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I figured I’d been heading west since I’d set off from Brightport, because I’d been chasing the setting sun all the way. Shona and I had turned right from the boat to head toward the reef, which meant I should now be facing north.

I turned right again to go east. In front of me was a long tunnel attached to the main cave. It reminded me of those service stations on the highway — the kind on the median that join the two sides together. Apart from the fact that this was made of rock, that is, and it didn’t appear to have any windows, and was about fifty feet under the sea. The East Wing?

Swimming carefully from one lump of coral to another and hiding behind every rock I could find, I made it to the tunnel. But there was no entrance. I swam all the way along it, right to the end. Still no opening.

The front gate must be the only way in. I’d come this far for nothing! There was no way I’d get past those sharks.

I started to swim back along the other side of the tunnel. Perhaps there’d be a doorway on this side.

But as I made my way along the slimy walls, I heard a swishing noise behind me. The sharks! Without stopping to think, I flicked my tail and zoomed straight down the side so I was underneath the tunnel itself. Pressing myself up against the wall, I wrapped a huge piece of seaweed around my body. Two hammerheads sliced past without stopping, and I inched my way back up again, scaling the edge with my hands and looking around me all the way. A minute later, I noticed something I hadn’t seen earlier. There was a gap. I could see an oval shape about half my height and slightly wider than my shoulders with three thick, gray bars running down it. They looked like whalebone. The nearest thing I’d found to a way in — it had to be worth a try.

I tugged at the bars. Rock solid. I tried to swim between them. I could get my head through, but my shoulders were too big to follow. This wasn’t going to work.

Unless I swam through on my side. . . .

I tried again, coming at the bars sideways. But it was no good. I couldn’t squeeze my face through the gap. I never realized my nose stuck out that much!

I held on to the bars, flicking my tail as I thought. Then it hit me. How could I have been so stupid? I turned to face them. Just like before, I edged my head through the bars, as slowly and carefully as I could. All I needed to do now was flip onto my side and pull the rest of my body through.

But what if I got stuck — my head on one side, my body on the other, caught forever with my neck in these railings?

Before I had time to talk myself out of it, I swiveled my body onto its side. I banged my chin, and my neck rubbed on the bars — but I’d done it! I swished my tail as gently as possible and gradually eased my body through the gap.

I thought back to the time when we were changing to go swimming and how I hadn’t wanted anyone to see my skinny body. Maybe being a little sticklike wasn’t such a bad thing, after all.

I rubbed my eyes as I got used to the darkness. I’d landed in a tiny round bubble of a room, full of seaweed mops hanging on fish hooks all around me.

I swam to the door and turned a yellow knob. The door creaked open. Which way? The corridor was a long, narrow cave. Closing the door behind me, I noticed a metal plate in the top corner. NW: N 874. North Wing? I must have gotten my calculations wrong!

I swam along the silent corridor, passing closed doors on either side. N 867, N 865. Each one was the same — a big round plate of metal, like a submarine door; a brass knob below a tiny round window in the center. No glass, just fishbone bars dividing each window into an empty game of tic-tac-toe.

Should I look through one?

As I approached the next door, I swished up to the window and peeked in. A merman with a huge hairy stomach and long black hair in a ponytail swam over to the window. “Can I help you?” he asked, an amused glint in his eye. He had a ship tattooed on his arm; a fat brown tail flickered behind him.