Summer of the Sea Serpent

by Mary Pope Osborne

  “This is great!” cried Annie.

  Jack opened his eyes. With the wind and spray whipping his face and hair, he began to feel more excited than scared.

  “I’ll bet he’s taking us to the Sword of Light!” cried Annie. “We’ll be done with our mission in no time!”

  That would be too easy, thought Jack. But as they sped over the waves, he grew hopeful. Maybe she’s right. Maybe it will be easy, he thought. Not all our missions have to be hard. But what about the rest of the stuff in the rhyme? What about—?

  Before Jack could finish his thought, the strange horse creature stopped and reared up. Jack and Annie tumbled over its fish’s tail and splashed into the cold water.

  They sank for a moment and then bobbed back up to the surface, frantically treading water. They looked up at the Water Knight and his horse.

  The knight lifted his arm into the air. He pointed to a pile of boulders near the base of a nearby cliff. Then he spread the fingers of his gloved hand in a gesture of farewell.

  “Bye! Thanks!” shouted Annie.

  The horse creature slapped its fish’s tail and took off in a fountain of spray and foam. With the gulls circling above them, the mysterious pair whirled toward the passage between the cliffs that led out to the sea. In a moment, they vanished into the open water beyond.

  Gentle waves rippled through the cove as Jack and Annie swam to the foot of the cliff. They pulled themselves onto the boulders. Soaking wet, they sat for a moment in the warm sunlight and caught their breath.

  “That was so cool!” said Annie.

  “Yeah. But why—” Jack gasped, “why did he dump us way out here? What do we do now?”

  “Check the rhyme,” said Annie. “What happens after we call for the help of the Water Knight?”

  Jack reached into his pocket and pulled out the seashell. He read aloud:

  Call for the help of the Water Knight.

  Then pass through the Cave of the Spider Queen.

  “Oh. Right,” said Annie. She took a deep breath. “Spider Queen.”

  “Sorry,” Jack said softly. “But don’t worry, maybe the Spider Queen is just a person. Maybe ‘Spider Queen’ is her nickname.”

  “But what if she’s half a person and half a spider?” said Annie. “Like the Raven King was half a man and half a raven?”

  Jack shuddered at the memory of the monster on their last Merlin Mission. “Don’t think about that,” he said. “Time’s running out. Let’s just find this cave.”

  Annie nodded and smiled bravely. “Okay, you’re right,” she said.

  They stood up and started climbing barefoot around the craggy curves at the base of the cliff. As they rounded a corner, they both gasped.

  In front of them was the mouth of a cave. The mouth was covered with thick, sticky white ropes. The ropes were woven tightly together in a crisscross cobweb pattern.

  “If that’s a spiderweb, we’re in big trouble,” said Annie.

  Jack tried to sound calm. “Um, the size of the web doesn’t actually tell us the size of the spider,” he said. “Plus, I once read that no spider on earth is bigger than a dinner plate.”

  “Yeah, and no horse on earth has a giant fish’s tail either,” said Annie.

  Good point, thought Jack. “Let’s just concentrate on finding the Sword of Light before nightfall,” he said.

  Jack picked up a stone the size of a softball. He hurled it toward the mouth of the cave. The stone sailed through the giant cobweb and into the cave, pulling the sticky rope-like strands down with it.

  Jack turned to Annie. “Ready?” he said.

  She didn’t move.

  Jack took her hand. “Don’t worry, I won’t let any monster spiders get you,” he said. He nodded toward the mouth of the cave. “Onward?”

  “Onward,” Annie repeated in a small voice. Then together she and Jack stepped over the fallen web and entered the Cave of the Spider Queen.

  Inside the cave, the walls were black and shiny. The ground was wet and slippery under their bare feet.

  “Yikes!” Annie said, jumping back. A pale pink crab scuttled sideways across the rocky floor.

  “Don’t be afraid,” said Jack. “That’s not a spider.”

  “I know,” said Annie. “Sorry.”

  As they went deeper and deeper into the cave, it grew darker and darker. Finally Jack saw a faint light coming from a wide, arched passage. “That way,” he said.

