The Extremely High Tide! Read online

  But Jules’s cheeks were red. “I’m sorry if I made you feel silly, Talise.”

  “I don’t feel silly,” Talise said. “But thank you. Your aura is very pretty. The flashing copper and silver reminds me of the lighthouse.”

  Jules brightened. “How funny! I was just thinking about the lighthouse.”

  Runa was glad nobody seemed to be fighting anymore. “Whose aura should I paint next?” she asked.

  “Mine!” Finn said, straightening his crown of sticks and leaves.

  Her stomach sank. Finn was Runa’s best friend, but she felt confused by his aura. “Actually . . . I’m feeling inspired by Quincy’s aura.”

  She painted it with dollops of strawberry pink, chocolate brown, and vanilla white, layering it on as thick as frosting.

  “Yummy,” Quincy said.

  “It does resemble a baked good,” Talise observed.

  “Now Davy’s!” Runa rifled through her art supply bag. “I’m going to need a lot of spray glitter—it’s even sparklier than mine.”

  “Interesting,” Talise said once Runa had finished. “Your auras are complementary.”

  “Maybe Runa could start an aura matchmaking business,” Nia said, scratching her knee.

  Davy’s aura blushed.

  “Is it my turn now?” Finn asked.

  “No, me!” Nia exclaimed. “I need to know my aura is flashier than Jules’s.”

  Runa studied Nia’s aura. It was a beautiful color—but it also looked gritty. Kind of scratchy, actually. She blended together several pink sunset hues, then grabbed a handful of sand and sprinkled it on top.

  “Hmm,” Nia said, scratching the back of her ankle with her other foot.

  “Why are you so itchy?” Quincy asked.

  “I was a couple days late on Earl Grey’s flea pill. I think a few must have bit me.” Nia threw an apologetic glance at Earl Grey, who was currently itching his hind end on Runa’s easel. “What does his aura look like?”

  “Even scratchier!” Runa said.

  “Fascinating,” Talise said. “It’s as if auras reflect our thoughts at any given moment. Or perhaps what we’re thinking about the most.”

  Runa wasn’t too sure about that—otherwise, how could she explain how odd Finn’s aura looked?

  She picked up her brush. She set it down again. “Sorry, Finn,” she said. “Maybe my eyeball is malfunctioning or something . . . but I’m not sure how to paint your aura.”

  “But you can paint anything!” Finn said.

  “True,” Runa said. “It’s just—it might take a while. What time is it?”

  “Could you describe it instead?” Talise suggested. “That’s what I do in my logbooks. There is rarely art involved, unless I’m sketching plans for my—you know.” She squeezed the thing in her hand again. It appeared to be a sea blob, but that didn’t make any sense.

  Runa relented. “All right. The top part is blue-green. Like the color of wolf eyes in storybooks mixed with the underside of a pine needle.”

  Finn’s eyes widened. “Um, that sounds . . . pretty.”

  “It is! But the thing is, there’s also like, a weird haze of dirt around your feet. Like a big dirty cloud of dirty dirt.”

  “Did you just call Finn’s aura dirty?” Jules asked.

  Finn turned pink.

  “Just the foot part! Like someone aimed a fan at his feet, after he’d been walking barefoot in the woods or something. . . .”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that,” Finn said.

  “I didn’t say there was!” Runa said, but he’d already hurried away, clutching his crown of sticks and leaves.

  She sighed. Boys could be so sensitive.

  But then, girls could be, too. After the bell rang, Talise stuck around to help Runa gather her art supplies. “Do you think I should have lied about Finn’s aura?” Runa asked. “I’m afraid I hurt his feelings.”

  “As you know, I am no good at lying,” Talise said. “You, however, lie quite easily.”

  “Hey!”

  “But if auras do reflect our thoughts, Finn likely would have known.”

  “That’s true.” Runa sighed. “But why was he thinking about the forest? Finn’s my best friend—he never keeps secrets from me.”

  “Did you tell him about the second bottle I found?” Talise asked.

  “Of course not!” Runa exclaimed, offended. Then she paused. “Oh, I see what you mean. I guess he’ll tell me when he’s ready.”

