A Giant Problem Read online

  “He was just standing in the water,” Cindy said. “He just stood there and then he was gone.”

  “They took him,” Nick said.

  “I saw him go under. Under the waves. Like he’s drowning and we’re just driving away instead of saving him.”

  “We are saving him,” Laurie said. “We’re going to save him.”

  Nick turned to Laurie. “You shouldn’t have said that thing about giving them something from the land. That’s what gave them the idea. These things aren’t Tinker Bell! You have to stop trusting them!”

  “I know that,” Laurie said, but her hand was touching the head of the hobgoblin as she said it.

  Tab A into slot B. Nick had to think of a good idea. They had until dawn to get a new fish.

  “Okay, so where are we going?” Cindy asked, her hand on the wheel.

  “We have to find a fish,” Nick said. “A fish that doesn’t exist yet.” Cindy’s eyes widened. “We’ll figure it out,” he amended quickly.

  “What about a plastic fish?” Laurie said. “Or what if we dyed a regular goldfish blue or something?”

  “Can you even dye a fish a color?” Nick asked. She shrugged. “And have it live?”

  “They don’t want a dead fish!” he said.

  “Okay! I don’t know!”

  He pressed his fingers to his forehead, hoping that he could make himself have an idea. He had to focus. A new fish. A fish that had never swum in their sea. A fish new to their sea.

  “Wait,” Nick said. “What sea?”

  “What?” Cindy asked.

  He thought about the geography he’d studied the past year. There were lots of seas— even landlocked ones like the Dead Sea and the Caspian Sea. No way would mermaids here know of fish there. He turned to Cindy. “We need to get a fish that’s from a different sea.”

  Cindy frowned, but Nick thought she was just having a hard time getting used to the idea that mermaids were real. He knew how she felt.

  “But how would that help?” Laurie asked. “All the fish in it are from the ocean. Obviously.”

  “Well, yeah, but not necessarily this sea—the Atlantic. There are lots of different oceans, and some of them are warm like this one and probably pH-balanced pretty close but have fish they’ve never seen because they don’t migrate there. Like, say, the Pacific or Indian oceans.”

  “How do you know the mermaids don’t migrate there?”

  “I don’t!” Nick said. “But there are land-locked seas. How could they?”

  Cindy gave him a surprised look. “Hey, that’s smart.”

  Nick tried not to feel too insulted. “Now we just have to figure out how to get one.”

  “That’s not a problem,” she said. “My dad has a fish tank. A big fancy saltwater one.”

  Nick wanted to hug her. “Do you know what you have in the tank?”

  “The official names of them?” Cindy shook her head. “No, but my dad does.”

  Cindy’s house was a ranch with a lime green mailbox and pink bougainvillea draped over the entrance. Nick had a horrible image of what the house would look like after a fire.

  “My father is so in love with those fish, he’s named each one,” she said as they got closer to the door. “We’re going to get Jules back, right?”

  Nick nodded because he wasn’t good at lying out loud. He hoped they would get Jules back; he hoped this would work.

  Laurie cradled Sandspur in her arms.

  “What are you bringing him for?” Nick asked.

  “He’s chewed most of the way through his leash,” she said. “I’m afraid he’ll get away if I leave him in the car.”

  “Nick,” Cindy said, “you are in charge of asking my dad about the fish. And Laurie, you have to get that thing out of there while my dad is distracted.”

  “What do you do?” Nick asked.

  “Drive the getaway car and get grounded for the rest of my life,” she said, and opened the door.

  Both her parents were sitting on the couch in front of the television. Fires raged across the screen. Cindy’s parents looked up when she came in, but Nick’s gaze was drawn to the enormous tank that divided the living room from the kitchen.

  “Good, you’re home, Cindy! Is Jules all right? We’ve been watching the news—”

  “We’re in a hotel,” Nick said, thinking of Jules lost under the waves. “Everybody’s fine.”

  “This is Jules’s brother, Nick, and his sister, Laurie.”

  “Isn’t it a little bit late for you two?”

