The Dragon in the Sea (5 page)

Daisy’s mouth was full of breakfast sandwich, so Jesse shrugged and said, “I will.”

Daisy swallowed and said, “But what’s it for?”

“To pass commands to the crew when the noise of the sea drowns out the human voice. Should you happen to find yourself beset by perils, blow on it good and hard: one long burst, two short ones. Help, in some shape or form, is bound to come a-running. Now, get going before your dragon sets sail without you.”

Polly held out her hands for their crumpled napkins as, with a soft
pop-pop
ping, Emmy’s wings unfurled on either side of her, purple on the underside, green on top.

“Oh, well, say now!” Polly said, standing back to admire them. They weren’t a bird’s sort of wings, made up of feathers. They were most emphatically a dragon’s sort, as intricate as a Japanese parasol.
“They’re pretty enough, but are they seaworthy?”

“Don’t sweat it, Granny. I’m shipshape for sure!” Emmy said as Jesse and Daisy climbed onto the narrow bridge between her wings that provided just enough space for them to perch comfortably.

“Anchors aweigh!” Polly called as Emmy swooped off the edge of the cliff and lit out over the silvery surf, the seals giving them an
arf-arf
send-off. Above the sound of the seals, they heard Polly’s voice as the wind snatched it away: “I’ll save you some turkey!”

The air above the water was a good ten degrees colder, and Jesse regretted not wearing his winter coat. Then, when he realized that sooner or later they were going to wind up
in
the sea rather than
over
it, that gave him something new to fret about. Daisy didn’t look worried at all. Like a pale flag, her hair snapped behind her in the wind. She was grinning from ear to ear, or perhaps a more apt way to put it was
from gill to gill
.

Emmy’s voice came to them on the rushing wind: “You Keepers have your seashell necklaces on?”

“Yes!” the cousins hollered back at her.

“Good,” Emmy said, “ ’cause when I see a good spot, I’m going to head on down.”

“Aye, aye!” Daisy said.

Jesse echoed this, with slightly less enthusiasm. He forced himself to look down. There was nothing below: not a fishing boat, not a seabird, not a fish fin, nothing but flat, gray water spreading out beneath them as far as he could see. Just when he was beginning to get used to the vastness of it, Emmy reared up slightly and began to head down.

“Whoa, Nelly!” Daisy shouted, her eyes wide and delighted.

“It’s going to be sooooo cold!” Jesse wailed. He had just enough time to shut his mouth before they hit the surface of the water with a loud
splat
.

The impact threw Jesse and Daisy off Emmy’s back. Jesse plunged into the water, headfirst. The water fizzed around him like pale green soda. It was so cold it felt almost hot. He fought his way back to the surface.

As far as he could tell, it was just him, all alone in the ice-cold sea. There was no sign of Emmy or Daisy. The shoreline was far away. He couldn’t even hear the seals
arf-arf
ing from here. The inn looked like a toy train chugging along the cliff, smoke trailing from its chimney.

Suddenly, Daisy’s head popped up, as sleek as a blond otter. She was grinning more widely than ever.

“Aw, come on, Jess! Don’t just bob around like
a human cork! The whole point is to swim
underneath
the water. Follow me!”

Jesse was just about to tell her to give a guy a chance to get used to the water when she dived back under, flipping a graceful, silvery-scaled fish tail in his face.

“Wait for me!” he shouted, and taking a deep breath, dived under after her. He swam down, following the tip of Daisy’s tail and the bubbles she left in her wake. It wasn’t long before his lungs started to give out. When the natural urge to return to the surface for air became almost too strong to fight, he forced himself to continue following Daisy.

Where are my gills? Where is my tail?
he wondered frantically. The next moment, he found he was leaving his own trail of fine bubbles and that his lungs had relaxed. He was breathing under the water! Exploring with his fingers, he felt them: a set of three neat slits beneath and slightly behind each ear. Could a fish tail be far behind?