  “And when my boat is ready, I won’t mind if you tell Finn about the bottle.”

  “Deal!” Runa stuffed the last of her art supplies into her bag. “You know, I never got the chance to paint your aura.”

  Talise shrugged. “That’s okay. Maybe just describe it to me?”

  “It’s an easy one,” Runa said. “Your aura looks like the ocean.”

  They both beamed.

  Moon Phases

  In most places, the tides are predictable. That’s because they follow the moon. But in Topsea, the tides are hard to predict. The moon has a mind of its own.

  Playful Moon

  Often, the moon feels playful.

  It winks at you from the night sky. Or the daytime sky.

  It bounces around, playing hard to get. It’s in the treetops. It’s behind the clouds. It’s even in that mud puddle. Don’t splash! Great, now there’s mud and moon all over both of us.

  Full Moon

  When the moon is full, its eyes are wide open.

  Ever notice how it follows you as you walk?

  Maybe sometimes you walk a little faster. After a while, you glance over your shoulder to see if the moon is still there. It almost always is.

  It even follows you when you run.

  Lonely Moon

  Sometimes, the moon feels lonely.

  But it’s a strong, independent moon, and it makes its own friends. It breaks its reflection into bits and pieces so they can splash in the rippling waves.

  Half-Moon

  A half-moon means the other half is hiding somewhere. (Have you checked your cheese drawer lately?)

  Quarter-Moon

  A quarter-moon is enough for a gumball. Unless you want one of the big gumballs. Then you’ll need two quarters.

  Crescent Moon

  If you happen to find a crescent moon, don’t pick it up. The pointy ends are sharp.

  Blue Moon

  On rare occasions when the moon is low-spirited, town spirit is inexplicably high.

  New Moon

  Sometimes, when you glance over your shoulder, the moon isn’t there at all.

  At first, you might feel relieved. Nobody likes to be followed, unless they’ve told you it’s okay. (If they haven’t, you should probably stop immediately.)

  After a while, you might start wondering what the moon is up to.

  We wish we could tell you.

  But it’s a secret.

  When learning how to do something, it can be just as helpful to learn what not to do.

  “Like laundry,” Clara had told Talise once. “Never put a red sock in with your white shirts! Unless you want pink shirts.”

  Talise did not want pink shirts. Therefore, in order for Talise to build a boat that would float, she needed to study boats that couldn’t—like shipwrecks. And the only logical way to study shipwrecks was for Talise to visit them herself.

  Problem was, most shipwrecks were located in the deep-deep sea—and Talise wasn’t allowed to dive in the deep-deep sea without a dive buddy.

  “I don’t mind diving alone,” she told her parents over breakfast. “Or working alone. I’m even building a boat without any assistance.”

  “Hey!” her father objected. “Didn’t we order you all those boatbuilding tools?”

  “And we helped you collect that enormous pile of wood,” her mother said. “I still have splinters!”

  “Have you tried extracting them with a very fine fishbone?” Talise asked. “That’s what Ms. Grimalkin uses. I can search for one when
I’m investigating shipwrecks—”

  “No deep-deep dives without a buddy,” her father said firmly.

  Talise poked at her “clam” omelet. It didn’t squeak, unlike her rubber-duck omelet the other day. “But some of the shipwrecks aren’t even that deep-deep. Just two or three hundred feet.”

  Her father shuddered. “That’s where the seaweed grows.”

  “It grows all kinds of places. There was even some growing in my extra-deep soaking bathtub.” Talise paused. “You know, extra-deep isn’t that different from deep-deep—”

  “Talise,” her mother said.

  “Why don’t you talk to your friends?” her father suggested. “I’m sure one of them would be interested in getting a scuba license.”

  Talise set down her fork and squeezed her sea blob. She’d talked about scuba diving plenty of times. Her classmates seemed to like the idea of it:

  “Sea stars? Psychedelic eels? All kinds of anemones? Wow.”

  “Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus sounds like the name of a killer robot!”

  “You’re saying there might even be mermaids down there?”

  But once they learned that getting an actual license took a lot of work, they quickly lost interest. Talise found that hard to understand. Diving was what she loved most in the world, other than the ocean itself!

