The Expeditioners and the Secret of King Triton's Lair Read online

  “It is odd. What’s also odd is that your brother proposed an expedition to the exact place that your father visited on his expedition when he was a student. I remember that expedition. He almost got the whole team killed. He disappeared for nearly a week. And when he came home, everyone talked about what a hero he was.”

  He took a step toward me. “I think you have a map that shows the exact location of the oil. I think you wanted to find it and keep it all for yourself so you and your brother and sister would get the credit—and the money. Just the way your father and his friends in his secret Mapmakers’ Guild wanted to keep everything to themselves. Now you’re going to give it to me.”

  He lurched forward, his hands out in front of him.

  I looked around desperately. I could see Joyce in the cockpit. She still had her back to us, but if I yelled she might hear, even over the wind. But what could Joyce do? If Leo Nackley wanted my map, he was going to get it.

  “I don’t have anything,” I said lamely. “I swear.”

  “Oh, come on.” He was almost at my throat. There was nowhere to go but into the water.

  “Kit!”

  Zander, Sukey, and M.K. came up on deck just as Leo Nackley reached me, taking me by the arms and slamming me against the railing.

  “What’s going on?” Zander asked, Pucci clucking at his shoulder. “What are you doing, Mr. Nackley?” He strode over, ready for a fight. I’d never been so glad to see him in my life.

  “Zander,” I said quietly, my eyes on Leo Nackley as he squeezed my arms even tighter. “He thinks I have some map of Dad’s or something. I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

  “Oh, for godssake, hand it over!” Leo Nackley shouted, spinning me around and grabbing my vest.

  Just then the Fair Beatrice tossed onto one hull and righted herself again, throwing Zander and Leo Nackley off their feet. Nackley sprawled on the ground, swearing and furious.

  I reached down and helped Zander up.

  “What was that?” he asked.

  “Hey!” we heard Joyce shout. “All hands on deck! Now! There’s something really strange up ahead!”

  Leo Nackley gave me a final poisonous look and then made his way up toward the bow. Joyce was using her binoculars to look into the moonlit darkness. I hung on to the railing, pulling myself hand over hand up to the bow.

  Joyce scanned the horizon. “There’s something up ahead.” Her voice was tight and scared.

  “Is it a storm?” Lazlo and Jack and Kemal had rushed up on deck, and Lazlo grabbed the binoculars, peering through them at the horizon ahead.

  I got my spyglass out of my vest and focused it on the sky. “I don’t think so,” I said. The sky looked clear, but when I tipped the glass down, the ocean was disturbed, the surface boiling and churning like soup in a pot.

  “It’s coming from underneath,” I said. “This is what everyone’s talked about. It’s like it’s some kind of gas, coming up from the bottom of the ocean. Look at that.”

  “It must be the oil.” Lazlo grabbed the binoculars. “It has to be the oil. We’ve found it!”

  “That’s my boy,” Leo Nackley shouted. “We’ve done it!”

  “Have you ever seen anything like that?” I asked Joyce.

  “My father told me about something like this on the Bosphorus once,” Kemal said behind me. “It was some strange phenomenon where sturgeon were feeding in huge numbers because of the full moon. Any chance it’s a large school of fish, some kind of sea life?”

  Joyce held up the binoculars again and looked. “It’s too dark to see. I can’t make out anything but water,” she said. “You’re right, though. It’s bubbling, like there’s a storm. But I can’t see a storm. We’ll have to get closer.”

  “It’s King Triton’s Lair,” I whispered.

  This was it. Dad had led us here. Maybe now we’d figure out why.

  “Get the sub ready,” Lazlo called out.

  “I don’t know,” M.K. said. “Are you sure? I don’t like the looks of this. I haven’t tested Amy in these kinds of conditions. Shouldn’t we wait until it’s light?”

  The boat spun again, knocking M.K. against the railing.

  “Do it,” Leo Nackley said. “Let her down.”

  M.K. and I looked at each other. The wind was whipping her hair across her face.

  “Mr. Nackley,” Zander said. “M.K. says it’s too dangerous. She built the submersible. She knows what it can handle.”

