Chapter Three
“Perhaps we should take a peek at this human?” wondered Amber. “Is it far, Orlando?”
“Just on the other side of this snowy bank that sticks out into the water,” replied the milk-white owl. “You-hoo could swim around there and see if this human has anything to do with Mantora’s clue-hoo.”
“No way!” said Poppy. “My mom says the humans spoil the sea and everything that Mother Nature made. I’m not going anywhere near a human and that’s that!”
“You’ll have to, if the rest of us think we should,” said Jess hotly.
“Let’s not fight,” pleaded sensitive Becky. It made her sad to see her friends argue. “Amber, you’re always so sensible. What do you think we should do?”
Amber looked worried. “I think we’re going to have to do lots of strange new things while we’re looking for the snow diamonds,” she replied. “Let’s start by taking a look at this human, to find out what is going on. Thank you, Orlando, and good-bye!”
The owls slowly flew away into the distance. Amber slipped from the snow into the cold blue sea, with a ripple of her lilac tail. Then she beckoned her friends to follow her as she swam around the gleaming white tip of the ice. When she reached the other side, Amber glanced cautiously toward the open stretch of wide, smooth ice.
Huddled on the ice, sitting in a sad heap a few feet from the water’s edge, was the human.
“But it’s only a little girl!” exclaimed Amber softly to her friends as she bobbed up and down in the waves. “She’s not much older than we are.”
“And she seems so unhappy,” whispered tenderhearted Megan.
The little girl was hunched next to a round hole in the ice. She was looking away from the mermaids, but they could see that she wore a soft, thick coat and a snug fur collar to keep her warm. The girl had silky black hair, and her dark eyes were wet with tears.
“I’m going to try and talk to her,” said Amber boldly. “Besides, it’s only the grown-up humans we mermaids have to hide from. Princess Arctica once told me that the human children love the sea and its creatures almost as much as we do. I’m sure this girl will help us.”
“Or more likely we’ll have to help her,” muttered Poppy under her breath.
Amber swam quickly over to the ice edge and Jess, Becky, Katie, and Megan darted along behind her. Poppy followed sulkily. Soon, all the mermaids had pulled themselves expertly from the waves onto the flat, smooth ice.
“Excuse me,” called Amber in a low voice. “What is your name?”
As Amber spoke to the human child, she heard her stardust locket tinkle softly, like an icy bell. The locket’s magical powers allowed all creatures near it to understand each other’s language. Then, the girl whipped around to see who was speaking to her.
“Merfolk!” she gasped, hurriedly wiping the tears from her eyes. “Can it really be true? I was wishing for something magical to happen, and it did!” She looked around excitedly at the mermaids, and her face glowed with delight. “My name is Ana, and I’ve always wanted to meet the Sisters of the Sea. My grandmother once told me that you live deep under the icy waters. But I can hardly believe that you’re real!”
“I promise you that we are,” replied Amber politely. “What were you wishing for?”
Ana’s face fell again. All her joy at meeting the mermaids seemed to drain away.
“I was wishing for a miracle to help my friend Benjy,” she said sadly. “These blocks of ice have moved on the tides of the sea and have trapped him on all sides. Benjy is stuck in a little pocket of cold water under here.” The unhappy girl gazed gloomily into the hole in the ice. “He comes up to this hole to breathe, but he is getting weaker every day.”
“Is Benjy another … like you … I mean, is he a human?” stammered Becky shyly.
“No!” said Ana. “If he were one of the Inuit, my father would help him. But Benjy is a baby beluga, one of the small whales who live in the northern seas. My father says the movement of the ice, which has caught him and his kinsfolk, is Mother Nature’s way and we cannot interfere.” She began to cry softly, hiding her face in her furry sleeve.
Amber looked at Ana with a concerned expression. “Is there anything we can do to help?” she asked gently.
