by A. M. Morgen
Day 4
Blustering winds and unfavorable currents.
We anchored in Cape Town today. The captain asked the boatswain and me to go ashore and purchase supplies. Next time we make landfall, we will be in the Galápagos!
Day 6
Strong winds and favorable currents.
The boatswain and I spent most of the afternoon pumping water from the lower decks after a leak formed around a loosened bolt. Progress on the map continues, but it is slow.
Day 7
Strong winds and unfavorable currents.
More pumping.
Day 8
Strong winds, rain, and favorable currents.
The captain has changed Patty’s gears, and she has taken over pumping duties today.
Day 9
Fair winds and favorable currents.
We surfaced for some fresh air today because the sea was calm. The boatswain remarked that the sky was a perfect cobalt blue.
Our food stores are running low. I have checked the inventory and suspect the boatswain’s mate is consuming more than her fair share. The captain and boatswain disagreed with me, and I have exiled myself to my cabin for the rest of the day.
Day 10
Light winds and favorable currents.
I have demoted the boatswain’s mate to the rank of seaman because I still suspect her of stealing food. When I consulted the captain on the matter, she said, “Oh, really?” and went back to her cabin to read a book on her latest mathematical spiffle-spaffle.
We also saw a group of dolphins. The boatswain is angry at me because I told him that he was neglecting his duties to draw the dolphins in his sketchbook rather than help me with my map and he said, “I can draw if I please.” He’s probably still upset at me about the boatswain’s mate, but it’s not my fault that she’s stealing food!
Day 11
Freezing winds and favorable currents.
We have run out of all salted meats, dried fruits, and eggs. The boatswain pointed out that we are surrounded by food. He made a fishing pole and caught several large mackerel after our ship surfaced.
Day 12
The captain has suggested that I end this log, as the boatswain is keeping a far superior record of the voyage in his sketchbook. Here ends the logbook of the commander of the WHALE.
Chapter Sixteen
I don’t know, it’s just not right!”
“Which do you want? Curlier or straighter?”
“Can it be both?”
Sighing, Oscar rolled his eyes. For the millionth time since they’d started re-creating George’s grandfather’s map, he picked up his eraser and rubbed out an hour’s worth of work. “It was a cracking good sea monster.”
“It was, but the tail wasn’t right,” George said. “Any of the details on the map could be part of the puzzle. It has to be exactly the same as it was.”
“Mine is probably better,” Oscar mumbled under his breath.
“I heard that,” George said.
Ruthie was curled up in her hammock in the corner of Oscar’s cabin. George couldn’t see her eyes, but he could feel them watching him. She’d been avoiding George since he’d accused her of stealing food. Grunting, she sat up and whirled her arms around to catch Oscar’s attention.
“Ruthie wants to know if we’re there yet,” Oscar said.
“Patty is taking us to the precise coordinates of the lost island based on my hours and hours of latitudinal and longitudinal calculations. She’ll stop us when we arrive just south of Chatham Island. If we were there, you’d know it,” George replied steadily.
Inside, though, he was quivering with nerves at their nearness to the Galápagos. What would be there when they landed? What if Don Nadie was waiting, poised to spring at them on his devilishly long legs?
Oscar began tracing the outline of the sea monster on the map again. Although George could picture the map in his mind, the patchwork quilt of countries and the rivers threading through them didn’t look quite the same when spilling from the end of Oscar’s pencil. No matter how detailed George was with his instructions, it wasn’t right. Having excellent penmanship, he himself had written the words Tabula ad Stella Victōriae, or “Map to the Star of Victory,” in an exact replica of his grandfather’s handwriting. He’d spent hours getting the lettering just right. He’d rather re-create what had been lost than be left with nothing at all. But no matter how hard he tried, it didn’t change the fact that the real map was ash and smoke. He could pretend all he wanted that this map was the same heirloom his grandfather had made for him, but when he held the parchment in his hands to admire their work, it never felt the same.
“Make its tail a little thinner so the loops have more open space between them,” George directed.
