Nim at Sea by Wendy Orr

Selkie, and Selkie dived as silently as a whisper. Fred was already down at the bottom again; he was sure there must be seaweed somewhere. Nim kept on swimming and tried not to splash.
    “You’re up early!” the chef called. “Trying to beat the rush?”
    “Yes,” said Nim, and he hurried on by.
    Nim knew it would be too dangerous to stay any longer. They slipped out and went back to the hold, with nothing but a quickly drying trail of water to tell where they’d been.

J ACK WOKE UP WITH the sun. He’d steered all night, with a few quick naps in between. Daylight showed him that he still had a long, long way to go—there was no sign of land in all this wide blue sea.
    A frigate bird circled low to see if he had any fish. “Nothing today, Galileo!” Jack called. He wished he could tuck a note into the big bird’s leg band, but even Galileo couldn’t find Nim in a city.
    For just a minute Jack wondered what he’d do if Nim wasn’t with Alex—but he pushed that thought away.
    As Galileo disappeared into the sky, Jack called out, “You’re right, I should put those lines out now! Thanks for reminding me!”
    He checked his compass, adjusted the sail to head four points farther east, threw his fishing lines in, and had a drink of water and some coconut for breakfast.
    “I’ll be with you soon, Nim!” he called.
    Then he added more quietly, “And you too, Alex. I hope.”

    Alex woke with a start. She was sure someone had knocked on her cabin door: three quick raps. Then there was a
thump
of someone jumping onto the deck, and whispering.
    It was just the children from the cabin next door. She’d heard them during the day; it sounded as if there were two very little girls, a boy and another girl about Nim’s age, and maybe even another girl. She could never hear what they said, just the buzz of their voices and
thump
s from their cabin when they jumped to the floor.
    Alex wondered what they were like.
Maybe they’d know how to be friends with Nim,
she thought.
Maybe I’d have been better at it if I’d met other kids before I went to the island….
    “If you’d been better at it,” she told herself, “you wouldn’t be on this ship right now!
    “And don’t you dare cry again!” she added, and made herself go back to sleep.

    Nim had got Selkie back just in time. It was now bright, busy daylight, and people were swarming everywhere, settling into deck chairs and crowding the rails. Someone would have probably noticed a sea lion galumphing through the ship.
    It was busy out on the water too. There were more ships ahead, behind, and coming toward them. They were going down a wide river with bright green hills close on either side, and Nim felt tight and closed in when she could see only a narrow strip of water instead of the wide blue sea she was used to.
    The river became skinnier and the banks grew steeper, until it was such a narrow canal their ship was nearly touching both concrete sides. Very gently, they were tugged up to a pair of giant locked doors. Another pair of doors shut behind them—and just as Nim was wondering where the ship could go next, it started going up as if it were in an elevator!
    Nim tried to look as if she were used to being on ships that went up and down elevators, until she saw that nearly everyone on board had come out to gawk and take pictures.
    “Amazing!”
    “How does it work?”
    “The water comes in through culverts from a lake.”
    “I’ve wanted to see this all my life!”
    But everything’s strange to me!
thought Nim.
How am I supposed to know which things are strange to everyone else?
    She saw Erin and Ben, with their parents and little sisters, watching from outside their cabin while their mother videotaped the giant elevator doors.
    Now the dock on the other side of the railing was the same height as the deck. If she jumped over the railing right now, she could probably escape the ship.
    “But we can’t leave without Selkie,” she whispered to Fred.