Russell said nothing for a good thirty seconds. “Wishing ain’t gonna make it so. Now eat your breakfast.”
—
Penelope sat on the seesaw with a new book, but she was having trouble getting into it for three reasons:
1. It was not Nicola Torland.
2. She couldn’t stop thinking about Buzzardstock.
3. Her butt might have frozen to the seat.
Recess had nearly ended when Penelope felt her side of the seesaw rise ever so slightly off the ground. Startled, she looked up from her book.
Across from her, barely large enough to lift the seesaw, sat Coral. “Do you and your brother get along?” she blurted out.
“Yes,” said Penelope, confused. “We do.”
“Yeah, I thought so. It seems like you like each other.”
Penelope closed her book. “He’s probably my best friend. My only friend.”
Coral began working on her thumbnail, flattening it between her chattering teeth. “I wish I had a brother. Or a sister. Or anything, really. Sometimes I go days without talking to anyone.”
“What about your grandmother?”
“She doesn’t count. I make her dinner and wash her clothes, but she’s not interested in me. Mostly I do what she tells me and keep my mouth shut.”
“Is she…” Penelope wanted to say crazy. “Is she nice?”
“Nice?” Coral spat out her thumbnail. “I don’t know. I mean, she’d give you the shirt off her back, but then she’d keep reminding you how cold she was. And if you tried to give her the shirt back, she wouldn’t take it.”
Penelope laughed. “What about your parents? Where—”
“Never knew ’em.”
“What happened?”
“Don’t know. I’ve pieced a few things together. There was some incident when I was little, and it had something to do with me.” Coral looked at Penelope. “What about your parents?”
“My dad loves me, but he’s always sad. I wish I had known him…before.”
“Before what?”
“My mom died when I was a baby. I never knew her. It’s like my father thinks she belongs to him and he won’t share any memories with anyone.”
Coral nodded. “Why are adults so selfish?”
The bell rang, signaling the end of recess, but neither girl wanted to end the conversation. They climbed off the seesaw only when some seventh graders began throwing snowballs at them. Though neither Penelope nor Coral said a word, both girls defended themselves—and each other—by throwing snowballs back.
—
“I was wondering when you’d return, my dear girl.”
Buzzardstock gestured into his home with a dramatic wave. He was dressed just as he had been before, in lab coat and goggles, though the emerald-green hair poking from his mole seemed to be growing faster than the rest of his hair. “You left your gloves in my possession,” he said. “As we all know, it does not pay to be gloveless in Glacier Cove.”
Penelope smiled. “May we come in?”
Buzzardstock glanced at Miles. He hadn’t noticed him on the porch beside Penelope. “And who is this strapping young lout? Your bodyguard? Your chauffeur? A brutish suitor who doesn’t deserve you?”
“I’m Miles,” he said nervously, and snuck a peek at Buzzardstock. The boy had a way of looking sideways at anyone over the age of thirty as if secretly studying them for hints, for tics, for anything that would explain how they’d gotten so boring and unimaginative. But Buzzardstock’s clear eyes were the opposite of dead. They danced in their sockets, emitting a glinty blue spark so bright and curious that Miles felt compelled to look away. “Penelope’s brother.”
“Miles.” Buzzardstock rubbed his chin. “And how, pray tell, do I know you’re not among the scruffy buttered ruffians who hurl root vegetables at my door with such boneheaded glee?”
“I only throw turnips at rats and school windows.”
“Oh, I like this one,” Buzzardstock said, pumping Miles’s hand enthusiastically. “Please enter my not-so-humble abode.” He led them toward the living room, past a new sculpture of a conveyor belt churning out ice doughnuts sprinkled with what appeared to be very small and angry gnomes. “Have a seat and I’ll procure the gloves.” Buzzardstock disappeared into another room.
Penelope and Miles stopped in the doorway of the living room. Sitting in Buzzardstock’s Freezy-Boy recliner, Wolfknuckle on her lap, was Coral Wanamaker.
Penelope almost dropped her backpack. “Are you friends with Buzzardstock?”
Coral nibbled her thumbnail. “Never met him before.”
“So what are you doing here?”
