by Fred Koehler
“No!” said Mr. Popli. “You’re in no condition to fly. We’ll have to manage on our own.”
“Let me go,” Merri advised. “I feel fine. Besides, we haven’t heard the bell! With all the chaos of the past few days, there’s been no one on storm watch. Someone needs to warn the citizens!”
Archie knew it was dangerous. He knew she was tired. He wanted to agree with Mr. Popli and tell her to stay. But as much as he cared for his friend, he wanted to finish his invention. He wanted to race the storm and win. He wanted the thrill of taking nature by the gills and beating her with his own cleverness. He looked pleadingly at Merri. She’d never been able to say no to that look.
Merri leapt into the sky and performed a somersault. With the sun shining and the wind at her back, the black clouds seemed a distant threat. She landed on the edge of the porthole.
Mr. Popli considered Merri for a moment and appeared satisfied that she was fit to fly. “Go then,” he said. “Sound the bell. Get Archibald’s tool. But promise me you’ll stay put if the storm moves in too quickly.”
“Aye, aye, Mayor.” Merri and Archie exchanged a final glance. “Besides, what’s the worst that could happen?”
Mr. Popli called after her as she sped away, “If you hear thunder, don’t come back for us. It will be too late.”
Twenty minutes later, Archie and Mr. Popli strained their eyes and ears toward the island, urging the bell to signal Merri’s safe arrival. Ten minutes after that they began to worry. It shouldn’t have taken this long. Archie thought again of the telescope belowdecks. Should he get it even though he’d have to explain everything to Mr. Popli? He longed for a sound from the bell, one toll that meant Merri had made it back safely. Thunder crackled overhead. Lightning illuminated the waves. The bell never rang.
The wind gusted in earnest now. Stinging raindrops lashed against the Abigail, driving the duo belowdecks. Lightning crashed overhead, and rain fell in thick sheets. The ravenous storm, it seemed, would swallow the houseboat whole.
Mr. Popli had designed the Abigail with extreme conditions in mind. Between the ballast inside and the water barrels fastened outside, she was nearly impossible to flip. Even if the hull was punctured, her pontoons would keep her afloat. But a big enough wave could send her rolling or even crush the hull like a soda can. And if they lost buoyancy in both the pontoons and the hull, she’d fill up with water and join the lost wreckage at the bottom of the sea.
Instinct and experience propelled both the mouse and the shrew—the pair tightened ropes, adjusted ballast, and stowed anything that hadn’t been tied down. Still, they never would have purposefully set out in an untethered, unsteerable vessel in a squall. Many of Mr. Popli’s possessions were sent flying and dashed to pieces, and his tail got an awful pinch between two planks that weren’t properly tied down. Archie dropped his glasses and earned a nasty gash across his leg while scrambling down to collect them.
Waves tossed the Abigail for hours. Mr. Popli held on tightly to whatever he could find, using a free paw or tail to defend himself from lashing ropes and crashing boards. The egg was in constant jeopardy, even though it was wrapped in blankets and held down with rubber bands. Archie protected it at his own peril, often using his body to ward off the flying debris.
As the storm buffeted the houseboat, both its passengers tried not to think about Merri. Neither was successful.
The thunder boomed in the distance. The torrent became a drizzle, and, finally, the sun came out. The Abigail had held together through the storm. The same could not be said of Archie.
“Merri,” he whimpered through chattering teeth as Mr. Popli bandaged his leg. Head buried in his paws, the shrew rocked back and forth.
“She could have made it,” said Mr. Popli. “What we have to do now is get home. I’m sure we’ll find her there.” The words tasted like lies, even as he said them.
But Archie made no response.
And to make matters worse, the horizon stretched out in a line as flat and straight as a coffin lid. The island had disappeared from sight.
Chapter 11
Snakespit! Mr. Popli swore to himself as a thin metal strap slipped from between his teeth, bouncing off the side of the houseboat and into the water. It was the second one he’d dropped. If he lost even one more, there wouldn’t be enough to finish installing the steering. Too many mistakes, he thought, angry with himself. Perhaps I should take a break. Without Archie’s help, he was failing miserably at making the Abigail locomotive.
