Sentinels in the Deep Ocean

by StacyPlays

  If the ocean heals Pearl . . . she’ll have to stay here. And her pack members will want to stay with her. Could we move here? Leave the taiga? It’s always been my home, but for as long as I can remember, the villagers have been trying to force me out of it. First, they came and hunted the wolves, then there was the construction company that attempted to demolish it. Now the wolf researchers are constantly poking around for new subjects to study . . . not to mention the steady flow of hikers and campers . . . and the forest fire that almost destroyed everything. What if we moved here? Page and Molly seem to love it. But what about Milquetoast and Pipsqueak? I can’t imagine a cat living on a beach. And what if Addison and Tucker don’t like it here? And what about Miriam and her offer to send me to school . . . and Dr. Kay and the hospital bill I need to work off . . . and Ezra and the animal shelter I can volunteer at?

  Stacy realized she was staring at something in the distance, bobbing on the ocean’s surface. What is that? Whatever it was, it sank under the water briefly and then, a moment later, resurfaced. Stacy jumped up. Is it an animal? She squinted—the morning sun was reflecting off the water, making it impossible for Stacy to know for sure. Something didn’t feel right to Stacy about the way it jerked around helplessly in the water.

  “I’m pretty sure it’s an animal,” Stacy said to Page and Molly as she lifted her satchel’s strap above her head, flung it to the ground, and started running into the surf. “And I think it’s in trouble!”

  Eleven

  STACY GASPED WHEN the cold water slapped up against her legs as she ran into the waves. A shiver started up her body, but before it could reach her waist, Stacy dove into a coming wave, soaking her entire body. She came up for a gulp of air and then began swimming as quickly as she could toward the animal.

  I should have known I’d find an animal to rescue here at the beach. . . . I seem to find one no matter where I go.

  She swam for a minute or two and then glanced behind her as she continued to paddle. She could see Page and Molly far in the distance, looking nervously at her from the beach. Stacy hadn’t meant to go out this far into the ocean, but the animal kept swimming farther away—it was obviously weak and being pushed out with the current. Stacy stuck her head down in the water and swam as fast as she could for the length of another breath. She blew bubbles out through her nose and paddled vigorously until she needed to come up for more air. When she broke through the water, she saw that she was an arm’s length away from her rescue target, but that the animal she’d seen from the beach wasn’t an animal at all. It was a tangle of trash. Just some aluminum cans, plastic bags, and candy wrappers—all held together by a twisted knot of twine and seaweed.

  Trash? Why would there be a bunch of trash floating in the ocean? Stacy reached her arms out and turned the garbage over in the water, examining it. The campers up the shore! Stacy was so angry. I swam all the way out here for nothing? Just to . . . to rescue a pile of litter! She calmed herself by thinking about how it was actually a very good thing that there wasn’t an animal who needed rescuing, but she was still upset about it. And exhausted too. In fact, Stacy was so tired from the swim out that even treading water was proving difficult for her. Stacy looked back at the beach where Page and Molly were. They were just tiny specks on the sand now. She was so far out in the ocean! Stacy swallowed the little lump of panic that bubbled up inside of her. It’s fine. I’ll just swim back to shore now. Stacy began paddling back toward the coast, but no matter how hard she swam, she kept getting pushed farther and farther out to sea. What’s happening? Am I just too tired? Stacy’s legs and arms ached, but she kept swimming, determined to get back to Page and Molly. Another minute passed and Stacy looked up to see she wasn’t any closer. She stopped swimming and decided to tread water for a bit to regain some energy before swimming again. But even dog-paddling was too hard for her now. The water was pushing her backward. I think I’m in a rip current! Suddenly, Stacy’s arms gave out from exertion, and she dipped below the surface, completely submerged for a moment before bobbing up again and gasping for air. Both her throat and nose burned from swallowing salt water.

  “Help!” Stacy managed to shout, but she realized there was no one around to hear her. She slipped under the water again, this time for several seconds more than the first. I . . . I think I’m drowning. Everest! Everest, can you hear me? Stacy managed to come up for air again, splashing wildly—unable to see which direction the beach was anymore. Everything around her was blue.