Coral spat the thumbnail at her feet and lowered her voice. “My grandmother asked me to come. Said Buzzardstock was lonely and would love the company.”
Before Penelope had a chance to consider whether this was true, Buzzardstock reappeared with the gloves. “Here you go. Please, please, sit down.”
“Mr. Buzzardstock—” Penelope began.
“No, no, no, no, no, no. No! Call me Ore9n. The nine is silent.”
“Ore9n,” Penelope said, trying out the name like a tart slice of peach. She looked at Coral, then back at Buzzardstock. “Could we speak privately?”
Buzzardstock shook his head. “There will be no secrets within these walls. Secrecy is the devil’s broth. With a side of boiled turnips. Until a moment ago, I didn’t know this delightful girl—Coral, is it?—but now she is my guest, just as you are, and I am compelled to welcome her as such.”
Penelope watched Coral, whose face remained maddeningly neutral. But Wolfknuckle’s sigh of contentment on her lap was somehow reassuring. Penelope turned to Buzzardstock. “Last time I was here, I saw a strange piece of paper. A pamphlet.”
Buzzardstock fiddled with a chisel. “Is that so?”
“It said something about how Glacier Cove was doomed.”
The old man’s face turned white.
“It also said time was running out,” she added.
“Oh dear,” Buzzardstock said in voice so weak it was almost a whisper. “Oh no. No, you most certainly should not have seen that.”
Ore9n Buzzardstock sat on the floor, his spindly legs spread in a perfect V, and inhaled deeply. “What I’m about to tell you may sound absurd,” he said. “Just hear me out, all right?”
And with that, the old man began.
“For thousands of years, deep-sea colonies lined the floor of the Southern Ocean. Beautiful, lush kingdoms filled with thousands of species of fish and water nymphs and other creatures—all coexisting.
“A young mermaid named Makara Nyx lived with her parents in Syreniopolis, the largest colony. Seemed like a normal mermaid: gorgeous, high-strung, a bit aloof. On her sixteenth birthday, Makara Nyx’s parents died. Some say it was a suicide pact, and she found the bodies in a bed of kelp. Others believe she killed them. Either way, their deaths affected the girl in a profound way.”
Coral opened her mouth to speak, then thought better of it and sank into the Freezy-Boy recliner.
“A few days later, a cod passing by Syreniopolis was shocked at what it found. The entire colony had been wiped out. Mermaids, mermen, children, grandparents, schools of fish, and generations of water nymphs—every living soul slaughtered. Syreniopolis had become a floating graveyard. And Nyx was gone.”
Penelope felt a sharp twinge of anger. What kind of monster could kill her parents? She was stuck with a bitter father who kept her at a distance and a mother she never knew. She would’ve done anything for one normal parent, let alone two.
“In the coming years, similar tragedies befell the neighboring colonies,” Buzzardstock continued. “Algarum Kingdom, Delphini, Pisce Dominion. All wiped out. Many thought some kind of plague had been responsible. But word spread around the ocean about Makara Nyx—the one survivor of Syreniopolis—and how she had begun to grow into something hideous and frightening: a shape-shifter.
“It was said Nyx could change herself into anything sh
e desired: a seagull, a man, a cloud, a salad, anything. No one knew her true appearance. Some believed she resembled a giant manta ray with the tongue of a snake and the teeth of a shark. All of which made her impossible to find, let alone kill. She hid herself inside a massive crystal fortress along the ocean floor and ruled the waters.”
At this point, Miles expressed his skepticism in the form of a snort.
Buzzardstock ignored him. “Of course, power attracts followers. Soon the waters were overrun with Nyx’s disciples. Armies fought for territory until the waters ran red. The gods and goddesses decided that the only way to end the bloodshed was to split the ocean equally amongst themselves.
“Makara Nyx wanted more. She ate the fish in her province, as was her right, but then she started eating the fish in the next province. When the ruler of that province threatened her, she ate him too. On it went.”
“Couldn’t they stop her if they all joined together?” Penelope asked.
Buzzardstock smiled. “Eventually, a band of brave sea creatures attacked Nyx’s crystal fortress. A battle raged for three days and took many lives. Finally, they destroyed her fortress, but she somehow escaped. She vowed to slaughter every creature in the sea until there was no one left to challenge her. Which she attempted to do. She devoured so much of the ocean that whole species disappeared forever.