Hunger made him ill-tempered, but he wouldn’t allow himself to eat. They’d been adrift for five days now, and Mr. Popli’s houseboat had been well-stocked with enough to feed one mouse for several weeks. But that shrew eats three times as much as I do! he thought. Of fresh water, they had plenty. The storm had filled all of the water barrels to the top. One had been punctured and contaminated with salt water, leaving seven barrels of good water. But with no further deliveries from Merri …
Merri, he thought.
When the birds had vanished at the end of the war, Mr. Popli wondered if they’d ever return. And then came Merri. Of course he didn’t believe Archibald’s ridiculous story of how he’d valiantly rescued her, diving into the flotsam from the top of the Watchtower. But still …
Mr. Popli had been there on the day she hatched, featherless, unprotected. Having never raised a family, he felt nearly as helpless. He’d worried as much as Archibald had on the day she learned to fly. How his stomach lurched when she leapt from her perch and soared over their heads! He’d presided on the day she joined the Order of the Silver Moon, tearing up as she—the most courageous, intelligent, and willing to serve of all the recruits—warbled her oath. Grudgingly, the other islanders accepted her as a citizen. He knew that some citizens still looked on her with fear, but wasn’t that the whole point of their community? That predator and prey could live together? Merri was a symbol of that hope.
And now she might be gone, thought the mouse. Perhaps it would be better if I stayed gone as well. What have I really accomplished? Peace? Safety? Community? It’s all hanging together by a whisker. I’m just as much of a dreamer as Archibald with his wild inventions. At least his contraptions seem to work once in a while.
He got a drink of water, then went to check on Archie.
After the storm, the shrew had climbed into a bunk and had barely moved since. He suffered from much more than hunger and physical exhaustion. If grief and guilt had overcome Mr. Popli in a wave, they’d sucked Archie down like a whirlpool.
In his peculiar way, Archie saw Merri as his adopted child, as family. He’d fed her from his own paws, raised her in his workshop as his own. He’d never understood her desire to join the Order of the Silver Moon. But, like a father, he wanted her to follow her dream, not his. He marveled at how she grew—curious, artistic, independent. She seemed invincible; Archie never thought he’d live to see her gone.
“Archibald,” said Mr. Popli, shaking the shrew not unkindly. “I’ve done all I can with the steering. I must have your help to finish. The longer we drift the less likely we’ll be able to find the island again.”
Archie didn’t reply.
“Come on, now! What would Merri think of you moping around like this? What if she did make it back, and she’s been zipping all over the ocean looking for us? It would be quite rude of us not to go and meet her halfway.”
Archie looked up at the sound of Merri’s name. “You think she might be?”
“Honestly, I don’t know, Archibald. She’s a stout bird, strong as a mackerel and stubborn as—well—stubborn as you. If a great white shark tried to snatch her from the air, she’d peck his eyes out and eat them for dinner. Don’t you think?”
“That sounds like Merri all right.” Archie smiled just a little.
“Well, should we head home then? See if she’s waiting for us with a cup of tea?”
“Okay.”
Standing up from the bunk, Archie limped through the ship and out of the portho
le hatch.
By the time the sun set, the Abigail was ready to be driven and steered from an open-air cabin under the tarpaulin on the top deck. Working together they’d cut and installed the steering column, even devising a rather clever automatic brake system that promised to keep the paddle wheel turning at a prescribed rate. Bit by bit, the work had reignited the shrew’s spirit.
Archie sulked only a little when he realized his wounded leg would make him unable to pedal and pilot the houseboat. And so the duo held their breath as Mr. Popli turned the pedals with his legs, winding the coil spring. “Here goes nothing,” he said, pulling a lever to release the brake.
When indeed nothing happened, two sets of whiskers and tails drooped side by side.
“I double-checked everything,” said Archie. “It ought to be working.”
“Maybe you should have triple-checked.”
