The Complete Adventures on Nim’s Island

by Wendy Orr

  For Paula, who believed in Nim W.O.

  For Wendy, and all of the stories we’ve shared K.M.

  LONG AGO, when Nim was a baby, she’d had both a mother and a dad. Then one day, her mother had decided to investigate the contents of a blue whale’s stomach. It was an interesting experiment that no one had done for thousands of years, and Nim’s dad, Jack, said that it would have been all right, it should have been safe – but the Troppo Tourists came to make a film of it, shouting and racing their huge pink-and-purple boat around Nim’s mother and the whale. The whale panicked and dived, so deep that no one ever knew where or when he came back up again.

  Nim’s mother never came back up at all.

  So Jack packed his baby onto his boat and sailed round and round the world – and finally, when the baby had grown into a very little girl, he found the perfect island where he could do his science and Nim could grow, wild and free like the animals they lived with.

  The island had white shell beaches, pale gold sand and tumbled black rocks. It had a fiery mountain with green rainforest on the high slopes and grasslands at the bottom. There was a pool of fresh water to drink, a waterfall to slide down and a hidden hollow where the grasslands met the beach. That’s where Jack built their hut.

  Best of all there was a maze of reef guarding the island from everything but the smallest boats, because Jack and Nim didn’t want the Troppo Tourists or anyone else to find their island. But one day, Jack and his boat got lost in a storm – and Nim’s email friend, Alex Rover, the most famous and cowardly adventure writer in the whole world, came to rescue Nim.

  And then Nim’s most secret wish came true: Jack came floating back, and Alex stayed.

  IN A PALM TREE, on an island, in the middle of the wide blue sea, was a girl.

  Nim’s hair was wild, her eyes were bright, and around her neck she wore three cords. One was for a spyglass, one for a whirly, whistling shell and the other a fat red pocketknife in a sheath.

  With the spyglass at her eye, Nim watched the little red seaplane depart. It sailed out through the reef to the deeper dark ocean, bumping across the waves till it was tossed into the bright blue sky. Then it rose so high and so far it was nothing but a speck, and floated out of sight.

  ‘Alex is gone,’ Nim told Fred.

  Fred stared at the coconuts clustered on the trunk.

  Fred was an iguana, spiky as a dragon, with a cheerful snub nose. He was sitting on Nim’s shoulder, but he cared more about coconuts than he did about saying goodbye. (Marine iguanas don’t eat coconut, but no one had ever told Fred.)

  As Nim threw three ripe coconuts thump into the sand, she remembered Alex saying, ‘I never knew anything could taste better than coffee!’ the first time Nim opened a coconut for her.

  Nim looked down at her father, sitting like a stone on Selkie’s Rock. Jack’s head was bowed and his shoulders slumped. Nim had never seen him look so alone.

  And she knew she’d made a terrible, terrible mistake, worse than anything she’d ever done before.

  THE FIRST MISTAKE was when she answered Alex’s very first email, back when she’d thought that the famous Alex Rover was a man and a Hero like the hero in his books. That had been a good mistake because when Alex ended up on the island, Jack and Nim wanted her never to leave. Sometimes it felt good to be three instead of two.

  But other times Nim wanted Jack just for herself, the way it used to be, and sometimes she wanted Alex just for herself, because Alex was her friend before she was Jack’s. Sometimes, when Alex and Jack told Nim to go to sleep while they talked late in the night, Nim felt left out and more lonely than she’d ever been when they were two.

  And then, this morning, the little red seaplane had arrived with all the things that Alex had asked her editor in the city to send. It was the first time a plane had ever landed on Nim’s island. Nim could see Jack was worried that the pilot would notice how beautiful the island was and would want to come back again and again.

  Whenever Jack was worried, Nim was too. And when Nim was worried, so were Selkie and Fred. (Selkie was a sea lion, and sometimes she forgot that Nim was a girl and not a little sea lion pup to be looked after and whuffled over.) They both stuck close to Nim every time she walked back and forth from the plane to the hut.

  ‘I’ve never seen animals do that before!’ exclaimed the pilot.

