Neversink

by Barry Wolverton

  “What you may not know,” added Lockley, lowering his voice for dramatic effect, “is that no illegitimate ruler may perch in the World Tree.”

  The shore was now abuzz, and Rozbell was livid. A fit of spastic blinking overcame him. Blinking and fuming, he turned back to Lockley. “I don’t see a tree anywhere,” he spat. “All I see is a miserable little stump!”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” said Ruby.

  “This stump, as you call it, is a part of a whole that still exists in spirit,” said Lockley. “If you are legitimate, you will be able to clutch the branch in your talons, and then I give you my word that Neversink will not question your authority.”

  Evidently Lockley had not consulted the other auks about this, because his promise provoked a great deal of hissing and growling. But when they looked to the Great Auk, he nodded in agreement.

  “And what, pray tell, supposedly happens if I am not legitimate?” said Rozbell. “Just out of curiosity.”

  “You will die,” said Lockley.

  “Why should I believe anything a fish-eater tells me about the World Tree?”

  “Then believe me,” said an aged voice, this one from Rozbell’s camp. Heads spun around to find that Otus, the elderly scops owl, had spoken. “The puffin is quite correct,” he said.

  “He’s one of the king’s old lackeys!” Rozbell snapped. “You can’t trust him.” But all eyes, both owl and auk, stayed fixed on Rozbell and Lockley.

  Lockley held out the branch. “Well?”

  Rozbell looked from Lockley to the branch and back to Lockley again. Then he let out a shrill hoot. “I don’t have time for your insolence. My authority is already unquestioned.”

  Much to Rozbell’s surprise, his own camp seemed dissatisfied with this answer. Otus came forward and said, “I, for one, would be interested to see what happens.”

  “Who cares what you think?” said Rozbell.

  But then two large eagle owls swooped down and stood before Rozbell. “We’d like to see what happens as well,” they said coldly. “Take the branch.” The other owls crowded closer.

  Rozbell was cornered. Everyone knew how he had come to power. The question of his legitimacy was irrelevant. But if he refused to clutch the branch, he would look like a coward. And his paranoid mind told him there were plenty among his followers who would exploit any show of weakness to seize the crown. But if he clutched the branch and the World Tree myth was true…

  With all eyes on him, Rozbell lifted one leg off the ground and gently pressed the bottom of his foot against the branch. Slowly, his talons closed around it. When nothing happened, he carefully brought his other foot forward, until he was fully perched on the branch.

  No one moved or uttered a peep. Rozbell looked down at his feet, as if to be sure he was really perched there. Then, surging with a furious confidence, he pointed to Lockley, the Great Auk, and Otus, and said to Feathertop, “Kill them all!”

  Instead, a most unexpected thing happened.

  The great white form of Astra swooped down and snatched Rozbell from the branch as if she were picking fruit off a tree, and bore the little tyrant off over the water.

  “Feathertop!” cried a tiny voice in the wind, but while the martial eagle did launch himself into the air, he did not chase after his master. Rather, he banked to the south, presumably headed for the much warmer climate of his African home. Everyone else just stood there, bills agape, until both the snowy owl and the martial eagle were specks on the horizon.

  “I didn’t see that coming,” said Ruby.

  “Fascinating,” was all Egbert could muster.

  Lockley turned to the Great Auk and smiled. Behind them an unseen voice from the owls’ camp whispered, “The World Tree!” And in no time, the sentiment picked up steam until it was agreed upon that justice had been served, and an illegitimate ruler had been banished.

  The owls gathered near Otus, and one of the Owls With Hats removed his derby and looked it over curiously, as if he had just discovered the strange object on his head. “These things seem a bit ridiculous on a bird, don’t they?” he said. There was a murmur of agreement, and others began removing their hats and looking them over, as if reconsidering their worth. Otus then led the whole group in flight back to Tytonia. It was quite a sight, and if one paid attention, one could see hats being tossed into the sea as the owls made their way home.

  The auks gathered around the Great Auk and welcomed him home, eager to hear what had happened with him and Sedna. Most were skeptical when he insisted they had Lockley to thank for their reversal of fortune. “I’m not getting younger, stronger, or even wiser,” he explained. “That’s why I let Lockley confront Rozbell. It’s about time you all started thinking about someone who could succeed me.”

