Rescue On Nim's Island by Orr Wendy Read Free Book Online Page A

band across the middle, and ribs of colour stretching across from the band to the outer edge. She ran her hands over the whole thing again.
    It was the same shape as Chica’s shell.
    Nim stood back and let the light of her headlamp rove slowly over the wall. ‘It’s a sea turtle,’ she said at last.
    ‘Fossilised into opal,’ Edmund said slowly, still brushing.
    ‘And not just the shell,’ said Tristan. ‘I’ve found its head.’
    They all stood back and stared. The shape Tristan was uncovering was oblong … exactly like a skull. At the other end of the shell, Edmund had just brushed away the dirt from a longer bone, with a ray of smaller bones sprouting from the end.
    ‘Sea turtles don’t have fingers, do they?’ Edmund asked.
    ‘No,’ said Nim. ‘But Jack says the bones inside their flippers are pretty much the same as our feet and toes.’
    They all stared at it for a long time. ‘Wow,’ Tristan said at last. ‘That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.’
    ‘I was hoping it was going to be a fern tree branch,’ Nim admitted.
    ‘That’s too bad,’ said Edmund, sounding so serious that for a moment Nim was tricked. ‘You wanted a bit of fern and instead you got a whole opal fossil sea turtle. Probably the rarest fossil in the whole world.’

    Tristan laughed, and that made Edmund start and then Nim. Even when they got out their water bottles they kept spluttering and leaking water out of their mouths while they drank.
    Finally Edmund pulled out his camera and started taking pictures. Tristan and Nim shone the lights on the fossil so the glowing opal flashed sparks of fire against the darkness.
    ‘Chica’s great-great – millions of great – grandmother,’ Nim said softly. ‘Now she’s like a secret jewel inside the mountain.’
    ‘She is a jewel,’ said Edmund.
    L EONORA AND L ANCE had headed off towards Frigate Bird Cliffs, just like they said. But they hadn’t said how far they were going, and they didn’t go very far at all. At the first hollow, they sat down to wait. Every few minutes one of them would lie on their stomach and peek over the rise to spy on the camp with Lance’s binoculars.
    Because Leonora had been studying Nim ever since they arrived on the island, and she was sure that Nim was hiding something. Especially this morning when she’d heard bits of whispered words: fossil … amazing … cave .
    So what they wanted to explore was whatever Nim didn’t want them to see.
    They watched Selkie go down to the ocean and Nim and Edmund head across the grasslands.
    ‘The twins have stayed behind!’ Lance said in disgust. ‘That’s going to complicate things.’
    ‘They’re just kids,’ said Leonora. ‘We won’t have any trouble outsmarting them.’
    They thought for a few minutes. ‘If it’s part of the cave we went to yesterday, we can go up the hill and around so the twins don’t see us.’
    ‘But we’ll be able to catch up so we can see exactly where Nim is going.’
    Lance poked his binoculars over the lip of the hollow again. The camp appeared empty, but he glimpsed the back of a dark head as Tristan disappeared around a grassy hill.
    ‘Even better!’ he laughed. ‘One thing’s for sure, those twins stick together. If you see one, you know the other’s there too.’
    ‘And with five kids to follow, it’s going to be that much easier to spot one of them …’
    ‘ … and let them lead us to whatever it is they’ve found.’
    They smiled smugly as they climbed out of their hollow. They couldn’t see the group but it didn’t matter now they’d guessed where they were heading. Once, when they pulled out their binoculars, they saw Nim starting to climb the Black Rocks. They waited out of sight in the rainforest until they guessed everyone was at the top.

    By the time they’d climbed the rocks too, they were just in time to see Edmund’s legs sliding into a hole in the side of the cliff. ‘That was lucky!’ said Lance. ‘I told you,’ said