Nim's Island

by Orr, Wendy

  Love (as much as Chica loves soccer),

  Nim

  A frigate-bird came closer, and it was Galileo, so Nim danced the fish in the air and called his name. Galileo swooped low and stayed long enough for her to pull out the letter that was tucked into his band, and stick hers in instead.

  ‘Thank you!’ Nim called as the big bird soared up to his nest on the cliffs, and she unrolled Jack’s letter.

  Dear Nim

  Worked out best way of fixing rudder is to drill hole through tip (not easy underwater!), pass a rope through hole, and steer with rope.

  Have drilled hole but had to jump out before I could get rope through it. Sharks around here must have tasted the chunk I lost from my forehead in the storm—thought it was jaw-snapping yum! and want to chomp the rest.

  Soon as they forget about me I’ll get that rope through and be on my way home! But the storm blew me a long way, so it’ll take a couple of days.

  Love (as much as sails love wind),

  Jack

  Nim read the letter, and then she read it again. And even though Jack had tried to make it funny, she felt more lonely and miserable than she ever had before. Even writing a long, long email to tell Alex Rover all about Fire Mountain didn’t make her feel better.

  WHILE JACK WAS waiting for the sharks to disappear and hoping that he could fix his rudder and worrying about Nim, he saw a ship.

  Jack danced a jig and sang a song because he wanted to get home even more than he didn’t want to be rescued. His song didn’t rhyme and it didn’t have a tune, but it said:

  ‘I’ll be home soon!

  I’ll see Nim tomorrow!

  The plankton can wait

  And everything will be all right!’

  The ship came closer.

  It was a cruise ship. A pink-and-purple cruise ship.

  It was the Troppo Tourists.

  Jack stopped dancing and stopped singing, his face was pale and his stomach was sick, but Nim had been alone too long and he knew what he had to do.

  In the cabin he found the flags he’d never used: one with blue and white checks and the other striped; when he put them up together they said SOS: Come and Rescue Me! to any sailor who saw them.

  Then he waited. The longer he waited, the more he didn’t want the Troppo Tourists to see the island; he didn’t want to talk to them and didn’t want them oh-ing and ah-ing and taking pictures of his home, but the longer he waited, the more he didn’t want Nim to be alone.

  The sad flags fluttered from the mast, and he went on waiting.

  But the Troppo Tourists sailed out of sight.

  EARLY NEXT AFTERNOON, when Nim was sitting in a palm tree to watch for Jack, the ship came to the island.

  Just a speck in the distance, so Nim cheered and thought how she would run to the furthest point of Keyhole Cove, and blow her shell-whistle and shout:

  ‘JACK NEEDS HELP! LOOK FOR A BOAT WITH A BROKEN RUDDER!’

  Then, through the spyglass, she saw the colours and she knew that she could never ever call out to this ship. Because no matter how much she wanted Jack to be home now, what she wanted even more was for him to be happy, and he’d never be happy if the Troppo Tourists came to the island.

  And even though they didn’t know it was Jack’s island, if they passed the blue waters of Keyhole Cove or the peaceful sands of Turtle Beach, they’d know it was the most beautiful island in the world. They’d come back with curious tourists, and fill up the island with holidays and noise.

  ‘Oh, no they won’t!’ said Nim.

  She raced to the hut and turned on the laptop.

  From: jack.rusoe@explorer.net

  To: aka@incognito.net

  Date: Tuesday 6 April, 14:14

  Dear Alex Rover

  I hope it’s okay to write so early but could you please tell me right away what your Hero would do if the Bad Guys were coming to his island and he wanted them to go away and not notice it.

  From Nim

  From: aka@incognito.net

  To: jack.rusoe@explorer.net

  Date: Tuesday 6 April, 9:17

  Dear Nim

  It’s okay to write any time (and it doesn’t even have to be about coconuts!)—unless your parents have another rule.

  When my beautiful Lady Hero was escaping from Bad Guys in Sands at Sunset, she disguised herself in old clothes and grease, till she looked so ugly they didn’t notice her. But a whole island is trickier!