  And her mother and father, of course.

  (Though maybe she’d love them the teeniest bit more if they’d dive with her.)

  Talise walked to the beach with her hands in her pockets, squeezing her sea blob. She went straight to the pile of wood her parents had helped her gather, along with her boatbuilding tools and supplies.

  Her poor boat. She’d barely started building it, and already there could be an engineering flaw that would send it sinking to the deepest, darkest places at the very bottom of the ocean. And Talise along with it.

  At least that would get her underwater. . . .

  “Wait,” she said out loud.

  Her parents hadn’t specified that her diving buddy had to be underwater, had they?

  A little while later, Talise was standing beside Runa on the endless pier. Runa wore a yellow jumpsuit with inkblots all over it. Talise wore flippers and an air tank and a regulator and a BCD and all her other scuba gear.

  “I’m so flattered you asked me to be your buddy!” Runa said happily. “I mean, I already knew we were buddies. But a dive buddy—wow! That seems like a big deal.”

  Talise nodded. “Especially since we have nothing in common.”

  “What? That’s not true.”

  “I would have yelled if I was lying.”

  Runa giggled. “I’m just saying, you’re mistaken. We have a secret in common, don’t we?”

  It was true. Maybe that was why Runa had seemed like the obvious choice? Even though Talise still hadn’t figured out her dialect. Right now it seemed like Enthusiastic/Slightly Confused, but that could change at any moment.

  “What do I have to do, exactly?” Runa asked.

  “Just stand right here while I dive,” Talise said. “Or you can sit, if you’d prefer.”

  “Ooh, lots of options.”

  “I’ve mapped out the shipwrecks I’ll be exploring in here.” Talise held up her copy of Abandon Ship! A Guide to Exploring the Deep-Deep Seas of Topsea. “I’ll be underwater for approximately an hour.”

  Runa gazed into the water. “How will you know where to come up? This pier’s pretty long, if you haven’t noticed. Endless, actually. I heard about this one kid who wanted to try to find the ending of it, so she started running and running—”

  “Because of the mussels,” Talise explained.

  “Huh?”

  “That’s how I’ll know where to come up. There’s a more muscular collection of mussels on this pillar than any of the others. There’s also a seal family who keeps this part of the kelp forest trimmed.”

  Runa squealed. “A seal family? Maybe I do want to learn how to dive!”

  Talise’s insides filled with relief. “Oh, good. If you look in my dive bag, you’ll find the first two volumes of bookwork under my spare BCD. I’ve highlighted the most important passages—”

  “What’s a BCD? Is it your fancy vest?”

  “Indeed. Rather, my Buoyancy Control Device. It inflates to help you float on the surface of the water. It also affixes your dive tank to—”

  “Oof,” Runa said. “Honestly . . . I don’t think diving is for me. It seems like too much gear! All I need to draw is a pencil and paper.”

  “All I need to dive is myself,” Talise said. “But with flippers and an air tank and a regulator and a BCD and all my other scuba gear, I can go much deeper and stay underwater much longer.”

  Runa sighed. “It’d be so much easier if you had a magic ring or something!”

  Talise rolled her eyes. Then she popped her regulator into her mouth and jumped off the edge of the pier.

  SPLASH!

  When she surfaced, she inflated her BCD.

  WHOOOSH!

  “I think I get it!” Runa knelt at the edge of the pier. “All your gear is like art supplies. Sure, I can draw with just a pencil. But with colored pencils and watercolors and oil pastels and clay and charcoal and spray glitter, I can make much better art.”

  Talise popped her regulator out of her mouth. “What exactly is spray glitter, anyway?”

  “It’s glitter in a spray bottle,” Runa replied.

  “Oh. I thought there was more to it.” Talise popped her regulator back into her mouth.

  “Are you sure you’ll be okay?

  Talise popped her regulator out of her mouth. “Yes. I’m a very experienced scuba diver. My parents should trust me to dive as deep as I want.”

  “Wait—how deep are you diving?”

  “My license is for deep-sea diving. I’m just going to go a little deeper than deep today.” Talise was careful to tell the truth, since Runa would know if she was lying.

