The Merlin Effect by T. A. Barron Read Free Book Online Page B

the shroud of blankets, she stood before him. “The dish isn’t there.”
    He grunted as if he had been punched in the chest. “Not there?”
    “That’s right,” she said tentatively. “I saw it…dragged off by a whale.”
    “What? Are you sure?”
    “I’m sure.”
    “No whale could have done that. Not unless he had hands to untie the net.”
    He reached for the door handle, when Kate placed her own hand on his.
    “The whale didn’t untie it,” she confessed. “I did.”
    He stared at her in amazement. “You what?”
    “And I broke the dish, too. Trying to rescue the whale! He was all tangled up in the net, and I thought he would die for sure unless I did something.”
    “Did something!” roared Jim. “Kate, how could you be so stupid?”
    He flung open the door and pushed past her. She watched helplessly as he strode to the stern, almost tripping on the mass of cables dangling from the metal stand in the middle of the deck.
    He leaned over the railing by the buoy and began fishing for any sign of the nylon net or the lost transmitter dish. The splashes grew louder, as did his cursing.
    Kate turned away, unwilling to watch. Angrily, she threw her wet braid over her back. She was certain that her father’s cherished project was dead. As dead as their brief moment of closeness. And she was certain that she had killed them both.

VI
P IECE OF E IGHT
    G rounded from using the kayak, Kate found her only solace exploring the shoreline along the promontory, especially when low tide unveiled a band of beach, a hundred feet wide, stretching between the black lava rocks and the rim of the sea. On one such foray, she pulled off her sandals and loped along the sand, her feet slapping into puddles and sinking into soft depressions.
    Her eye caught a tidal pool, and she kneeled to examine this miniature ocean, frightening an orange crab who skittered away sideways. Shoots of eel grass waved in the water, undulating, sheltering the tiny blue fish who zipped in and out of the comely groves. Snail tracks flowed like ski trails down the sloping stones.
    Spying a gnarled barnacle as big as her fist, Kate reached into the pool to grasp it when a small explosion burst in the water. She jerked back her hand as a sting ray lifted off the sandy bottom and floated to the far end of the pool. With a mixture of fear and fascination, she watched it move, flapping in slow motion like an underwater bird.
    Then, from beyond the mouth of the lagoon, from behind the bank of fog resting on the water, she heard distant voices wailing. Eerily strange, yet hauntingly familiar, the songs of the whales filled the air for a few seconds, then died away.
    Kate thought back to when she and her father had returned to camp in the
Skimmer
two days ago. No sooner had they dropped anchor than Isabella had met them on the beach and informed Jim that, despite all her pleas, the government had rejected her request for an extension. In three short days, she had said, they would have to leave the lagoon.
    An explosion of activity, and of tempers, had ensued. After much ranting on both sides, Jim had finally convinced Terry to help him attempt to take one more picture. The young geologist had agreed, although he had expressed serious doubts it would be possible without the missing transmitter dish, and even more serious doubts they would find anything at all below the whirlpool. He had made it clear that he would cooperate only because the group’s sole hope of remaining past the deadline would be to produce a recognizable picture of the sunken ship. As they had set to work, Isabella had sequestered herself in her makeshift lab, trying to complete her own experiments.
    For the past two days, none of them had stopped working, leaving Kate to explore the beach on her own. She moved on, roaming among the rocks, watching striped lizards scurry through the pickle weed and cardon cactus. Spying some water spurting from a siphon hole in the sand, she dug furiously