by Will Taylor
Sixteen
Abby
The Little Lagoon echoed with the sounds of me and Joe laughing and hugging and shouting all at once.
“What did you—”
“—the same time!”
“But how—”
“—is this island—”
“—should’ve brought a surfboard!”
“Enough!” hollered Antonia as she and Helene caught up to us. Joe and I quieted down. The singing and music had stopped too. Everyone was watching.
“It appears the castaways know each other,” said Helene. “That certainly is . . . convenient.”
“This is Joe,” I said, flapping a hand and completely unable to stop grinning. Joe looked just the same as the last time I’d seen him. Well, he wasn’t wrapped up like a blanket burrito and lying in the back of a pickup truck with a broken leg, but he was still tall and balding, with eyes that crinkled when he smiled. “He’s my best friend’s uncle.” I whapped him on the arm. “How did you get here?”
“We can all get our answers in a moment,” cut in Helene. “First we must follow procedure and get this party officially started. Take your places, everyone!”
There was a cheer from the crowd.
“I raised Helene to run a very efficient party,” Antonia told me as we got in our floaties and pushed off from the shore.
In no time Antonia, Helene, Joe, and I were floating in a little clump at the center of the lagoon near the musicians. The others crowded around us, holding hands and linking arms to stay together on the gentle movement of the water. I grinned as I caught sight of Ariadne, calmly drifting through the crowd on a small floaty shaped like a sunflower.
Helene got to her feet, balancing perfectly on her inflatable walrus. The ring of keys swung at her side. “Welcome, everybody,” she called. “Welcome to this emergency party. Thank you for coming. Is everybody floating comfortably?”
The crowd cheered.
“Did everybody sing a song?”
The crowd cheered again, and the musicians played a few bars of a jig.
“Does everybody love this crew?”
The loudest cheers yet.
“Right, then.” Helene clapped her hands. “Party business. We are here to introduce two new people who have somehow joined us here in our home. I know we all have hundreds of questions about who they are, where they came from, and how they got here, so we are going to get everyone on the same page as efficiently as possible!”
More cheers and snatches of song from the crowd. They sure did seem like they were having fun.
“First, we have Castaway Number One,” Helene announced, stepping onto the beverage raft and holding out a hand to Joe. “Come on up and say hello.”
Joe was wobbly on his giant floaty rubber ducky, but with Helene’s help he got himself onto the raft beside her. “Please tell our crew who you are, Castaway Number One,” Helene said, “and share a little about yourself.”
“Uh, sure,” said Joe, squinting around at the floating crew in their fancy hats and outfits. “My name’s Joe,” he called. “I’m thirty-eight. I’m a whale scientist. I mostly study humpback whale songs and other marine mammal noises.”
“Woo! Whales!” shouted a voice out in the crowd, and everyone cheered. Joe joined in, his boa waving in the breeze.
“And where did you come from, Joe the Whale Scientist?” asked Helene. She sounded like a TV interviewer.
“I’ve lived all over the world, depending on where I’m researching,” said Joe. There was an “ooooh” from the crowd. “But just recently I’ve been back up in Alaska, at this bay where I’ve been studying for a while. I had a big discovery there last year, and got some awesome grant money that let me come back this year with cutting-edge equipment. It’s been super fun!”
Antonia led a round of applause.
“And how, Joe the Successful Whale Scientist who was recently in Alaska, did you get here?” asked Helene, spreading her arms wide. The floating crew leaned in closer.
“Well, it all started because of that new equipment,” said Joe. “There are no whales up in that area yet, and I was doing a baseline recording of the bay, just to have a sample of what it sounded like on its own, and I kept getting the strangest readings. I kept hearing Atlantic porpoises chattering, but very faint, like they were coming from the other end of a long tunnel. I thought there must be something wrong with the machinery, but everything tested out fine. So the only thing to do was investigate the bay itself. I got out my scuba gear, swam down to get a look, and found a door.”
