by Tara Omar
“Well, I think I’ll go for a round of squelsh. It’s high time I start working off all those gift baskets,” said John, clicking off the television. As he rose to leave Natalie noticed a brightly-coloured magazine on the couch next to him. She picked it up.
“What’s this?” asked Natalie. “The Daily Merror: Larimar’s Juiciest Gossip… all the scoop on the Royal Viewing… Karina’s new knight… the best royal baby photos?”
“Oh, that’s a copy from last week before all the hullabaloo with the tremor,” said John. “I got it for David.”
Natalie flipped through the pages, stopping on a spread which was covered in baby photos from all the past royal births in the Nephtali line, just after delivery. She saw pictures of the late Queen Elsabe holding Aribella and then her younger brother Jacques, Uriel and Aribella holding Kajal, photos of Kajal’s late cousin Frederick and a photo of Zahara with empty arms, waiting for the baby.
“See how cute baby Karina is,” said John, leaning over the couch. “You were much cuter in my opinion; such a big smile you had, and such big cheeks, too. I don’t know why they all have to take the same photograph every time, though. Couldn’t they be more creative?”
“May I take this?” asked Natalie.
“Yeah, sure. I’ve already read it,” said John, clearing his throat, “twice.”
John opened the overstuffed closet near the stairs, ducking as a ball tumbled from the top shelf. He grabbed his squelsh bag and kicked the ball back in the closet, slamming the door before anything else could fall out. He gave Natalie a kiss on the cheek and headed toward the stairs.
“Well I’m off. See you now,” said John, while Natalie continued flipping through the tabloid, examining the pictures.
David, meanwhile, sat at the writing desk under the hanging bed in the spare bedroom, trying to coax filament from his wrist into a flat, metal sheet. A mess of small panels, springs and coils were scattered across the desk, along with a guidebook propped against the wall which David checked as he wove the filament into a thin pane the size of a sweet wrapper. Reading the page again, he reached into a side drawer and pulled out a matchbox full of pre-fabricated nails; as he opened it a snaky arm unfurled, handing him a nail. David jumped.
“Albert, you scared the sound out of me,” said David, shaking his head. “Hide and seek again?”
Albert blinked in confirmation.
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell,” said David, taking the nails. He closed the drawer with Albert inside and went back to his metal. Natalie opened the door.
“David. What are you doing?” asked Natalie.
“Nothing,” said David, diving over his desk. He pressed the book down and hid the mess under his chest, resting his head on his arm as he turned to her. Natalie frowned.
“Practicing spinning things?” she asked.
“Maybe. And if you’re here to help Stew look for Albert, I haven’t seen him,” said David. He brushed a wayward spring under his arm.
“No, Princess Karina is upstairs. She’s asking for Sir Michelson,” said Natalie.
“Oh, got it,” said David. As she left, David threw a sheet over the desk and hurried up the stairs. Kajal was waiting for him on the sofa near the grandfather clock. David waved.
“Hi Kajal, how are you?” asked David, smoothing his shirt.
“Well, thanks. Was that her?” asked Kajal, looking toward the stairs.
“Yeah,” said David.
“She looks lovely,” said Kajal.
“What’s up?” asked David. Kajal frowned.
“I’m really sorry to have to ask you this, but since the recent events the King is requesting we do more intensive background checks on everyone who comes near the Palace. Would you mind filling this out?” asked Kajal. She handed him a folder with a form inside.
“No, not at all,” said David, looking at the questionnaire. “Shall I give it to you tomorrow?”
“Actually would you mind filling it out now? I have to witness that it was you who submitted it.”
“Okay,” said David. He sat down and began to write.
“Is this really for everyone, or is ‘everyone’ just me?” asked David.
“No, it’s for everyone, but mostly for you. Personally I find it embarrassing after you’ve done so much for Larimar, but the King is not himself lately. He asked Silver if you were the someone ‘that he thinks,’ but he wouldn’t specify who. Do you have any idea?”
“No,” said David.
“I thought you wouldn’t,” said Kajal, her shoulders slumping. “The King makes it a point to make the life of every mer that comes near me as difficult as possible. I’m like a walking curse.”
“It’s fine,” said David, finishing the last question. “There you are.” He handed the folder back to her.
“Thank you. If you could just sign here for me?” asked Kajal, pointing to a line on the folder. David signed.
“And I will sign there,” said Kajal. She signed the document and floated a piece of filament from her wrist, sewing the envelope shut. She secured it with a piece of wax, pressed with her seal.
“See you tomorrow?” asked Kajal.
“Yeah,” said David as he helped her to the door.
“My regards to your friends. Thanks again,” said Kajal. David smiled and waved as Kajal hurried past the frogs toward the waiting pneumataphore. As she sped off he closed the door. David sat down and buried his face in his hands as Natalie floated in.
“What’s wrong?” asked Natalie.
“Uriel is running a background check on me. She wanted my address, contact details, next-of-kin, references, the whole works,” said David.
“What alibi did you give her?”
“The one Raphael told me to give,” said David.
