by Wendy Orr
We bought a new sailboat when we got to Sunshine Island so we could sail the rest of the way. Jack was going to build our new boat but Alex said this was a present from her book, and Jack said okay because he wanted us all to be home again as fast as possible.
Selkie swam most of the way, which was good because she took up all the deck when she had a nap, and also she liked showing the dolphins around, because they decided to follow us home. So did some of the birds.
Jack says the Professor and the Troppo Captain should stay in jail a long, long time. I hope so. So do Kylie, Kelvin and Kristie. They visited us at the houseboat and said how upset they felt when they found out about the animal smuggling. They’re going to work on another boat now and Virginia is going to work in a zoo to help the animals who need to learn how to be free after being in cages for too long.
Did you see I have my own email address now so you can write to me as much as you want. But the best thing is that Jack and Alex said I can invite you to come and stay with us on the island next summer.
I hope you’ll come.
Love (as much as Selkie loves Fred)
Nim
Fred
Fred is a dragon
With a cheerful snub nose
He rides on my shoulder
And clings on with his toes.
He nods his head
To show he’s happy
And waves his foot
To say please pat me.
With thanks to Sue, who edits with passion and wisdom, fun and friendship.
W. O.
From: Nim@RusoeSanctuaryforRare&EndangeredSpecies.com
To: [email protected]
Date: Monday, 12 May, 5:45pm
Subject: Invaders!
Hi Edmund
The island is going to be invaded again! Jack’s inviting four other scientists here for a conference on turning algae into biofuel. I can hardly believe it. I know how much he loves plankton and algae – but we’ve spent our whole lives trying to keep our home secret. He says it’ll be okay because the World Organisation of Scientists will choose who gets to come, so they’ll be people who understand how special this place is.
Nim – as confused as Fred sleeping on Selkie’s back and ending up at sea
P.S. They won’t even have to run away from home like the last invader …
From: [email protected]
To: Nim@RusoeSanctuaryforRare&EndangeredSpecies.com
Date: Monday, 12 May, 4:55pm
Subject: re: Invaders!
And they probably won’t get grounded when they get home.
But maybe they need an assistant? Someone who wants to be a scientist when he grows up, who already knows you and Selkie and Fred and Jack, and has already helped conduct important scientific research on the island?
Edmund – as green as a tree frog with envy
From: Nim@RusoeSanctuaryforRare&EndangeredSpecies. com
To: [email protected]
Date: Monday, 12 May, 5:58pm
Subject: Are you still grounded?
From: [email protected]
To: Nim@RusoeSanctuaryforRare&EndangeredSpecies.com
Date: Monday, 12 May, 4:59pm
Subject: Grounding officially finishes June 30.
When is the conference? Have you got a plan?
From: Nim@RusoeSanctuaryforRare&EndangeredSpecies. com
To: [email protected]
Date: Monday, 12 May, 8:12pm
Subject: My plan is useless
The conference is Monday, 23 June. And Jack says the World Organisation of Scientists won’t accept research done by kids so we can’t be assistants. And they’ve already chosen the scientists so he can’t change the date. AND he’ll send you right back if you run away again.
Nim – as mad as a hermit crab who’s lost her shell
From: [email protected]
To: Nim@RusoeSanctuaryforRare&EndangeredSpecies.com
Date: Monday, 12 May, 7:13pm
Subject: It was worth a try
Edmund – as crushed as a shell-less hermit crab underneath Selkie
From: [email protected]
To: Nim@RusoeSanctuaryforRare&EndangeredSpecies.com
Date: Tuesday, 13 May, 4:30pm
Subject: Negotiations
If I wash the dishes every night, take out the garbage, keep my bedroom clean AND babysit the twins downstairs – the naughtiest kids in the whole world – for the next two Saturdays, I’m ungrounded on Sunday the 22nd June.
Edmund – rushing to clean my bedroom, just in case
From: Nim@RusoeSanctuaryforRare&EndangeredSpecies.com
To: [email protected]
Date: Tuesday, 13 May, 5:35pm
Subject: Yay for ungrounding
But I still haven’t got a plan.