“A door?” I said, sitting up too fast and almost tipping my teacup. Antonia shushed me.
“A door!” said Joe. “Just standing open in a frame at the bottom of the bay. And there was all this sediment getting sucked right into it, like a current. I swam in to get a closer look, and whoosh! I got pulled through. Then suddenly I was in a big bubbling surge of water, shooting for the surface. I barely had time to look around and realize I was a long way from home before I was being hauled in and arrested.” He turned to Helene. “By you!”
Helene bowed, and the crew whooped and cheered.
“All right,” she called to the crowd. “Did everyone hear Joe’s story?”
“Yes!” replied the crowd.
“And did everyone believe it?”
“Yes!”
“And does everyone understand exactly what happened?”
“Yes!”
“I don’t,” I said to Antonia, and got shushed again.
“Thank you so much, Joe. Please return to your seat,” said Helene. Joe waved to the applauding crowd, lifted a foot, misjudged the distance to his rubber ducky floaty, and fell face-first into the lagoon.
As the crew nearby jumped in to help him, Helene held out a hand, inviting me up for my turn on the beverage raft.
“Presenting Castaway Number Two,” cried Helene, when everything had settled down. “Same introduction, please; your name and a little bit about you.”
I looked out into the watching crowd, taking a second to let it all sink in. Two days ago I was at home, eating pancakes in my pajamas with my dad and brothers and Tamal, Samson purring on my lap. Now I was at a party, with all these pirates—or whatever they were—floating in a lagoon on a strange little island in the middle of who knew where. And oh, look, the other chickens were up from their nap and pecking around the shore. And there went Ariadne on her floaty to say hello to them.
My heart gave a serious Maggie-missing pang. She should have been here for this.
“Um, okay, hi!” I said. “My name is Abby. I’m twelve and a half years old, and I, um, have an amazing cat named Samson.” It was the first thing I thought of.
“Woo! Cats!” shouted the same voice in the crowd, and everyone cheered.
“And where did you come from, Abby, Keeper of Samson?” asked Helene.
“Well, I live in Seattle,” I said. “But I just started summer camp at Camp Cantaloupe on Orcas Island, which is near Seattle. I was there with my best friend, Maggie.”
“Woo! Maggie!” shouted Joe, who was back on his rubber ducky and soaking wet. Antonia shushed him.
“And how, Abby, Keeper of Samson, Friend of Maggie, and Goer to Camp Cantaloupe,” Helene said, spreading her arms wide, “did you get here?”
The crowd all leaned in again to listen. I told them what I’d told Antonia and Helene, adding a few more details about the Shipwreck Treehouse, and the fall, and my confusion as I’d arrived on the island. “And when I got to my feet,” I finished, “I was standing on that big stump over in the trees. And there was no sign of any way back.”
There were no cheers. No whooping. The whole crew, from shore to shore of the lagoon, was utterly silent.
“Thank you, Abby,” said Helene, her eyes going as bright and sharp as her mother’s. “That was a well-told story, but there is one important detail you appear to have left out: if the trapdoor has been part of that treehouse for as long as you say, how did you and your fri
end manage to be the first to open it?”
There was the question. The tension around the lagoon spiked. I could feel it humming in the air. I adjusted my green eighties headband, wondering if the Italian duchess who’d owned it before ever faced a situation like this.
“Um, that’s sort of a long story,” I said.
“This is sort of a long party. Please tell us.”
I took a deep breath and told them everything. It took me ten full minutes to recap the events of the previous summer. There were audible laughs from the crowd at first as I laid out the basic facts about the pillow fort networks, but that all stopped when I got to the part about Versailles. The idea that there had been kids running in and out of le Petit Salon ever since the room was locked seemed to utterly shock them. And when I told them about the Oak Key hanging beside the door all this time, and how generations of kids had tried it out on the locked door of le Petit Salon from the inside, they all but fell off their floaties.