  Lockley could tell the other auks thought the Great Auk had gone completely mental. He even thought he heard a laughing gull cackling in the distance. Eventually the auks returned to their burrows, to get back to the business of minding their own business. Algard Guillemot walked up to Lockley, lifted his bill slightly, and grunted, which Lockley knew was a sign of grudging respect.

  As for Lockley, Egbert, and Ruby, the three friends lingered after everyone else wandered away, beaming at one another. It had crossed each of their minds during their trials that they could have been separated forever, and the three of them might have attempted a group hug if it weren’t physically impossible for a puffin, a walrus, and a hummingbird to embrace.

  Finally Lockley said, “I guess I should be getting home to Lucy,” and he tossed the World Tree branch into the surf.

  “Good heavens, what are you doing?” said Egbert.

  “Oh, that. That was just an old piece of driftwood. We Arctic birds are a tricky lot. Just add Rozbell to the long list of birds and beasts to underestimate us!”

  “But…”

  “No one takes mythology to heart more than an owl,” said Lockley. “You taught me that, old boy. It was all worked out between the Great Auk, Astra, and me. If Rozbell had been too afraid to clutch the branch, it would have been as good as surrendering. But by calling our bluff, he essentially gave Astra permission to attack him, since everyone knew he was illegitimate.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” said Egbert.

  “You don’t? This truly is a remarkable day!” said Ruby.

  “A remarkable summer,” said Lockley.

  The vanquishing of Rozbell led to changes aplenty on Neversink and Tytonia. The owls anointed Otus their new king, but created the position of prime minister so that no one owl would have absolute authority. To the Great Auk’s delight, Astra was elected the first prime minister, and her first official task was to meet with the Great Auk about restoring and improving the Peace of Yore. More importantly, they forged a new treaty: the Great Auk made the same promise he had made to Rozbell—to supply raw fish to Tytonia until it was determined that the owls’ food supply was no longer threatened.

  There was also a proper ceremony of mourning for those who had lost their eggs to the owls, and in an unexpected show of determination, those bereaved families agreed it wasn’t too late in the breeding season to try again.

  But in a melancholy twist for Lockley, Egbert returned to Ocean’s End. His former clan had learned of his bravery in the face of the White Death, and they invited him to return. The Scholars, too, after much deliberation, Un-shunned him, and offered him a position, on a trial basis, as Associate Scholar of Less-Ancient History. “It’s quite unprecedented for them to create a new post,” Egbert explained. “An immense honor. Of course, it will be a non-voting position.”

  Egbert was torn about leaving Neversink again, especially with Lockley back and peace restored. But Lockley gave him his blessing: “You deserve the chance to go home, old friend.”

  Soon the sun began to dip below the horizon, heralding the end of summer on Neversink, which meant that Lockley would lose Ruby too, at least for the winter. One morning, while taking tea with Lucy, Ruby flew into
their burrow and told Lockley she needed him right away.

  Ruby asked Lockley to close his eyes and follow the sound of her wings, but the path along which she led him was full of rocks and dips, and Lockley kept losing his balance. “Ruby, what the devil!”

  “Not much farther,” she promised, and then finally, on the other side of the sea cliffs, she let him open his eyes. They were on a grassy plain near where Egbert had held his birthday party—what seemed like ages ago. When they crested the last hill, Lockley saw a sight that made his eyes well up with tears. It was Egbert, busy ordering a number of other strange animals around.

  “Ta-da!” said Ruby.

  “Lockley, my dear,” said Egbert, as if he had never been gone, “don’t ever try to build your own library!”

  “I wasn’t planning to, but…Egbert! You’re back? But…”

  “Enough buts, my dear. I merely took your advice to heart.”

  “What advice?”

  “You told me I deserved a chance to go home. And as I once told a certain sadistic owl, Neversink is my home.”

  Still blinking away tears, Lockley asked, “So what’s going on here, old boy?”

  “The Scholars were right,” said Egbert. “I’ve never taken to heart their belief that knowledge is the domain of a privileged few. So I’m building my own library, right here on Neversink. For everyone.”

  Lockley remembered his trip inside the Scholars’ library, and although Egbert wasn’t using ivory and ice, his library was most definitely taking a similar shape. Two giant beavers had floated timber from the mainland and were measuring and cutting all the beams and joists. An army of carpenter ants was raising and lashing all the pieces. Mud wasps were filling in the walls. And an industrious pair of weaverbirds flown in from Africa were thatching together the roof.