  “Page!” Stacy managed to sputter. “Page, get Noa-bluhhbluhh!”

  Stacy sank under the water once more. She wasn’t sure if she would be able to swim back up to the surface for air this time. Everest might still be asleep and unable to hear my thoughts. I should never have come out here without my wolves. I didn’t know the ocean was so strong.

  Stacy forced her eyes open under the water. It stung briefly, but then she could see around her. She could see the ripples of the rip current she was fighting, and how it was pushing her away from the land. Out of the corner of her eye, she also saw a familiar white shape speeding toward her under the waves. Noah!

  Stacy reached out and grabbed onto Noah’s back, and he pulled her up to the surface. She took a huge breath of air and tightened her grip around the wolf’s neck.

  “Noah!” Stacy gasped. She was so relieved Page had been able to get Noah to save her. But no sooner had Stacy taken another deep breath in than a large wave came and crashed over them both, sending them tumbling underwater. Stacy was pushed and pulled by the water just like the pile of trash had been, completely powerless to the churning of the ocean. She looked over to Noah, whose face had an unfamiliar expression of panic on it. Noah swam toward Stacy, and she grabbed hold of his fur once again as he fought in vain against the current before relenting and allowing it to push them back again.

  Stacy had never seen Noah like this in the water. It appeared—even though he was the best swimmer of the pack and could hold his breath for as long as he wanted—he was no match for the sheer power of the ocean. Still, Noah continued to paddle as hard as he could, desperate to save Stacy.

  Stacy couldn’t believe how foolish she had been. She did not have a backup plan. Noah had been her only hope. And if he couldn’t save her in these waters, Stacy was sure that Everest, Basil, or Wink wouldn’t be able to either. Their best chance of survival would be letting the current take them wherever it wanted to—and hoping they were lucky enough to wash up on the beach somewhere, instead of being carried farther out to sea . . . or down to the bottom of the ocean.

  Suddenly, Stacy looked up and saw a graceful white figure jumping effortlessly over the rip current and diving below them. Was that? It couldn’t be . . . Pearl?! Stacy looked down in the water as Pearl zoomed around underneath them until she popped up directly between Stacy and Noah. Stacy blinked several times to make sure she hadn’t just swallowed too much salt water and her eyes were playing tricks on her.

  Pearl looked like a completely different wolf. Her fur was longer and wavy and flowed around her beautifully in the water. And the way she glided through the ocean was so different from how Noah swam. She used her hind legs and tail together as one powerful muscle to propel her through the water like a fish, or a dolphin, or . . . a mermaid! Pearl gave Stacy and Noah a salty lick on the face and then shook the excess water from her head. Stacy and Noah exchanged puzzled looks with each other but shrugged and held on to either side of Pearl as the graceful wolf swam them down-current through the riptide and over to the beach where all the other wolves and Page and Molly were anxiously waiting. As they approached the shore, Pearl caught a wave and rode it onto the beach, with Stacy and Noah clinging to either side of her. Pearl made the transition from swimming in the water to running on the sand with delicate ease, leaving Stacy and Noah sprawled out on the beach on their bellies, panting heavily.

  “Pearl is . . . amazing,” Stacy managed between breaths. “Did you all see her? She saved us.” Stacy looked arou
nd at the others—Everest, Basil, Wink, Ribsy, Paisley, and Atlas—and saw that they all had different reactions to Pearl’s transformation, ranging from astonished to impressed to downright disbelieving. Page and Molly ran over to Stacy and Noah to make sure they were all right. Stacy comforted them.

  “I’m okay, I’m okay,” Stacy said, gently stroking Page and Molly on the head and taking back her satchel from where it was hanging around Page’s neck. “Page, you saved the day in alerting Noah. And then Pearl saved both of us—well, me at least—from drowning.”

  Stacy took a minute before she could get up, but eventually she stood and wrung out her wet hair. Everest walked over, carrying Stacy’s pair of boots and her flannel shirt in his mouth.