“So yeah,” I said at last. “That’s what happened last summer. Then this year we brought the key to camp with us and tried it out. And that’s how I ended up here, meeting all of you.” I gave Helene a smile. She didn’t return it. She and the rest of the crew looked like I’d hit each of them in the face with a pie. They were, from one side of the lagoon to the other, entirely and completely agog.
Finally Antonia coughed, and Helene glanced up.
“Protocol!” Antonia whispered.
“Protocol,” said Helene, almost to herself. “Yes.” She gave her head a shake. “All right,” she called. “Did everyone hear Abby’s story?”
“Yes,” replied the crowd.
“And did everyone believe it?”
“Yes . . . ?”
“And does everyone understand exactly what happened?”
There was an outbreak of murmuring and heads ducking together.
“Sort of!” shouted the lady in the T. rex outfit who’d answered Antonia when we arrived.
“That will have to do,” said Helene. “Now, Abby, there is one last thing, which I think will explain why we are all so shocked by your story. My mother tells me you’ve heard the full tale of Captain Emily. You should know that over the years Captain Emily’s last words have become enormously important to this crew and this island. They’ve shaped our traditions and customs since the day we lost her. But we aren’t all in complete agreement over them. My mother, for example, has interpreted Emily’s words to mean someone must stay in the Palace forever, maintaining what remains of the home the first crew built.” She looked over at Antonia. “No matter how much her own family would like her to join them below.”
Antonia shook her floofy-hatted head defiantly from her floaty. “Captain Emily distinctly said, ‘Look after the Palace for me,’ dear. I don’t see how that could be plainer!”
“She also said, ‘Keep the crew safe,’ Mama,” Helene replied. “And it would be easier to keep you safe if you would just let the Palace go and move below!”
“I keep myself safe!” Antonia shouted, her voice echoing over the lagoon. I looked around, expecting the crew to be as uncomfortable as I was with all this family bickering, but the faces I could see looked bored, and kind of annoyed. Apparently this wasn’t the first time the crew had heard this argument.
Helene turned back to me, shaking her head. “Anyway, Abby. In the Island Underneath, we have our own important tradition, this one based around the captain’s ring of keys. Captain Emily gave them to her first mate along with her last words, and the ring of keys has been passed down from first mate to first mate ever since.” She pulled the key ring off her belt.
“I am the current first mate, and these are the keys.” She gave them a jangly shake. “These are the keys to all the doors that were saved and all the doors that sank into the sea. All except one: the one Captain Emily lost. For first mates, and the whole crew of the Island Underneath, finding the final key and putting it alongside the others on this ring has become almost a quest, something we have dreamed of without success for a very, very long time.” The tuba player blew three sad notes. “So what I want to know is this: do you still have the key you call the Oak Key with you, and may we have it back?”
The whole crew sat up very straight on their floaties as the tension rippling in the air went right off the charts.
“Oh, sure,” I said. “It’s no use to me anymore, right?” And that was true, now that the trapdoor at Camp Cantaloupe was open. It wasn’t like the key went to anything else. Ben and some of the other pillow fort kids might want it back for nostalgia’s sake, but it sounded like Helene and the crew were its real, proper owners.
After hundreds of years, the Oak Key was finally coming home.
I reached into my pocket, wrapped my fingers around the cool metal of the key, and pulled it out. Helene held out her hand. I placed it on her palm, and she smiled. It was a sweet smile, full of a sort of little-kid wonder, like I’d just told her she could fly. She looked down. The sun reflecting off the water shimmered across her face.
The smile disappeared.
“Is this . . . a very bad joke?” she said.
I looked down, too, and my breath caught.
The key in Helene’s hand wasn’t silver—it was a dull, dark gray. And it wasn’t carved with oak leaves and a shining sun, it was plain and smooth. It lay there like a dead leech, out of place and wrong, across her half-curled fingers.
This was not the Oak Key. I’d never seen this key before in my life.