  Somehow the Hero would have to make the rocks seem more dangerous, the reef more terrifying, the pale sands bleak and lonely—make the whole island seem like a creepy, scary place.

  This sounds like an exciting game!

  Your friend, Alex

  The ship was coming closer. Nim would have to work fast to disguise the island.

  The sea lions were on their rocks, coughing, barking, honking, all the usual sea lion conversation, but Nim interrupted, shouting and waving her arms. Selkie swam after her, barking reproachfully.

  The ship came closer still. It was slowing down—it had seen the island. ‘Bad boat!’ Nim screamed.

  Selkie looked confused. The other sea lions stared.

  ‘Shoo!’ Nim shouted. ‘Get off the rocks!’

  Grumbling and grunting, they slid into the water. Nim dived in after them, but Selkie blocked her before she’d gone three strokes.

  ‘I’ll go back,’ Nim pleaded, ‘if you stop the boat.’

  So when Nim was safely on the shore, Selkie headed the other sea lions out to the reef.

  The ship stopped, and lowered a small boat down to the water.

  Creeping low, out of sight of snooping binoculars, Nim jumped into the tidal pools and snatched up armfuls of the iguanas’ favourite seaweed.

  The small boat cast off with a snarl of its motor, and the king of the sea lions bellowed back.

  If a boat found its way in through the maze of the reef, Shell Beach would be the first thing it would see.

  Crawling across the pebbly rocks and sharp white shells, the blood flowing red from the cut on her knee, Nim threw handfuls of seaweed from one end of the beach to the other. Fred followed, nibbling as fast as she could put it down.

  ‘You can have coconut,’ she promised him, ‘if you’ll bring all your friends to the beach.’

  Fred looked at her. ‘As much coconut as you can eat,’ Nim said.

  With a sneeze of surprise, Fred scuttled away—from rock to rock, tidal pool to sea—until the beach was covered by spiny iguanas munching free seaweed. From the reef it would look like a beach of bumpy grey rocks.

  And maybe they would turn around before they saw Turtle Beach.

  Nim sneaked back to her Look-out Palm, shimmied to the top and clung high and still.

  The boat had nearly reached the first gap in the reef. It was close enough for Nim to see the people inside, wearing pink T-shirts and purple caps with a stuffed fish on top.

  Suddenly the gap disappeared, in a swirling, thrashing sea lion storm. The boat idled on past, looking for another place to get through—but the sea lions followed. The king roared his roar and the others bellowed; the splashing sprayed higher and the boat rocked wildly, and was slowly, ferociously, pushed out to sea.

  From her tree, Nim could see something else. Galileo was circling the boat.

  Galileo had never seen pretend-fish before. Galileo’s rule was that if it looked like a fish, it was a fish, and if someone else had that fish, Galileo would steal it.

  He called to his mate, and they dived together to snatch two fish-caps from the heads in the boat.

  The people screamed and swore, throwing their arms over their faces, but the giant birds only cared about the caps. They spat the first ones into the sea, and snatched two more to see if they tasted better.

  Now the boat jolted, tipping hard as if it had hit a rock.

  ‘Please don’t get hurt!’ Nim begged the sea lions.

  The boat steadied. Its engine roared and shot it back across the water.


  The tide was going out. By the time the little boat had been lifted onto the ship, the reef was jagged above the water.

  So the Troppo Tourists cruised on past, but they didn’t go away. They went as slow and as close as they dared, past Turtle Beach and round the point of Frigate-bird Cliffs.

  Nim crept down to the beach and tried not to cry.

  Chica lumbered up from the water, a smug look on her face and purple paint across her shell. Nim remembered the jolt. ‘Did you hit them?’ she asked, scratching under the turtle’s chin.

  Chica looked smugger.

  Everyone tried but me, thought Nim. It stinks!

  Turtle Beach stank too; stank worse than a bad day at the Hissing Stones. ‘Yuck!’ said Nim.

  Half a dead shark had washed up in the tide.

  ‘No one would land if they could smell that!’ said Nim, and wondered if Alex Rover’s Hero would use a rotten shark to fight for his island.

