by Liz Kessler
Aaron looked at my hand for a moment. Then he covered it with his. “I guess I must have looked pretty awful up there,” he said with a grimace. “I’m sorry I scared you. Both of you.”
“I’m sorry I doubted you,” Shona added.
“All right. It’s OK. I’m just glad you know the truth now.” He looked around again. “Look, we haven’t got long.”
“Got long for what?” I asked.
“For what I came here to do!” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a bunch of keys. “I managed to find these.”
“What are they?” I asked.
“A spare set of keys. I found them in a cabinet in Noah’s office. Which I only managed to get into because he trusts me.”
I winced at his words. How could I have doubted him?
Aaron held the keys out. “Shona, I’m going to let you out!”
“You’re freeing me?” Shona gulped.
“Of course I’m freeing you!” Aaron replied. “What else would I be doing? I just need to find the right one and you’ll be on your way. I’ll stay here and cover for you.”
“Wait,” Shona said. “I’ve got a better idea.”
“What’s that?” Aaron asked.
Shona grinned at us both. “We all escape. Aaron, dive in and join us. We unlock the cage and all three of us swim away!”
Neither of us replied for a minute. I didn’t know what to say. I mean, Shona’s idea was brilliant. Of course it was. This was the perfect moment. So what was holding me back? And, in fact, now that I thought about it, what was holding Aaron back?
“How come you haven’t tried it already?” I asked.
“What? Leave Shona in a cage and swim away?” Aaron asked. “I’ve told you, I’d never —”
“No, I mean, how come you haven’t tried this before? Unlocked the cage and both of you swim away?”
Aaron glanced around nervously. “Emily, you don’t know what it’s like on this ship. You saw the way Noah shouted at everyone earlier? He’s like that over the slightest thing. He doesn’t trust anyone; he blows up over nothing. He makes us do everything in pairs so there’s always someone watching all of us. He even has people patrolling the cabins all night to make sure no one is secretly plotting against him. You don’t get a minute to yourself, never mind a chance to jump ship.”
“How come you’re on your own now?” Shona asked.
Another glance around. “Because we’ve been given an hour off, and Tom — the guy I’m paired with today — fell asleep in the sunshine. It’s literally the first chance I’ve had to get away.”
“So let’s do it,” Shona repeated. “All three of us. Let’s go. Right now. What’s stopping us?”
Shona was right. What was there to stop us? No one was watching us. As far as any of them knew, Shona was trapped in a locked cage, and Aaron and I were a normal boy and girl who wouldn’t stand a chance of getting away from the pirate ships undetected.
At least, as far as almost all of them knew.
Sam knew different. Sam was expecting me back.
But why should that stop me?
Aaron beamed at us both. “Shona’s right. Let’s do it now! There’s safety in numbers. Let’s go. Are you ready, Emily?”
“I . . .” I said weakly. How could I not be ready? It was ridiculous even to consider it. Aaron and Shona were the only ones I cared about around here. Sam meant nothing to me. I didn’t owe him anything.
But if all of that were true, why did it feel like a lie?
“OK, let’s go,” I said, forcing enthusiasm into my voice and hating myself for the fact that it wasn’t totally real.
Aaron sat on the edge of the deck, took off his shoes, and was about to jump in when —
“Aaron!”
I instinctively darted around to the side of the ship, out of sight.
A boy joined Aaron on the deck. One of Noah’s crew. He looked a couple of years older than Aaron. He was wearing torn black jeans and a green tank top. He had a freckled face and strawberry-blond straggly hair, a couple of earrings in one ear, a stud through his chin.
“What’re you doing, man?” he asked.
The keys were on the deck next to Aaron, just out of the boy’s sight. Aaron stood up, grabbing the keys as he did and holding them behind his back.
Aaron cleared his throat. “Hey. Tom. I was . . .” he began. “I was just checking on the cage. I saw the chain moving around and had a feeling something wasn’t right.” As he spoke, he pointed at the winch. “So I brought the cage up to check on it.”