  Lazlo pushed him aside.

  “Don’t tell my father what to do, Zander West. This might be it. If an oil discharge is causing the turbulence, then we can’t miss this opportunity. I’m the leader of this expedition. You have to do as I say. Now, is it ready? Will we be able to see anything?”

  “The solar cells are all charged up. She’ll have lights for three hours at least,” M.K. said. “But—”

  “It’s why we’re here,” Lazlo said coldly. “We’ve got a ship that can handle it and it’s what the submersible was engineered for. I’m the expedition leader. The decision is mine. I don’t think you want to fight me on this, do you?”

  “Okay,” M.K. said. “You’re in charge, Lazlo.”

  “All right,” Lazlo called out. “Everyone to their posts. Sukey and Kit, you’re navigating. Joyce, you have the ship. M.K., you and Zander and Kemal get that thing ready for submersion.”

  We were moving quickly now, the high wind suddenly filling the sails.

  “We’ve got to get out of this storm,” Joyce called out. “Lazlo, Jack, ease out the mainsail sheet! Now!”

  But Lazlo just stood there, frozen in place.

  “For godssake!” Joyce came out of the cockpit, yelling to Sukey to take the wheel.

  “I’ll help him,” Zander shouted. “Lazlo, ease it out!”

  “There’s too much wind behind us!” I shouted, seeing how the unfurling sail was driving us straight into the worst of the bubbling water.

  “We don’t have any choice!” Joyce shouted back. “Zander, do it!”

  Now the wind was up all around us, so loud we could barely hear each other. Between the wind and the lurching, it was becoming harder and harder to stand. Sukey was trying to reach us by crawling on all fours along the deck, hanging on to the railing.

  “What are you doing?” Lazlo screamed. “Get the submersible ready!”

  “He’s right,” Leo Nackley screamed up at Joyce and Zander. “Get down here and help him!”

  The boat lurched violently again. I could see the water swirling, and it did indeed feel like a huge whirlpool was sucking us down from below.

  “We have to turn away!” Kemal shouted. “This isn’t safe!”

  “I’m trying!” Joyce called.

  Lazlo ignored him. “Get the submersible out!” he shouted. “We’ve got to see what’s going on under there!”

  I exchanged a glance with Sukey. This might be our only chance. If we had reached King Triton’s Lair, then we needed to act fast. But how were we going to look for the shipwrecks without Lazlo knowing what we were doing? If only we could get him to stay behind on the ship.

  Zander must have had the same thought. “Lazlo, don’t you think you should stay on board? You’re the expedition leader, after all.”

  “No way. If we find oil, I’m going to be there,” he shouted back.

  The boat gave another shuddering lurch and he was knocked off his feet as we heard M.K. screaming, “We’re going to lose Amy! Someone help me untie these ropes. We’ve got to get her up on deck. Someone help me!” She yelled a string of not very polite words.

  “Is that rain or just mist?” Kemal called out.

  “I don’t think it’s raining,” I shouted back. “But it’s awfully windy. And I can’t see anything. There’s some kind of fog.”

  The air had suddenly become so foggy that even with the moonlight and the light from my vest, I couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of me. I could hear Joyce shouting from up near the cockpit, but I couldn’t see a t
hing.

  Sukey and I clung to the railing. The boat spun around and around and M.K. and Lazlo struggled with the ropes keeping Amy secured.

  “We’re going to lose her,” M.K. shouted.

  “We’ve got to help them,” I told Sukey. She held on to me as we tried to get back to the stern.

  From somewhere out of the mist, we heard Joyce’s voice.

  “Everyone, put on your life vests,” Joyce shouted. “Head for the lifeboats. We may need to abandon ship.”

  “No!” Lazlo yelled at her. “We’re not abandoning ship!”

  “Lazlo’s in charge!” Leo Nackley screamed.

  And suddenly, we were tipping up on the starboard hull. I reached for my life vest, but it slid away and washed overboard. Another huge wave washed over us all and the boat rolled nearly onto her side before righting herself again.

