by Garth Nix
A kilometre out from Blubber Point, the serpent’s belly started to hit the bottom as he swam. So he stopped and gently spat Serena into the water.
For a few seconds the penguin looked stunned, then she started to swim towards the beach and the lights beyond it that marked the town.
‘Glood luckth,’ said the serpent. His tongue had gone to sleep from hanging on to Serena for too long. ‘I hopth thith workth.’
Serena swam single-mindedly towards the beach. All thoughts of fish and seaweed and swimming games were gone. She just knew that she had to swim to the shore and then go somewhere.
Serena didn’t see the shark that rushed at her, its many-toothed mouth open wide enough to swallow her in one gulp. But the shark was used to penguins that dodged and dived, not hypnotised penguins that swam in a straight line. It missed and, before it could stop, ran straight into the sea serpent. Dazed by the collision, the shark swam away in the opposite direction and Serena was safe.
Soon her little webbed feet were on the sand and she couldn’t swim any more. So she slid on her belly and let the wash take her up as high as it could. Then she clumsily stood up and waddled across the beach, up to the car park, past the cold-water showers and the changing rooms, and across the street. Two people putting their fishing rods on their car saw her and said, ‘Hey, a penguin!’
But Serena waddled on. All she could think of now was a certain house, where she somehow knew that there would be fish for her and a place to sleep. She crossed another street, using the pedestrian crossing, which made a very old man who was watching call the police to report that ‘a black and white thingamajig just crossed at one of those black and white whatsmacallits’.
Then the penguin went in the gate at 77 Mullet Street which, of course, was the Smith family home. She hopped up the steps and through the cat-door and then waddled into the dining room.
Chapter Nine
All Serena’s sixteen sisters and her mum and dad were having dinner. They were very sad because they thought Serena had been eaten by the sea serpent. They ate in silence, with their heads hanging down, and no one noticed that a penguin had jumped up on to Serena’s chair till the small bird tapped her beak on the table.
‘Look!’ said Suzy, Sally, Sapphira and Sappho.
‘It’s!’ exclaimed Serendipity, Susan, Suky and Silvia.
‘A,’ added Sheila, Sigrid, Sonia and Stephanie.
‘PENGUIN!’ shouted Stella, Sidonie, Salome and Sophie.
‘Hmmm,’ said Mr Smith. ‘It looks familiar.’
‘It’s Serena,’ said Mrs Smith calmly, because mothers always know their own children. ‘Suzy, Serendipity, go and open six or seven tins of sardines.’
After eating all the sardines in the pantry and a tin of tuna, Serena jumped down from the table and went to her old bedroom. Because their father was an inventor, he had invented special rooms for his daughters.
Suzy, Serendipity, Sheila and Stephanie each had one level of the rocket ship that their father had built in the back garden (but it had never taken off).
Sigrid and Sonia shared a very comfortable cave dug into the artificial hill their father had made for skiing on grass (but the grass hadn’t grown).
Stella, Sidonie, Salome and Susan actually had small houses of their own, just big enough for a bed and a chest of drawers, all built around a fountain on the lawn. The other sisters all had rooms in the house, rooms that looked fairly normal but were special in some way.
Serena’s bedroom was a secret chamber under the stairs. You couldn’t even see the door to it, because it opened when you jumped up and down on the third step in a very special way.
As the penguin went to the third step, all the Smith family (except for one) held their breath. Then they all sighed with relief as the penguin stopped on the left-hand side of the step and slowly jumped up and down five times.
With a snick, the door under the stairs opened, revealing Serena’s tidy little bedroom. The penguin yawned, jumped down between the stair rails and went into her room.
‘I told you it was Serena,’ said her mother. She shut the door behind her penguin daughter and everyone went to bed.
Chapter Ten
When she woke up in the morning, Serena wasn’t a penguin any more. She’d dried out and turned back into a girl. Because she was a bit worried she might become a penguin if she had a shower or a bath, Serena just got dressed, even though she was covered in drying salt from the sea.
Everyone was waiting for her at breakfast. In between eating cornflakes, Serena explained where she had been and how she had to do something so the sea serpent would stop running into ships and all the girls could be brought home to their families.
‘What are you going to do?’ shouted Suzy, Sally, Sapphira, Sappho, Serendipity, Susan, Suky, Silvia, Salome, Sheila, Sidonie, Sophie, Stella, Sigrid, Sonia and Stephanie.