  They stepped through the arch into a round chamber with a high ceiling. There were several large cracks in the ceiling that let in beams of sunlight. The misty light shined on mossy green ledges and on a green, spongy-looking floor. Silver droplets dripped from above, ker-plopping into tiny pools. Squeaks and chirps came from crannies and hiding places in the walls.

  “What’s that noise?” asked Annie.

  “Probably just teeny cave crickets or baby bats,” said Jack.

  “No, that noise,” said Annie, “the whispering noise.”

  Jack listened. Then he heard it: a low whispering. He couldn’t make out the words. It just sounded like whisper-whisper-whisper-whisper. The hair stood up on the back of his neck. Now he began to feel scared.

  “This place is really creepy,” said Annie.

  “No kidding,” said Jack. “But we don’t have to stay here long. The rhyme says we just have to pass through the cave. So let’s hurry and pass through it.”

  Jack and Annie walked through the ghostly green light of the chamber. The spongy floor squished beneath their bare feet. As they searched for an exit from the cave, they both kept an eye out for the Spider Queen.

  “Hey, look at the starfish,” said Annie. She pointed to a bright orange starfish clinging to the rocky ceiling. “How’d he get up there?”

  Before Jack could answer, a wave crashed into the chamber. Water splashed over Jack and Annie.

  “Yikes!” said Annie. She and Jack jumped onto a mossy ledge jutting out from the wall.

  The wave washed back out. There was a moment of quiet. Then another wave surged into the chamber. It splashed against the cave walls, soaking Jack and Annie again.

  “Oh, man,” said Jack. “The tide must be coming in! Soon this whole cave will be flooded!”

  The wave receded. For a moment all was quiet again.

  “We’d better leave now!” said Jack. “Quick! Go back the way we came in!”

  Jack and Annie jumped down from the ledge. But before they could escape, another wave crashed into the cave! This one swept them off their feet and pulled them down into the foamy water.

  Jack grabbed Annie’s hand. Fighting the swirling current, they climbed back up onto the mossy ledge. The water churned and gurgled around the chamber.

  “We can’t go back the way we came in,” said Jack. “The waves will just keep knocking us down, and we’ll get caught in the current!”

  “Maybe we can get out through that crack!” cried Annie. She pointed to the widest crack in the cave ceiling. It was high above the swirling water.

  “It’s too high!” said Jack. “We can’t get up there!” He looked frantically around the flooded cave, searching for another way out. Suddenly he froze in horror.

  Clinging to a ledge near the ceiling crack was the Spider Queen. She had eight red glowing eyes. She had eight long, hairy legs. And she was much bigger than a dinner plate.

  The Spider Queen was bigger than Jack.

  Jack grabbed Annie’s hand. “Whatever you do, don’t look up,” he said.

  Annie looked up.

  “AHHHHH!” she screamed. She started to leap off the ledge into the churning waters. But then another wave crashed wildly against the walls.

  Jack held Annie back. “Don’t jump!” he shouted. “You’ll drown!”

  Above the sound of the rushing waters, a loud whisper echoed around the cave: Stay! Stay! Stay! The Spider Queen was staring down at them with her eight red eyes.

  As Jack and Annie stared back in horror, the giant spider shot a web stran
d as thick as a rope straight toward them. Jack and Annie ducked. The strand stuck to the wall.

  “What’s she doing?” cried Annie.

  “I don’t know!” said Jack.

  He and Annie looked back up at the Spider Queen. She’d crawled a few feet closer to the crack in the wall. She stared down at them for a moment with her glowing eyes, then shot out another thick rope strand.

  “Watch out!” shouted Jack.

  He and Annie ducked.

  Thwack! The second web rope stuck to the ledge just a few feet away from the first.

  “Oh, no! Look!” shrieked Annie. She pointed up at the cave ceiling.

  The monster spider was zigzagging between the two strands of her web. She was heading straight toward them.

  Jack and Annie screamed and pressed themselves against the wall. “We have to leave!” cried Annie. But before they could make a move, another wave crashed into the cave! The water swirled with ferocious force around the chamber.

  “We can’t leave!” cried Jack.

  “We can’t stay!” cried Annie.