“And . . . ?” the boy asked, folding his arms and narrowing his eyes at Aaron.
“And it was fine,” Aaron said.
Tom stood there, arms folded, scowling at Aaron for a moment. “I know exactly what you were doing,” he said in a low voice.
No! This was it. Game over. Aaron had turned white.
Then Tom burst into a wide grin and he punched Aaron on the shoulder. “You just wanted to have a look at the cute mermaid, didn’t you! Come on. Admit it!”
Aaron forced a laugh and nodded enthusiastically. “You got me,” he said. “I figured it wouldn’t do any harm to have a quick look close up.”
Tom started to walk away. “Wait till I tell the boys,” he said over his shoulder. “Aaron’s in love with the mermaid.” He threw his head back and laughed. “Come on, pal. Let’s winch it back down again and head back to the others. Noah says he wants to talk to us all.”
Tom was trudging across the deck. Aaron waited another moment, then he turned and bent over the railing. He was holding the keys out. “Quick,” he hissed. “Take them. Let Shona out — get away, both of you.”
“What about you?” I asked.
Aaron shook his head. “I’ll be fine. I’ll escape. I’ll find a way.”
I thought of what Sam had said about the punishment he’d face if he ran away. Would Aaron face even worse? That was assuming he ever managed to slip Noah’s attention for long enough to even think about it.
“Emily, I’ve got to go.” And with that, Aaron held out his hand and threw the keys into the water. They landed with a splash just in front of me.
Aaron stood up and called across to Tom. “Hang on, man. I’ll give you a hand with that,” he said.
I didn’t hear anything else. I couldn’t risk staying around to listen. The keys to Shona’s cage were sinking fast. If I didn’t dive down to get them, any chance of freeing her would sink just as quickly.
“Be careful, Aaron,” I whispered.
And then I ducked under the water, grabbed the keys, and swam over to release Shona from her cage.
I worked frantically at the padlock. For all we knew, Noah could be calling his crew together to give them instructions to transfer Shona to his father immediately.
I knew we wouldn’t have long to get Shona away from here.
“None of them seem to be working,” I said, my hands shaking as I tried the fourth key on the ring. It didn’t fit.
“Keep trying,” Shona said, swishing her tail nervously as she gripped the bars between us. “It’s got to be one of them.”
The fifth one didn’t fit either. Nor did the one after it. There were only three keys left. What if Aaron had picked up the wrong set of keys?
What if Noah discovered they were missing and was calling his crew together to find and punish the person who’d taken them?
I forced all the worried thoughts out of my mind and concentrated on the task in front of me.
Two more keys to go. I tried the first of them. . . .
It worked! It worked!
“Shona! We’ve found it!” I cried as I turned the key in the lock and the padlock sprung open. I yanked it off the chains wrapped around the bars. As the chains fell away, I pulled the door open.
Shona swam out of the cage and straight into my arms. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” she burst out. “I thought I was going to die in there.”
“Well, thanks to Aaron, you’re safe now,”
I replied.
“I feel so bad for ever doubting him,” Shona said, letting me go and treading water with her tail.
“Yeah, me too,” I admitted. “But he did it for you. And now you’re free — so, go. Swim away!”
Shona looked confused. “What about you? Aren’t you coming with me?”
“I . . .” Shona was right. I should go with her. But I couldn’t — not yet. Not while I knew Aaron was stuck on that ship with awful Noah watching his crew’s every move. “I’m not going anywhere till Aaron’s safely away from here,” I said. It was why I was here in the first place: I wasn’t ducking out of my responsibility to him now.
Shona nodded. “I understand.”
“Will you find your way out of here?” I asked.
She smiled. “It’s the ocean,” she said. “It’s my home. I’ll always find my way.”
I threw my arms around her. “Be careful,” I said, hugging her tightly.
Shona hugged me back just as tightly. “You too. You’re absolutely sure about this? I hate leaving you.”