I’ve never met any twins. I think it would be fun. How do you sit on them both at the same time? Maybe Selkie could help you. Ha ha! (I know that’s not what babysitting means! I’ve read books about it.)
Nim – laughing about Selkie babysitting the naughty kids
From: [email protected]
To: Nim@RusoeSanctuaryforRare&EndangeredSpecies. com
Date: Tuesday, 13 May, 4:37pm
Subject: Selkie babysitting
I’d like to see that.
From: Nim@RusoeSanctuaryforRare&EndangeredSpecies. com
To: [email protected]
Date: Friday, 16 May, 10:11am
Subject: Cross your fingers
Jack got an email yesterday about the scientists who are coming. Two of them are married to each other and they want to bring their children. The other two work at a university in Brisbane but they aren’t married to each other and neither of them have kids. The family scientists have a boat so they’re going to sail it here and pick up the others on the way.
So I told Jack if other kids were coming that you should too, because you know all about babysitting, and we don’t know how old these kids are. This morning he FINALLY said he’s going to email your parents and the Brisbane scientists and ask if you can come with them!!!!
Nim – as excited as Fred with a smashed-open coconut
IN A PALM TREE, on an island, in the middle of the wide blue sea, was a girl.
Nim’s hair was wild, her eyes were bright, and around her neck she wore three cords. One was for a spyglass, one for a whirly, whistling shell and the other a fat, red pocketknife in a sheath.
With the spyglass at her eye, she watched the boat chug closer. It was a wooden fishing boat with a green-painted cabin; it was solid enough to cross the deeper dark ocean but small enough to weave through the maze of reef protecting the island. The people on the deck were waving and pointing. Nim’s stomach tumbled like a coconut falling from a tree, and she didn’t know if it was excited-tumbling or scared, or maybe just not-quite-believing. For three days and three nights, strangers were going to be on the island. Seven strangers – and one friend.
She whistled her shell, three short, sharp notes that carried up to the lab in the rainforest where her father was working. Sometimes Jack was so busy studying his plankton or researching his algae that he forgot to listen. But he whistled back right away: one-two-three, and a moment later he was zipping down the hill on the flying fox.
He let go of the rope and skidded onto the sand below Nim’s tree.
‘Are you ready?’ he called.
‘No,’ Nim called back. In all those months she’d been waiting to see Edmund again, she hadn’t imagined meeting him in front of so many people.
But Selkie was lolloping across the beach, barking deep, anxious sea lion grunts about a new boat coming in to their island. Nim couldn’t let Selkie face the strangers alone.
‘Come on, Fred!’ she said.
Fred was an iguana, spiky as a dragon, with a cheerful snub nose. He clung tightly to Nim’s shoulder as she slid down the tree.
The motor’s chugging stopped. The boat rocked gently in the silence. A cheerful-looking man with dark skin an
d a red T-shirt was standing in the bow, at the very front of the boat. He bent to drop the anchor over the side, and Nim heard the rattle of the chain as it settled onto the sandy ocean floor.
Together, Nim and Fred, Jack and Selkie headed across the beach to meet their visitors.
EDMUND WAS ON the deck. He waved to Nim, but looked as if he didn’t know what to do next. Behind him were a tall, slim woman, pale as a lily, and an even taller, thinner and paler man. They stayed in the cockpit as the man in the red T-shirt returned to the stern of the boat, unclipped the rubber dinghy hanging on the back rail, and lowered it to the water.
He climbed in and picked up the oars. ‘Who’s first ashore?’
The tall couple stepped over the railing and down to the dinghy.
‘Go ahead, Edmund,’ a blonde woman called from the wheelhouse. ‘I’ve got to sign off the logbook.’
‘Thanks!’ said Edmund, and he said it again as the dinghy’s rubber bottom touched the sand a few minutes later. He was back in his favourite place in the world – he could hardly believe he was here.
He splashed in through the sparkling blue water. He had a pack on his back and his shoes in his hand, and he was looking all around him, drinking in every detail that he might have forgotten.