  “Can I use your bathroom?” Laurie asked, and when they nodded, she slunk off.

  Cindy sat on the edge of the sofa, blocking the view of the giant tank. She said something, but Nick wasn’t paying attention. He was watching Laurie sneak toward the fish tank.

  Cindy cleared her throat and he turned abruptly. “I was just telling my dad that you came in because you were interested in getting a tank yourself.”

  “Oh yeah,” Nick said. “Yeah, I mean, I guess we have to get a house first, but …” He had no idea what to say. How did he get stuck talking? Laurie could have come up with some totally reasonable reason why she needed to know about the fish, but he had no idea what would be convincing.

  Cindy glared at him, and he reminded himself that he had to get it together.

  “But … ,” he started again. “But I can catch local fish, so I was wondering which ones weren’t local. I was hoping to try to trade a pet store local fish that I caught for ones from … from faraway places.”

  Nick looked over at Laurie, standing very close to the tank, with Sandspur balanced on one of her shoulders. Laurie gave him a thumbs-up.

  “Well, it’s a big responsibility to keep a saltwater tank,” Cindy’s dad said. “You have to check it regularly and be very careful. It isn’t like keeping goldfish.”

  Nick nodded along and tried to look responsible.

  “Well, that huge blue one with the yellow splotch is from pretty far away. My prize: George. He’s come all the way from the Red Sea, haven’t you, George? I’ve raised him ever since he was a little fish, and he just keeps growing.” Cindy’s dad shook his head as though still surprised by all that growing.

  The Red Sea is mostly landlocked, Nick thought. He glanced toward Laurie and gave a slight nod.

  Laurie reached under the huge cabinet and came up a few moments later with a net. Nick saw her out of the corner of his eye and hoped that no one else noticed. Cindy’s dad started talking about another fish, this one named Clifford, who nearly died after being sucked into the filter, but Nick barely heard him. He was so focused on not giving Laurie away that he couldn’t concentrate on anything else.

  He saw her climb up onto the edge of the cabinet and take a green vase from a nearby bookshelf. She dumped out the silk flowers under a chair and filled the vase with water from the tank while Cindy’s dad talked on and her mother watched the television. Then she actually got the fish net and swept it around the tank. Water sloshed. The blue fish hid behind bright-colored coral splotched with algae.

  “So, uh,” Nick said, “what size tank is too small to start with?”

  Cindy’s dad opened his mouth to answer when the curtains across the room crashed to the floor, Sandspur tangled in them.

  Cindy’s mother jumped up. “How did …” Nick had a sinking feeling that Cindy’s family didn’t have a cat to blame.

  Cindy’s father stood up just as the blue fish flopped into the net.

  “What the hell are you kids doing?” he yelled.

  Laurie thrust the fish into the vase.

  Nick grabbed for the curtains, sweeping the hobgoblin up in them.

  “Go!” Cindy shouted. “Go!”

  “Cindy!” her mother called as they ran out the door and hopped into the car. Cindy turned the key and hit the gas. As they drove away, Nick could see Cindy’s parents in the road, still calling after them.

  Cindy drove quietly, concentrating on the road. When her phone started to buzz,
she turned it off without comment.

  “I’m sorry,” Laurie said for the millionth time. “I told you he’d almost chewed through the leash.”

  Nick wondered how they were going to explain this to any of their parents. Did Cindy’s mom have his dad’s number? Probably. It was only a matter of minutes before he realized that they were gone and his car was missing.

  The hobgoblin thrashed in the curtains, biting and scratching and howling. The fish stared from the vase, its eyes enlarged by the curved glass until they seemed impossibly huge. Trapped. Just like Nick.

  He frowned and reached into his bag, looking through what he had there. He had to be prepared, like the field guide said, like Jared had been. Then he realized what he needed.

  “Laurie,” he said, “can I see your bag?”

  “Go! “ Cindy shouted.

  They left the hobgoblin biting one of the leather seats and walked down the beach. Nick could barely contain his nerves.