  Amazed at the progress, Lockley asked, “How long have you been back exactly?”

  “I tell you,” said Ruby, “keeping a chatty walrus under wraps is no easy task!”

  The three old friends spent the next several hours enjoying the reunion they had been deprived of when Egbert was invited back to Ocean’s End. Talk inevitably turned to owls, hats, Sedna, tyranny, and redemption and all the rest, and Egbert tried to explain the moral of the story that nearly saw Neversink come to ruin.

  “My dear Lockley, this adventure has undoubtedly taught you to appreciate the difference between things you can change, and those you can’t.”

  “No it hasn’t,” said Ruby. “He’s still embarrassed by his ridiculous bill and his wobbly little body.”

  “Well…,” said Lockley.

  “You haven’t been trying to soar again, have you, my dear?”

  “No,” Lockley said firmly. “Puffins don’t soar. Not like that, anyway.”

  Egbert nodded his approval, but Ruby wasn’t done. “And besides, Rozbell was able to change Neversink—for the worse!”

  “I suppose,” said Egbert. “Well then, I think we’ve all learned that you should stand up for what you believe in, no matter what the consequences.”

  “But didn’t Rozbell do that?” said Ruby. “He really believed he should be king, and everyone else suffered the consequences.”

  Egbert’s face was turning quite pink. “Then the moral is, Being good is its own reward!”

  “What about all the suffering?”

  “Well then, Knowledge is power!”

  “Just because you’re smart means you can’t abuse power?”

  “Oh, for the love of fish!”

  Lockley felt certain this could go on for some time. The familiar, bickering voices of his friends warmed his heart. But just now, he wasn’t in the mood to sort out the meaning of it all, and so he slipped away quietly. He intended to go home, have a nice dinner with his wife, and hold his newborn piffling under his wings.

  But first he went to the outskirts of Auk’s Landing, to that narrow ledge that jutted out over the sea—the place where he used to dream of soaring. Lockley stood there in silence over the corrugated-tin sea, watching the water accelerate and collide with the shore, crumpling against the rocks. He took in the briny air and the scent of fish, and listened to the gulls and terns laughing and cheering and squabbling with the auks and seals, and he thought what a fine, late summer day it was, indeed.

  About the Author

  BARRY WOLVERTON makes his debut with NEVERSINK, which grew from his longtime interest in arctic wildfowl and Scandinavian folklore. He has also written for National Geographic, Scholastic.com, and Discovery Networks. Barry lives in Memphis. You can find him online at www.barrywolverton.com.

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  Credits

  Jacket art © 2012 by Sam Nielson

  Hand-lettering by David Coulson

  Jacket design by Amy Ryan

  Copyright

  Walden Pond Press is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

  Walden Pond Press and the skipping stone logo are trademarks and registered trademarks of Walden Media, LLC.

  “Late Hymn from the Myrrh-Mountain” from The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens by Wallace Stevens, copyright 1954 by Wallace Stevens and renewed 1982 by Holly Stevens. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.

  “Sedna: The Sea Goddess” excerpted from Shadows From the Singing House by Helen Caswell. Used by permission of Tuttle Publishing, a member of the Periplus Publishing Group.

  NEVERSINK. Text copyright © 2012 by Barry Wolverton. Illustrations copyright © 2012 by Sam Nielson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Wolverton, Barry.

  Neversink / by Barry Wolverton; with drawings by Sam Nielson.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: When owls threaten the puffins’ way of life on the small island of Neversink along the Arctic Circle, Lockley J. Puffin, helped by a hummingbird and a walrus, sets out to save it.

  ISBN 978-0-06-202791-7 (trade bdg.)

  [1. Puffins—Fiction. 2. Owls—Fiction. 3. Islands—Fiction. 4. War—Fiction. 5. Animals—Fiction. 6. Arctic regions—Fiction.] I. Nielson, Sam, ill. II. Title.

  PZ7.W8375Ne 2012

  2011016550

  [Fic]—dc23

  FIRST EDITION

  EPub Edition © FEBRUARY 2012 ISBN: 978-0-06-202794-8

  12 13 14 15 16 CG/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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  Barry Wolverton, Neversink