Off the Page Read online

  Well. Actually, no.

  “You’re not wearing clothes,” I point out.

  “Thank you, Captain Obvious. And technically, I’m wearing the equivalent of a bikini. Aren’t we going swimming?”

  “Yeah but . . .”

  “Do you swim fully dressed?”

  “N-no,” I stutter.

  “Last one in’s a rotten egg,” Jules says, and she does a perfect swan dive off the cliff into the ocean.

  You can do this, I think. I hop on one foot, trying to pull off my spacesuit, and stare down with shock at a pair of dark gray tights that I did not put on this morning.

  Great. So now this book is trying to turn me into a prince.

  I try to wrestle the panty hose off my legs, wondering how on earth women do this.

  “What’s taking you so long?” Jules calls, and I glance over my shoulder to see her treading water, her hair slicked back.

  I decide I’m going to impress her with my best backflip. I manage to peel one leg free of the tights. But when I’m trying to strip off the other side, I lose my balance, and instead of executing an Olympics-worthy flip, I wind up flailing in the air and smacking into the surf with a thundering belly flop.

  Sputtering, I make my way to the surface. Jules is laughing. “That was so sexy,” she says.

  We are quickly surrounded by a whirlpool fashioned from the strong tails of Marina, Ondine, and Kyrie. “You have to kiss one of them,” I tell Jules.

  “What? This is not spin the bottle.”

  “No, it’s so you can breathe underwater.” Ondine pops through the surface. “She’s all yours,” I say.

  “I don’t think we’ve officially met. I’m Ondine,” the mermaid says, and she kisses Jules, dragging her underwater.

  A moment later, Kyrie puts her webbed hands on my shoulders. “Ready, handsome?” she asks.

  “Shouldn’t you at least buy me dinner first?” I joke, and she seals her lips over mine and pulls me below the surface.

  It’s the strangest sensation I’ve had while in this book: breathing water. At first you fight it, certain you’re drowning, as your lungs fill. But then, just when you’re sure you’re a goner, your chest seems to burst, and the water rushes in and out of your nose like oxygen. I keep an eye on Jules, who is struggling in Ondine’s grasp as she gives herself over to the feeling.

  Her eyes open, and her hair snakes out around her face, tendrils of indigo with silver stripes. “This,” she says, “is wicked awesome!”

  “I know, right? Just wait.” I turn to the mermaids. “Hey, guys, can we get a fin?”

  They link their arms in ours and swim us to the very bottom of the ocean floor in a matter of seconds. Jules can’t stop smiling like a kid on her first roller coaster. I watch her reach out toward a sea horse, which tickles its way up her arm. Finally the mermaids release us at the entrance to their underwater cave. Jules looks appreciatively at Ondine. “You would so totally kick butt on our school swim team.”

  “I’m pretty sure that having a tail counts as cheating,” I point out. I glance around the cavern. Stalactites and stalagmites form the ceiling and the floor, like the jaws of a giant beast. Bright orange brain coral colors the walls, and in the center of the cave is a slab of granite—their dining room table.

  “What are we looking for?” Marina asks.

  “A way out,” I explain.

  Kyrie snorts. “You’ve come to the wrong place,” she says, and she unlocks a small wooden door. Half a dozen skeletons drift toward us, still draped in bits of ribbon and velvet and clinging to their swords. “If these guys didn’t find an escape hatch, I doubt you will either.”

  I expect Jules to be terrified by this, but instead she breaststrokes closer to one and shakes its hand. “Cool,” she breathes.

  Marina nods, impressed. “I like this girl.”

  I begin shucking oysters, hoping to find something other than an ordinary pearl. Marina swims into the depths of the skeleton closet, strip-searching the inhabitants. Ondine sifts through kelp and Kyrie flips over flounder and starfish on the ocean floor. Meanwhile, Jules sits cross-legged on the granite table, elbow-deep in a giant pink clam filled with keys. “What about one of these?” she asks. “These all have to open something.”

  “At one time, yes. They were the keys to kingdoms, to shackles, to diaries. Most of them are long past their use,” Kyrie says.

  Jules starts examining them one by one and sorting them into piles. Some are rusted, some are shiny. Some have seaweed tangled around them, some are ornate, some are plain. Nothing stands out as extraordinary; nothing screams, This is your escape. “This one has writing on it,” she says, holding the key up to the crackling light of an electric eel. “I can’t make it out.”

  I take it out of her hand and read the Latin inscription out loud: “‘Carcere aqua,’” I say.

  “Water prison,” Jules translates.

  “You speak Latin?”

  “SAT prep, man. I’m a vocabulary beast.” She frowns. “Do you have any idea what it means?”

  I glance at the skeleton closet. “That’s the only water prison I can think of in this book.” Taking the key, I close the door and try to lock it, but the bolt won’t turn.

  Marina purses her lips. “Isn’t there a jail cell on Captain Crabbe’s pirate ship? He locked me in there once when I didn’t floss.”

  I stuff the key into my pocket and turn to Jules. “Time to surface,” I say.

  With the aid of the mermaids, we rise to the top of the ocean, breaking into the air about five miles from the shore of Everafter Beach. Looming nearby, like a great gray whale, is Captain Crabbe’s ship. I start flailing my arms, shouting, to grab the attention of the hands on deck.

  Suddenly I hear the pirate’s gruff voice. “Edgar, laddie, is that you?” he cries. “Man overboard!”

  Captain Crabbe’s ship slices through the waves like a knife cutting through butter. The salty spray splashes over the gunwale, soaking the rough blanket the first mate gave me after hauling me up to safety. Sitting on an overturned crate is Jules, wrapped in her own blanket, holding a mug of hot grog. Her hair is starting to dry, and by now there’s more silver in it than blue. I keep thinking it’s like a ticking time bomb, that we’d better figure out how to get Jules back to the real world before she’s fully blond and singing to birds and bugs on her windowsill.

  Captain Crabbe stands in front of me, his feet planted wide to keep him steady as the deck rocks back and forth in the surf. “Tell me again, mate, why a landlubber like yerself was swimmin’ in these parts? Is there a cavity botherin’ you?”

  “No, my teeth are fine.” I unclench my fist to reveal the key. “We found this in the mermaids’ cave, and we’re looking for the lock that it fits,” I say. “I think it could be on your ship.”

  “I didna misplace any keys,” the captain says thoughtfully, “but ye’re welcome to take a look around.” He extends a hand to Jules, helping her to her feet, and she smiles. As soon as she does, he leans in a little closer. “Ye have a twisted eyetooth,” he murmurs. “I could get ye a retainer that would fix that. . . .”

  “Thanks,” Jules says, “but I’ve done my time in braces.”

  Captain Crabbe sniffs. “Well. Whoever ye went to clearly wasna a perfectionist.”

  I wander around the top deck, trying the key in various padlocks, but nothing works. I glance around for Jules, but she seems to have gone AWOL. Then I hear her cry: “Look, Edgar: I’m king of the world!”

  She straddles the bowsprit, her arms extended wide in a T, doing her best Leonardo DiCaprio impression. “Great. When you’re done playing Titanic, can you get down here and help?”

  “You’re no fun,” Jules says, but she scrambles down and walks over to Walleye, one of the hands, who’s mopping on the starboard side of the ship. “Is there another floor?”

  Walleye glances down at the wood beneath his mop. “This is the only one we got.”

  “She means a lower deck,” I