The tall couple took off their shoes and waded in after him, and the man in the red T-shirt rowed back to the boat for his family.
The blonde woman came out of the wheelhouse holding a toddler by the hand. The little boy squealed with excitement as she lowered him into his father’s waiting arms.
‘Tiffany and Tristan!’ she called. ‘Time to go ashore.’
A boy and girl came out from the cabin. They were the same height and had the same dark hair and wary expressions as they climbed down to the dinghy after their mother.
They’re twins! thought Nim. Like the naughty kids Edmund babysits. Except they’re our age, and they’ll be nice. Suddenly the scared part of her excitement evaporated into the clear blue sky. Her friend was here, and two new friends as well. She ran the rest of the way across the beach to meet them.
UNTIL A YEAR ago, Nim had never wanted any friends except Selkie, Fred and the other animals. She’d lived alone on the island with her father for as long as she could remember, until Alex Rover, the most famous adventure writer in the world, had come to rescue her when Jack was lost at sea. In the end Nim had to rescue Alex, but when Jack came home, Alex decided to stay. Now Alex was part of the family and Nim didn’t want her to ever leave again. But she’d still never thought she needed friends who were kids like her, and could talk with words instead of iguana sneezes and sea lion whuffles.
That was until the Troppo Tourist cruise ship had sealnapped Selkie. Nim had stowed away to steal her back again, and met Ben and Erin on the ship. When it was time to say goodbye, they were all so sad that Jack said her new friends could visit the next summer. Nim knew that they’d love the island and that she’d love showing it to them. But Erin and Ben hadn’t been able to come after all. Their parents had said that the family couldn’t afford to travel so far again.
For the first time in her life, Nim was lonely. She swam with Selkie and explored with Fred; she had school with Jack and read Alex’s books – but sometimes she wished she had someone else to do things with.
And then one day a boy had arrived. Edmund had been saving and scheming ever since he’d seen the island from the Troppo Tourist cruise ship. He’d run away from home, jumped off a fishing boat with his rubber dinghy, and rowed all the way to Shell Beach in the middle of the night. Nim had been suspicious at first but by the time Jack sailed Edmund home again, they’d had adventures, proved that the island was an international sanctuary for rare and endangered species, and turned into friends.
That was six months ago.
Now Edmund was back on the island, and part of Nim wanted to leap and shriek like an excited monkey. The other part couldn’t remember how to talk to real people who were outside the computer.
Edmund looked as if he couldn’t remember how either.
The tall couple could. They were both smooth and elegant, polished as sea glass. On a gold chain around her neck, the woman wore a chunk of gleaming yellow amber with a scorpion trapped inside.
The man shook Jack’s hand. ‘Dr Lance Bijou,’ he introduced himself, ‘and my wife Dr Leonora Bijou.’
Those aren’t the right names! thought Nim.
‘Where are Dr Selina Ashburn and Professor Peter Hunterstone?’ Jack demanded.
‘Unfortunately,’ said Leonora, ‘they were both taken ill at the last minute.’
‘We expect them to recover next week,’ said Lance, ‘but for now, they are too sick to travel.’
‘That’s terrible!’ Jack exclaimed.
‘Sad,’ Lance agreed. ‘But as my wife is a biologist and I am a geologist, we volunteered to drop everything and take their places.’
‘And since they’d agreed to bring Edmund,’ said Leonora, ‘we felt we had to do that too.’
‘That was kind,’ said Jack.
Leonora nodded graciously.
Like a queen, thought Nim. She looked across at Edmund. He was too busy hugging Selkie and scratching Fred’s spiky head to look back at her.
This isn’t how it’s supposed to be! Nim thought. Maybe Alex was right to hide from everyone.‘I don’t want anyone to know I’m here,’ she’d said. Because even though Alex Rover was the most famous adventure writer in the world, she was still afraid of spiders, snakes, and meeting new people. That’s why only Jack and Nim were on the beach meeting the scientists.
