Amber's First Clue (4 page)

“Excuse me,” called Amber in a low voice. “What is your name?”

As Amber spoke to the human child, she heard her stardust locket tinkle softly, like an icy bell. The locket's magical powers allowed all creatures near it to understand each other's language. Then, the girl whipped around to see who was speaking to her.

“Merfolk!” she gasped, hurriedly wiping the tears from her eyes. “Can it really be true? I was wishing for something magical to happen, and it did!” She looked around excitedly at the mermaids, and her face glowed with delight. “My name is Ana, and I've always wanted to meet the Sisters
of the Sea. My grandmother once told me that you live deep under the icy waters. But I can hardly believe that you're real!”

“I promise you that we are,” replied Amber politely. “What were you wishing for?”

Ana's face fell again. All her joy at meeting the mermaids seemed to drain away.

“I was wishing for a miracle to help my friend Benjy,” she said sadly. “These blocks of ice have moved on the tides of the sea and have trapped him on all sides. Benjy is stuck in a little pocket of cold water under here.” The unhappy girl gazed gloomily into the hole in the ice. “He comes up to this hole to breathe, but he is getting weaker every day.”

“Is Benjy another … like you … I mean, is he a human?” stammered Becky shyly.

“No!” said Ana. “If he were one of the Inuit, my father would help him. But Benjy is a baby beluga, one of the small whales who live in the northern seas. My father says the movement of the ice, which has caught him and his kinsfolk, is Mother Nature's way
and we cannot interfere.” She began to cry softly, hiding her face in her furry sleeve.

Amber looked at Ana with a concerned expression. “Is there anything we can do to help?” she asked gently.

“Oh no, I don't think there is,” said Poppy quickly. “If you haven't forgotten, Amber, we're supposed to be on a very urgent mission. Don't forget that Princess Arctica is trapped as well. I think we should concentrate on rescuing her and the diamonds, instead of getting distracted by a human. And we've got more important things to worry about than one young beluga.”

“Poppy!” said Megan. “That's not very nice.”

“Well, it's true,” said Poppy, turning
up her nose and tossing her bright curls defiantly.

“Yes, it is true, in a way,” replied Amber, looking serious and thoughtful. “We can't stop thinking about how to solve the first clue. But our stardust lockets tell us that all the creatures of Ice Kingdom are important.”

“And the heart on Megan's locket is perhaps more important than anything,” said Becky softly.

“Yes,” agreed Amber. “Ana loves her friend Benjy, and I think Princess Arctica would want us to help. What do the rest of you think?” She glanced at each of her friends in turn.

“You're right, Amber,” declared Jess. “Anyway, we're stumped on the clue for
the moment. Maybe we'll get some inspiration while we're helping Benjy.”

“Oh, will you really help?” breathed Ana, sitting up and brushing away her tears. “I'd be so grateful!”

“Of course we want to help,” said Katie. “Agreed, Poppy?”

“Oh, all right, I suppose,” muttered Poppy reluctantly. “Agreed.”

“That's settled then,” said Amber. “We all want to rescue Benjy. The question is—how?”

At that moment, Ana's face lit up and she cried, “Look, Benjy is here!”

A smooth gray face poked shyly above the little hole in the ice. It was a baby beluga whale, who looked very hungry. Ana stroked his cheek and kissed his nose.

“Ana has asked us to help you and your family, Benjy,” explained Amber.

“Thank you, Sisters of the Sea,” said
Benjy faintly, looking up at the mermaids sitting on the frosty snow. “We are getting weak, stuck in this narrow pool and trapped by the ice.”

“If Benjy and the other whales don't get out to their feeding grounds very soon, they will starve,” added Ana, her eyes dark with worry.

“But what are we going to do, Amber?” whispered Jess urgently. “We can't just lift the whales out of the hole and drag them over the ice to the sea!”

“I'm not sure what to do yet,” Amber confessed. “But this breathing hole is close to the ice edge, so the whales are trapped very near to the open sea. The wall of ice blocking them in can't be very thick. What if we found some way of cutting through it?”

“That's a good idea,” said Megan. “Then the whales could swim through the opening we made and be free again.”

“So what could we use to cut the ice?” wondered Becky.

“I've got something that might help,” suggested Ana. “Look—my own little knife that my father carved for me.” She proudly pulled a small, shining blade from a soft bag at her side.

“Thank you, Ana,” said Amber gratefully. “We'll try that.”

With a flick of their spangled
tails, the mermaids dived into the turquoise waves that lapped against the ice edge. Then they sank under the surface and looked around carefully. On one side of them, the deep, cold sea stretched away into the distance. On the other, a great wall of ice shone with glints of blue and purple and green.

“Benjy and the others must be stuck behind here,” said practical-minded Jess. “The ice has trapped them on all sides—above, around, and below. Let's get to work to make them an escape tunnel!”

Amber and her friends took turns chipping away at the smooth cliff of ice with Ana's little knife. Glittering splinters broke off, but it was slow work. The
mermaids' arms started to ache, and they still hadn't made much progress.

“This is useless,” said Poppy impatiently. “It will take us forever to make a tunnel.”

“Have you got any better ideas, Poppy?” asked Katie.

“Yes, I have actually,” replied Poppy, with a confident flourish of her sparkly blue tail. “We need something much
bigger than this little baby knife. We need something huge, like a battering ram, which will smash this ice to pieces!”

“But we don't have anything like that,” Amber protested.

Poppy suddenly twisted her tail and did a dazzling somersault in the water.

“That's where you're wrong, Amber.” She laughed. “We do have something really huge. Look behind you!”

All the mermaids turned around and gasped. Gliding near them in the underwater depths was a large, mottled narwhal. The strange-looking creature was a special kind of whale, with a strong, straight tusk that stuck out from his head like a spear.

“His long tusk would be perfect for
breaking the ice,” said Amber excitedly. “Good eye, Poppy.”

“I said it was a good idea, didn't I?” replied Poppy with a grin.

Amber quickly swam over to the narwhal to explain what was needed.

“Belugas trapped in the ice?” he said in a gruff voice, solemnly wagging his tusk up and down. “I don't mind stopping for a moment. I'll soon smash a hole in that ice. My tusk is the strongest in the
whole of Ice Kingdom, or my name isn't Magnus!”

“But you will be careful not to hurt the whales trapped behind the wall of ice, won't you?” asked Megan anxiously.

“Of course, of course,” replied Magnus. “Just watch me!”

Magnus squared up to the sheer wall of ice and charged toward it with a surge of his powerful tail. CRASH! His tusk rammed straight into the ice, leaving a long, deep crack.

“That's it!” shouted the mermaids. “You're doing it, Magnus!”

Again and again, the powerful narwhal pounded against the wall of ice with his tusk, grunting with the effort. At last, a narrow tunnel began to open up, reaching
almost all the way to where Benjy and his family were imprisoned. Strange, mournful noises echoed eerily down the tunnel.

“What's that spooky sound?” asked Katie, looking around and shivering.

“It's the beluga whales calling to each other, on the other side of this ice,” puffed Magnus. “They can hear us, and they know we are trying to rescue them.”

“And now there's only a thin block of ice separating us from the whales,” said Amber hopefully. “If you charge it with your tusk one last time, Magnus, I think the whales will be able to swim out into the tunnel.”