The Tail of Emily Windsnap - Liz Kessler [4]
Then she swept her black Mystic Millie cape over her shoulder and put the kettle on the stove.
I waved goodbye as Mom and Mr. Beeston headed down the pier. At the end of it, Mr. Beeston turned left to walk around the bay, back to his lighthouse. The street lamps lining the promenade were already on, pale yellow spots against an orangey-pink sky. Mom turned right and headed toward the bookshop.
I watched until they were out of sight before joining Millie on the sofa. We had our dinner plates on our knees and laughed together at the weatherman when he flubbed his lines. Then her favorite true-crime show started and she shushed me and went all serious.
I had an hour.
I cleared the plates, then rooted through the pen jar, got a sheet of Mom’s fanciest purple writing paper from the living-room cupboard, and shut myself in my cabin.
This is what I wrote:
Dear Mrs. Partington,
Please can you let Emily skip swimming lessons? We have been to the doctor, and he says she has a bad allergy and MUST NOT go near water. At all. EVER.
Kindest wishes,
Mary Penelope Windsnap
I pretended to be asleep when I heard Mom come in. She tiptoed into my room, kissed me on the top of my head, and smoothed the hair off my forehead. She always does that. I wish she wouldn’t. I hate having my bangs pushed off my forehead, but I stopped myself from pushing them back until she’d gone.
I lay awake for hours. I’ve got some fluorescent stars and a glow-in-the-dark crescent moon on my ceiling, and I looked up at them, trying to make sense of what had happened.
Actually, all I really wanted to think about was the silkiness of the water as I sliced through it — before everything went wrong. I could still hear its silence pulling me, playing with me as though we shared a secret. But every time I started to lose myself to the feeling of its creamy warmth on my skin, Mandy’s face broke into the picture, glaring at me.
A couple of times I almost fell asleep. Then I suddenly would wake up after drifting into panicky half-dreams — of me inside a huge tank, the class all around me. They were pointing, staring, chanting: “Freak! Freak!”
I could never go in the water again!
But the questions wouldn’t leave me alone. What had happened to me in there? Would it happen again?
And no matter how much I dreaded the idea of putting myself through that terror again, I would never be happy until I knew. More than that, something was simply pulling me back to the water. It was like I didn’t have a choice. I HAD to find out — however scary it might be.
By the time I heard Mom’s gentle snores coming from her room, I was determined to get to the bottom of it — and before anybody else did, too.
I crept out of bed and slipped into my swimsuit. It was still damp, and I winced and pulled my denim jacket over the top. Then I silently climbed up onto the deck and looked round. The pier was deserted. Along the promenade, guesthouses and shops stood in a silent row of silhouettes against the night sky. It could have been a stage set.
A great big full moon shone a spotlight across the sea. I felt sick as I looked at the plank of wood, stretching across to the dock. Come on, just a couple of steps.
I clenched my teeth and my fists — and tiptoed across.
I ran to the pilings at the end of the pier and looked down at the rope ladder stretching beneath me into the darkness of the water. The sea glinted coldly at me; I shivered in reply. Why was I doing this?
I wound my fingers in my hair. I always do that when I’m trying to think, if I don’t feel like pacing. And then I pushed the questions and the doubts — and Mandy’s sneering face — out of my mind. I had to do it; I had to know the truth.
I buttoned up my jacket. I wasn’t getting in there without it on! Holding my breath, I stepped onto the rope ladder and looked out at the deserted pier one last time. I could hear the gentle chatter of halyards clinking against masts as I carefully made my way down into the darkness.
The last step of the rope ladder was still quite a distance from the water because the tide was out.