Nim's Island (7 page)

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.

I
N 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.

The tide was going out, and when they’d finished the game Nim lay on her stomach and dug for clams with an old shell, while Selkie and Fred galumphed around the wet sand and Chica watched and nodded.

When she’d scooped out enough for dinner, Nim made a fire, baked her clams and split the coconut for dessert.

Fred darted his nose under her arm and nearly got bopped on the head with her coconut-breaking rock. ‘Get out of the way, you greedy dragon!’ she teased, and broke him off a piece.

Shining there, like a perfect surprise, was a round, creamy pearl.

Nim stared, not wanting to touch or move it. Jack had told her that sometimes, once in a lifetime or so, a coconut could make a pearl just the same way an oyster did, but Nim had never thought she’d see one.

Fred finished his own coconut—snapped—and the pearl disappeared.

And Nim felt as if everything good in her life had disappeared, too, and she knew it wasn’t true and she knew it was silly, but she cried till her shirt was soggy and her breath was hiccupy and the tears didn’t know how to stop.

Fred sat staring with his mouth full of coconut and pearl.

Selkie
whumped
him on the back with her flipper—and chunks of coconut and the pearl flew out of his mouth.

Nim gave one last hiccup and took the pearl back to the hut.

It was even more beautiful when it was clean; more wonderful than a shell’s gleaming inside whirls, because it was whole and perfect. ‘A Lucky Pearl,’ Nim whispered, because anything so rare must be lucky, and to be beautiful and rare must be the luckiest of all.

She put it on a piece of stroked-smooth driftwood in front of her mother’s picture and, since it was nearly sunset now anyway, turned on the laptop.

The light glowed, the computer hummed, but just as she clicked the email box open, the screen went black. She’d forgotten to charge the battery.

The pearl didn’t seem so lucky when she couldn’t tell Alex Rover about it.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
the red lines and the yellow ooze, angrier and pussier than the day before, were back on Nim’s knee. Her body was warm and her head was as fat and floaty as a cloud.

The solar panel was okay, the laptop battery was charging . . . the other charts and chores didn’t seem to matter. She didn’t feel like breakfast but Selkie fussed until she had a glass of water and a banana.

Galileo swooped past, chasing a booby bird with a fish in its beak.

Another letter was sticking out of his band.

‘Thank you, Troppo Tourists!’ said Nim, grabbing the paper as Galileo snatched the fish cap from her hand.

Dear Nim

Great news! Your fix-it father has got a fixed-up rudder—I’m on my way home!

Plankton celebrated too—put on a great show last night—AND I discovered a new species of
Dinoflagellate protozoan
zoo-plankton!

(It doesn’t look EXACTLY like you but I named it after you anyway.)

The wind’s against me, but if it doesn’t get worse I’ll be home tomorrow night or the day after.

Love (as much as big plankton love little plankton),

Jack

Nim knew she ought to be happy and ought to write a letter back, but her knee hurt too much to care and she needed advice faster than Galileo could bring it.

She dozed beside Selkie and, when she was too hot, went back to the hut. The battery was charged.

Just for a moment she wondered if Alex Rover still wanted to write to her now the rafts were finished, but there was no one else to ask.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: Friday 9 April, 10:48

Dear Alex Rover

I’m sorry I couldn’t write yesterday because I forgot to do the science stuff so the battery wasn’t strong enough to turn on the email.

What would your Hero do if he cut his knee when he climbed Fire Mountain and now it has red lines and yellow gunk and his head feels hot and cloudy?

Also, does your Hero get lonely and miserable when he’s on the island and the Lady Hero is with the Bad Guys? And even if he finds a coconut pearl, it doesn’t seem as pretty because there’s no one to share it with, because Selkie and Fred don’t care about things like that (except when Fred tries to eat it, but that doesn’t count).

From Nim

A
LEX HAD WOKEN
long before daylight with the story dancing in her mind like images from a film. She saw swaying palms and hot, gold sand, a shimmering waterfall and grumbling volcano, clear-blue sea and cloudless sky . . .

As the sun came up, she looked out at the dawn-grey roofs and railways—and put on the CD,
Sea Bird Songs and Dolphin Duets
—
‘just like being by the sea
!’ the blurb claimed.

‘Not quite,’ said Alex, turning on the computer.

She read Nim’s email and she turned quite pale.

‘It can’t be true!’ said Alex. ‘A kid can’t be all by herself on an island!’ And she read it again.

Then she printed out all of Nim’s other emails and read them again, and she looked at the map she’d drawn. She read Nim’s email about climbing Fire Mountain and what
the island looked like, and realised that Nim never ever mentioned another person.

‘If one true thing has happened in my life,’ said Alex, ‘this is it.’

