Nim's Island

by Orr, Wendy

  For as long as she could remember, Chica had been the only turtle to swim out of the sea, back to this beach where she was hatched, to lay her own eggs.

  ‘But maybe this year some of your daughters will be old enough.’ She tickled Chica’s wrinkly chin till her wise turtle eyes blinked with happiness. ‘You can meet them when they come to lay their eggs—and then their daughters will come back, and then their daughters, and there’ll be lots of turtles again!’

  Chica blinked again, sleepily this time.

  Nim kissed the top of her leathery head and followed the torch-light back to her own bed.

  JACK DIDN’T KNOW why Chica liked to stay instead of leaving as soon as her eggs were laid, the way sea turtles were supposed to. Nim knew. Chica liked visiting her friends.

  She showed it in the way she rubbed her throat across Fred’s spiky back, let Selkie sniff her nose and Nim tickle her chin. She showed it in the way she nodded and blinked as Nim wondered about the places she’d been and what she’d seen, and told her what they’d been doing, and about Jack’s broken rudder and Alex Rover’s letters. Chica wasn’t cuddly, but she was a good listener.

  As the morning got hotter, they lazed in the calm shallows off Turtle Beach. Chica was tired because she’d swum hundreds of kilometres and laid ninety-nine eggs. Nim was tired because she’d stayed up so late watching Chica lay eggs. Selkie was tired because she’d worried about Nim staying up so late. Fred wasn’t tired but he didn’t mind being lazy if everyone else was.

  Just before sunset Nim raced up to the vegetable garden to see what was ripe. She picked a lettuce and a tomato for a salad and dug up a sweet potato to bake in a celebration bonfire, with fresh limpets from the rocks and coconut for dessert.

  From: jack.rusoe@explorer.net

  To: aka@incognito.net

  Date: Friday 2 April, 18:25

  Dear Alex Rover

  I didn’t check the Coconut Experiment today because last night Chica came onto Turtle Beach to lay her eggs, and she likes me to sit with her while she does it. Chica is a green turtle, and she likes Selkie and Fred too, so we spent nearly the whole day with her.

  Jack will be home soon too and he can check if I’m doing the Experiment the right way.

  From Nim

  P.S. Keyhole Cove is just like you described it!

  From: aka@incognito.net

  To: jack.rusoe@explorer.net

  Date: Friday 2 April, 13:30

  Dear Nim

  I think the right way to do the Experiment is any way my Chief Experimenter wants to!

  Now I’m imagining Turtle Beach: pale-gold sands marked by the flipper-prints of a very special turtle! And your footprints beside her prints . . .

  I’m turtle-green with envy!

  Yours, Alex

  ALEX ROVER SAT and stared at her computer. It wasn’t easy to see, because the desk was stacked with books about oceans and islands, magazines about boats and rafts, videos about seabirds and animals.

  The walls were covered by a map of the world, charts of the moon and stars; paintings of the sea: calm and blue, wild and grey, and every other mood between; pictures of sandy beaches, rocky cliffs, coconut trees, tropical islands, coral reefs, seagulls and frigate-birds.

  But Alex was thinking about Nim, and wondering whether Selkie and Fred were her sister and brother, or pets.

  NIM WOKE UP thinking about Alex Rover’s raft.

  You can’t hammer two coconuts together, she decided, but if I had a thin piece of board . . . and lined the coconuts in rows . . . I could hammer a nail through the board and into the coconuts.

  But coconuts are hard to hold still while you hammer. They roll around so that sometimes you hit the wrong thing . . . ‘Ouch!’ Nim yelled—so loud and so often that Fred went to sulk in his cave in case it was his fault.

  After two hours she had a black-and-blue thumb and a pile of coconut for lunch. And one unsmashed coconut. ‘Let’s go and see Chica!’ said Nim.

  Chica was resting on the damp sand watching the tide go out. She blinked happily when she saw what her friends were carrying.

  Chica’s favourite game was coconut soccer.

