The Tail of Emily Windsnap - Liz Kessler [51]
I grabbed hold of them and helped Mom and Millie put them on. Then we sat in silence as we bumped along through the water. Millie pulled some worry beads out of her pocket and twirled them furiously around her fingers.
Mom clutched my fingers, holding them so tight it hurt.
“We’ll be fine,” I said, putting my arm around her. Then in an uncertain whisper, I added, “I’m sure we will.”
The good news: they didn’t keep us in that tiny, wobbly cage forever. The bad news: they separated us and threw us each into an even tinier one. This time it was more like a box. Five small tail spans from side to side and a bed of seaweed along one edge. It was all Mr. Beeston’s fault. How could he have done this to us?
I sat on my bed and counted the limpets on the rocky wall. Then I counted the weeds hanging down from the ceiling. I looked around for something else to count — all I could find were my miserable thoughts. There were plenty of them.
A guard swam in with a bowl of something that looked nothing like food but that I suspected was my dinner.
“What are you going to do with —”
He shoved the bowl into my hands and disappeared without answering.
“It’s not fair!” I shouted at the door. “I haven’t done anything!”
I examined the contents of the bowl. It looked like snail vomit. Green, slimy trails of rubbery goo spread on top of something flaky and yellow that looked suspiciously like sawdust. Gross. I pushed the bowl away and started counting the seconds. How many of them would I spend in here?
The next thing I knew, I was lying on my side on my horrible bed. Someone was shaking me and I slipped around on the seaweed.
“Mom?” I jumped up. It wasn’t Mom. A guard lifted me up by my elbows. “Where are you taking me?” I asked as he clipped a handcuff onto my wrist and fastened the other one onto his own.
But of course he didn’t answer. He just pulled me out of the cell and slammed the door behind us.
“Strong, silent type, are you?” I quipped nervously as we swam down long, tunnel-like corridors and around curvy corners then down more long corridors. We soon arrived at a mouthlike entrance with shark teeth across it like the prison door.
The guard knocked twice against one of the teeth, and the jaw opened wider. He pushed me forward.
Once inside, another guard swam toward us. I was attached to a different-but-similar wrist and whisked along a different-but-similar set of corridors.
And then I was thrown into a different-but-similar cell.
Super.
I’d only gotten as far as counting the limpets when they came back for me this time. And this journey took us somewhere different-but-different. Very different.
We reached the end of another long corridor. When the guard pushed me through the door, there were no more tunnels. I was looking out at the open ocean again. For a moment, I thought he was setting me free, except I was still attached to his wrist.
The sea grew lighter and warmer. Something was coming into view. Color — and light. Not dancing and jumping around like the Great Mermer Reef, but shimmering and sparkling from the depths of the sea. As we drew closer, the lights emerged into a shape. Like a big house. A huge house! Two marble pillars so tall that they seemed to reach from the seabed to the surface stood on either side of an arched gateway, a golden sea horse on a plinth in front of each pillar. Jewels and crystals glinted all the way across the arch.
“In there.” The guard gestured toward the closed doorway, nodding at two mermen stationed on either side. They both had a gold stripe down one side of their tails. As the mermen moved apart, the gates slowly opened.
We swam toward the arch. Long trails of shells dangled from silver threads above us, clinking with the movement of the water.
“What is this place?” I asked as we swam inside. We were in some sort of lobby — the fancy kind they have