Seventeen
Abby
The party had collapsed into chaos.
Helene and Antonia were in a huddle with half a dozen crew members on the beverage raft, all talking at once. The new key was being passed from hand to hand around the lagoon, frantic questions and arguments following in its wake. And Ariadne had somehow managed to invite the other chickens onto her sunflower floaty, which was spinning farther and farther from the shore while the chickens piled on top of each other, trying not to get knocked off.
I was back on my teacup beside Joe, checking my pockets for the thousandth time. Where the cucumber casserole was the Oak Key? And how on earth had I picked up a brand-new one instead?
It was clear that not getting the Oak Key had been a massive disappointment for all the crew, but especially Helene.
I had to try and figure out what happened. What would Maggie do here?
Maggie would tell me to retrace my steps.
First things first, then. I definitely went through the trapdoor with the Oak Key in my pocket. I landed on my back in the dark and freaked out a bit. I pushed on the slats and panels of the sofa. I heard the key fall out and hit the floor. I reached down and found it. . . .
“By my knees!” I said out loud.
“What?” said Joe. The sun was starting to dry him off after his plunge into the water, and wispy little hairs were standing up from his head.
“The key! Sorry, I was just remembering.” Fireworks were going off in my brain. “When I was shoving my way out from under the sofa, I heard the key hit the floor, and it turned up way down by my knees. I figured I’d just kicked it or something, so I stuck it back in my pocket. But what if I picked up that new key instead?”
Joe frowned for a second; then his face lit up. “Oh! I get it! And you think you left the Oak Key there in its place?”
“I must have. And then that means . . . hey, Antonia! Helene!” The mother-daughter pair broke off their conversation on the beverage raft and looked over. “I think I know what happened!” And I told them what I’d told Joe.
Antonia and Helene looked at each other, then back at me.
“You dropped it in le Petit Salon?” said Helene.
“And just happened to find a new one?” said Antonia. “Shouldn’t one of your pillow fort friends have found this other key lying around a long time ago?”
“That’s the best part.” I flapped a hand at them. “Remember how you said Captain Emily was all sad because she lost the Oa
k Key in the sofa cushions? What if King Louis did the same thing with that other key—”
“We’ve named it the Iron Key!” interrupted one of the crew. I realized everyone was leaning in listening again. A lady on an inflatable wine bottle held up the new key and waved.
“Sure, fine, cool,” I said. I had to get my theory out before I forgot it. “So, what if King Louis lost the Iron Key in the sofa cushions too, and when he went looking, he found the Oak Key and was all ‘Whoa!’ and kept it instead because it was cooler looking. And so the Iron Key stayed in the cushions and maybe worked its way into the secret back panel, which didn’t get opened for hundreds of years until I got trapped under the sofa and started kicking and shoving!”
There was a pause while all the floating crew members sorted that out. “So,” Helene said finally, “the key we want is lying under a sofa in Versailles, and the key we have goes to . . . what, exactly?”
“The door to le Petit Salon!” I shouted, so excited I kicked my feet in the water. “The Iron Key is the key to the little room! We found it!”
“You found it,” said Joe. We high-fived. Oh my Samson. Maggie was going to completely freak out over this.
“And what does that mean?” Antonia asked. “Having the key to le Petit Salon?”
“It’s super, super important to the pillow fort kids,” I said. “And to the people who study Versailles. Maggie told me the tour guide they overheard said that’s why no one’s broken down the door or forced their way in. They decided to let the mystery stay a mystery. Only now it’s not a mystery to us! We have the key!”
“But not the key we need,” said Helene, frustration clear in her voice. I blinked. “It’s the Oak Key we want, Abby. We almost had it, but you lost it again. And if the door that led to the sofa is truly destroyed, this time it may be lost forever.”
The bobbing crew all murmured their agreement, and the bartender couple raised their glasses sadly. Ariadne and the chicken tower floated by. Even they seemed serious now.
