. Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out her sea blob.
“What’s that?” Suvanna asked.
“It’s an inanimate sea blob made of foam,” Talise explained. “When you’re feeling stressed, squeezing it helps you feel better.” She paused. “It’s also a thank-you gift. You helped me realize the purpose of my boat.”
Suvanna took the sea blob. “Are you sure you don’t need it?”
“I can always get another one.” Talise smiled. “Or I suppose I could use a rubber duck. They’re very comforting. At least, they think they are.”
Suvanna laughed.
Runa peered through Jules’s binoculars. “She’s coming back!” she exclaimed. “Talise is coming back!”
Davy looked surprised. “Of course she is.”
“She promised she’d take Earl Grey on another voyage,” Nia said. Earl Grey snuffled in agreement.
“You didn’t think she’d live on her boat forever, did you?” Quincy asked.
Runa shook her he
ad. “I was worried she’d become a mermaid or something. Even though I know that’s silly.”
Jules stuck her pencil behind her ear. “Maybe not that silly.”
“Talise is already the closest thing to a mermaid,” Runa said. “Even if she has flippers and an air tank and a regulator and a BCD instead of fins!”
“Can I try the binoculars?” Finn asked.
Runa handed them over.
Finn kicked off his shoes and waded into the ocean until the water came up to his knees. (Which wasn’t very deep, since Finn was so small.) He squinted through the binoculars, scanning the horizon.
He could’ve sworn he’d spotted a second boat far, far out on the water. But now all he saw was ocean.
“See anything?” Runa asked.
“Not anymore,” Finn replied. “But I’m glad the lighthouse keeper is back—Topsea is about to get some visitors.”
“Really?” Jules said. “How do you know?”
Finn shrugged. “I have a hunch.”
KIR FOX and M. SHELLEY COATS (Kirsten Hubbard and Michelle Schusterman) are great friends, longtime critique partners, and ardent consumers of the strange and unusual. Kirsten is the author of the middle-grade novels Watch the Sky and Race the Night (Disney • Hyperion), and the young adult novels Like Mandarin and Wanderlove (Delacorte Press/Random House Children’s Books). She lives in Los Angeles. Michelle is the author of the middle-grade series I Heart Band and the Kat Sinclair Files (Grosset/Penguin), and the middle-grade novels Olive and the Backstage Ghost and Spell & Spindle (Random House Children’s Books). She is also the coauthor of the young adult novel The Pros of Cons (Scholastic). She lives in New York City.