Suddenly, he felt something wrap itself around his legs, binding them together. Perhaps it was one of the mermen who had attacked Daisy yesterday? But then he realized that the feeling was coming from
inside
his body. He looked down. He could just make out his legs and sneakered feet disappearing inside a silvery sheath of scales.

Jesse tested his new tail. It was twice as strong as his two legs. If he whipped his tail around, he swam in circles. But if he merely flicked the fins at the end of his tail, he banked smoothly to the right or left.

Daisy appeared before him, her hair swirling around her head like white silk. “How do you like it?” she said.

Her words came on bubbles that popped out of her mouth. There was a slight delay, like with a ship-to-shore radio. Her voice sounded a little deeper than in the air but still clear.

“This is great!” Jesse bubbled back at Daisy.

“Look at you two! You have scaly tails, just like me! Except that mine is green and yours are sparkly silver.” Emmy’s golden voice sounded exactly the same as it always did. And there she was, a big green dragon in the wide green sea. “This is awesome! It’s just like the air, only wet and soft. And look at me!” She spun around, executing a graceful somersault. Her wings were compacted, tucked close to her body, more like fins now.

“Let me try that!” Jesse said. He tucked his tail and spun head over fins, like a wheel that was half boy, half fish.

Daisy did the same. The three of them spun around and around until they were dizzy and
laughing wildly, lost in clouds of bubbles. Jesse stopped, his head reeling. When the bubbles cleared, he saw a school of little yellow fish, hovering in place, staring at them with wide, black, unblinking eyes.

“Race you to the bottom of the sea!” Emmy said, and the three of them were off.

The rays of the sun, shimmering in the water like spokes, grew gradually dimmer the deeper they swam. Jesse kept his eye on Emmy’s hind paws, paddling behind her like big green fans.

Eventually, they arrived on the ocean bottom, which was covered in fine sand as pure and white as new-fallen snow. They swam about, exploring. Daisy found the hull of a rowboat. Jesse found a rusty old oil drum. And Emmy hit the jackpot, coming upon an old yellow taxicab with the checker design still on it.

“How do you think this got down here?” Emmy wondered aloud.

“Somebody must have made a wrong turn,” Jesse said.

They snorted and laughed until the water was fizzy. Then Jesse swam over and peered into the oil drum. An orange claw reached out and snatched at his nose.

Jesse reared back and said, “Yowie. Do you think it’s a sand witch or a crab?” He looked around. Daisy and Emmy had disappeared. His heart started hammering. Then he caught sight of them some distance off, hovering before what looked like a long, wavy black curtain. He swam toward them.

The curtain was made up of black stalks rooted in the ocean floor, their gnarled branches extending up toward the water’s surface. They reminded Jesse of the Deep Woods
in winter, bleak and leafless. The closer he swam, the more grim and foreboding the place felt.

“What is this stuff?” Jesse asked when he reached Daisy and Emmy.

“We’re wondering the same thing.” Daisy touched one of the long black trunks. She recoiled. “Ouch!” she said, holding out her hand. There were small white ridges on her fingertips. “It’s sharp!”

“Must be some sort of coral,” said Jesse.

“Isn’t coral bright and colorful?” Daisy said doubtfully.

“Maybe it’s
dead
coral,” Emmy said.

“Creepy,” said Jesse.

It wasn’t just the dense thicket of coral that was black, but the rocks and the sand from which it sprang were black, too. The water was murky with
globules of what looked like tar floating in it. The dark place extended as far and as deep as any of them could see.

“Should we check it out and see if there’s some sort of a path running through it?” Jesse asked.

“I’m game,” said Emmy.

“Wait!” said Daisy, putting up a hand. “Something’s coming.”

Jesse squinted into the murky underwater forest. “It looks like a merman. Emmy, just to be safe, maybe you should mask.”

The next thing they knew, in place of Emmy was a red fish the size of a full-grown dachshund, half head with its gaping mouth jam-packed with needle-sharp fangs. The only thing familiar about her was her big green eyes.

“I get it!” said Jesse with a grin.