  That was what Nim called it, because soccer was the only ball game she’d seen a picture of—and because nobody else has ever thought of a name for a game with a girl, a sea lion, a turtle and an iguana all trying to be the first to get a floating coconut to shore. There were no rules except that Selkie wasn’t supposed to pull Fred’s tail and Chica wasn’t supposed to sit on the coconut underwater.

  Selkie cheated a lot; Chica didn’t cheat much but when she did she was very good at it.

  So Nim threw the coconut into the water, and Fred dashed at it because he was the fastest and best at guessing where it would land, and Selkie sneaked under him and splashed the nut across the sea. Then she tried to throw Fred across the sea, too, but Nim saw her and shouted, and while Selkie was trying to look innocent, Chica grabbed the coconut.

  She tucked it tight under her strong turtle chin and didn’t even notice everyone tickling and pulling, wrestling and shoving. She towed them all towards the beach, and when she got to the edge of the water, she sank to the bottom with the coconut under her, and wouldn’t move. And since no one could move Chica if she didn’t want them to, that was the end of the game.

  ‘It’s a tie,’ said Nim. ‘Chica can’t say she’s won if the coconut’s still in the water, so it’s zero-all.’

  Chica looked as smug as a green turtle can look, and didn’t seem to mind at all.

  LATE IN THE afternoon Nim walked around to Keyhole Cove to check the coconuts. All twenty were still bobbing cheerfully around the cove, bumping and floating, loose and free . . .

  ‘I’ve got it!’ Nim shouted.

  From: jack.rusoe@explorer.net

  To: aka@incognito.net

  Date: Saturday 3 April, 18:20

  Dear Alex Rover

  I’ve been thinking about how you would make a raft.

  Hammering coconuts onto a board doesn’t work because the shell breaks, and if it didn’t break right away I think bits of it would fall off later and then the raft might sink.

  What if you put the coconuts in a sort of bag? How would you make the bag?

  Where are you going on your raft?

  From Nim

  From: aka@incognito.net

  To: jack.rusoe@explorer.net

  Date: Saturday 3 April, 13:23

  Dear Nim

  I feel like a Queen Bee, lazing while you buzz!

  A bag-raft sounds perfect. Now I just need a reason for Hero to find a large sack on a deserted tropical island! Or maybe the Bad Guys stick him in a sack when they throw him overboard! As long as they don’t tie it up too well.

  My Hero’s going to a tiny Pacific Island, where, faster than a shopper at a half-price sale, he’ll set off again to rescue the Lady Hero. (I’ll be sitting at home, snug as a snail in its shell!)

  I’ve attached a map I’ve drawn for the story—click on the paper-clip icon.

  With best wishes, Alex

  Nim clicked.

  Her stomach somersaulted.

  She stared at the map on the wall and the map on the screen and the map on the wall again.

  Jack liked maps; he drew maps of their island, the currents around it and the places where they’d sailed. And because their island wasn’t on the big map of the world, he’d drawn it on that too, near the crossing of two lines—the one going around the world’s middle like a belt, and an up-and-down line curving with the shape of the earth.

  ‘This is the Hero’s island,’ Nim whispered. And that must mean . . .

  ‘Selkie! Fred!’ she shouted. ‘Alex Rover’s been to our island!’

  ‘I think,’ she added, a little while later.

  It took a long time to go to sleep that night.

  NEXT MORNING Nim sang her way through the weeding, the digging and picking. She hummed as she measured and marked her charts, and she sang so loudly when she climbed
Look-out Palm to check for sails that a seagull dropped his fish.

  ‘That’s what we’ll do today!’ said Nim, and slid down the tree.

  She got her fishing rod and met Fred and Selkie at Turtle Beach. Chica was grazing the seaweed just where the water started to get deep. Selkie didn’t like Nim to swim out deep, but she let her dive and visit for just a minute.

  Fred stayed with Chica to see if she’d find an interesting sea-plant he’d never eaten before; Selkie chased Nim back and went out deeper to fish, and Nim climbed up the rocks where she’d left her rod.

  The rod was bamboo, strong and springy. Jack had made it for her birthday and taught her to cast the line in a whistling arc—the best part of fishing, Nim thought.