“Oh no, I don’t think there is,” said Poppy quickly. “If you haven’t forgotten, Amber, we’re supposed to be on a very urgent mission. Don’t forget that Princess Arctica is trapped as well. I think we should concentrate on rescuing her and the diamonds, instead of getting distracted by a human. And we’ve got more important things to worry about than one young beluga.”
“Poppy!” said Megan. “That’s not very nice.”
“Well, it’s true,” said Poppy, turning up her nose and tossing her bright curls defiantly.
“Yes, it is true, in a way,” replied Amber, looking serious and thoughtful. “We can’t stop thinking about how to solve the first clue. But our stardust lockets tell us that all the creatures of Ice Kingdom are important.”
“And the heart on Megan’s locket is perhaps more important than anything,” said Becky softly.
“Yes,” agreed Amber. “Ana loves her friend Benjy, and I think Princess Arctica would want us to help. What do the rest of you think?” She glanced at each of her friends in turn.
“You’re right, Amber,” declared Jess. “Anyway, we’re stumped on the clue for the moment. Maybe we’ll get some inspiration while we’re helping Benjy.”
“Oh, will you really help?” breathed Ana, sitting up and brushing away her tears. “I’d be so grateful!”
“Of course we want to help,” said Katie. “Agreed, Poppy?”
“Oh, all right, I suppose,” muttered Poppy reluctantly. “Agreed.”
“That’s settled then,” said Amber. “We all want to rescue Benjy. The question is—how?”
Chapter Four
At that moment, Ana’s face lit up and she cried, “Look, Benjy is here!”
A smooth gray face poked shyly above the little hole in the ice. It was a baby beluga whale, who looked very hungry. Ana stroked his cheek and kissed his nose.
“Ana has asked us to help you and your family, Benjy,” explained Amber.
“Thank you, Sisters of the Sea,” said Benjy faintly, looking up at the mermaids sitting on the frosty snow. “We are getting weak, stuck in this narrow pool and trapped by the ice.”
“If Benjy and the other whales don’t get out to their feeding grounds very soon, they will starve,” added Ana, her eyes dark with worry.
“But what are we going to do, Amber?” whispered Jess urgently. “We can’t just lift the whales out of the hole and drag them over the ice to the sea!”
“I’m not sure what to do yet,” Amber confessed. “But this breathing hole is close to the ice edge, so the whales are trapped very near to the open sea. The wall of ice blocking them in can’t be very thick. What if we found some way of cutting through it?”
“That’s a good idea,” said Megan. “Then the whales could swim through the opening we made and be free again.”
“So what could we use to cut the ice?” wondered Becky.
“I’ve got something that might help,” suggested Ana. “Look—my own little knife that my father carved for me.” She proudly pulled a small, shining blade from a soft bag at her side.
“Thank you, Ana,” said Amber gratefully. “We’ll try that.”
With a flick of their spangled tails, the mermaids dived into the turquoise waves that lapped against the ice edge. Then they sank under the surface and looked around carefully. On one side of them, the deep, cold sea stretched away into the distance. On the other, a great wall of ice shone with glints of blue and purple and green.
“Benjy and the others must be stuck behind here,” said practical-minded Jess. “The ice has trapped them on all sides—above, around, and below. Let’s get to work to make them an escape tunnel!”
Amber and her friends took turns chipping away at the smooth cliff of
ice with Ana’s little knife. Glittering splinters broke off, but it was slow work. The mermaids’ arms started to ache, and they still hadn’t made much progress.
“This is useless,” said Poppy impatiently. “It will take us forever to make a tunnel.”
“Have you got any better ideas, Poppy?” asked Katie.
“Yes, I have actually,” replied Poppy, with a confident flourish of her sparkly blue tail. “We need something much bigger than this little baby knife. We need something huge, like a battering ram, which will smash this ice to pieces!”
“But we don’t have anything like that,” Amber protested.
Poppy suddenly twisted her tail and did a dazzling somersault in the water.
“That’s where you’re wrong, Amber.” She laughed. “We do have something really huge. Look behind you!”
