Girl at Sea by Maureen Johnson Page B

Butterfly , everyone,” he said, smiling one of the broadest, scariest smiles Clio had ever seen.
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    The Sea Butterfly
    It was clear that her father had prepared that joke well in advance and was reveling in its perfect execution.
    “You should have seen your faces,” he said.
    No one was answering. They were still taking in the white yachty magnificence before them. It was at least eighty feet long, with two visible levels, plus a tinted wraparound glass wheelhouse and more antennas coming off it than a skyscraper.
    “How do we get there?” Elsa finally managed.
    “Using this.”
    Clio’s father pulled off his shoes and walked a few paces out in the water, which only came to mid-thigh. He grabbed an orange raft with a tiny motor on it that was tied to a post in the water. “We’ll have to make a few trips to get everything on.”
    He dragged the raft over to the nearby dock, waving the others in that direction.
    “Clio!” he said. “You come first.”
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    He helped her down into the little raft, which sagged under their weight. After two tugs on the pull cord, the motor putt-putted to life and they made the very short trip to the Sea Butterfly , approaching it from the back.
    “You bought a yacht,” Clio said to him.
    “To be fair, yacht technically means a lot of things.”
    “It means this. You bought a yacht. We can’t afford a yacht.
    Dad, we can’t even afford to get the roof repaired.”
    “Funny story behind this,” her father said, smiling that crazy smile at the Sea Butterfly as it bobbed in the water like a giant bleached tooth. “I was going to just rent a boat. But then I met this woman in London who was getting a divorce. Very rich. This boat was her husband’s plaything, so she took great pleasure in selling it to me at a fraction of the cost. I’ll sell it off when we’re done and make a killing. This girl is going to pay for herself ten times over .”
    “ Sea Butterfly?” Clio said. “That’s kind of a weird name.”
    “It’s better than the old one,” her dad said, bringing the raft up to the platform. “It used to be called the Foxy Lady . The guy who owned it was named Fox.”
    “That’s a really gross name,” Clio said.
    “I know. This one is much better. Anyway, here we go.”
    He tied the raft to the back platform of the boat and held it steady. Clio scrabbled onto the back platform, a slippery sheet of fiberglass covered in water. She walked up the three steps to the deck proper.
    “Okay,” he said. “Stay right here. I want everyone to take the tour at the same time.”
    She watched as he brought the others over, two at a time. It 60

    only took a few minutes. Before long, they were all standing on the massive back platform of the boat. The first stop was the Jacuzzi, which had a cover that slid back at the touch of a button.
    “This was broken,” he said. “So I had it sealed up. We can fill it with water or whatever we need when we . . . We could fill it with water and fish and have our own tank to get fresh seafood from! Pretty great, huh?”
    Nearby were some sliding glass doors, part of what was essentially an all-glass wall. He opened the doors and they passed through. Clio couldn’t see anything yet, but the carpet told all. Whatever she was standing on was so thick and soft it felt like she was effortlessly balancing herself on a sponge bed on the bottom of the ocean.
    “The lights are complicated,” her dad was saying, fumbling with something on the wall. “Oh. Here we go.”
    Carefully focused lights lit up in a dozen strategic points all over the ceiling, revealing a long, elegant living and dining room.
    Everything seemed to be made of cream-colored leather. The spongy carpet was honey-colored and extended in all directions.
    The air-conditioning made that gentle noise kittens make when they sleep.
    “Living room,” her dad said, holding out his hands toward the sofas and the plasma TV. “Over there, dining room.”
    “This is