  That was why she hated getting a fish first go: it was like finishing a ball game after one catch. Seven tries this time and then a fish dancing silver on the end of her line. It was a good one to eat, the right size . . . ‘Sorry, Fish,’ said Nim, and killed it quickly. That was the part she didn’t like.

  Selkie did, though. No matter how far away or how deep she was swimming, she always knew the instant that Nim had caught something.

  ‘Wait!’ Nim ordered, but it was hard for Selkie to be patient when fish were being cleaned and she was waiting for the guts and bits that Nim didn’t want.

  When the fish was cleaned and Selkie had stopped barking for more, Nim wrapped it in leaves and built a bonfire on the beach.

  She dragged some fallen-down branches and driftwood into a pile, and used dried palm leaves for kindling.

  When Nim and Jack had a fire at night they used matches, but matches were precious because they came on the supply ship, so in the daytime they used glass and the sun’s own fire.

  She unscrewed the lens from her spyglass. She pointed it so that the sun shone a bright beam on her kindling. A brown patch grew and glowed, and a small flame sparkled on the dry palm fronds, caught the small branches and began to roar.

  Then she dropped a sweet potato into the hot coals and toasted her fish on a long stick.

  After lunch they all lay on the edge of the beach. The tide rippled over them, and when it started to float them away they moved further up. Nim got a book and read with her legs in the water and the rest of her on the sand.

  And every few minutes she looked up to watch for sails and wait for email time.

  From: jack.rusoe@explorer.net

  To: aka@incognito.net

  Date: Sunday 4 April, 18:26

  Dear Alex Rover

  I have never been so excited in my WHOLE LIFE! (At least not since Fred learned to climb on my shoulders when I whistled.)

  Are you really the Hero and have you been to our island? Because your map is exactly like our map and your Hero’s island is exactly where our island is. Is that how you knew what Keyhole Cove looked like, and Turtle Beach?

  Are you going to come back?

  From Nim

  From: aka@incognito.net

  To: jack.rusoe@explorer.net

  Date: Sunday 4 April, 13:29

  Dear Nim

  This is as crazy-wonderful as—well, I can’t think of anything as crazy-wonderful as an author making up an island and then emailing someone who lives there!

  I’ll tell you how it happened.

  I made up a story about a brave Hero and beautiful Lady Hero who sail around the world doing Good Things for Science. To make the story exciting, I made up some Bad Guys who stole the boat, kidnapped Lady Hero and threw Hero overboard. But because the story needs a happy ending, I made up an island for him to land on, where he could build a raft and sail after the Bad Guys to rescue Lady Hero.

  So I looked on a map, and I made a dot where there was an ocean current to help drift him to the island, where the weather was warm enough for coconuts to grow, and where it seemed like a good place for a volcano to have grown into an island, long ago.

  Will you be my Island Eyes, and tell me what you see? Because I haven’t been there, Nim, and I’m not Hero enough to ever go.

  All the best, Alex

  FROM THE TOP of Fire Mountain you could feel like a frigate-bird, floating strong on the winds and seeing everywhere you wanted to see.

  You could see the island’s shores and beaches, and the grasslands and the cliffs and the rocks and the forest.

  You could see far, far over the sea, every way that it rolled to the ends of the earth.

  Early next morning, Nim whistled for Fred and hugged Selkie goodbye. ‘I’ll be careful,’ she promised.

  Then she checked that her spyglass was around her neck, to look for Jack; dropped a notebook and pencil in her pocket, to write things down for Alex; and packed two bananas, a piece of coconut, a pancake bread and her bamboo cup into her backpack for a picnic along the way.

  And she set off to climb Fire Mountain.

  She stopped at the pool to fill her cup and shoved its bamboo lid back on tight, then she climbed on up, past the top of the waterfall, following the creek through tangling vines and fly-munching flowers. The air steamed and sweat dribbled. ‘Get down and walk, Fred!’ said Nim.

  But Fred liked being carried, and he sprayed a cool saltwater sneeze across her neck.

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘But we’ll stop for a rest.’

  The creek was shallow and warm, but they flopped in, and it trickled over their hot bodies. Nim lay on her back and peeled a banana; Fred stared at the coconut.