  “Thanks, boy,” Stacy said, taking the boots and the shirt from Everest’s jaw and putting them on. Her cutoff shorts and tank top were still soaked, but the flannel provided some warmth against her freezing skin.

  Stacy walked over to where Pearl was standing. Stacy couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Pearl looked one hundred percent better. Stacy surveyed their surroundings. The rip current had pushed them much farther south than where she’d started from, and they were on a completely different part of the beach now, probably almost a mile from the cove where they’d spent the previous night. This part of the beach was rockier and looked like it would be completely underwater when the tide came in. Stacy wasn’t sure what their plans were for the rest of the day now that Pearl was feeling better, but she knew that she and Noah needed to rest and that this probably wasn’t a safe spot to do so. She was just about to suggest they all head back to the cove when something on the beach caught her eye.

  “Oh wow,” she gasped. “I . . . I don’t believe it!”

  Stacy was looking at something up the beach when, suddenly, a loud male voice boomed behind them in the ocean.

  “Over there! On the beach! What are those?”

  Twelve

  STACY, PAGE, AND Molly dove behind a large boulder to hide while Everest camouflaged himself and the other wolves—taking on the various shades of grays and blues of the rocks on the ground. Stacy peeked around the boulder to see two kayakers paddling in the ocean exactly where she herself had been just minutes before.

  “I saw something right here,” said the villager in a red kayak. “A big group of wolves or something.”

  “Wolves?” asked the villager in the green kayak skeptically. “I don’t see any wolves.”

  “Okay then, dogs maybe,” the red kayaker replied.

  “Don’t see any dogs either.”

  Stacy ducked back down behind the boulder as the villagers paddled toward the rocks for a closer look. Her heart was beating so loud she worried the kayakers would hear it and get out of their boats to investigate. She had made the mistake of thinking her pack would be safe this far south of the beach campground. She had forgotten all the different ways people could still get close to them in the water, like catamarans, canoes, and kayaks.

  “They were here just a second ago,” the red kayaker said. Stacy could hear their voices much clearer now, which meant they were extremely close.

  “How would a group of dogs even get here?” the green kayaker countered. “They must have been birds; what did they look like?”

  The villagers continued their back-and-forth about what birds Stacy’s wolves might have been, with the villager in the green kayak naming large white species like pelicans, herons, and cranes while the villager in the red kayak continued to insist he had seen dogs, not birds.

  Stacy was relieved when their voices began to trail off as they paddled away, and Everest and the other wolves reappeared in front of her. She let out a big sigh of relief and instantly remembered what she had been so excited about just moments ago. She scrambled across the rocky beach to the opening of a small sea cave.

  “Look!” she shouted to her wolves.

  Poking out of the sea cave, just far enough for Stacy to spot it, was a dilapidated sailboat—broken, rusty, and complete with a tattered sail. Is this boat irreparably broken, or could it still sail?

  Stacy and her pack clambered over the rocky shore to get closer to the cave. Three other thoughts ran through Stacy’s mind. The first and most practical thought was that Stacy had just found her pack shelter for the night. They could sleep in the boat, and then they’d be safe even when the tide came in. This would probably be a safer place to spend the night than in the cove. Stacy hadn’t realized how exposed they had been to villagers like the kayakers.

  Stacy’s second thought was a bit more complicated. If Pearl needs to live near the ocean, I might have just found Atlas, Ribsy, and Paisley their new home. We could fix it up for them just like we fixed up our cave back in the taiga, and they could all live here with her. Stacy imagined using her pickaxe to mine a ledge in the back of the cave where Ribsy, Atlas, and Paisley could sleep when the tide came in. She could use the wolf saddlebag to have Wink carry in bags of the cove’s soft sand that she could pour down for the wolves to sleep on. And she envisioned making a curtain out of seaweed and kelp that they could hide behind if anyone tried to explore the cave. What a fun project!

  Stacy’s third (and a bit crazy if she was being honest with herself) thought lingered in the back of her mind and was more complicated still. If I could repair the boat, then maybe we would be able to learn how to sail it. And if that happened . . . then we could go anywhere! We could sail north toward the taiga and the tundra. Maybe we could even find the Arctic explorer!