  But the water just kept coming over the railings and we just kept spinning.

  “She’s breaking apart,” Zander yelled.

  Time slowed as the boat twirled and spun. I could hear yelling, M.K.’s voice and Zander’s screaming orders and Leo Nackley yelling something about the main mast.

  Then I heard a crack. When I looked up to see where it had come from, I could just barely see the sky, obscured by the blanketing veil of mist. Through the strange grayness, the main mast was falling; it had snapped in two and half of it was crashing down onto the deck. I heard it fall behind me and then the boat was splitting in two, half the deck attached to one hull, the other half to the other. The sea was next to me, the surface of the water rising up like a huge opening mouth. I heard Pucci and Njamba shrieking overhead. Then there was another crack and I felt a sharp pain in my head.

  The wind blew.

  The ocean rose up.

  I was in the water.

  It felt like needles on my back and limbs. My head throbbed and my arms and legs didn’t seem to be working the way they were supposed to. Everything was happening very slowly. My Explorer’s vest filled with air.

  I thrashed my arms and legs, trying to swim; my vest was tugging me toward the surface of the water and keeping me afloat, but something strong was pulling me down. I reached for Dad’s whistle around my neck and blew as hard as I could, trying to attract someone’s attention. I reached down and felt a rope around my right foot. I tried to slip it off, but it was taut, the water too dark for me to see what was on the other end. Then Sukey was there, pointing to my feet. I tried to tell her that I knew, but I couldn’t get it off, and I flapped my arms uselessly and just kept sinking under the surface.

  This was it, I told myself. I felt sorry that I hadn’t done what Dad had wanted me to do. I felt sorry that I’d put everyone else in danger. I was sorry I was going to die. And then I didn’t care about anything. I needed oxygen and I felt that my chest was going to burst if I didn’t open my mouth.

  I sunk down, the desperate urge to breathe leaving me, replaced by a sense of peace.

  And then things got weirder. I saw a strange glow in the water, a yellow light, like a huge eye blinking at me, warming me, keeping me safe.

  I could feel myself sinking through the water and then a voice in my head told me to let go, that everything was going to be okay.

  I stopped struggling.

  I saw Sukey up ahead. I reached out for her, but she was too far away and something was keeping her from me, as though a pane of glass was between us in the water.

  But it was okay. The eye loomed in front of me. I felt peaceful and safe.

  Sukey was there. The water felt almost warm now.

  And then, slowly, as though the moon was sliding over the surface of the sun, the yellow light faded away.

  Twenty-nine

  I awoke to pain in so many places on my body that I wasn’t sure where one ache began and another ended. Eventually, I was able to separate out the throbbing in my head from the stinging on my shins from the rawness on my hands on the sand beneath me.

  “Ow.” I wasn’t sure if I said it out loud.

  “Kit?” My eyes were already open, I think, but it took a minute for the dark blur to resolve itself into Sukey’s face, red and panicked. The images came back to me slowly: the churning water, the Fair Beatrice lurching and twisting, the feeling of sinking through the cold water. The strange dream of the yellow light in the water.

  I squinted up at her. The sun beat down on us from overhead.

  When I took a breath I could feel a deep ache in my lungs, as though I’d inhaled fire.

  I pushed Sukey aside, got up on my knees, and looked around.

  An expanse of beach, palm trees. An island.

  I looked down at my vest. Dad’s whistle still hung around my neck and my vest was still slightly inflated. I scanned the beach, then looked behind us at a high, cone-shaped mountain. Its ridged sides rose steeply toward the sky, the black soil covered with thick, green vegetation. The jungle ran almost down to the beach, which was ringed by palm trees and some kind of low-growing plant blooming with white flowers. We were all alone.

  Sukey looked terrible, her face bright red, her hair a mass of tangles, her flightsuit torn and dirty, and a long scratch bisected her forehead. I was willing to bet I didn’t look much better. I could feel grit in my mouth and eyes. I probably looked like M.K. after she’d been working on an engine.