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: Friday 9 April, 5:55

Dear Nim

If my Hero’s knee was very swollen and sore, he would soak it in the sea and then clean it up with fresh coconut juice and bandage it. Then he’d REST in the shade and drink LOTS of water.

And if he felt lonely and miserable he’d tell someone—maybe on an email.

That’s what Girl Heroes on real islands should do, too.

Are you alone? Where are your parents?

Do you need help?

Love, Alex

Nim read the letter fast and turned off the computer. Her knee still hurt but it didn’t seem as bad now she knew what to do. She took her blue water bottle down to the beach and sat in the shade of a rock with her leg in the water. Selkie sat on one side and worried, and Fred sat on the other side and slept, and Nim sipped her water and dreamed in the middle.

When she woke up she was stiff and sore, and the sun was going down. ‘I’ve been here all day!’ said Nim, and she didn’t know if Alex Rover’s Hero would have sat there that long, but she liked the way her head felt as if it belonged to her again.

Then she took a clean hanky from the hut, and punched a hole in a coconut and wiped the yellow pus and slimy muck away from her knee, and now the knee was sore but not hot and fat. And she turned on the laptop and read Alex Rover’s letter again.

‘Oh!’ said Nim, and felt pink and happy, because if Alex Rover wanted to come and rescue her then he really must be a Hero, just like the newspaper story said.

Even if she didn’t need to be rescued.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: Friday 9 April, 18:26

Dear Alex Rover

My mother went to investigate the contents of a blue whale’s stomach when I was a baby, but some bad guys frightened the whale and she hasn’t been seen since.

Jack is studying plankton. He went away for three days except his rudder got broken in a storm and so did his satellite dish, but he sent me a message with Galileo the frigate-bird to say he’ll be home soon.

Soon might be tomorrow or the day after that.

I’m not alone because Fred and Selkie are here, and so is Chica.

So I don’t really need help because I washed my knee like you said and it feels a lot better. And I’m happy that you’re really your Hero, because I always knew you were.

From Nim

But when she turned off the laptop she didn’t feel quite so bright and brave, so instead of going to bed they all went down to Turtle Beach and sat together till the full moon shone silver on the waves.

Chica would leave soon to wander the world’s oceans for another year. ‘But you’ll come back next spring, won’t you?’ said Nim, because it was hard to think of Chica leaving too, when Jack wasn’t home yet and Alex didn’t need to rescue her.

Chica nodded sleepily.

‘And maybe then,’ Nim said, ‘Alex will come and meet you, too.’

‘I
T’S A NIGHTMARE
,’ Alex groaned, keying in
Travel Agents
in the internet search engine. ‘She’s alone on the island and nobody knows about it except me.
Me!
—who’s been afraid of airplanes and oceans since my uncle whirled me through the air and into a swimming pool!

‘I like being in my flat,’ she moaned, clicking
Pacific Charter Flights,
‘with my books, my computer, and my imaginary friends. People who live in my head and go away when I put their story away. Places that fit into maps and pictures. Animals that don’t smell or eat or leave hair on the carpet.’

‘There’s only one thing to do,’ she said, clicking back to her email.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: Friday 9 April, 13:52

Dear Nim

All my Heroes are just pretend. Real people aren’t usually as brave—or as strong or smart or lucky—as the Heroes in my stories. Maybe that’s why it’s fun to make them up or read about them.

Because I’m not tall, dark and handsome; I’m certainly not brave—and I’m not a man.

But even if I’m not a Hero, and you don’t need rescuing, I’d still love to come and see you, and the island—and, of course, Fred, Selkie and Chica. (What kind of dog is Selkie? I’m guessing that she’s a Saint Bernard, if she weighs more than your father. And Fred’s little—a poodle?)

Love, Alex

P.S. My phone number is 155 897 346. What’s yours?

The letter waited, all the next day, till Nim checked her email again.

She stared at the screen. She read the letter out loud and the words stayed the same.

She turned the computer off and ripped out the plug, but the words danced in her head.

Alex Rover was not a Hero. Alex Rover was a woman, and she wasn’t even brave.

Outside, the evening was peaceful and still, but inside
Nim was a rage hotter than Fire Mountain’s lava and wilder than a whirlpool in a storm.

She felt angry and cheated, tricked and stupid, lost and lonely, sad and confused—and the feelings were stronger than the words could say. They jostled and shoved, spun, crowded and exploded.

Her shout rang across the water; birds settling for the night flapped into the sky, and the king roared an answer from Sea Lion Point.

Selkie, barking worriedly, lolloped across the sand. Fred peered from under his rock.

Nim was afraid that if she used the laptop she’d punch the keys right through the keyboard. She grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil and marched back outside.

To Alex Rover