“You gave her info from a psychopathic mer that’s trying to kill you, sabotage Larimar and possibly the world?” asked Natalie.
“What else could I do? She insisted on the information now, and it was the only info I knew,” said David. Natalie frowned.
“We should’ve prepared for this,” she said.
“I’m going to have to get the shield before they check that paperwork,” said David.
“That doesn’t give you much time,” said Natalie.
“How much?” asked David.
“A week, at most, but that’s a conservative estimate.”
He covered his eyes with his hands.
“On the plus side, I think I may have something that will interest you,” said Natalie. She set her dad’s empty tin of sardines and the tabloid on the coffee table. David looked up.
“Right then. What am I looking at?” asked David.
“Sardines and baby pictures. It’s how you get out of Larimar,” said Natalie.
“Are you going to fit me into a can of sardines?” asked David.
Natalie smiled.
“No, silly, it’s time for the sardine run,” said Natalie.
“The what?”
“Every year around this time, the sardines make a massive migration from one side of Aeroth to the other, creating an enormous shoal. During that time King Saladin allows the dolphins and sharks from Larimar to hunt in the Oceana to help control the sardines’ population size. If we put you in a dolphin suit and float you up with the sardines, you may be able to get back past the guards.”
“Do you think it will work?” asked David.
“It got you in. Not to mention the shoal is very dense. If we push you through the thickest point, there is a chance you won’t be noticed,” said Natalie.
“How big of a chance?”
“The biggest we’ll get.”
“Okay then, when is the shoal coming?” asked David.
“I’m not sure. If the water temperatures of the Oceana are any indication, it should be any day now.”
“And the baby photos?” asked David.
“Oh, that. Check this photo here,” said Natalie. “Uriel isn’t wearing the band.”
David looked at the photo of Uriel holding baby Kajal. There was no band.
“You see, when a mer is born, it’s soft like a jellyfish for the first few minutes after birth and is easily damaged. Absolutely no jewellery can be worn during the delivery. That would mean Uriel would have to take off the band for a few minutes until the baby’s bones harden. If you notice, Naymar, the king before him, isn’t in any of these pictures. I suspect he didn’t want to take off the shield.”
“And you think Uriel did?”
“Naymar enjoyed the reputation of being invincible, while Uriel wants to bring the least attention to himself as possible. It’s a relatively safe environment; if I were him and I had the shield, I would think it the perfect time to show I’m not attached to any jewellery. All you have to do is find where he keeps the real one for that half hour and take it.”
“Do you think Uriel will be present at the birth of Constant?” asked David.
“He has to be. He pledged to be Constant’s sponsor in Frederick’s absence,” said Natalie.
David stared at the magazine.
“So this means I can get the shield without murdering anyone,” said David.
She nodded.
“Natalie, you’re a genius,” said David. He grabbed her and kissed her on the mouth.
“Thank you,” said David.
“Yes, well—I um—it’s just logic,” said Natalie.
“I probably shouldn’t be doing that, seeing I’ll be leaving soon,” said David, looking at his feet.
She smiled and kissed his cheek. David hugged her.
“So how do we steal it?” asked David.
“Must I do everything?” asked Natalie.
“No you’re right, you’ve done enough. Let’s see.”
David paced the living room.
“First we have to figure out where they’re going to keep it,” said Natalie.
David thought of the room from his dreams.
“Could it be in the throne room?” he asked.
“Maybe. Why?” asked Natalie.
“Just a guess,” said David.
“Actually, from what I know of the Palace’s architectural plans, you could be right,” said Natalie, thoughtful. “The throne room would be the most easily fortified and therefore the most logical place for it to be. Any idea how to get it?”
David paused.
“I think I may have an idea,” said David.
C H A P T E R 7 3
Hongi cranked the handle of a sputtering metal roaster, watching as the dried, fermented cacao beans fell over themselves inside what looked like the shortened barrel of a steam engine. She had a very serious look about her as she watched the beans; as David approached, Hongi raised her stubby hand, silencing him before he had a chance to speak.
“Shush, the beans are sleeping now,” said Hongi, as she turned the handle on the roaster. “We must wake them slowly. Otherwise Hongi will have grumpy chocolate.”
“You make your own chocolate?” asked David, breathing deeply. The warm kitchen had a rich, homely smell to it, like the inside of a dark chocolate truffle. Hongi nodded.
“Hongi make her own everything,” she said. She let go of the handle on the roaster which continued to crank by itself, grabbing a square cleaving knife and utility belt before disappearing through a door at the back of the kitchen. David stared at the door. In a minute she poked her head back out again and waved her arm, motioning David to follow. He hurried after her.
“So. Why you come visit Hongi?” she asked, clipping the utility belt around her waist. She and David were now in a steamy greenhouse encompassing the most extensive kitchen garden David had ever seen, filled with every imaginable vegetable and a grove of fully-grown fruit trees, each marked with a fancy wooden sign. Hongi led him past a bed of turnips toward the tropical tree section, picking up a round wicker basket on the way.
“Well?” asked Hongi.
“Oh, uh, well I was going to ask you something, but mostly I just need your advice,” said David.
“Oh?”