THE DINGHY LANDED and the family splashed out, the mother carrying the toddler. The twins didn’t look as if they wanted to be there. Their father pulled the dinghy up high on the beach and turned it upside down so it wouldn’t fill up with rain.
‘At least no one’s going to steal it here!’ he laughed.
The woman put the toddler down on the sand. ‘I’m Anika Lowe, the coral scientist. This is my husband Ryan, the climatologist, and Ollie, Tiffany and Tristan.’
‘You’re looking forward to this, aren’t you, Tiff-Tris?’ said Ryan.
The twins didn’t answer. They stared around as if they were wondering what was worth looking at, then put on their headphones and sat down, back to back on the sand.
Leonora caught Nim’s eye and smiled. ‘Don’t worry about them,’ she whispered. ‘I’m very excited about being on your beautiful island!’
IN FACT, NIM’S island was the most beautiful island in the whole world. It had white shell beaches, pale gold sand and tumbled black rocks where the spray threw rainbows into the sky. It had a fiery mountain with green rainforest on the slopes and grassland at the bottom. There was a pool of fresh water to drink and a slippery waterfall to slide down.
There used to be a hut in a hidden hollow of the grasslands, but when it blew away, they built a new house higher up the hill. It was tucked deep in the rainforest, close to the freshwater pool, and the corner of two walls joined the trunk of the most magnificent tree in the forest. The tree was so tall that no matter how far Nim tilted her head back to see the top, she couldn’t see where the tree ended and the sky began. Its oldest roots were solid grey walls higher than Nim, and its youngest roots were vines dangling from the trunk. Nim liked to sit in its branches and imagine the stories it could tell about the animals it had seen, from the tiniest creeping insect to Galileo the great-winged frigate bird skimming overhead.
Jack said the tree was so old it could have seen Chica’s great-great-grandmother laying her eggs on the beach. Chica was a sea turtle, and they can live for a hundred years, so it was a long time since her great-grandmother had hatched and crawled to the sea.
Alex thought it had even seen dinosaurs playing when it was young, but Alex was better at imagining than science.
Nim just knew that it was a tree full of stories, and soon it would have a new one about the people coming here for Jack’s conference. Maybe it would be a story that cou
ld save the world.
‘We need a new fuel that can run any kind of motor without polluting the earth or sky or sea. I think algae are the answer – and if we get different scientists together, with different ways of looking at the problem, maybe we’ll come up with the right question,’ Jack had said. ‘Sometimes the greatest discoveries in science are found by accident.’
NO ONE KNEW what to do first. Tiffany and Tristan went on listening to music with their eyes closed. Edmund wandered down the beach. Ryan and Anika looked all around, smiling and swinging Ollie between them.
Leonora pulled a slim bottle out of her bag. ‘Coconut oil is very good for the skin,’ she said to Nim, smoothing a few drops into her hands. ‘Try some!’
Nim couldn’t say that Alex always said so too, and that was why she’d made coconut oil for Alex’s birthday last month. She held out her hands obediently.
Selkie humphed. Fred twined around Nim’s feet in a prickly hug.
‘Fred’s right,’ said Nim, ‘it’s time for lunch!’
The iguana skittered excitedly to her shoulder, spraying his cool salt-water sneeze against her neck.
‘Yuck!’ said the twins.
‘Sneeze on me too,’ Ollie begged.
Nim went back to the lookout palm and picked up two coconuts lying on the sand. With a rock and a spike, she punched a hole for the juice, and handed the first nut to Anika.
Anika drank from the shell, just like Nim and Jack. ‘Delicious!’ she said, trickling some juice into Ollie’s mouth. The little boy laughed, and grabbed the coconut for more.
‘Gross!’ said Tristan.
‘Don’t you have straws?’ asked Tiffany.
‘No,’ said Nim, starting to feel as prickly as Fred.
‘It’s much better like this,’ said Ryan, drinking the rest of the juice.
‘We only get things from the supply ship that we really need,’ said Jack. He opened the other coconut and handed it to Leonora. She drank neatly, without spilling a drop.