  “Do your parents know?” Runa sounded nervous. Which made Talise feel nervous, too.

  “YES!” she yelled. “Oops, sorry. Yes, my parents know that I’m licensed to dive in the deep sea. I plan to go a little deeper than deep today, which should be OKAY—ahem—because I have a dive buddy.”

  “That’s me,” Runa said.

  Talise pressed the button to deflate her BCD.

  HIIIIISSSSS.

  “I’ll see you in one hour!” Runa called, waving both hands. “Let me know if you see any mer—”

  Talise slipped under the ocean’s surface.

  All her nervousness faded instantly. The temperature of the water was 61 degrees, but Talise felt perfectly warm in her wet suit. As she descended, she paused every now and then to pinch her mask’s nosepiece and clear her ears so her eyeballs didn’t explode.

  That wasn’t a very good joke.

  Down, down, down she went. A pod of sugar snap squid zoomed past her mask. Talise smiled on the inside. (But only because it was difficult to smile on the outside with a regulator in her mouth.) Clouds of tiny sea apes went bananas. They were like sea monkeys, except they didn’t have tails. Talise’s insides smiled wider. Technically, Talise was a sea ape as well.

  That was a better joke! She wondered if it would make Runa laugh.

  Talise checked her depth gauge: deep, but not deep-deep yet—although it was deeper than she’d gone in a long time.

  Using her compass, she swam toward the first shipwreck. This one was a motorboat—which made it a motorboatwreck. Judging by the chunk of coral still wedged in its side, it had failed due to coral reef collision. Talise would be sure not to make that mistake.

  To make sure, Talise peered inside. An eye looked back at her.

  “Blorpp!” she exclaimed.

  Luckily, it was a big, googly eye, not the rubber duck kind. An octopus burst from the motorboatwreck, then swam to another chunk of coral and froze. Its googly eye goggled at Talise. If the octopus could speak, it would probably lie. “I AM NO
T AN OCTOPUS,” it would say. “I AM A CORAL.”

  Talise giggled. Runa was really missing out!

  According to her dive watch, it had been nineteen minutes. Talise descended even deeper . . . Then deep-deeper. When she was at the correct depth-depth, she swam toward the second shipwreck from the map in her guidebook.

  This one was a pirate ship. The sails had long since rotted away, but there were still plenty of cannons. Talise counted thirty-seven of them. Cannons were very heavy. So were cannonballs. She counted 216 of them.

  Whether the ship had failed due to weight or pirate war, Talise wouldn’t make those silly mistakes, either. She didn’t intend to put any cannons on her boat. Well, maybe one cannon, if there was room.

  She sat on an old, rotting trunk filled with coins and checked her dive watch. It had been forty-one minutes.

  Drat. She was running out of time!

  Getting to the surface safely took quite a while. But she really wanted to see the third shipwreck—the deepest one of all.

  Talise descended even deep-deeper.

  At last, she reached the seaweed forest. It was dark and gloomy and cold. And the current was much stronger than Talise had expected. She kept needing to grab stalks of seaweed to steady herself. A couple times, they grabbed back.

  She started to feel nervous again. She didn’t see the shipwreck Abandon Ship! had promised. And peculiar items kept whizzing by her face. Some looked like teeth. Others looked like dentures. (One looked like a rubber duck.)

  What was going on?

  Talise had been worried about a Wildcard Tide messing up her boatbuilding plans. But this felt different. This felt much bigger, and stronger. She wanted to investigate further—but then she checked her dive watch.

  It had been fifty-eight minutes.

  “Blaaaaaargh,” she sighed into her regulator. Her bubbles startled a miniature sea serpent, who rocketed away. “Blarry,” she apologized.

  She hoped Runa wouldn’t mind waiting a little longer. There was no way Talise could get to the surface safely in two minutes.

  As soon as Talise reached the pillar with the most muscular mussels, she began to swim toward the surface. She swam very, very slowly. It’s important to ascend very, very slowly to avoid getting the bends, which is when nitrogen bubbles form in a diver’s body and migrate to dangerous places.