“Now, fish are salty, and gods even saltier. As a result, Nyx was always thirsty. So she started drinking the water. Then she decided the water wasn’t cold enough, so she gathered all the ice she could find, broke it into millions of pieces, and spread it around the ocean. Icebergs.
“As Makara Nyx aged, the cold water began to hurt her teeth. It didn’t help that she had never once brushed them…I’m not sure what she would have used—a tree branch? A diving board? Eventually, every gulp of water was so painful that she spat it back into the ocean before it could hit her foul tongue.
“That’s when she began to melt each iceberg. One by one, they disappeared. That’s where we are now. Her disciples are still out there, dozens of generations later, underwater and on land. They believe that someday the whole ocean will boil and everyone will die except the ones who pledge their devotion to Makara Nyx. And then they’ll be reunited with their ancestors. So they do Nyx’s foul bidding for no reason other than that it’s what their parents taught them. And now, my children, I fear Makara Nyx has set her sights on Glacier Cove. Our home is nothing but an ice cube to her.”
Penelope’s head spun so fast she didn’t know where to start. Instead she let Buzzardstock’s words echo in her brain until they faded into memory. He’d told his story with weary resignation, as if he wished it weren’t so, which of course made Penelope believe him even more. And Miles even less.
Where Coral stood on the matter, no one knew. Her expression of detached boredom never changed. Though by the time Buzzardstock finished, her tiny fingers, which had once been stroking Wolfknuckle, were squeezing and grinding the fleshy scruff of the poor dog’s neck. When he yelped his displeasure, Coral jumped, as though she had completely forgotten the animal on her lap.
“What makes you think Glacier Cove is next?” Penelope asked.
“Call it a feeling,” Buzzardstock said. “Granted, I’m a man of science, and this is pretty far from science. But I also know that the world is not always as it seems.”
“Why now? If Makara Nyx has been around for ages, how has Glacier Cove survived as long as it has?”
“There’s something I haven’t told you. When the sea creatures exploded Nyx’s fortress, shards of crystal floated to the surface. Other shards ended up on land. Some believe those shards, each roughly the size of a child’s forearm, retain a certain magic and that any iceberg that possesses this magical crystal cannot be melted. These shards serve as Nyx’s lifeblood. They give her strength. Without them, she ages. She has found and used every one of those shards until there was no energy left to draw from them. Except for one.”
The old man paused and gently stroked a tuft of green hair poking from his mole. “And I have it. Hidden away where no one can find it.”
Behind Glacier Cove Academy, spread out in a smooth blue-white expanse, loomed Lake Trenchfoot. It had been frozen solid as long as anyone could remember.
Every Thursday afternoon, whether rain or snow or sleet or those little ice balls that stung your eyes upon contact, the entire middle school poured onto Lake Trenchfoot. There, one hundred twenty children of varying sizes and abilities engaged in one crowded and poorly organized sixty-on-sixty game of Cove Hockey. It was more controlled chaos than sport. Half the time you couldn’t even find the puck.
For every kid who attempted to take the game seriously, ten more goofed around. There were sword fights and slap fights and tickle fights, kids chatting and flirting and throwing turnips. Penelope saw one boy flossing his teeth. She also saw Coral, as far from the action as she could possibly be, distressed that hockey rinks did not have corners in which to hide.
Though she didn’t much care for hockey, Penelope wasn’t bad at it. Even on absurdly congested ice, her skating was smooth, her stickhandling solid. On one occasion, she had shown surprising skill as a goalie, blocking every shot that came her way while reading a book in between the action. But kids inevitably fought over who got to play goalie, and she was never placed in the net again.
Today, Penelope pretended to play defense and skated in little circles, making not just figure eights, but also figure nines, and fours, and sixes.
A big knuckle-dragging doof named Ernest Kernwinkel was firing a wrist shot toward the goal when Teddy Bronconato, a cheerful rogue of a kid, skated up from behind and pantsed him. Ernest tumbled to the ground, skates twisted in his corduroys, revealing yellow long johns emblazoned with cartoon ducks. The kids hooted themselves hoarse as he struggled to pull up his pants and regain what little dignity he had left.