  ‘Later,’ said Nim.

  Fred tried to sulk but was too hot to bother.

  They climbed higher and the ground was gravelly and black; the plants were grey spikes and the creek disappeared.

  Then there were no plants at all; just bubbling steam and the rotten-egg smell of the Hissing Stones, but a hundred times stronger.

  ‘Pee-uh!’ Nim coughed, and Fred sneezed a pathetic spray.

  Long, long ago, the top of Fire Mountain had been a round green peak. Then, one rumbling, earthshaking day, it had poured out its heart of boiling, rolling, melting lava, and the round green peak had been blown away.

  Now the top of the mountain was a sharp grey point, with a great smoky crater yawning below.

  Nim wanted to look down into the crater, but the cloud of steam was too thick to see through and too choking to breathe. And the longer she stood on the rocks, the hotter they got, so she had to hop on one foot and then on the other, and then she had to run out of the smoke and away from the heat to the very top of the mountain.

  She sat down and Fred climbed off her shoulders and they both took a deep breath.

  ‘Picnic?’ asked Nim, and they shared the coconut and the water. Then Nim ate her bread and her other banana, and looked all around.

  No matter which way or how far her spyglass stared, the ocean was empty. There were no white sails, or anything else that could be Jack’s boat. Nothing but a frigate-bird, winging steadily out to the western sea. Maybe he’ll bring me another message, thought Nim.

  But first she was going to be Alex’s Island Eyes.

  Far below her was the top of Frigate-bird Cliffs, then Turtle Beach’s pale-gold sand, the grasslands and Shell Beach, the hut, on to Sea Lion Point and Keyhole Cove, and finally the grim black lava-rock that stretched all the way back to the far edge of Frigate-bird Cliffs. The island was built in layers, Nim thought: beach and rock; grassland and rainforest and, last of all, the rocky Fire Mountain cone.

  She picked up her notebook and pencil—but before she could start to write, the ground began to tremble.

  Then the earth roared and the mountain bellowed and an explosion of red covered the sky. A fountain of lava, red and bubbling, shot up from the middle of the crater. Red and gold stars, hot and boiling, sprayed over the mountain top.

  It was like the wildest storm, when wind and rain crash and great surf waves thunder, except that the wind, the rain and the waves were all made of fire.

  Fred was a streak of grey flying over grey rocks, and Nim’s legs followed him, as she ran for her life down the side o
f the hot gravel cone.

  But the gravel was deep and crumbly, and Nim’s foot twisted—and she rolled and skidded and tumbled down the mountain. She picked herself up and went on running; met Fred by the creek where they’d had their first rest, and they splashed on through and ran some more. Nim’s breath came in jagged chunks; she was so hot she thought flames might spurt out of her head like her own miniature volcano.

  And just when they couldn’t run any further, they splashed into the waterfall’s cold water and whooshed gently down to the pool.

  They sat in it for one refreshing moment, and then ran the rest of the way back to the hut.

  Selkie was waiting anxiously on her rock. She barked when she saw them, sniffed Nim all over, and whuffled sadly when she found the cut on her knee.

  It was a big, messy cut, with torn skin, deep gravel grooves and lots of blood. Nim must have done it when she tumbled down the mountain but was too scared to feel it.

  It hurt now that she wasn’t so scared.

  Nim stretched out on the rock and let Selkie fuss. She stared up, and Fire Mountain was still shooting scarlet stars, a glow of red on the grey cone, but the lava hadn’t followed them and they were safe at home.

  But she hadn’t seen Jack’s sails, so he wouldn’t be home tonight, which meant there was one more thing she had to do. She took her fishing rod back to the rocks, and when she caught a fish she dropped it in a bucket.

  Because sometimes Galileo came when he was called, and sometimes he didn’t, but he always came if he saw a fish.

  Dear Jack

  Today I climbed Fire Mountain to see if you were coming but you weren’t.

  I didn’t do any science measurements or write anything down because the volcano erupted when we were at the top. If you think Fred can move fast for coconut, you should see how fast he can run away from an exploding volcano!

  I think I can see Galileo now so I’ll say goodbye.