  I jumped up, searching the beach, trying to ignore my headache. “They’re not here,” Sukey said, reading my mind. “A least not on this part of the beach. But they could be on the other side. They could have been rescued.”

  I felt a hard ball of fear rise in my throat and tears spring into my eyes.

  “I know,” she said, following me and reaching out to touch my hand. She was crying too.

  I took a deep breath. “Maybe they got into the lifeboats. Maybe they got into Amy and saved themselves.”

  We leaned together, Sukey’s arm around my shoulders. My head still hurt, but not as badly as it had when I’d first come to. I was thirsty, though. I knew that we needed to put away our fears about Zander and M.K. and the others for a bit and figure out how we were going to survive.

  “We’ll find them,” I said. “But first we need to figure out where we are.”

  “Could it be Ruby Island?”

  I checked the chronograph utility embedded in my vest. I was glad to see it was still working and I wound it, silently thanking Dad for his superior craftsmanship. “I don’t think so,” I said. “It’s nearly noon. We went down around, what 2:30, 3:00 a.m.? I don’t think there’s any way we could have ended up all the way back at Ruby Island. It’s too far.”

  The sand beneath us was black and rough. “It’s a volcanic island, anyway,” I said, picking up a handful of sand and letting it fall through my fingers. “As if that giant volcano over there didn’t already tell us that.” Suddenly I remembered the maps, and I stripped off my vest. Sukey watched as I hurriedly unzipped the pocket and stuck a hand down inside to feel the paper. “They’re okay.” The waterproof lining had done its job and kept the maps and the key to the secret room dry and safe. The rest of my gadgets seemed to have survived too. I focused my spyglass on the horizon and searched for any sign of land or ship, but all I could see was the brilliant turquoise water, stretching out in every direction.

  “Your whistle made it,” Sukey said, pointing at the whistle.

  I told her about the Explorer giving it to me. “He said it was a good-luck charm. But Dad never would have said that. So he must have wanted me to have it for some other reason.” I put it to my lips and blew, covering different holes with my fingers to make different notes. “I’m just too dumb to figure it out.”

  “Thank God he made your vest inflatable,” Sukey said. “I think it must have saved our lives.”

  “That means that Zander and M.K.’s vests inflated too,” I said. “Maybe they made it. Maybe they were able to help the others.”

  “I hope so.” Sukey looked worried.

  We walked down the beach until the sand disap
peared. We couldn’t get around the cliff of ropy, black volcanic rock. There didn’t seem to be anywhere else to land on the island. The beach where we had washed ashore appeared to be the only inlet on the island. But of course we couldn’t know that until we’d climbed high enough to see over the top of the volcano.

  “We’re lucky,” I said. “Anywhere else and we’d have been crushed against those rocks. But somehow, we washed up at the one place we could . . . I still don’t understand how we made it here.”

  A strange look came over her face. “It must have been the tides. They must have just washed us up. I’ve heard of it happening before. But what was that last night?” she asked. “Was it a storm?”

  “It didn’t seem like a storm. It was like it was coming from underneath the water.”

  “Girafalco’s Trench?” she said.

  “Maybe.”

  “We need fresh water.” Sukey said with a crack in her voice. “I’m really thirsty.”

  “We should split up and see what we can find. Sometimes islands like this have hidden springs or even streams.” I wasn’t sure that was even true, but I wanted to make her feel better.

  “I don’t want to split up,” she said in a small voice, looking towards the dense jungle. “We don’t know what’s out there.”

  I was glad she’d said it. “Okay. You’re right. Let’s stay together.”

  “What about coconuts?”

  “That’s a good idea.” I searched the ground underneath the palms, but there wasn’t any fruit that I could see.

  “No coconuts, but look.” Under the trees were a bunch of palm leaves that seemed to have come down in a high wind. “It must have rained not too long ago.” There was still a little bit of water collected on some of the leaves and Sukey and I dropped to our knees and drank as much as we could before she said, “We should save some. Put the other leaves over it so it won’t evaporate as fast.”

  But we were so thirsty we couldn’t stop ourselves from drinking all of it. When we were done, we went back to the shoreline, feeling a little better.