Birdie's Book - Andrea Burden [20]
“I do have an older sister and a younger sister,” Kerka offered, clearly feeling bad herself for not sharing—because isn’t that what friends do? “I guess I am a little like both of them, but in different ways. And I fight with my older sister sometimes, but mostly she doesn’t pay attention to me. And I get along with my dad the way that you do.”
It was incredibly dark and misty ahead of us, and the rock walls had gotten a lot closer. “Whoa,” I said. “I wonder if the river maidens have lights or anything.”
A few bubbles rose from the wall nearest us, racing to the surface that was very far away now.
Kerka grabbed my arm, and I stopped swimming immediately.
“Do you see all the eyes?” Kerka whispered in my ear.
I grabbed her hand when I saw what she was talking about. Those were eyes, sure enough, looking out through what must be crevices in the rocks: tiny glowing yellow eyes, lots of them!
“Let’s catch up to the river maidens,” I whispered. “And fast!”
“I knew I didn’t like the water for a reason,” Kerka whispered.
I gave a limp grin that no one could see. Then I squeezed Kerka’s hand, and she squeezed back. Together we kicked like mad and shot downward. I couldn’t see the maidens at all, but with the rock wall so close, there was only one direction they could have gone.
All at once the tunnel was filled with an eerie orange light. I glanced back. The glowing eyes had separated from the wall. They all belonged to a huge eel-like creature. A glowing orange ball dangled in front of the creature’s wide-open mouth like a lantern. I couldn’t tell if the ball was connected to its back or head or if it was some kind of monster magic.
At least we can see what’s going to eat us, I thought.
Thankfully, the eel thing wasn’t moving very fast. But its mouth was full of what looked like extremely sharp teeth.
Kerka turned to me, saying, “Why are you slowing down?”
“I just want to get a good look at it,” I replied. “And it is moving pretty slowly.”
“The only kind of predator that moves slowly is one that knows it will be catching its dinner,” said Kerka.
I gulped, and decided we needed help, just as the eel shot some kind of light dart at us. I didn’t wait to find out what it was. “Come on Kerka, let’s book.”
We both put on speed, kicking our flippers as fast as we could. While more of the eel’s light darts shot at us, I screamed to the river maidens ahead of us, my voice echoing through the tunnel. “Hey! There’s a giant river monster back here!”
As soon as they heard me, the maidens spun around and shot back through the water. They circled around Kerka and me, moving in a watery blur of protection. Through their protective circle, we could see glowing darts shooting from the giant eel’s many eyes. They looked electrical somehow—like they would stun or shock you, and then the monster would gobble you up.
One of the river maidens gave a high-pitched shriek. A dart must have gotten her! The other two maidens immediately gathered up their limp companion and swam off quickly, the injured maiden’s hair flowing behind them. We didn’t even have a chance to say good-bye, and, honestly, I didn’t even think about it, because now we had this big monster to deal with—alone!
Kerka and I swam and dodged darts as if we were in a living video game. Luckily, the creature was not exactly aiming. In a particularly bright blast of darts, I saw what looked like a small opening in the tunnel wall.
“Cave in the wall,” I told Kerka breathlessly.
She looked hastily. “I think I see it. Let’s work our way over there.”
Crazily dodging the light darts, we finally made it to the little cave and squeezed in together. We barely fit. The darts were whizzing past us. Now I noticed that they made a weird whistling sound in the water. We waited until there was a lot less of the whistling going past us. Finally, the lights petered out altogether, and we were left in the dark.
“I don’t think it’s very smart,” whispered Kerka. “Predators for whom game is plentiful don’t have to be clever.”
I shuddered, thinking of Kerka and me as “game,” but