  Nim didn’t know what to say, partly because she didn’t know exactly what he hadn’t seen before, and partly because she’d never spoken to anyone except Jack and Alex. She grabbed a crate and opened it up. Inside there were books. Thin books and fat, short books and tall, history books and science, mysteries and fairy tales. Nim didn’t know what to read first.

  ‘Come on,’ said Alex. ‘There’ll be time to read when everything’s off the plane.’

  The pilot pulled out two big solar panels. ‘Great!’ Jack exclaimed, because he wanted them for the new room he planned to add – one especially for Alex to write her books. Jack balanced the panels on his head and walked very slowly and carefully up to the hut.

  ‘Who’s going to take this one?’ the pilot asked, pointing to a crate. Nim stepped forward. But just as she was about to reach for the crate, the pilot handed it to Alex. First Alex stumbled, then she tripped, then crash! the crate fell to the sand with a tinkle of broken glass.

  ‘Oh, no!’ Alex wailed. ‘What have I done?’

  ‘Jack’s test tubes!’ Nim shouted. ‘You should have let me take it!’

  ‘I was trying to help!’

  ‘But I didn’t need help! You just got in the way!’

  ‘I’m always in the way,’ Alex snapped. ‘Maybe you and Jack would be better off without me.’

  ‘Maybe we would!’ Nim shouted, and stomped off without waiting for an answer.

  She’s right! Alex thought. Nim and Jack lived here perfectly happily all those years without anyone else – they don’t really need me. Nim’s been cross with me a lot lately and I’ve never seen Jack so worried. I think … I think I’m changing their lives too much. What if they’ve secretly been wanting their old lives back – and are too nice to say so?

  Alex understood about being afraid to say so. Before she came to the island, she was so afraid of saying anything to anyone that she’d hardly ever left her apartment. She was famous, but only through her books. Her life had changed completely since she flew across the world to find Nim.

  ‘Last one!’ The pilot handed her a large envelope. ‘And, now, time for me to go.’

  Alex opened it and pulled out a letter. ‘Wait! Can I … can I go with you?’

  ‘Sure!’ he said. ‘But don’t you need to pack anything?’

  Alex knew that if she saw Jack or Nim she would never be able to leave, even if it was the right thing to do. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m ready to go.’

  She climbed into the little red seaplane. And was gone.

  NIM SCRAMBLED DOWN from the coconut palm and buried her face in Selkie’s warm neck, because the sea lion loved her no matter how bad Nim was – and the feeling in Nim’s stomach told her this was the very worst thing she’d ever done.

  Jack loved her too, but Nim didn’t know if he still would when he realised it was Nim who had chased Alex away.

  ‘Meet me at the Emergency Cave,’ she told Selkie, because suddenly the sun and sea were much too bright. Only the deepest, darkest cave could match the way she felt inside.

  Selkie gave a disapproving sort of hrumph, and lolloped down to the sea. Nim and Fred headed inland, towards the bottom of Fire Mountain, past the Hissing Stones and across the Black Rocks.

  Scrambling up the boulders was good because it was such hard work Nim couldn’t think about anything else. But when she got to the cave, she remembered: Alex telling her stories when they were trying to sleep on the hard cave floor, Alex watching the sun rise on the very first morning, Alex crying when Nim skinned her knee.

  Nim crawled into the deepest corner of the cave to be as alone as she could possibly be. Sh
e hiccupped and coughed and cried and blew her nose, and dropped her hanky.

  When she was feeling around in the dark for her soggy hanky, she found a map.

  It was the map Alex had drawn when she told one of her stories: a map of an island that was a city with an even bigger city on the land behind. It was as different from Nim’s island as anywhere could be.

  That’s where Alex’s books were published, in a tall, shining building whose top floors were up above the clouds. That’s where Alex’s editor was – the one who’d sent the supply plane that Alex had just left on.

  Nim stuffed the map into her deepest pocket and started crying all over again. She cried so hard that Selkie pulled herself all the way up from the sea to the cave to comfort her. But when Nim wouldn’t stop crying, no matter how much Selkie whuffled and snuffled, Selkie went outside to do tricks to make her laugh. She balanced a rock on her nose, threw it up in the air and off the cliff. She sat up high on her tail and flapped her flippers as if she were trying to fly. She did a handstand on her front flippers. She went through all her tricks over and over and barked at Nim in between to make her stop crying.