All the mermaids turned around and gasped. Gliding near them in the underwater depths was a large, mottled narwhal. The strange-looking creature was a special kind of whale, with a strong, straight tusk that stuck out from his head like a spear.
“His long tusk would be perfect for breaking the ice,” said Amber excitedly. “Good eye, Poppy.”
“I said it was a good idea, didn’t I?” replied Poppy with a grin.
Amber quickly swam over to the narwhal to explain what was needed.
“Belugas trapped in the ice?” he said in a gruff voice, solemnly wagging his tusk up and down. “I don’t mind stopping for a moment. I’ll soon smash a hole in that ice. My tusk is the strongest in the whole of Ice Kingdom, or my name isn’t Magnus!”
“But you will be careful not to hurt the whales trapped behind the wall of ice, won’t you?” asked Megan anxiously.
“Of course, of course,” replied Magnus. “Just watch me!”
Magnus squared up to the sheer wall of ice and charged toward it with a surge of his powerful tail. CRASH! His tusk rammed straight into the ice, leaving a long, deep crack.
“That’s it!” shouted the mermaids. “You’re doing it, Magnus!”
Again and again, the powerful narwhal pounded against the wall of ice with his tusk, grunting with the effort. At last, a narrow tunnel began to open up, reaching almost all the way to where Benjy and his family were imprisoned. Strange, mournful noises echoed eerily down the tunnel.
“What’s that spooky sound?” asked Katie, looking around and shivering.
“It’s the beluga whales calling to each other, on the other side of this ice,” puffed Magnus. “They can hear us, and they know we are trying to rescue them.”
“And now there’s only a thin block of ice separating us from the whales,” said Amber hopefully. “If you charge it with your tusk one last time, Magnus, I think the whales will be able to swim out into the tunnel.”
The mermaids put their hands on Magnus’s broad shoulders to give him an extra push.
“One, two, three—Mermaid S.O.S.!” they cried, and with one huge heave the last chunk of ice cracked into a thousand shattered pieces.
“Oh, thank you, Magnus,” said Amber as they all wriggled out of the tunnel to make way for the beluga whales.
“Anytime you want something shifted, just call for Magnus,” said the narwhal, waggling his tusk one last time. “My folk will always be happy to help the Sisters of the Sea. Good-bye!”
The mermaids waved gratefully to Magnus as he glided away. Then they waited anxiously for the whales to swim down the icy tunnel to freedom. First came Ana’s friend Benjy, shining silver-gray in the water.
“And here are my mom and dad and aunts and uncles,” he cried weakly. “You have rescued my whole family!”
Slowly, the thin and tired adult whales began to head out of their prison. But as they did so, the young mermaids got an unexpected surprise. The smooth skin of the fully grown beluga whales wasn’t gray like Benjy’s. Instead, it gleamed like pure, pearly-white snow.
As the white whales floated slowly out of the tunnel making their haunting cries, the young mermaids turned to each other and exclaimed, “The ‘white ghosts’! We’ve found them!”
Chapter Five
Amber and her friends swam through the cold, clear water after Benjy, the baby whale. He was bravely making his way to the overwater world, where Ana was waiting for him at the ice edge. The little girl greeted Benjy with delight, then looked at the mermaids bobbing up and down in the sparkling waves.
“You have saved his life,” Ana said gratefully.
“Not only that,” replied Jess. “We’ve found the meaning of the first clue!”
“You see, Ana,” explained Amber, “we need to save even more than your friend Benjy. An evil mermaid, Mantora, has stolen the snow diamonds that keep everything cool and frosty. If we don’t get them back soon, Ice Kingdom will melt.”
“That would be terrible,” cried Ana. “If everything warms up, our home will be destroyed, and the whole world will be changed forever!”
All the mermaids shuddered. It was too horrible to imagine.
“Our only hope of finding the snow diamonds is to solve Mantora’s fiendish clues,” said Katie. “She thinks it’s fun to taunt us with hints about where the diamonds really are.”
“Mantora thinks we can’t find them, but we’re going to prove her wrong,” added Poppy with a stubborn tilt of her chin.
