The Tail of Emily Windsnap - Liz Kessler [44]
I looked at Mom. “Is it okay?” I asked.
For an answer, she pulled me tighter — then she let me go.
I ran inside and changed into my swimsuit. Millie came back out with me. I perched on the edge of the boat. “See you.” I smiled.
Mom swallowed hard and held Millie’s hand as I jumped into the water. Within seconds I felt my tail form. My legs melted and stretched, spreading warmth through my whole body. I waved to Mom and Millie as they watched me from the front deck.
“Look!” I shouted, then ducked under the water. I flicked my tail as gracefully as I could, waving it from side to side while I stretched out in a downward handstand. When I came back up, Mom was clapping. “Beautiful,” she called, wiping her hand across her eye. She blew me a kiss as I grinned at her. Millie’s eyes widened. She shook her head, then picked up Mom’s cup of tea and finished that one off, too.
“Are you ready?” Shona asked.
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I replied, and we set off.
The Great Mermer Reef isn’t like anything you’re ever likely to see in your life. It’s the highest, widest, longest wall in the world — in the universe, probably — made out of rainbow-colored coral, miles and miles from anywhere, smack in the middle of the sea.
You don’t realize what it is at first. It feels like the end of the world, stretching up and down and across, farther than you can see in every direction. I shielded my eyes from the brightness. It reminded me of the school dance we had at our graduation at the end of last year. They’d borrowed a machine that threw disco lights across the room, swirling around and changing color in time to the music. The Great Mermer Reef was a bit like that, but about a million times bigger and brighter, and the colors swirled and flashed even more.
And somehow, we had to get past it! It was the only way to the prison.
As we got closer, the swirling lights became laser-beam rays, shooting out at every angle from jagged layers of coral heaped upon coral.
Sharp, spiky rocks were piled all the way up to the surface and higher, with soft, rubbery bushes buried in every crevice in the brightest purples and yellows and greens you’ve ever seen. A moving bush like a silver Christmas tree flapped toward us. Two spotted shrimp dragged a starfish along the seabed. All around us, fish and plants bustled and rustled about. But we were stuck — in a fortress of bubbles and bushes and rocks. We couldn’t even climb over the top; it was way too high and rough. Above the water, the coral shot diamond rays where it sparkled with stones like cut glass. I was never, ever going to find him.
“It’s hopeless,” I said, trying desperately not to cry. It was like that darn game about going on a bear hunt. You keep coming across things that you’ve got to get past. “We can’t get over it; we can’t get under it.”
Shona was by my side, her eyes bright like the coral. “We’ll have to go through it!” she exclaimed, her words gurgling away in multicolored bubbles. “There’s bound to be a gap somewhere. Come on.” She pulled at my arm and dove deeper.
We weaved in and out of spaghetti-fringed tubes and swam into bushes with tentacles that opened wide enough to swim inside. But it was the same thing every time: a dead end.
I perched on a rock, ready to give up, while Shona scaled the coral, tapping it with her fingers like a builder testing the thickness of a wall. A huge shoal of fish that had been sheltering in a cave suddenly darted out as one, writhing and spinning like a kaleidoscope pattern. I stared, transfixed.
“I think I’ve found something.” Shona’s voice jolted me out of my trance. She was scratching at the coral, and I swam closer to see what she’d found.
“Look!” She scrabbled some more. Bits of coral crumbled away like dust in her fingers. She pulled me around and made me look closer. “What can you see?” she asked.
“I can’t see anything.”
“Look harder.”
“What at?”
Shona pushed her face close to mine and pointed into the