Strong Like the Sea, стр. 29
A soft smile steals across my lips, and I shrug. “I don’t know how to say it either.”
“Whatever. ASAP then.” Malia flicks her thick, black hair over her shoulder and drops back into the fake accent. “Might you know where Queen Alex hath gone? You could join me in my quest—be my squire and stuff.”
Play? Part of me wobbles at the thought, as if I’d been the one tossed around in the storm last night and not those reporters on the computer screen. I glance around the natural room. What was my plan anyway? To hide here all day? My stomach growls. I didn’t eat the udon noodle dinner Dad made last night, and I was sleuthing after school before that, so the last time I ate was . . . lunch yesterday?
I take a breath and stand, brushing leaves and red dirt from the seat of my shorts.
“Well?” Malia rolls a finger forward, waiting. “Have you seen her?”
“Sorry. Nope. She ran off to live with a dragon—or maybe a dragon ate her. I can’t remember.” I’d been pretending to be invisible all morning, pretended so hard I almost disappeared. But Malia found me, and broke that spell, because that’s what BFFs do. So I let her pull us into a new game of pretend where typhoons aren’t a thing, and moms aren’t missing.
“A dragon, I hear you say? No! Not my lady! I must avenge her. Where is this foul dragon?”
I slide my stick-sword from between the roots in the wall. “I refuse to tell.”
“You fiend! Queen Alex charged me to protect the kingdom—and if you’re not her, you’re a trespasser!” Malia stuffs the phone in her pocket and pulls a stick from our stash on the other side. “I shall smite you with my smite-y stick.”
She jabs her stick at the air, and I swat it aside. “Your smite-y stick is nothing against me. I will prevail . . .” I glance at my chosen weapon. “. . . with my stabby-staff.”
Malia flashes a wicked smile and swings low and slow. “We’ll see.”
I twist away and dodge her sword by sliding between roots. Our swords clack together.
Crack, crack!
With a lunge, she slips through my guard, the tip of her stick barely grazing my foot. “Ha! Tagged you!”
“I still have one foot!” As per our battle rules, I hop one-footed onto the Castle balcony—a wide but short cliff of limestone surrounded by banyan roots. As I clear the tight vines, I spin and tap Malia on the shoulder. “Got your sword arm!”
“No big. I have an extra one. You’re going down!” She lets the arm hang limp and swaps the stick to the other hand. “Oh yeah, going down like seaweed.”
“What?” I wrinkle my nose. “What does seaweed have to do with any—”
Tap, tap, tap! Malia tags my other leg and both arms. “Haha! Now whatcha gon’ do?”
“Cheaterpants.” I let my sword fall to the ground.
“You were distracted fair and square. I win!”
“Win? No way, man, I could still—”
“Still what? Breathe on me?” Malia laughs and throws an arm around me. “Come on. You lost fair and square. Admit defeat.”
“Never.”
She picks up both sticks and tucks them away. “I came, I saw, I smited.”
I sit and dangle my feet over the edge. “So, O great one, how’d you even know I was here?”
“Coconut wireless.” She sits beside me and bumps my shoulder with hers. “You know how it goes, eh? One of the aunties saw you running flat out without your hat, and told someone who told someone who told my mom, who asked your dad.”
“So everyone knows?” I groan.
“What did you think would happen? We figured you’d come here, but I’m supposed to text him when I find you.”
“Traitorous spy.”
Across the grass, a car putters by on its way around campus, and I wish I could take back my panicked run this morning. If the coconut wireless saw me running, then the whole town knows. Under the watchful eyes of hundreds of aunties, word travels faster than a crow could fly. Neighborhood Watch got nothing on the coconut wireless. Half the time, our parents know more about what we did each day than we do by the time we get home.
So everyone knows now. That’s great. Just great.
“Ready?”
When I don’t answer, Malia leans closer. “Do you think your mom would want you to sit here all day? Is that what she would do?”
“How would I know what she would do? I can’t ask her because she didn’t call!” I chuck a limestone rock off the cliff and grab another, not really mad anymore, just giving voice to all the things stuck inside my head since last night. “Did the coconut wireless know about the storm too? One of the biggest storms they’ve ever seen. And Mom’s at sea, probably right in the middle of it. Why else would she miss a call?”
“You should call your dad. He says the people he called would know if the sub had sunk. It hasn’t. So whatever’s going on, your mom is okay. And besides, she set quest stuff up for you. I think you’d hurt her feelings if you didn’t try your hardest to finish the game she started for you.”
“I don’t know.” Don’t know what to say, or do, or how to feel. “I’m not feeling it.”
“Come on. Your mom already left you directions on what to do next, and even if the worst happens—which it won’t—would you really want to live the rest of your life knowing that you decided not to finish the last challenge she set up for you? You want to throw away her last gift?”
I open my mouth but she cuts me off. “Do you know how many times I’ve wished that my mom would do something like that for me? Make a special quest or treat or scavenger