“Get what?” Daisy said warily. “That our beautiful dragon’s turned into a vampire fish?”

“She’s not a vampire fish. She’s a
dragon
fish,” Jesse said. “And look! She’s got bioluminescence, too. See that row of lights along her body? That light could come in handy in the dark. Good thinking, Emmy.”

“We’d better work out a system of communication,” Daisy said. When Emmy masked as a sheepdog, one bark was “yes” and two was “no.”

“I an alk,” Emmy said through her fangs.

“You can talk!” Jesse said.

“Sort of,” said Daisy.

“I alk ine,” said Emmy.

She sounded like a kid who had just gotten braces. “Ook out!”

The merman emerged from the depths of the underwater forest. Unlike the one who had attacked Daisy yesterday, this one was beardless, a teenager with fair hair, but he had the same greenish skin and red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes.

“Eeeoooo,” said Emmy.

“He looks creepy, all right,” Jesse said.

“Wait, you two,” Daisy said. “Be fair. Maybe not all the merpeople are muggers and rock thieves. Let’s give the guy a chance.”

Daisy swam to the edge of the dark area and said to the merboy, “Hi. I’m Daisy. This is my cousin Jesse and our dragon, Emmy.”

“Dragon
fish
,” Jesse corrected her hastily.

“Right,” said Daisy. “Can you tell us what this place is?”

“The Coral Jungle,” said the merboy. Something about the boy’s voice was off. Even the bubbles that came out of his mouth were greenish. The merboy lazily extended a hand toward Daisy, but she pulled back.

“Hey,” Jesse said to the merboy, “you didn’t happen to see a rock around here anywhere, did you?” He knew how ridiculous this question sounded as soon as it came out of his mouth.

“It was about yea big,” Daisy said, describing it with her hands. “It looks like a ball of oatmeal with golden specks in it.”

“Um, Daise,” Jesse said, “I don’t think they have oatmeal down here.”

“You are welcome to enter the jungle and look for your oatmeal ball,” the merboy said. “Please, be our guests.” He swam slowly backward, urging them to come along with him.

“Um, no, thanks! We’re good!” said Daisy, hanging back.

“Maybe we’ll drop by some other time,” Jesse put in.

“Eee you ater,” said Emmy.

The three visitors started to backstroke, slowly and steadily, putting distance between themselves and the merboy and the Coral Jungle.

The merboy called after them in his dreamy voice, “Stay and visit the Coral Jungle.” But he didn’t swim after them.

“Maybe he’s stuck there,” Jesse whispered to Daisy and Emmy.

“We can only hope,” said Daisy.

“Good zombie
grief
!” Jesse cried out.

The three of them stopped swimming and looked. Suddenly, the Coral Jungle was writhing with movement. Merpeople, male and female, all of them green-faced and red-eyed, were moving forward through the brackish water, beckoning to them with their limp, greenish arms.

“Yikes!” said Jesse. “An
army
of water zombies!”

The army emerged from the Coral Jungle in a long, ragged line and began to advance slowly toward Jesse and Daisy and Emmy.

“Jesse!” they called out in their hollow voices. “Daisy! Emmy!”

“Okay, Keepers,” Emmy said, rapidly changing back into her dragon form, “let’s put those brand-new tails of yours to the test.”

Keepers and dragon whipped around and fled. Emmy took the lead, streamlining her body and shooting through the water like a giant green torpedo. The cousins lagged behind. While they had gotten the knack of using their tails, they had no idea how to work up any speed. Meanwhile, it was as if someone had flipped a switch on the slow-moving zombies. They were going much faster and were rapidly advancing upon Jesse and Daisy, their
arms reaching out, their red eyes fixed on their quarry.

“Yikes!” said Daisy. “If we could just latch on to Emmy’s tail, we could hitch a ride.”

“Wait up, Emmy!” Jesse called.

But Emmy, too far ahead to hear them, rocketed on into the great green yonder.

C
HAPTER
F
OUR
THE EIGHTH SEA