“I’ll be OK,” I said. “I promise you. Please, get away from here. Get as far away as you can. And make sure my parents are OK.”
“OK,” Shona said reluctantly. And with one more hug, she turned away, flicked her tail, and swam off, out to sea.
I watched her swim away. Then I prepared myself for whatever was waiting for me back on Sam’s ship. We needed to win this contest more than ever now. Sam had to become pirate king. It was our only chance of getting Aaron away from Noah. And after the risk he’d just taken to free Shona, there was no way I was leaving this contest till I’d done the same for him.
I reached Sam’s ship and pulled myself up at the stern, out of sight, while I waited for my tail to disappear and my legs to return.
Kat appeared as I was getting up. “Emily!” She bounded toward me and flung her arms around me. “Omigosh, I’m so glad you’re OK!” She released me from the hug and stood back to look at me, clutching my arms with her hands. “Guys! Emily’s back!” she yelled.
A minute later, Ana had joined us and given me an equally huge hug. A couple of the boys joined them. They were all grinning so widely you’d think . . .
What would you think? That they cared? Maybe they did. Even if it did seem a bit odd that they were responding so enthusiastically when they didn’t know I’d even been gone.
Or did they?
“Where’s Sam?” I asked.
Luke jabbed a thumb behind him. “He’s at the bow, straightening up the ropes.”
“Do you mind . . . ?” I asked.
Ana laughed. “Go for it. We’ll join you in a bit. You need to catch us up on everything!”
As I made my way along the deck to Sam, I couldn’t help wondering what exactly she meant by everything. Did she know? Had Sam told them about me?
He couldn’t have. There’s no way I’d have got a reception like that if they knew what I was.
I clambered over ropes and hatches, wound my way along the side of the ship, and climbed up the steps to the front deck.
My heart did a really annoying skip as Sam looked up. His face, slightly grimy, as usual, was frowning in concentration — until he saw me. Then it changed completely. He dropped the ropes he was holding, smiled so brightly it was as though the sun had just come out behind his eyes, and jumped up.
A second later, his arms were around me. “You’re back!” he exclaimed in my ear, squishing me so hard I could barely breathe, let alone reply.
I hesitated for a moment, then hugged him back. We didn’t move for a couple of seconds. Then I started to feel awkward, so I wriggled out of his grasp.
As I pulled away, he was still grinning. “I thought I’d never see you again,” he said. “I thought you were — well, I don’t even want to think about what I thought.”
He sat and patted the space next to him. “Come. Sit. Tell me everything.”
So I did.
I told him how Noah watches his crew like a jailor. I told him about Aaron taking a massive risk for Shona. I told him she was free, she’d escaped. I told him I was depending on him to keep his part of the bargain to help me get Aaron safely away from Noah. That this was the reason I had come back, rather than swim away with Shona when I had the chance.
“I’m glad you’re back,” Sam said when I’d talked myself dry. “Is that selfish of me?”
I shook my head. “I’m glad to be back too,” I said, shocked by how much I meant it.
He smiled. “And I’m going to do everything I can to help you, and help Aaron. I’ve made a promise, and I want you to see how seriously I take that. I’ll make sure the whole crew is on board with it too.”
“Sam, about the crew . . .” I began. “I have a question.”
“What is it?”
I was suddenly embarrassed. If I asked the question, it meant having to be OK with the answer. Still, I had to know.
“Have you told them . . . ?”
“Told them what?”
“About me? About . . . what I am?”
Sam burst out laughing. “Well, it turns out I didn’t have to. Not all of them, anyway. Ana and Kat had somehow figured it out already — don’t ask me how.”
“Really?” I thought about the reception they’d both given me. All those hugs — despite the fact that I was a mermaid! Weren’t they supposed to be disgusted and horrified by me?
“Really! And . . . I hope you don’t mind, but I told the boys, once you’d gone. They were asking so many questions I just thought the truth was the best way to answer them. I wanted them to hear it from me, not from some kind of rumor mill.”
“And?”