Oscar’s pencil glided over the page, and like magic, the sea monster appeared. Still, though the image on the paper and the image in George’s brain were the same, George’s stomach sank. The map was beautiful, but it was only an imitation.
Seeing the hopeful look in Oscar’s eyes made George jump to his feet anyway. “That’s it! That’s just right!”
Oscar dropped his pencil in surprise. “It is? I did it?”
“You did it!”
Oscar tossed the eraser in the air and opened his mouth to let out a whoop of triumph. George beamed. Ruthie screeched in her hammock. The whale suddenly surfaced and ground to a halt with an earsplitting mechanical groan, bucking under their feet. George and Oscar were thrown against the wall. Ruthie tumbled out of her hammock on top of them.
George sat up, spitting out a mouthful of Ruthie’s orange fur. “We’re here! We’re at the lost island!”
“Thank goodness,” Oscar said. “I was starting to worry I might get permanent sea legs.”
George grabbed the map from Oscar’s desk. They raced up to the hatch and found that Ada was already climbing out onto the upper deck. “Boys, get up here right now!”
Her voice was tinged, not with excitement, but with panic.
“What, what is it?” George asked, huffing and puffing up the ladder as fast as he could. When he got to the upper deck, he saw exactly what had made Ada sound so upset.
Before them stretched blue water and blue sky. No treasure. No lost island. Just waves that were rising and falling, rising and falling, endlessly forever.
Chatham Island was to the north, as they’d expected. That matched the map created from the butterfly’s wings—but where was the lost island they’d seen? They should be right on top of it. The island wasn’t there, though, nor was there any sign that any human had ever passed this way before. There were no buildings, no ships, no lighthouses, no towns, no castles, no rulers. Chatham Island looked like an abandoned beach, a strip of sand and rocks and scraggy grass that someone had dropped into the middle of the ocean.
Worse, so much worse, the ocean around it was completely empty. Miles and miles of water reached from horizon to horizon to horizon. A deep, ringing hollowness seeped into George from his head to his toes. They were so far from civilization that he doubted they could find their way back. A whale could gobble George up right now, and he would never be found.
There was no lost island.
George reeled, suddenly light-headed. His grandfather had once owned a globe, and George’s hand had been too small to span the width of the Pacific Ocean. How silly of him to measure this ocean with his own hand. It was at once empty and full, everything and nothing.
They were on the edge of the world.
They were nowhere.
“It’s lovely and warm. Look at the sea lions. I feel quite… happy,” Oscar said, smiling broadly as the stiff breeze tousled his hair. Curious whiskered faces poked over the side of the whale. Ruthie swatted them away. “You were right about one thing, George. You’d said I’d find my happiness if I came to the Galápagos.”
“It’s not what I expected.” Ada’s voice was shaky and uncertain. Her skirts whipped around her ankles.
“It’s—it’
s…” George stuttered, spinning from the shock of not finding the lost island. Perhaps it was Don Nadie’s plan all along to drive him into the wilderness because the 1st Lord of Devonshire wanted George to save the world. “We’re going to die here! No one will ever find our bodies! Our bones will turn to dust and blow away in the wind. Don Nadie will take over my house and kill Frobisher. It’s all my fault!”
George’s outburst evaporated into the air. He pulled the butterfly out of his bag and resisted the urge to chuck it into the ocean. Under her breath, Ada said, “It seems more your grandfather’s fault, not yours.”
George glared at her. The wind howled a mournful dirge. Choppy waves slapped against the hull of the whale.
Oscar breathed in deeply and blew out his breath in a loud huff. “Can we get off this boat, please? I’d like to go for a walk on that island over there,” he said, pointing to Chatham Island. “Before I die and turn to bone dust.”
“Absolutely,” Ada said. “I’d like to spend my last night on earth under the stars.”
George knew that they were making fun of him, but he was too miserable to care.