“And now we’re sure that the white ghosts in the clue are the beluga whales,” said Becky, gently swirling her peach-colored tail in the water. “So we need to ask Benjy and his family if they have seen the diamond.”
The graceful white whales slowly circled the young friends in the fresh, cool waves, enjoying their new freedom.
“Ask us anything you want, mermaids,” they called in their echoing voices. “We want to repay you for rescuing us.”
“Have you seen Mantora?” Jess asked eagerly.
“We haven’t seen her,” piped Benjy, “but we’ve heard her!”
“What do you mean, Benjy?” said Amber, turning to the friendly baby whale with a smile. “Please tell us everything you heard.”
“It was just before Ana came to see me today at the ice hole,” said Benjy. “We were all swimming sadly in our little prison under the ice. Then we heard a strange sound above us. It came from the overwater world. But it wasn’t Ana’s gentle voice—it was horrible, sneering laughter. Then I heard someone boasting about ‘Mantora’s riddling rhymes’ …”
“That was Mantora all right! What happened next?” urged Poppy.
“Something dropped into the ice hole,” Benjy continued. “I thought it might be food, but it was like a sharp stone. It grazed my cheek—look! Then it sank to the bottom of the cave and slipped down a crack in the ice.” Benjy’s mother and father and the other belugas murmured in agreement.
“That sharp stone must have been the snow diamond,” said Amber hurriedly.
“And don’t you remember that the clue said something about ‘digging deep’?” added Becky. “The diamond must be hidden deep at the bottom of that crack.”
“Come on, everyone, back through the tunnel into the cave,” cried Poppy. “I bet I’ll see the diamond first!”
Amber dived back under the waves with a flash of her shining lilac tail. The others leaped after her like a bright rainbow. Now they really did have a chance of finding the first diamond! The mermaids’ hearts were beating wildly with hope and excitement. They streamed down the underwater tunnel and into the icy cave, where the belugas had been trapped.
“There are cracks in the floor if you search closely,” said Katie, looking through the water at the frozen layers beneath them. “But which one contains the diamond?”
Amber darted down toward a shadowy nook in a dark corner of the cave.
“I thought I saw something twinkling down here!” she declared. The others gathered next to her, as Amber tried to peer into a deep, jagged crack in the ice.
“It’s too dark,” she said. “I can’t see anything. We need a light … oh!”
She lifted up her wrist a
nd stared at her bracelet in astonishment. Her silvery stardust locket, which was in the shape of a graceful fish, had started to glow.
“Look!” Megan said. “All our stardust lockets are glowing, just when we needed some light to help us. Princess Arctica said they had magical powers, and she was right!”
The mermaids gratefully held their lockets up like gleaming lanterns, as rays of golden light poured out around them.
“I can see much better now, thanks to our stardust lockets,” said Amber, peering down the deep crack. “Wait, there really is something sparkly down there … or is it just a splinter of glittery ice?”
The others hovered over the crack and tried to take a look as well.
“If only your locket could shine a little bit brighter, Amber,” they murmured.
At that moment, Amber’s stardust locket twirled around on her bracelet, shooting out bright silver sparks that lit up the deep crack like a firework.
“That’s amazing!” cried Amber. “Now I can see all the way to the bottom of the crack. And I can see the diamond!”
Chapter Six
The mermaids hugged each other tightly. They had solved the clue and found the first snow diamond. All they had to do now was put it away safely in Amber’s stardust locket.
“Oh, pick it up, Amber,” urged her friends.
Amber tried to slip her arm into the crack in the ice. But the jagged opening was too narrow for her to reach down all the way to where the diamond was lodged.
“I can’t get to it,” she gasped in dismay. “Becky, you have smaller hands—can you reach it?”
But even Becky’s dainty fingers couldn’t grasp the tantalizing snow diamond.
“Let’s just ask Magnus to come and smash this ice with his tusk,” suggested Jess. “Then we’ll reach the diamond easily.”
Amber's First Clue Page 2