“Maybe you should—” Archie stopped and turned his head sideways. “Maybe you should pull on the brake release instead of the steering lever.”
“Oh! Right.”
Mr. Popli did. And there was a click. And another. And the paddle wheel at the back of the Abigail began to turn. As it pushed water away, the houseboat began to move forward. Mr. Popli carefully pulled the steering lever to the left. The Abigail veered right. He pulled right. The houseboat went left. “Ha ha!” he cried. “We’ve done it, Archibald! We’ve done it! We’ll be sipping tea on the island tomorrow.”
Mr. Popli had never been more wrong.
Using the stars to navigate, they headed north through the twilight. The ocean at night came alive in hundreds of different ways. In and through the waves they heard the splashes of fish and even the distant songs of whales. The water reflected not only the moon and stars, but glowing algae and schools of jellyfish. The sea looked like a painting and the Abigail was the tiniest brushstroke streaking across it.
But the biggest change was between Mr. Popli and Archie. They spoke more to each other as they sailed than they’d ever talked before. Archie chittered continuously, telling stories of the inventions that had blown up in his face and the ones he’d thought of but never built. Mr. Popli, for his part, talked about the rigors of managing a community and how difficult some of the citizens could be at times. He even told a joke, at which Archie laughed hysterically.
By morning the island was still nowhere on the horizon. “The storm must have blown us farther off course than I imagined,” said Mr. Popli. “Is there any way to figure how far we’ve come?”
“I suppose,” said Archie, “but it would only make a difference if we knew exactly where we were going and had been calculating our position at regular intervals.”
“We’ve got to be close!” said Mr. Popli. “How likely is it that we passed by the island in the night without ever seeing it?”
“It’s possible. Likely, too.”
“If only we had some way of seeing farther into the distance.”
“What if I told you we did?”
He leapt down from the top deck and scrambled into the quarters below. He returned triumphantly with the telescope he’d invented and explained it to Mr. Popli.
“So this is what happened to your glasses,” the mouse guessed.
Archie grinned sheepishly.
Still, Mr. Popli marveled as he looked through the telescope. “I think you’re on to something, Archibald. We definitely came too far east.”
“What makes you say that? The sargassum patch we passed on the second day? The fabled rubber ducky flotilla?”
“No.” Mr. Popli pointed into the distance and handed Archie back the telescope. “The island.”
Chapter 12
The next time they nearly died, it was definitely Archie’s fault. Exhausted from pedaling the Abigail toward the island, Mr. Popli was napping belowdecks. The shrew was literally starving, going on shorter rations than he’d ever remembered. He needed something to take his mind off the hunger.
So he straddled the steering mechanism on the top deck, testing to see if his leg was healed enough to turn the pedal and wind the engine. He winced with a tinge of pain every time he fully extended his left leg, but he found that he could in fact, with some effort, pilot the Abigail. So he did.
Archie started off cautiously enough. The houseboat was nowhere near as agile as his sea-cycle, but he possessed a natural instinct for boating and found piloting the Abigail to be nearly as easy as walking. Soon he was zipping and zagging along the waves. He hardly needed the telescope now. They were making good time towards safety; the sun warmed his skin, and the sea spray on his fur made him feel carefree. For a moment, Archie forgot how much trouble they were in.
And that’s when the idea struck him. If he were to pull the brake and turn the Abigail hard at the peak of a wave, they ought to spin in a full circle as they rode down into the trough. It never occurred to the shrew that his idea might be dangerous. And he had no reason to do it except that it would further his understanding of how he might improve the performance and design of his invention. But once the idea had wedged itself in his brain, he thought about it almost as much as food.
The houseboat crested a medium roller. That one would have been the perfect size! His slender paws twitched at the controls, itching to try the maneuver. A small voice buzzed at the back of his mind telling him he ought not to attempt it, but Archie Shrew had become an expert at ignoring that voice.