  She sprinted to the hut and grabbed her wagon; dumped in the shark, slimy and rotting. It was a long, puffing haul to the Hissing Stones but Nim would have pulled it to the top of Fire Mountain if she’d had to.

  The steam was drifting out to sea. It wasn’t an extra-stinky day, but, ‘I’ll fix that!’ said Nim.

  She dragged the shark out of the wagon and across the biggest vent, where steam hissed out between the stones.

  The steam stopped coming out, and the shark didn’t smell any worse than it had before.

  ‘What else stinks?’ Nim wondered.

  Sometimes seaweed washed up on the Black Rocks. If it didn’t dry out and it didn’t wash away, after a while it began to rot. Nim scrambled up and collected shirt-fulls of putrid sea-muck. She poked her head around the point. The ship was cruising past the breakers where the Black Rocks met the reef.

  Nim clutched her seaweed and tumbled down boulders to the Hissing Stones. The shark smelled so bad now, she wanted to vomit, but she dumped the seaweed onto the steaming vents and ran back to hide, out of the stench and out of sight.

  The ship rounded the point.

  For a long, long moment nothing happened. Nim had dumped so much muck that no steaming stink could escape.

  It was too late to do anything else.

  The ship was across from Sea Lion Point, right in line with the Hissing Stones.

  The shark exploded.

  The rotting seaweed fountained.

  The built-up steam sprayed bits of rotten shark, seaweed and Nim-didn’t-know-what in a rushing geyser far into the air. The gentle breeze wafting out to sea turned into a grey, choking, sick-making fog.

  The ship turned and steamed out of sight.

  THAT EVENING NIM was so tired she couldn’t eat. And she felt so cold and empty inside, and so hot and itchy outside, that she took her torch and towel and went up to the pool.

  Nim loved the ocean because it was always there, wherever she looked and as far as she could see, but it was too huge and powerful to understand and too dangerous to trust. The pool was easy to love, because it was so small that she knew every rock in it, and so peaceful she could float peacefully as the sky got darker and the moon and stars came out, while the muck and muddling washed away.

  TODAY MIGHT BE the day that Jack comes home, Nim thought, and the day to make Alex Rover’s raft.

  She jumped out of bed.

  ‘Oh, no you don’t!’ her knee screamed, and she sat down again even faster. Her knee was puffy and hot, red with oozey blood and yellow with pus.

  ‘Yuck!’ said Nim, but she got up again.

  Very slowly, she hobbled down to the rocks with a breakfast coconut. Fred had remembered her promise. ‘You’ll pop!’ Nim exclaimed after the fifth piece of coconut, but Fred went on eating.

  Washed up on the beach, just below Selkie’s rock, were two purple caps with ridiculous fish on top. ‘That’s an easier way to call Galileo!’ said Nim, and picked them up.

  Behind the caps was a big piece of driftwood, and under the driftwood was a torn piece of fishing net.

  Nim and Jack hated fishing nets, but—‘The raft!’ said Nim.

  The net was torn too jagged to make one big bag, but she could cut four squares and make two smaller rafts instead.

  The net cord was tough and slippery. After a few cuts Nim had to get her sharpening-stone, drawing her pocket-knife across it the way Jack had taught her, one side and then the other, faster and again till sparks flew and the blade was smooth and fine.

  The sun said it was long past lunchtime when she finished cutting. Her knee hurt too much to go up to the vegetable garden, so she ate the last banana with some limpets and seaweed from Shell Beach, and drank the juice from a coconut, because there was no water left either.

  Then, sitting in the shade of a palm tree, she knotted the squares down the sides and across the bottom. She flicked the net—knot and pull—and Fred peek-a-booed from side to side. Selkie grabbed the end of the net in her teeth and tugged.

  It’s not easy working on something when a sea lion is playing tug-of-war with the other end. It took a long time to finish the two bags, then a long, sore limp to Keyhole Cove.

  Selkie and Fred jumped in to help fish out the coconuts, which would have been more helpful if they hadn’t kept playing coconut soccer instead.

  ‘Stop being STUPID!’ Nim screamed.

  Fred sank to the bottom and hid behind a giant clam. Selkie humphed onto the reef with her back to Nim.