Serena wouldn’t tell them. For the first time in her life she wasn’t sure if her plan would work. She had to talk to the mayer of Blubber Point, and then the mayors of Seaview, Port Picky, Mermouth, Jinn and Tropicopacabanos (which used to be Stinky Bay). Her plan would cost a lot of money and the towns would have to pay.
The mayor of Blubber Point was not at all pleased to see Serena.
‘Does this mean the serpent will come back?’ she asked as soon as Serena walked into her office. ‘Or does it want another girl? Someone easier to stomach?’
‘The serpent is a vegetarian,’ Serena said. ‘He doesn’t want anyone left out for him. And he only runs into ships because their lights blind him.’
‘So is it going to cause more trouble around here?’ asked the mayor. She didn’t care about why the serpent did what it did, only how it could be kept away from Blubber Point.
‘Not if you help me with my plan,’ said Serena, and she smiled sweetly. ‘It will only cost five thousand pounds. You can write a cheque. And you’ll need to help me convince the other mayors to help too.’
‘Five thousand pounds!’ screamed the mayor. ‘Don’t tell me you’re starting to charge for being right all the time!’
‘It’s not for me!’ said Serena. ‘I need it to get something for the serpent. So he won’t run into ships any more.’
‘All right,’ grumbled the mayor as she wrote out a cheque. ‘But this had better work. What are you buying the Serpent anyway?’
Chapter Eleven
It took all day for Serena to get the money from the other mayors. Then another week before what she wanted could be made for the serpent.
In that time he had run into three more ships, all on different parts of the coast. Obviously he was having to go further and further to find the right seaweed.
Eight days after she’d first swum ashore as a penguin, Serena went out one afternoon in a large cruiser, heading for Serpent Island. Her oldest sister, Suzy (who was a sailor), steered and the other sisters helped Serena with a package that was as long as three sisters lying down head to toe and as wide as one sister was tall (or one and a quarter if it was Stella, the shortest of them all).
The mayors of Blubber Point, Seaview, Port Picky, Mermouth, Jinn and Tropicopacabanos came too, to make sure Serena wasn’t wasting their money, and so did lots of parents from other towns who’d all been forced to give one of their children to the serpent. Acting on instructions from Serena, everyone had brought big bags of frozen pilchards and tins of sardines.
The boat got to Serpent Island just as the sun was going down. At first, all they could see were the waves slapping into the rock. Then Serena called out ‘Hello!’ and the serpent’s head slowly rose out of the water, his enormous eyes shut against the light.
‘Stay there!’ shouted Serena, in case the serpent came forward blindly and crashed into their boat. ‘Slowly lower your head and push it forward… a bit more… a bit to the left… Stop!’
The serpent stopped in front of the ship, his head just above the deck.
Quickly, Serena and her sisters unwrapped the package, revealing
a giant pair of sunglasses with a big rubber strap instead of arms.
‘We’re going to put something on you now,’ explained Serena. ‘To help you see during the day, so you won’t have to go out at night and be blinded by the ships’ lights.’
‘I’m not sure I like this,’ complained the serpent, as the seventeen girls slipped the sunglasses on his head and tightened the strap around his horns.
‘You’ll get used to them,’ said Serena. ‘You can open your eyes now.’
‘Are you sure?’ asked the serpent. Hesitantly he opened one eye a tiny bit. Then he opened it a bit more, then both his eyes flashed open as wide as they could go.
‘I can see!’ he explained. ‘I can see in the daytime!’
‘They’re polarising sunglasses,’ explained Serena, who of course knew everything there was to know about glasses of all kinds. ‘That means they change depending how sunny it is. When there’s lots of light they get darker, but at night they will be almost clear, so you can see both day and night.’
‘Thank you,’ said the serpent. ‘This will certainly help me not to run into your ships. But I’m afraid it’s come too late.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Serena. She thought she’d completely solved the problem. All that was left was to tie up the boat next to the rock, put a line of pilchards and sardines on the gangplank and lure the penguimaids aboard. Then when they dried out, they’d all be girls again.
‘There’s hardly any weed left anywhere,’ said the serpent sadly. ‘I must have taken too much to feed the penguimaids and myself, and the weed beds will take months to grow back. You can take the penguimaids back home, but I’m going to starve.’
Chapter Twelve
A single tear emerged from the serpent’s eye and slipped out under his new sunglasses. Everyone on the boat felt like crying too, because the serpent was so nice and he was being so brave.
‘Can’t you eat anything else?’ asked Serena as her mighty brain tried to think of what they could possibly do.