  Finally Selkie produced her best trick ever – a handstand right on the edge of the rocks, then a flip into a perfect dive all the way down to the water.

  It was a long way down, and it was a very good trick – but Nim didn’t come out to see.

  And so Nim also didn’t see the giant cruise ship that had come around the point and anchored not far from the cliffs.

  She didn’t see the inflatable motorboat with people snorkelling around it, or the second motorboat chugging quietly out from the other side of the ship. She didn’t see the man watching Selkie do her tricks through his binoculars, lift his rifle and shoot Selkie with a tranquilliser dart.

  She didn’t see him instruct his crew to heave Selkie into his boat and speed away with her to their ship.

  BUT FRED DID.

  Fred had been watching Selkie and hoping she’d do his favourite flipping-a-coconut-high-off-the-cliffs-smash!onto-the-rocks trick. When she did the handstand-dive he ran to the edge of the cliff to see if she’d smashed a coconut on her way down.

  What he saw made Fred forget all about coconuts.

  First he scrambled down, then he scrambled back up. Then he rushed into the cave and headbutted Nim’s leg. When she still didn’t pay attention he climbed onto her shoulder and sneezed his cool salt-water spray in her face.

  ‘Yuck, Fred!’ said Nim, but when Fred scurried to the edge of the cliff, Nim followed.

  The boat was heading back to the ship. Through her spyglass Nim could see Selkie at the bottom of the boat.

  ‘They’ve killed her!’ Nim screamed.

  But then Selkie lifted her head, and Nim saw the men tying ropes and nets around her.

  She had to save her friend fast.

  Fred scrambled to her shoulder and clung on tight. Nim stood on the edge of the cliff. The water was a long way down.

  What if I hit the rocks? Nim thought.

  She jumped, as high and far as she could, and twisted into a dive.

  She hit the water.

  Nim’s lungs were bursting and her ears were hurting. Then she saw the light above her head, and kicked and spluttered her way up to the air.

  The boat was already a long way out, and the waves were strong on this side of the island, but Nim had no choice. She took another deep breath and began to swim.

  JACK SAT ON Selkie’s Rock for a long, long time, staring out at the empty sky. He felt as if half his world had gone up with Alex’s plane, and that he’d been left behind.

  He reread the letter he’d found on the beach: the letter she’d left behind instead of writing a note herself.

  Dear Alex

  I’m glad the materials I organised for the supply ship were useful; I hope these things will all be, too. I guess that new cabin must be just about finished by now, and you’ve all got clothes to wear again. It was quite amusing to read about your banana-leaf dress in your first email!

  Your apartment and furniture have been sold, as you instructed. I’m enclosing all the paperwork. However, just in case you change your mind about staying on that little island for ever, I’m also enclosing your new passport and credit card to replace the ones you lost.

  Now, please find enclosed the reason I’ve been so busy: the first copy of your new book. I am very proud to be the editor of this book: I think it’s wonderful, and we’re going all out to make sure it’ll be your bestseller ever.

  Please let me know if there’s anything else I can do.

  Yours,

  Delia Defoe

  ‘Why would she …?’ said Jack. But no matter how many times he read the letter, it still didn’t explain why Alex had gone.

  ‘Could she have changed her mind about selling her apartment?’ he asked the sea. ‘Did she suddenly want to go and be famous? And why couldn’t she tell me?’

  But the sea didn’t answer, and it didn’t matter what Jack wondered, because Alex was gone – and soon he’d have to tell Nim, which would be almost worse than knowing it himself.

  Jack was certain he knew exactly where Nim was. He’d seen her face when she’d opened that big crate of books: she’d be lying somewhere, her head on Selkie’s back and Fred curled on her stomach, lost in a story, not even realising that everything had changed.

  ALEX SAT IN the passenger seat of the seaplane, too frozen with sadness to even be afraid. She looked back at the gold sand of Turtle Beach, the black Sea Lion Rocks, the palm tree Nim always climbed and the shack they’d just built, and she wondered if she was making a terrible mistake.