  Laurie held up the vase and took Cindy’s hand. “We brought you a fish,” Laurie said.

  At first nothing surfaced as waves crashed against the shore, but then three mermaids surfaced. “The others have gone to feed,” they said in unison.

  “Here, look.” Laurie walked toward the mermaids, her feet splashing through the waves.

  Nick ran toward her. “Be careful.”

  “Now give us back Jules. Give us Nick’s brother!”

  One of them reached down and drew Jules up. He looked dazed. He didn’t swim toward them.

  Cindy waded out through the waves past Laurie and grabbed hold of Jules. Slinging his arm over her shoulders, she dragged him back to shore.

  One of the mermaids peered curiously over the lid. Her eyes widened, and then she made a shrill sound. Merfolk leaped from the sea, splashing toward her. They all peered at the blue fish.

  “You have to acclimate the fish first,” Laurie warned. “Let the vase float for a few minutes.”

  “He’s beautiful,” one of them said, and they sighed, all together.

  “I have never seen a fish like him,” another said.

  “I saw a similar fish once … ,” another began. “But it was smaller and had red markings and a bigger mouth.”

  “How could there be a new fish? A fish we have never seen?” they all lamented at once. “How could you have finished a fool’s errand?”

  “You agreed to help us,” Laurie said. “We let you keep one of us as a hostage, but now you have to help us. You have to sing.”

  One of the mermaids took the vase, and another swam forward, toward them. A necklace of shells, coral, and bottle caps hung around her neck.

  “He’s beautiful.”

  “Very well,” she said. And they began to sing.

  Nick fumbled in his pocket.

  Their song rose, beautiful and terrible, to echo in his ears. It was the sound of waves crashing on the shore. It was the sound of water beating against rocks, of a maelstrom, of a serene and peaceful sea. It was all those things together, and it mesmerized them.

  Then, as abruptly as it began, it was over. Nick was surprised to find tears in his eyes.

  “Our debt is paid,” they said. “Now we go.”

  “Wait,” Laurie said. “You said that you would help us!”

  “We said that we would sing for you. Now we have sung.” With that, they sank slowly into the sea, taking the fish and the vase with them.

  “No! You can’t!” Laurie screamed after them, but they were gone.

  She sat down in the sand and stared at where they had been. Jules groaned loudly. Nick only smiled.

  “What’s your problem?” Jules asked him. “What are you smiling about?”

  Nick reached into his pocket and took out Laurie’s microcassette recorder, which he’d taken from her bag, and hit play. The sound of mermaids singing was a little scratchy, but compelling all the same.

  “Didn’t you read that book?” Nick said to Laurie. “You never trust faeries.”

  Jules clapped Nick on the back, and Laurie laughed. “You are a genius,” he said. “A total crazy genius.”

  “Now what do we do?” Cindy asked.

  Nick stopped smiling.

  “You are a genius.”

  “I know lots.”

  Chapter Eight

  IN WHICH a Bridge Is Crossed

  Jules was able to walk to the car, and he looked like he was fine, but Nick remembered his dazed look when he’d been pulled from under the waves, and he worried.

  “What was it like?” Cindy asked. “Was it like that movie where crabs sing and there’s a big palace under the waves?”

  “Not really,” Jules said, avoiding meeting her gaze.

  “How are we even going to find the giants?” Laurie asked.

  “I don’t know,” Nick said.

  “Well, it was good to have a plan while it lasted,” Cindy said. “Maybe our new plan can be to run.”

  Nick looked into the backseat, where Sandspur squatted, eating some pieces of lint he’d found on the floor mats. “He told me that he avoids giants’ territories. That means he knows where they are,” Nick said.

  “I know lots,” said the little faerie.

  “What if we let you go once you show us?”

  “No!” said Laurie. “Not Sandzy! I want to keep him! I want him to be our friend!”

  “Laurie,” Jules said, and Laurie sighed.

  “Okay,” Laurie said, and the hobgoblin stuck out his tongue at her. “Okay, fine. But only if this works.”