  Nim, feeling smaller than the limpets she’d eaten for lunch, crawled up beside her. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.

  Selkie could never stay angry for long, but Fred could. Nim had to dive three times before she could coax him back up.

  When she had all the coconuts on the rocks, Nim loaded ten into each bag and tied knots across the top so they couldn’t escape. The sun was low over the sea by the time she dumped the second bag back into the cove and climbed on top.

  The first three times she tried, the bag-raft ended up on top of her instead of the other way around. The fourth time Nim won.

  She lay on her stomach and Fred rode on her back; she paddled once right around the cove, but she was in more of a floating mood today and the raft was good at that too.

  But not with a sea lion on top. Selkie thumped onto the other one and sank straight to the bottom.

  ‘Try both together!’ said Nim, trying not to laugh.

  Nim held the rafts and Selkie hauled herself on. She floated across the cove, nosing herself off the shore and bumping from reef to rocks. She liked it so much, she forgot to tease Fred; she could have played there all night, but:

  ‘Sun’s nearly set!’ said Nim. ‘email time.’

  From: jack.rusoe@explorer.net

  To: aka@incognito.net

  Date: Wednesday 7 April, 18:25

  Dear Alex Rover

  This morning I found an old fishing net, so I made two rafts because I thought it would be easier than one big one. They are lots of fun to ride; Selkie liked them so much she barked till her throat was sore!

  In Keyhole Cove I could ride sitting up but it’s easier lying down, especially if your Hero was out at sea with big waves.

  Fred and I rode together, and the raft floated so well we would have been dry if we hadn’t got so wet getting on! Fred’s not very heavy.

  Selkie needed two rafts or she sank to the bottom. She’s a bit heavier than Jack, so if your Hero is about that big he could float on a raft with twenty coconuts. If I’d known that, I would have made just one big raft after all, because Selkie sometimes slipped down the middle and I had to hold the rafts together for her to get on again. But I guess your Hero wouldn’t bounce as much as Selkie!

  From Nim

  From: aka@incognito.net

  To: jack.rusoe@explorer.net

  Date: Wednesday 7 April, 13:29

  Dear Nim

  Robinson Crusoe couldn’t have done better! I’ll stop worrying about how my Hero could swim to the island if he was tied up in a sack. He can do exactly what y
ou’ve done—though he’ll find a piece of net just the right size for one big bag, so he won’t have to fall down the middle like poor Selkie!

  Here’s the scene: he’s gasping on the beach, realises that he’s lying on a fishing net—and as he sits up, is nearly bonked on the head by a falling coconut. Phew! That was close! he thinks. Then—‘Ah, ha!’ and he makes his raft, and paddles bravely out to sea to defeat the Bad Guys . . .

  Which reminds me—how did your game work out yesterday?

  Yours, Alex

  Alex waited, but Nim didn’t answer. She’d turned the internet and laptop off, and was already asleep.

  What kind of dog weighs more than a man? Alex wondered. Selkie must be huge! And Fred must be a dog, too; I can’t imagine a cat riding a raft.

  She stared out the window. From the forty-first floor, she could see a long way, but no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t see Keyhole Cove or a Hero on a coconut raft.

  And for just a moment, Alex wished that she could be a person who did things instead of writing them . . . who could sail across seas or live happily on a tropical island.

  But Alexandra Rover was a dreamer, not a doer. She was stuck in place like a train on a track, as much a part of the city as the Post Office steps.

  IN THE MORNING Nim’s knee was hotter and fatter, with red lines streaking around the ooze.

  She didn’t want to walk anywhere or do anything, but she had no water to drink and no food to eat, so Fred climbed on her shoulders and she pulled her wagon slowly up to the vegetable garden. She filled her bottles from the waterfall, cut off a bunch of bananas and picked some strawberries, and rode back down the hill.

  Selkie huffed anxiously. ‘I’ll feel better after a swim,’ Nim said.

  So they swam around to Turtle Beach. Chica was grazing for seaweed, but she stopped to play a very lazy game of coconut soccer—though it was more like catch, because nobody could be bothered to wrestle for the nut.