He lasted two more waves and then came the perfect one. It was taller than most, casting a shadow over the Abigail as they approached. Slowly, they climbed up the rise of the wave. A school of menhaden darted to and fro beneath them, the small fish flashing sideways against the sun. White water crested gently at the peak, and for just a moment the scene resembled an oil painting of an old clipper ship, riding high atop the water, silhouetted against the sun, and reflecting the oranges, greens, and blues of the ocean and sky.
And then, unable to help himself, Archie pulled hard on both the brake and the steering levers. The Abigail lurched backward against the wave, tottered for just a moment, and fell. Archie laughed as the houseboat spun not once but in three complete circles into the trough. He released the brake at just the right time and the Abigail began chugging right up the rise of the next wave. The shrew chittered with excitement. Mr. Popli stirred belowdecks.
If Archie had stopped there, the disaster might have been a little less disaster-y. But the second wave looked as perfect as the first. The Abigail climbed slowly up the back side of the roller in the same way. The same fishes flashed against the sun and the houseboat tottered at the same gentle break at the crest. And Archie pulled with the same strength against the brake and the steering.
That’s when two things happened that Archie could not have predicted. First, Mr. Popli had awakened from his nap and was climbing out of the hatch at the exact moment the Abigail began to spin. He slipped, clinging to the handle of the hatch as his houseboat circled down the wave.
Second, this particular wave contained a double roller. A second, smaller wave had been overtaken by the larger one, making a steep shelf halfway down. If the Abigail had been plowing straight along, she might have powered over or been steered around the second wave. Instead, she tumbled over the edge like a toy falling off a table.
Mr. Popli gasped as he surfaced and began treading water. The Abigail lay on her side, no longer balanced—all the water barrels on the starboard side had been sheared off, as had the tarpaulin. The coil-powered engine continued to unwind, and the houseboat twisted in tight circles like an injured fish. He couldn’t see Archie anywhere.
The next wave lifted Mr. Popli high above the Abigail, and he saw, to his horror, that the shrew floated facedown in the water, unmoving. What’s more, with each second, Archie drifted closer and closer to the deadly churn of the paddle wheel.
Chug, chug, chug. The wheel shuddered against the water. Archie bobbed nearer still. Chug, chug, chug. It would smash him to pieces.
Swimming frantically, Mr. Popli ca
lled out to Archie. The paddle wheel now churned within a whisker of Archie’s snout. Mr. Popli could not save him. He was too far away. He turned his head so he wouldn’t see. And then the engine clicked, the coil spring unwound, and the paddle wheel stopped.
Mr. Popli dove toward Archie. In that instant, the engine clicked again, turning the paddle wheel one last time. A wooden spoke from the wheel smacked Archie hard on his upper back, pushing the shrew beneath the surface.
Mr. Popli darted through the water toward Archie. Moments later, he was clinging to the side of the houseboat, squeaking to catch his breath. There was no time to rest. He inhaled deeply, starting in his lower belly and continuing up to his neck, using all his muscles to expand his chest and fill every fiber of his lungs. Kicking his legs up over his head, Mr. Popli dove headfirst into the deep.
Below the surface, an eerie calm overcame the mouse. His heart pulsed quickly for the first few beats and then slowed to match the steady undulations of the ocean. Finally, he spotted Archie. The shrew was sinking. Using his arms, legs, and tail to propel deeper, Mr. Popli chased him into the depths.
The school of menhaden swam circles around them, nipping harmlessly at the mouse and shrew, curious to see if anything tasty might fall from their fur. By the time Mr. Popli caught up with Archie, the Abigail was only a speck on the surface far above. He bit down on the shoulder strap of Archie’s satchel and began dragging the shrew back to the surface.
A broad shadow swept across the mouse’s field of vision. He shrieked underwater, letting go of Archie for a moment and losing precious air. But then the shadow was gone. Looking this way and that, he again pulled Archie toward the light. Halfway to the surface, Mr. Popli’s chest began heaving. His lungs screamed for oxygen and his body desperately wanted him to take a breath. He fought the feeling and kicked harder.
Reaching toward the light, the mouse struggled for the surface but Archie’s weight continued to pull against him.