They anchored in a small bay at the southern tip of Chatham Island. There were a few stretches of flat, sandy beach between piles of black, craggy boulders. Sea lions were sprawled out on every flat surface like giant slugs that had washed up onshore. They didn’t care one bit when three children and one orangutan pitched tents on the ridge just above the beach. Neither did the bright red crabs that scuttled over the black rocks. Ruthie chased a baby sea lion around the beach before settling down on a boulder to watch the sun set over the water.
While Ada set up the last tent, George and Oscar walked along the beach to collect driftwood for a fire. George dumped an armful of wood onto the sand. “Do you know what’s worse than having bad luck?”
“Being friends with someone who has bad luck?” Oscar replied.
George tried to pull the end of a piece of driftwood from beneath a fat sea lion, but the sea lion twisted around and screamed Oark! “It’s thinking your curse of bad luck has gone away and you have good luck, only to find out your luck was bad all along.”
“You’re not cursed. Curses aren’t real, and neither are miracles. Those are just excuses for how you end up somewhere,” Oscar said. He brushed a red crab off a piece of driftwood before tucking the wood under his arm.
“There’s no lost island out there. There’s not even a lost islet or a lost peninsula. I thought I could defeat the Nobodies. And look where it’s gotten us,” George said.
He returned to the pile of wood to add another load—but the sticks and small logs were gone. “Where did the firewood go?”
Oscar shrugged at the empty sand. “Maybe it’s on the lost island.”
Anger rose in George like a fire, burning him from the inside out. He threw down the wood. “This is serious, Oscar!”
“You think I don’t know that? I’m here with you in the middle of nowhere! Don’t blame me because you’re unhappy now.”
Before George could respond, Ada came charging down from the tents, holding her satchel. “There you both are! Which one of you did this?”
She turned her satchel upside down and a cascade of small black rocks tumbled out onto the sand.
George exchanged a confused glance with Oscar. “We’ve been collecting firewood.”
“Really? Then where is it?” Ada asked. “I don’t see any. I’m not in the mood for pranks. My favorite pair of boots were in this bag. I don’t want to walk on these rocks in slippers, if you don’t mind.”
Tears sprang into George’s eyes at the thought of Ada having her boots stolen. “My bad luck has brought us to this cursed place. I should have known the last two months were too good to be true. I’m no hero. My grandfather would be so disappointed in me.”
George’s legs wobbled, and he was about to sink dramatically onto a black rock when Ruthie screeched and sprang up from where she had been resting. She grabbed George’s arm and yanked him forward onto the sand. Then she flung herself onto the rock where George had been about to sit.
“What in the world has gotten into you, Ruthie?” George asked.
Oscar burst into laughter. “You were about to sit on a turtle!”
Sure enough, the black rock was the curved shell of a large turtle. With Ruthie on its back, the turtle lurched forward and crawled toward the water.
“Look, it’s missing a leg. Just like my father,” Oscar said.
“Are we sure that’s not a tortoise?” George asked. “She looks sturdy enough to sit on.”
Oscar gasped. “We can’t sit on Shells! That’s her name—Shells. We aren’t sitting on a friend.”
Ada watched as the animal struggled across the beach, turning in lazy circles. “She’s a turtle, not a tortoise. Look at her feet. They’re flippers. She’s meant to swim in the water.”
“Let’s help her into the water, then,” Oscar said.
Ada shook her head. “She can’t steer with only one front flipper. She’s probably been swimming in circles since she lost it. Look, she can’t even walk in a straight line.”
“Well, don’t stare at her,” George snapped. “She didn’t ask to have her flipper chewed off. She washed up here all alone, and now she’s stuck, wandering in circles, looking for her way home. No matter how hard she tries, she can’t get back.”
“Ada can help her,” Oscar said sharply. “She can make Shells a new flipper like my father’s leg.”
Ada grinned. “I think I can! A bit of wood, some canvas, and a little snail slime ought to do the trick. It would only be a prototype, but it’s a simple form. Excellent idea, Oscar.”