  Everest barked, which Stacy took as a gentle warning to not get too ahead of herself. The group waded into the sea cave to where the boat was swaying back and forth in about a foot of water. There was a large crack in its hull from jostling on the rocks in the cave—that would need to be repaired. Stacy ran her fingers along the crack. I bet we could find some natural materials here on the beach to fix this. Next, Stacy climbed onto Basil’s back and then grabbed on to the boat and pulled herself up onto its small deck. Stacy turned to see Atlas jump aboard the boat in a single, swift leap. Stacy was pretty sure none of her wolves could jump that high. While the others waited down in the water, exploring the sea cave, Stacy and Atlas took stock of the wooden sailboat. The deck was weathered and worn, but it was otherwise in working condition. The sail was mildewy and ripped. Stacy walked toward the boat’s helm and put her hand on the wooden steering wheel. The boat isn’t in bad shape! We probably could fix it up and use it! I don’t know anything about sailing, but how hard could it be? Stacy opened the door to a stairway that descended into a tiny cabin. There was a wooden table and bench built into the boat’s wall, a small kitchen area with a few cupboards and drawers, as well as a low platform with a few cushions on it—also mildewy. Above the platform was a round porthole, big enough for Stacy to climb and sit in. How cool would it be to have a boat! I wonder if we could sail all the way up to the Arctic? Stacy collected what she could find from the cupboards and drawers and laid it on the big wooden table for herself and Atlas to examine: a soggy map, an emergency flare, a cooking pot, a yellow rain jacket, a red-and-white-striped life preserver, two orange life jackets, a box of nails, and a pair of swimming goggles.

  Stacy brought the soggy map upstairs with her to the deck and found that a few of her wolves had made their way onto the boat as well. Everest was sniffing around while Wink was tangled up in the sail. Stacy laid the wet map out on the wooden planks of the deck’s floor and inspected it. She instantly recognized that the map’s topography was of this region. She saw the beach campground, the rocky point, the small inlet where the cove was, the stone beach she was on now, and then she could also see farther out into the ocean to the east. There looked to be a cluster of tiny islands a few miles out to sea.

  “There,” Stacy said, pointing to the islands. “We could sail to there.”

  Atlas nodded and studied the map as if he were committing it to memory. Meanwhile, Everest bristled at Stacy’s suggestion. He shot Stacy a concerned look.

&n
bsp; Everest. You saw how close those kayakers came to spotting us just then. In fact, they did spot us. What if you hadn’t been here to camouflage Pearl and the others? She needs to stay near the ocean, but it’s too risky for her and the rest of the mesa pack to live at the beach. Even if they lived in this cave, there’s no guarantee that people won’t find them eventually. An island, though? That would be perfect. They’ll have everything they need to live on an island. Paisley can grow food and Ribsy knows how to fish. We can come back and visit them whenever we want! We just need to get this boat fixed up so we can sail there and back.

  Stacy hopped down off the boat and walked over to where everyone else was hanging out in the back of the sea cave. Atlas, Everest, and Wink followed her. She explained to Noah and Basil what she had been discussing with Everest. And then Everest came over and translated what she had said to the other members of the mesa pack. Stacy looked around the group—one by one, their tails began to wag until everyone was wagging their tails and pawing at the ground in eager excitement.

  “Okay, so we’re all in agreement then,” Stacy said, turning back to face the rickety vessel. “We’ve got a boat to fix!”

  Thirteen

  STACY AND HER wolves wasted no time in beginning to repair the abandoned sailboat. The first thing they needed to do was to prop the boat up to keep it from rocking as ocean water sloshed around the rocks of the cave. Everest and Atlas dragged huge driftwood logs over as Wink positioned himself under the boat to lift it with his back. Wink lifted each side of the boat just long enough for Everest and Atlas to push the driftwood under the boat. They worked quickly, and the boat was soon stabilized. Stacy had them bring another driftwood log over to lean up against the boat. Using her knife, she carved horizontal notches into the wood about a foot apart from each other so that she (and Page and Molly) would be able to quickly climb up onto the deck of the boat and back down to the cave floor.