The Dragon in the Sea (4 page)

“Not Daisy Flower,” said Emmy. “See? The girl has gills.”

“What?” Jesse and Daisy both said.

“The cutest little set of gills I’ve ever seen,” Emmy added.

Jesse’s jaw dropped while Daisy groped her neck. Emmy was right. There were gills just below Daisy’s ears on either side of her neck: three long slits.

“Ugh!” Daisy said, with a shiver of repulsion.

“Can I see?” said Jesse.

Daisy backed away from him. “Where did they come from? Why do I have them?” she said.

“They came from the salty sea,” said Emmy cheerfully. “The better for you to make yourself at home there.”

“Hey, no fair!” Jesse said. “I want gills. I want to be at home in the sea, too.”

“What are you talking about?” Daisy said, turning on her cousin. “I’m
deformed
.”

“Can I see them, pretty please?” Jesse said.

Daisy sighed. She stood stiffly, fists clenched at her sides, while Jesse lifted her hair to get a closer look.

“Wow,” he said. “They’re perfect.”

“How can you say that?” Daisy said, pulling away. “I’m a freak.”

“Well, if you’re a freak,” Jesse said, “then you’re a stone-cold lucky freak. And I want to be a freak, too. It’s magical!”

“It sure is,” said Emmy. “I bet it has something to do with those cunning seashells around your necks. They’ve been spelled five ways from Thursday.”

“
Six
ways from
Sunday
,” Jesse corrected as the cook’s gong rang out.

“Chow down, or I’ll throw it in the bay!” Polly hollered from the Mess Hall.

“That’s Polly, calling us to dinner,” Daisy said, quickly rearranging her hair to cover her gills.

“I always wanted to meet Polly,” Emmy said. “How about if I—”

Jesse held up a hand. “You know the rules, Em,” he said. “No revealing yourself to people.”

“But Polly’s not
people
. Polly’s
different
,” Emmy said slyly.

“Not
that
different,” Daisy said.

“Whatever! You two run along,” Emmy said. “I’ll
forage. Who needs a delicious runching in the Fiery Realm when I can munch water rats alfresco?”

“Emmy!” Daisy scolded.

“I’m kidding!” Emmy said. “Just because you’ve gained gills is no reason to lose your funny bone. I’ll meet you two on the edge of the cliff at daybreak.”

Daisy and Jesse sat with Polly at one end of the long table that, during the summer months, was packed with guests. Polly served one of her specialties: oyster stew. Daisy usually loved Polly’s oyster stew, but tonight it turned her stomach. She nibbled on the oyster crackers instead.

Polly noticed Daisy hadn’t touched the stew. “I’m not offended,” she said. “You probably got a bellyful of seawater this afternoon.”

Daisy nodded and slid her bowl across the table for Jesse to eat.

When Polly had finished her own stew, she pushed her bowl away and sat back in her chair. “I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there’s something more than a little fishy going on with you two. Care to let me in on it?”

Daisy’s face burned as she patted her hair to make sure it still covered her gills.

“Funny you should say that—” Jesse began. Beneath the table, Daisy kicked him hard.

“What?”
he mouthed.

Daisy shook her head in what she hoped was a forbidding fashion.

“Polly will understand, Daise,” Jesse said. Then he turned to their grandmother and said, “You see, ever since last spring, Daisy and I have become what’s known as Dragon Keepers.”

Now, your average adult would have had one of two reactions to this statement. One would have been to laugh it off as a joke. Two would have been to humor Jesse and pretend to take him seriously while chalking it up to childish fancy. But Polly had a third reaction. Polly’s reaction was “I had a feeling it was something along those lines. I want to hear all about it.” She made a motion with her hands, as if she were reeling Jesse in.

And that was all it took for Jesse to tell Polly every detail of their dragon adventure from the very beginning. After a bit, Daisy gave up and joined in. When they had finished, ending with their discovery of the second Thunder Egg that very morning and their immediate loss of it to the water zombie and the giant sea horse, Jesse and Daisy sat back in their chairs and looked at Polly.

Polly was silent for a long moment, a thoughtful look on her face. “Sounds like you kids had a run-in with a merman and a kelpie.”

“What?” Jesse and Daisy asked at once.

“That big sea horse? It was a kelpie. They’re the spirits of the kelp plants. Just like those dryads
, you met are the spirits of trees. I’ve spotted kelpies before, from the top of the cliff. They like to ride the crests of the waves. I used to see the merfolk, too, whole families of them, basking on the big rocks far out beyond the breakers. Not to mention selkies and sand witches.”

“Sandwiches?” Jesse said. “As in pastrami on rye, hold the mayo?”

“Sand
witches
, young fella, as in gossipy little scuttling sand sprites who would as soon trip you headlong as look you in the eye. Folks used to mistake them for crabs, but I knew better. Haven’t seen a single one of them, though, in I don’t know how long. The Driftwoods, in fact, are the most interesting addition to the beach I’ve seen in years.”

“Who exactly are they?” Daisy asked.

“
What
is more like it,” Polly said. “I’m not altogether sure, which is why I sent you two down there to poke around.”

“They’re awesome,” said Jesse.

“They’re weird,” said Daisy. “And Emmy said these seashells they gave us are spelled.”

“I wouldn’t be one bit surprised,” said Polly.

Jesse and Daisy stared at their grandmother in silent amazement.