Sam shrugged. “Luke and Hal were completely cool about it. Dean was a bit weird — but, then, Dean is a bit weird about most things, so I wouldn’t worry about it. Turns out no one really understood why we were supposed to hate mermaids so much anyway. And it seems that no one actually does!”
I laughed. “Wow,” I said. “That’s . . .” I paused. Then I said, “That’s swishy!”
“Swishy?”
I couldn’t help smiling back. “Yeah,” I said. “Swishy.”
Sam grinned. “Swishy it is!”
He stood up and held out a hand to pull me up too. I got up and followed him back to the ropes. “Come on. Give me a hand,” he said, looking at his watch. “Dad has summoned us to meet in an hour for the final challenge. Apparently, this one has two parts to it, so two points.”
“Which means you could still win.”
“Exactly. And that’s precisely what I plan to do.”
“I’ll do everything I can to help make it happen,” I said.
“I know.” Sam grinned widely. “And when I win, I promise you, I will free Aaron.”
Sam had been gone more than an hour. He’d taken the tender over to his dad’s ship to get the instructions for the final challenge.
Ana was drawing a tattoo on my arm with a special ink. It looked like tar. Smelled like it, too. “Lasts longer than henna and doesn’t hurt like a needle,” she’d said when I asked if she’d do one for me.
I didn’t know what picture I wanted, so she’d said she’d “draw from the heart and see what happens.”
It had been about half an hour when she sat back and examined her work. “Done,” she said. “Take a look.”
I twisted my arm to study the picture. Two ships’ anchors crossed over each other, skull-and-crossbones style. Leaning against the anchors was a mermaid. Her tail was looped around the anchors and flopped over the top of them.
A pirate mermaid.
“It’s beautiful,” I gasped. I was too choked up to say anything else.
“It’s pretty cool,” Ana agreed. “If I say so myself !”
Just then, Hal appeared in front of us. “Sam’s back. Gather around,” he said.
I pulled down my sleeve carefully so as not to smudge my tattoo, and Ana and I went to join the others, to find out what the pirate king had in store
for us next.
“Read it again,” Kat insisted.
Sam cleared his throat and read again from the piece of paper he’d brought back with him.
“We pirates know, deep in our bones, that all that glitters is not gold.
But yet we know most true as well, that diamonds shall reward the bold.
So follow the diamonds as they swim away into the darkest night.
They’ll lead you to the Trident’s Treasure. Let them be your guiding light.
Work as a team, be brave and strong, and when you think your way is near,
Take three deep breaths, prepare yourself, then five, four, three, two, one — you’re here.”
“This is it,” Luke said. “The final test. We have to find the treasure.”
“The Trident’s Treasure,” Ana added.
“And this is all we’re getting by way of a clue,” Dean added, shaking his head. “What use is that? It doesn’t even make sense. Diamonds swimming? What on earth is that supposed to mean?”
“We don’t know yet,” Luke said wearily. He was obviously getting as fed up with Dean’s attitude as the rest of us were. “But that’s the whole point. It’s not going to be easy, is it?”
“It’s supposed to be a challenge,” Sam agreed. “Finding the Trident’s Treasure is the thing that’s going to prove either me or my brother worthy of taking on the family business. And it’s about time we all decided we are up to this challenge, and we are going to win it.”
No one said anything. Even Dean didn’t argue with him this time. “OK, boss,” he said with a shrug. “What’s the plan?”
Sam’s eyes widened for a moment. Dean had never called him “boss” before. He recovered quickly and carried on. “Crystal Bay is one of hundreds of bays around here. We have to find the one that will lead us to Halfmoon Castle.”
“Why not just try them all?” Kat asked.
Sam shook his head. “We haven’t got time. The sun’s already starting to go down.”
“So?” I asked.
“Dad told us that in order to win, one of us has to find it before the sun has risen tomorrow.”
“We have less than a day?” Ana asked.
Sam looked at his watch. “We have barely twelve hours,” he said.