  “You’ll let me go?” asked the little creature.

  “Yeah,” said Laurie.

  “And you’ll feed me first?” he said.

  “Sure,” said Jules quickly. “Whatever you want.”

  “Whatever I want?” His eyes got wide. “I want! I want!”

  “Don’t promise him anything! Are you crazy?” Nick said, but it was too late. He had no idea what the little faerie was going to ask Jules for, but he was glad they wouldn’t have to deal with that until after everything else. If they could really rid Florida of its giant problem, they could figure out a way around any crazy demand.

  “So, okay,” Jules said. “I rig up some speakers, we blast this recording, drive around, get giants to follow us, and then what? We drive to the water … but what happens after that?”

  “Uh … ,” Nick said. “We drive into the water like in a movie? We jump out of the car and let it roll on out.”

  “We’d die,” Laurie said.

  Cindy nodded. “We’d totally bite it.”

  “Even if we swim for it, Nick, how far is the car realistically going to roll?” Jules asked. “A few feet? Then we have until the battery on the recorder runs out, and the giants will be back in business.”

  Nick groaned. His plan had seemed so simple before, but now it felt hopelessly complex. “At least they’ll be in one place. Maybe they’ll fight for territory there and kill one another. That would be something, right?”

  “That seems like it would be totally destructive. Like, apocalyptic,” Cindy said.

  “I don’t know,” Nick said, defeated. “Maybe we should call Jared. Or Jack.”

  “It’s the middle of the night. We’re on our own. The minute we go back, we’re all grounded forever.” Laurie sighed again. “Just think.”

  “Well, we need something. Something that can keep—” Nick stopped speaking as he thought of it. The boat. The boat his mother had given him, the only thing of his that had survived the wreckage of the house. But as he thought of it, he was afraid to say it out loud. It could work, they could tape the recorder down and send it out to sea, but the boat would be gone forever. He didn’t want to give it up. He didn’t want to let go of the past, to see it sail across the water and sink below the horizon. He wasn’t ready for finality.

  “What?” Laurie asked. “You look like you’ve got an idea.”

  “Never mind,” he said. “I don’t know if it would work, anyway.”

  They
all were silent for a moment, and then Nick said, “We would have to go back to the hotel. Get something out of the room. And that’s impossible, right?”

  Jules scratched his head. “What do you need?”

  “The boat,” Nick said quietly. “That boat I built. The remote control is gone, but if I turn the engine on, the boat can still travel in a straight line. We could rig it up and release it. The giants would follow it out into the ocean. They’d be so far out by the time it ran out of juice that who knows how long it would take for them to find their way back.”

  Jules was nodding. “That could work.”

  Laurie frowned, but not like she was disagreeing. Like she was considering. “What about the tide?”

  “High tide’s at about five in the morning,” Cindy said. “Anytime after that it’ll be going back out. We’d have to stay up all night.”

  “It’s going to take us all night anyway,” Laurie said. “To get the giants.”

  “The water will be real glassy that time of day,” said Jules. “Which is good. One big wave could take your boat out.”

  “I know this is my plan,” Nick said, “but maybe it’s a bad idea.”

  “If we don’t do this, what happens?” asked Jules.

  None of them answered. Nick thought of fire.

  “So we do it,” Jules said, slinging his arm around Nick’s shoulders. “And we hope for the best.”

  They pulled up across the street from the hotel, and Jules took out his cell phone.

  “You sure about this?” Laurie asked.

  “Yeah,” said Jules. “He’ll be so busy yelling at me there’s no way he’ll hear you. Go!”

  Jules’s face looked pale, and Nick knew how much he’d avoided being in trouble, avoided a confrontation like this. Jules flipped open the cell and scrolled to the number. There was a long pause.

  “We’re just hanging out,” Jules said into the phone.

  Cindy waved at them to get going.

  “Bring me a doughnut,” the hobgoblin squeaked from the backseat. “Or crackers. Yes, doughnut crackers!”