  Wait! Wait! Wait! whispered the Spider Queen.

  The giant spider kept zigzagging between the two lines, spinning more web, coming closer and closer and closer to Jack and Annie.

  They watched in horror, unable to speak or move. But just when she came close enough to touch them, the Spider Queen turned and scurried back up to the ceiling, leaving a giant web ladder behind her.

  The Spider Queen stared down at Jack and Annie with her eight red eyes. Climb! Climb! Climb! she whispered from her spot on the ceiling.

  “I think she wants to help us!” said Jack.

  “No! She wants to trap us!” said Annie.

  The spider whispered again: Climb! Climb! Climb!

  Something about her voice made Jack feel certain the Spider Queen wanted to help. “She doesn’t want to hurt us!” he said. “She wants to help us escape! Besides, we don’t have any choice!”

  The water was rising higher and higher over their ledge. It was swirling above their ankles now.

  “We have to climb her web!” said Jack. “I’ll go first!”

  He reached up and grabbed one of the spider ropes. It felt damp and sticky. He pulled himself onto the bottom strands of the web ladder.

  “Grab on!” he shouted to Annie above the roar of the water. “We have to get to that crack in the ceiling!”

  Annie grabbed one of the web ropes. “Eww!” she said. “It’s gross!”

  “Just climb!” said Jack.

  Holding tightly to the sticky strands, Jack and Annie began making their way up the Spider Queen’s web ladder. The web swayed and stretched, but it was sturdy enough to hold their weight. Its stickiness kept them from slipping and falling.

  Crawling and climbing, they moved higher and higher above the crashing waters. As they drew near the crack in the ceiling, Jack kept his eyes on the Spider Queen. She was watching them carefully.

  Finally Jack reached the ceiling crack. He swung to one side of the web ladder, putting himself between Annie and the giant spider.

  “You go first,” he said.

  “Okay,” said Annie. She grabbed the rocky edge of the opening and stuck her head out of the crack. “There’s nowhere to go but into the water!” she called.

  “How far down is it?” said Jack.

  “Pretty far!” said Annie. “But I think we can make it!”

  “Wait—” said Jack.

  But Annie was already squeezing herself through the crack.

  “Annie, be careful!” said Jack.

  Splash!

  “Oh, man,” said Jack. He gripped the edge of the crack. Then he glanced back at the Spider Queen.

  Her glowing red eyes peered out at him from the shadows. Go! Go! Go! she whispered.

  Jack smiled at her. “Thanks!” he said.

  Go! the Spider Queen whispered again.

  Jack pulled himself out of the darkness onto a narrow rocky ledge. The bright sun sparkled on the blue water of the small cove below.

  “Come on!” Annie shouted. She was bobbing up and down on the gentle waves.

  Jack took off his glasses. He pinched his nose and closed his eyes. Then he jumped off the ledge.

  Jack splashed into the blue sunlit sea. He sank to the bottom and then bobbed back up. He coughed and pushed his hair out of his eyes.

  Annie was treading water nearby. “Hey!” she called.

  “Hey!” Jack sputtered.

  “I was wrong! You were right!” Annie said. She sounded thrilled. “The Spider Queen just wanted to help us!”

  “Yeah,” said Jack. He shook the seawater off his glasses and put them back on.

  “She must be really lonely!” said Annie. “She probably feels like she has to hide in that cave because she’s so scary-looking!”

  “Maybe,” said Jack. He looked around the second cove. Purple shadows stretched over a rocky seashore beneath the cliffs. The sun had moved farther across the sky.

  “We’d better hurry!” said Jack. “What do we do now?”

  “Read the rhyme!” said Annie.

  Jack pulled the shell out of his pocket. Treading water, he read the next line in Merlin’s poem:

  And swim with a selkie clothed in green.

  “What’s a selkie?” said Annie.

  “Who knows?” said Jack.

  He looked at the cliffs and the shore. Is a selkie a fish? A person? What? he wondered. Then Jack saw two dark shapes speeding like fat torpedoes below the surface of the water. They were coming straight toward him and Annie.

  “Watch out!” Jack shouted.

  “Yikes!” Annie yelled.