“I SAW THAT, BRONCONATO!” barked Mr. Burgle, the gym teacher. A muscled slab who seemed to scream even when he was whispering, Burgle pointed at Teddy. “HAVE A SEAT IN THE PENALTY BOX. TWO MINUTES.”
Teddy skated off Lake Trenchfoot, smiling. It was worth the penalty to humiliate Kernwinkel. But before Teddy got to the penalty box—literally a cardboard box—he stopped short. “Hey,” he said. “What the heck is March doing over there?”
Alone at the far end of the ice, Miles was waving his arms wildly.
At first glance, Penelope assumed her brother had encased himself in a straitjacket and was dislocating his shoulder again. One look at his terrified eyes told a different story. She saw his legs slipping out from under him.
Burgle skated toward Miles as fast as he could. “DON’T MOVE, MARCH!”
At that moment, a strange noise drifted through the air. A sizzle, like bacon crisping in a pan, crackled from one end of the ice to the other. Then a deafening POP!—a sonic boom so loud that half the kids jumped and the other half dove for cover. Screams echoed up and down Lake Trenchfoot.
In the chaos, everyone forgot about Miles March—that is, everyone but Penelope and Burgle, both of whom were grinding across the tundra toward him.
Then the ice cracked open beneath Miles and he was gone.
The silence. That was all Penelope remembered later.
She didn’t hear the kids’ cries, or their skates clacking in the rush to get off the lake, or even Burgle’s barbaric yelp. As Penelope skated toward the scene of the accident, time slowed down so much that she could hear the blood pulsing through her veins. At the spot where her brother had been standing a moment earlier, nothing was left but a small hole swirling with dark water and more cracks forming near her feet.
Penelope didn’t notice Burgle stripping off his coat, nor did she hear his instructions: “GET THE KIDS OFF THE ICE AND PROMISE YOU WON’T FOLLOW ME IN!” With that, the gym teacher took a deep breath and plunged into the hole.
The splash must have awakened Penelope. With a whoosh, as if emerging from a long tunnel, every sound came rushing b
ack. And she knew one thing for certain: her brother was in big trouble, and so was Mr. Burgle.
“Listen to me!” a voice boomed, unfamiliar and confident. “Take off your scarves!” The voice, Penelope realized, was her own. Her hands were already undoing her own thick scarf while she skated to the edge of the lake.
No one moved.
“Stop standing around and do it!” Penelope barked.
Kids began unraveling their scarves and tossing them into an ever-growing mound of wool, polka dots, and snowflakes. Penelope quickly knotted each scarf together until she had two long ropes.
“What’s she doing?” asked one kid.
“I don’t know,” said another. “But she’d better hurry.”
Penelope handed Teddy Bronconato the makeshift rope. “Tie it around my leg. Tight. And fast.”
While Teddy did as he was told, Penelope tied the other rope around her wrist and plopped down on her belly. She felt the leg rope to make sure it was tight enough. “Whatever you do,” she told Teddy, “don’t let go.”
The kids watched her slide forward until she was about ten feet from the hole, at which point she threw the other end of the wrist rope down the hole.
Ice cracked in various places around her, causing some kids to scream. “Get her off the ice!” someone said. But no one moved. Penelope stayed glued on her belly and waited.
Nothing happened.
“Hold on tight!” she called. Before Teddy could object, Penelope shimmied toward the hole. The frost seeped through her coat as she thrust her bare hand into the hole as far as she could.
“Miles!” she screamed. “Take my hand!”
Penelope’s fingers numbed in the water immediately. She used what strength she had to wave the hand to and fro in hopes that Miles or Burgle would see it.
Tears had frozen to her face. Time was running out.
Then, just before she lost all sensation in her fingers, she felt, ever so slightly…something.
Yes. Something had tugged on her hand.
Penelope pulled her numb hand from the water as if it were no longer her own—and to her surprise, another hand was clasped to it. The weight beneath it felt more like a hundred-pound cinder block than a human being, and Penelope, though fierce and full of adrenaline, did not have the strength.
Penelope March Is Melting Page 4