“I know what you two are thinking,” Polly said, “that it’s a coincidence, us all being able to see the magic side of nature, but it’s not. It runs in families, and before you start thinking about your parents, I’ll tell you that it usually skips a generation.”

“Then I guess I can show you these.” Daisy stood up and went to Polly’s chair, lifting the hair from one side of her neck.

“Well, I’ll be a sea monkey’s uncle,” Polly said. “That’s as fine a set of gills as I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

“That’s what I told her,” Jesse said. “But she didn’t believe me. Maybe she’ll listen to you and get how lucky she is.”

“Emmy thinks the spelled shells gave me the gills,” said Daisy.

“But then why didn’t
I
get gills?” Jesse said. “I have a seashell, too.”

“Well, now, that’s something else to ponder,” Polly said.

“I’m too tired to ponder,” said Daisy with a wide, jaw-cracking yawn.

“I’m not surprised,” Polly said. “You’ve had an exciting day. Why don’t you two lubbers hit the bunks? I’ll wake you early tomorrow so you can chop onions and carrots and celery for the stuffing. While we work, we’ll see if we can’t figure out how to track down that Thunder Egg. And maybe,
just maybe, you’ll introduce me to young Emerald.”

After trying one more time, without success, to get the computer to work, the cousins took Polly’s advice and headed to their bunks.

They lurched down the long hallway toward the Fishbowl, both of them more tired than they realized. Jesse made a quick detour into the Blue Parlor to say good night to
The Golden D
.

In the dim amber light spilling over from the hallway,
The Golden D
was eerily transformed. Jesse and Daisy approached the mantelpiece slowly. The sails of the ship model, which usually ran parallel to the hull, were now set square. And the canvas on the sails looked damp. Jesse reached up to the mainsail and touched it.

“Look.” He held up his wet finger to show Daisy. He put his fingertip into his mouth. It tasted salty. Then his eye went to the name on the prow. For the first time, perhaps because the mainsail no longer covered it, Jesse saw that there was the ghost of the letters
r-a-g-o-n
after the
D. The Golden Dragon
.

Jesse whistled, pointing to the bowsprit. They had always called the figure carved there a sea serpent. Now Jesse and Daisy saw the carving for what it really was: a golden dragon!

C
HAPTER
T
HREE
HALF-FISH

Jesse woke up the next morning with his fingers entangled in the seashell necklace, but still no gills. He wondered why the charmed necklace hadn’t worked for him? Was it because he, unlike Daisy, hadn’t swallowed half the Pacific Ocean? Did it
only work on girls? Or was there something wrong with his shell? Maybe he should go down the beach and tell the Driftwoods that his shell was defective.

Jesse lifted his head from the pillow and looked out the window of the Fishbowl to see Emmy standing on the edge of the cliff, talking to Polly. Apparently, they hadn’t needed Jesse and Daisy to wake up and make formal introductions.

Their Goldmine City neighbor, Miss Alodie
, was the only other grown-up, apart from Professor Andersson, who knew about Emmy. But this was different. Polly was family. Jesse hung his head over the top bunk and saw Daisy, on the bottom bunk, awake and staring out the window, too.

“What do you think they’re talking about?” Daisy said.

Jesse shrugged. “The Thunder Egg. What else?”

“Let’s go!” Daisy said.

They scrambled into jeans and sneakers and hooded sweatshirts and ran out to the cliff.

“Here the little lubbers are now!” Polly said. “Catch!” She tossed the cousins each something warm and fragrant and wrapped in napkins: egg and sage sausage sandwiches.

“Eat up, Keepers,” Emmy said. “Once we’re in the sea, those breakfast sandwiches are going to turn to mush.”

Jesse stopped chewing and swallowed hard. “We’re going into the sea?” he asked.

“Where’d you think?” Emmy said. “To the mall?”

“Nearest mall’s fifty miles,” Polly said, “thanks be to Neptune … 
and
scarcity of population.”

“Emmy was kidding,” Daisy explained to Polly.

“Oh, this one’s a kidder, all right. She and I are mates. Stayed up half the night in the boat shed, swappin’ yarns. Emmy’s stowed a super-cargo of adventure into six short months.”

“You’ve got that right, Granny,” Emmy said.

Scandalized, the cousins looked to Polly for a reaction to being called Granny, but she was gazing up fondly at Emmy. “This one’s got gumption to spare,” she said, patting Emmy’s haunch with pride. “Well, now, since you’re shipping out, I brought you something else that might come in handy.” She held up a small metal tube with a sphere at the end. It looked like a miniature angel’s trumpet.

Jesse had seen it hanging on the wall in the Yellow Parlor, but if Polly had ever explained what it was, he had forgotten. “What is it, again?” he asked.

“It’s a boatswain’s call, or pipe, spelled b-o-a-t-s-w-a-i-n but pronounced ‘bosun.’ A boatswain supervises the able-bodied seamen on board a merchant ship. Your grandpappy was a boatswain, and
that’s how he came by this pipe. This tube here is called the
gun
. It directs air to the sphere, or what’s called the
buoy
. You open and close your hand over the hole to change the pitch, like this. That flat piece there is called the
keel
, which pretty much holds the whole caboodle together, and the shackle is the key ring that connects to this brass chain that you wear around your neck. Which one of you wants to wear the pipe?”