  Jack and Annie swam out of the way as the creatures moved swiftly past them. Suddenly two sleek gray heads popped above the surface. They had wide snouts and long white whiskers. They had tiny, wrinkly ears and big, dark eyes.

  “Seals!” cried Annie.

  The two seals turned their heads like periscopes. When they saw Jack and Annie, they opened their mouths, showing their small, pointed teeth. They seemed to be smiling.

  “Hi, guys!” said Annie.

  Barrh! Barrh! the seals barked. Then they rolled through the water and bumped Jack and Annie with their noses. They barked again joyfully, then darted toward the shore.

  “Come on!” cried Annie. “Let’s play with them!”

  “We don’t have time to play!” said Jack.

  But Annie had already started after the seals, swimming toward the rocky beach.

  “Annie! Stop!” called Jack. “We have to hurry and find the selkie! And the Sword of Light! Before nightfall! Or King Arthur will meet his doom ….” Jack’s voice trailed off.

  Annie didn’t hear him. She and the two seals had reached the shore and were getting out of the water. The seals clumsily hauled their chubby bodies onto a big rock and flopped down. Annie climbed onto the rock, too.

  “Annie, come on!” shouted Jack. It could be as late as four o’clock now, he thought. And there was still a lot they had to do before nightfall.

  “Let’s rest for a minute!” Annie called. She sat near the seals and patted their shiny heads as if they were big dogs. The seals barked.

  Actually, Jack wanted to rest, too. He felt really tired. Maybe we could rest for a minute on the rock with the seals, he thought, then search for the selkie.

  “Well, okay,” he shouted. “But just for a quick minute!”

  Jack headed for shore. By the time he dragged himself out of the water, the seals were lying on their backs with their eyes closed. Their white whiskers twitched as they slept in the warm sunlight.

  “Shhh, they’re napping,” said Annie. She lay down beside the seals and closed her eyes, too. “The sun feels really good, Jack. Come on. Lie down with us for a second.”

  “Oh, brother,” Jack muttered. But the afternoon sunlight did feel good. He climbed onto the warm rock and lay down next to Annie and the seals.

  “Okay, just for a quick second,” h
e said.

  Jack closed his eyes. The sunshine felt good on his tired arms and legs. The gentle sea breeze felt especially clean and fresh after the Cave of the Spider Queen. The next thing he knew, he had faded into a deep, peaceful sleep ….

  “Wake up, lazybones! You can’t sleep all afternoon!” said a friendly voice.

  Jack’s eyes shot open. Oh, no! he thought. What time is it? He sat up and looked around.

  The seals were gone. Standing over Jack and Annie was a barefoot boy with a happy, freckled face.

  “Teddy!” said Jack. For a moment he forgot all about the time.

  “Teddy! Teddy!” cried Annie. She leaped up and hugged the young sorcerer.

  Teddy grinned from ear to ear. He was wearing a brown tunic. His red hair was damp.

  “You’re finally here!” said Jack, laughing.

  “I have been here for some time,” said Teddy. “Merlin sent me early this morning. I was waiting for you on the beach when Kathleen came along and invited me to go for a swim with her.”

  Teddy turned to a girl standing a little farther down the beach. Like Teddy, she looked to be about thirteen. “Kathleen!” he called. “Come meet my friends!”

  The girl smiled and began walking over the rocks toward Jack, Annie, and Teddy. She wore a green dress that looked as if it had been woven from grass. Her hair fell in black ringlets down to her waist like a dark waterfall.

  “These are my good friends Jack and Annie,” Teddy said to the girl. “They come from a faraway land.”

  “Hello, Jack and Annie!” the girl said in a bold, friendly voice. “I am very happy to meet you! My name is Kathleen.” As she spoke, Kathleen’s large eyes sparkled with the blue of the sky and water.

  Jack couldn’t speak. Kathleen was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen.

  “I like your dress,” said Annie.

  Kathleen laughed. “I wove it from sea grass,” she said. “I am not a very good weaver, I am sad to say.”

  “Do you live here?” asked Annie.

  “I do,” said Kathleen, “with my nineteen sisters.”

  “Nineteen sisters!” said Annie.