‘I’m a vegetarian,’ sniffed the serpent. ‘And there’s only one sort of seaweed which has the vitamins and minerals that a growing sea serpent needs.’
‘Hmmm,’ said Serena. Then she turned around to everyone in the boat and said, ‘Has anyone brought salad for their lunch?’
Lots of people raised their hands. Soon Serena was going through their paper bags and lunch boxes, pulling out pieces of lettuce and cabbage and cucumber and rocket and cos and other salad stuff that only she knew the proper names for.
Piece by piece she fed these to the serpent, and piece by piece he spat them out.
‘Yuck! No! Blah! Eck! Thpew!’ he said, till finally Serena put a single long leaf of something dark green and crunchy on his tongue.
‘Yum!’ said the serpent. ‘That’s got all the right stuff in it. What’s that?’
‘Spinach,’ said Serena. ‘I don’t like it myself, but it seems to me that we can keep you going with lots of spinach, at least until the weed grows back.’
‘Sure!’ said the mayor of Blubber Point sarcastically. ‘But who’s going to pay for the spinach? This monst— charming serpent must eat a tonne of it a day.’
‘We’re not paying!’ shouted all the other mayors. Now that the danger of the serpent running into shipping was gone, they didn’t care about anything else. ‘Let’s go!’
Chapter Thirteen
‘Oh,’ said Serena, ‘I suppose you’re not worried about a starving sea serpent coming ashore to look for spinach in town then? Slithering through the streets to the supermarket?’
The serpent – who was very honest – started to say something about not being able to go into shallow water, but Serena held up her hand.
‘Sssshh,’ she said. ‘Can you imagine, Mayor? Just think what would happen if the serpent got into the fruit and vegetable department at Foodplanet?’
The mayor of Blubber Point frowned and groaned and pulled at her hair. But she knew there was no point arguing with Serena. She was always right! It was unbearable.
Finally the mayor looked at all the other mayors. They nodded.
‘Oh, all right,’ she sighed. ‘We’ll pay for daily deliveries of spinach until the seaweed grows back. We’ll put it on the same rocks where we used to put out the children for the serpent.’
‘With floats, so it doesn’t sink if it washes off,’ said Serena. ‘Now, we need to get the penguimaids aboard.’
It took some time to get all the penguimaids on the boat. It was quite dark and everyone stank of pilchards and sardines by the time the black and white birds were all safely asleep down belowdecks, their flippers folded over their enormously fat stomachs.
Finally, Serena peered out into the darkness. She could just see the serpent’s head because tonight there was no moon.
‘Serpent, how much weed have you got left?’ she asked quietly. ‘Enough to turn one person into a penguimaid?’
‘Yes, I guess so,’ rumbled the serpent. ‘Why?’
‘I want you to turn me back into one,’ Serena said, as softly as she could. But her sisters still heard her.
‘What?’ they all shrieked, and Suzy, Sally, Sapphira and Sappho rushed across and grabbed her left arm. Serendipity, Susan, Suky and Silvia grabbed her right arm. Salome, Sheila, Sidonie and Sophie grabbed her left leg. Stella, Sigrid, Sonia and Stephanie grabbed her right leg. Then everyone fell over and got in a fearful tangle. Of course, Serena had somehow wriggled out while her sisters struggled on the deck.
‘Only for a few weeks,’ she said crossly. ‘I get so tired of knowing everything and having to sort everything out.
When I was a penguimaid I didn’t have to think! I didn’t have to be right! I just swam around and had fun! I want a holiday!’
‘Good idea,’ said the mayor of Blubber Point.
‘If you’re sure,’ said the serpent.
‘Absolutely,’ said Serena. She bent down to look at Suzy, whose face she could just see in a tangle of sisters.
‘Come and get me in two weeks. And tell Mum and Dad not to worry. the serpent keeps sharks well away from the island.’
Suzy nodded. On her third nod, Serena wasn’t there any more. There was only a penguin, who scooped up a dropped sardine from the deck then jumped overboard.
A few minutes later, Serena waddled ashore and found a nice pebble-lined hole to curl up in. Soon she was asleep and her dreams were not about everything there was to know in fifty-seven encyclopaedias in twelve different languages.
She dreamed of shining fish and clear blue seas and underwater loop-the-loop, and slept so soundly she didn’t wake until the serpent nudged her the next morning.
Straight away, Serena got up and dived into the sea – without a single thought.