  Then she thought about what Nim had said, and knew she cared too much about her friends to stay if Nim didn’t want her.

  FRED JUMPED OFF Nim’s shoulder when they hit the water, but he only stayed under long enough to grab one big mouthful of seaweed before popping out beside her.

  Selkie was part of Fred’s life, and Fred wanted her back.

  They were both swimming as fast as they could, straight out to sea, but the boat was pulling away faster. Nim’s heart was pounding; it hurt when she breathed and she was swallowing water faster than she could spit it out.

  I … huff … can’t … go … huff … fast enough! she thought. She rolled onto her back. Fred kept on gliding under the water just beside her.

  When Nim had caught her breath and rolled over again, the cruise ship was getting closer – but the motorboat with Selkie and the seal-nappers had disappeared.

  It can’t have gone! Nim thought. It must be on the other side of the ship.

  That was when she saw the huge pink-and-purple name on the ship’s bow: THE TROPPO TOURIST.

  The company that Nim and Jack hated more than anything in the world.

  Nim tried to swim faster, but it didn’t take long before she was gasping and swallowing water again. She rolled to her back again; her arms whirred, her legs kicked … and her head knocked hard against a rubber boat.

  Hands grabbed her arms. A man and a woman, with horrified faces and matching pink-and-purple T-shirts, stared down at her.

  ‘Fred!’ screamed Nim.

  Fred scrabbled to her shoulder and they were hauled into an inflatable motorboat like the one that had sealnapped Selkie.

  ‘You said you’d counted!’ shouted the woman whose T-shirt said I’M KYLIE.

  ‘I did!’ The man named Kelvin answered. ‘There were fifteen kids in that snorkelling group and we took fifteen back. I think.’

  ‘If you’d counted,’ Kylie insisted, ‘we wouldn’t be fishing this poor kid out of the water just before the ship is set to sail!’

  ‘Maybe she’s a castaway from that deserted island. We’ve found Kid Crusoe!’

  ‘You’re not funny,’ Kylie snapped.

  Nim didn’t have enough breath to say her name was Nim Rusoe, not Kid Crusoe.

  ‘Where were you heading to, kid?’

  ‘To the boat,’ Nim whispered.

/>   She still couldn’t see the other little boat. All she could see was the cruise ship: its white length stretching for ever in front of her, and its towering decks reaching to the sky.

  It was the only place Selkie’s boat could have come from, and the only place it could have gone. If Nim was going to rescue Selkie, she had to get on this ship.

  Fred sneezed.

  ‘What is that?’ Kelvin demanded.

  ‘I don’t care what it is – throw it back!’

  Fred clung tight to Nim and glared his fiercest dragon glare. ‘He’s my friend!’ Nim shouted.

  ‘If you say so,’ Kelvin grinned. He didn’t look as if he really wanted to touch Fred anyway.

  ‘She’s delirious.’

  ‘We’d better let her keep it.’

  ‘Where’s your snorkel, honey?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Nim.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Kylie, with a big phoney smile. ‘We won’t tell anyone you lost a valuable snorkel if you don’t tell anyone you nearly missed the boat.’

  ‘Great idea!’ said Kelvin. ‘Look, kid, we don’t want to get you into trouble. Your parents would be pretty mad if they found out you hadn’t stayed with the other kids the way you were supposed to.’

  ‘You’d probably be grounded all the way to New York City!’

  ‘Stuck in your cabin for six whole days – you wouldn’t like that, would you?’

  Nim felt as if her head was going to explode. ‘Where’s Selkie?’ she shouted.

  ‘Who’s Selkie?’

  ‘We haven’t lost another kid, have we?’

  ‘She’s a …’ But Nim stopped just before she said ‘sea lion’. She remembered the part in Alex’s book when the Hero tricked the Bad Guys out of kidnapping him because they thought he was crazy.

  ‘… a mermaid,’ said Nim.

  ‘She’s had too much sun!’

  ‘Too long in the water!’

  ‘Wrap her up – grab that jacket.’

  Kelvin dropped a pink-and-purple Troppo jacket over Nim and Fred. He still didn’t seem to want to touch Fred.