Ada hiked back up to the tents and fashioned a flipper while Oscar and Ruthie kept Shells safely on the beach. Determined to do something useful, George finished collecting firewood near the tents. He stacked the light wood as Frobisher had taught him, and used Oscar’s flint stone to light a pile of kindling underneath. Gently, he nurtured the small flames.
Tears of frustration dripped down his nose. One fell onto the fire, extinguishing it with a hiss.
“Brains of porridge,” George scolded himself. His father’s favorite insult slipped out of him easily. Burning with self-loathing, he grabbed the rest of the twigs he’d collected for kindling, and once again lit the pile with Oscar’s flint stone. It sparked, burned—
And went out.
“Brains of porridge,” he muttered again, pounding the sandy ground in frustration. If he couldn’t light a simple fire, how did he think he could follow his grandfather’s clues and defeat Don Nadie?
George cast his eyes around for twigs or leaves and found nothing but a scuttling crab. Determined, he reached into his bag, looking for anything that could catch a flame. His hand closed around a sheaf of papers—the crime reports Vice-Chancellor Shadwell had thrust on him in London. The terrible phrases leapt from the page.
…George Devonshire…
…robb’d and gagg’d Captain Romaine on his ship…
…a wreck of devastating proportions…
“Lies,” he whispered. He crumpled the paper into a ball of kindling, stuffed it into the nest of driftwood, and set the flint stone to it. He made a spark that landed on the paper. It flamed, then sizzled out. Spark. Flame. Sizzle. Spark. Flame. Sizzle. Spark. Flame. Sizzle. Over and over again, until the last scraps of strength and bravery George had been clinging to sizzled away, too, leaving him feeling raw in the stinging wind. But then—
A small orange flame licked the edge of the paper. Dark smoke rose from the kindling like the most beautiful gray ribbon George had ever seen. He’d done it! He’d made fire!
Oscar called out to him from the waterline. “George, come say goodbye to Shells!”
The western sky was ablaze with a violently beautiful orange sunset. Fitted with a new flipper, Shells waved the white canvas paddle in the air a few times before scooting into the waves. Ruthie whimpered sadly as the turtle disappeared into the water
.
“Who says my inventions are useless?” Ada muttered.
George slung his arm around Ada and leaned his head on Oscar’s shoulder. “No one says that, Ada. You’re wonderful. You’re both wonderful. I’m sorry I was cross with you just now.”
“Me too,” Oscar and Ada said at once.
Smiling, Oscar pointed across the water. “Look! Shells is saying goodbye!”
George squinted into the glowing sunset. Far offshore, Shells was waving her white flipper at them. He watched the waves smooth around her sleek back. Odd—the turtle seemed to be standing on top of the water, not swimming in it.
Beside him, Oscar said, “Can turtles walk on water?”
“Not that I know of…” Ada pulled a pair of binoculars out of her skirt. “It’s as if she’s perched on an object in the water.”
The gears of George’s mind began to whir and click. Without a word, he sprinted toward the fire, then dove toward the flames.
“George!” Ada and Oscar screamed for him in unison.
George collided with the fire. Smoke filled his lungs. Flames licked at his arms, hands, fingers as they fumbled, searing with heat, for the paper that he’d used as kindling. He felt a sharp tug on his jacket as his friends hauled him back onto the cold, hard ground.
“Have you gone mad?” Ada demanded.
Faint smoke rose from his clothes. Slowly, he opened his fist to reveal the paper torn from The Proceedings of the Old Bailey. Though it was singed brown around the edges, George could still make out the passage he’d been looking for. He began to read out loud.
“22 March 1782. Yesterday George Devonshire, the son of the respected shipbuilder Thomas Devonshire, was accused of being one of the persons who robb’d and gagg’d Captain Romaine on his ship, La Isla, bound for the port of Guayaquil—”
“Guayaquil,” Ada repeated. “That’s in Ecuador on the mainland, not far from here.”
Beaming, George continued. “—causing a wreck of devastating proportions, for which he now hangs in chains at the Gatehouse, being concerned with a large gang of thieves in several felonies, burglaries, and acts of piracy.”