“You see, there’s this girl…”
Hongi spun around.
“Girl? What’s her name? It’s not Kajal-baby, is it?” asked Hongi, brandishing her cleaving knife.
“No, her name’s Natalie,” said David.
“Natalie? She sound like a pesky fly,” said Hongi, pulling out a grappling hook. She stopped in front of a short, cacao tree between two coconut palms and tossed the grappling hook into the foliage. “That good though. Bad name make good woman. Woman with good name think too much of herself.”
Hongi climbed up the cacao tree, careful to avoid the alien-looking flowers that covered patches of the trunk and main branches, looking like pink starbursts. Further up the tree were clusters of yellow-orange pods that resembled a cross between a thin, pointed pumpkin and a mango. They protruded from the trunk as though someone had wrapped a garland around it. Hongi hit them with her cleaving knife, knocking the ripe pods into the basket at the base of the tree. She paused and tapped the knife to her mouth, thoughtful.
“Nat-a-lie… Gnats only come over still water. She bring peace to your heart, yes?” asked Hongi.
“I think she’s my kumara, Hongi, my sweet potato,” said David. Hongi swung her cleaver and thwacked another pod from the trunk like an executioner swinging an axe.
“How do you know kumara? That a tikihune word,” said Hongi.
“A friend taught it to me,” said David.
“Silver?”
“No, Moai.”
Hongi lowered her knife.
“Moai? My pork chop?” asked Hongi, her lip trembling. “When did Tatu last see him?”
“A few days before I came to the Palace.”
“He’s alive?”
“Yes,” said David.
Hongi climbed down the cacao tree, stopping when she was exactly level with David. She looked him straight in the eye with the same hard stare that Moai had used when they first met. Hongi nodded.
“You Tatu, the marked mer. You walk on both sides.” She climbed to the ground. “Moai is on the other side?”
“Yes,” said David.
“Eh-eh, Hongi thought he died in the fire,” said Hongi, shaking her head. “Tatu going back to the other side now, yes? That why Tatu sad about his sweet potato.”
“Yeah, I have to. They’re going to find out I don’t belong here and hurt me if I don’t, but I don’t want to leave.”
“But Tatu will not be welcome there either,” said Hongi, lifting the basket of cacao pods onto the flat top of her head. “You fin-footed now; you have no home. Do they promise you a home on the other side?”
“Only if I get the shield.”
“Tatu must kill the King-mahn?” asked Hongi.
“No, no, no. Only steal it. The humans say I must reclaim what belongs to them, or I guess they’ll kill me.”
“So you must steal the shield then,” said Hongi. She set the basket down near a bed of banana leaves, pulling out the first cacao pod. She chopped it in half with the cleaving knife and scooped out the purple beans with her fingers, which were floating in slimy, white goo. She dumped the beans and goo on the banana leaf and grabbed another pod, frowning as she looked up at David.
“Why you tell Hongi this?” she asked.
David shrugged.
“I don’t know. All these people keep telling me what to do, but they don’t understand like Hongi does. They don’t know what it’s like being torn away from home and sent on a different path in a completely different world. They think it’s easy, like I can just serve them and smile and completely forget that I have a home, a family, someone who loves m
e.”
“It is difficult, leaving family. Hongi does know.”
“I know the whole of Aeroth is in danger if I don’t get this shield, but for once I wish someone would just think about what they’re putting me through. No one ever asked if I wanted it. They just forced it on me like they were doing me a favour.”
“Sometimes new home is good. Sometimes it’s better.”
“My home is with Natalie, Hongi. She’s such a good friend—the first real friend I think I’ve ever had. I don’t know what I’m going to do without her.”
“Tatu will survive,” said Hongi, cleaning out another cocoa pod. “Find new kumara like Moai.”
“Moai doesn’t have a new sweet potato.”
“He doesn’t?” asked Hongi.
“No, he sits by the docks near the water and looks out to the sea. I think he’s waiting for you.”
“He is? After all these years, my pork chop is still waiting for me.”
“He says he’s waiting for you to tell him what to do.”
Hongi’s lip twitched as she scooped out the gooey beans from the last cacao pod.
“Are you okay?” asked David.
“Fine. Fine,” said Hongi, covering her pile of goop with more banana leaves. “Tatu going to see him again?”
“Yeah, if I get out alive,” said David.
“Tatu must get out. Tatu a pork chop now. Pork chops must stay alive and fight for their family.”
“But what about Natalie?”
“Don’t worry about her. Tatu thinking too much like a hungry, old man now. One day she will follow Tatu, and you will be together. Make many babies.”
“How do you know?”
“I hear the grasslands in her name. They call to her just as the sea calls to Tatu. Tatu will find the centre with her.”
“I hope you’re right,” said David.
“Hongi always right. That why Moai wait for Hongi.”
She picked up two fallen coconuts and hacked off their tops, wiping her forehead as the halves fell to the ground. She pulled two bendy straws from her utility belt and stuck them in the coconut bottom, taking one for herself and handing the other to David. She sat down on her pile of banana leaves, sighing heavily as she sipped her coconut.
