Firespark by Julie Bertagna Page B

chunk of the moon had fallen into the sea.
    â€œTurn back,” orders Ruby.
    Rowan’s breath is warm against Mara’s ear.
    â€œPinball,” he murmurs. “Remember?”
    Of course she does.
    On the island they had a game called pinball wizard, named after a twentieth-century treasure Rowan’s dad kept in the cellar among the junk. On long days of winter dimness, they’d spend hours playing each other on the pinball-wizard machine. In summer, they re-created the game in the sea. Rowan and Gail and Mara would sneak skiffs out into a small cove along the coast from Long-hope Bay. There, they’d practice lethal maneuvers, pinballing between the rocks and surfing the rolling waves that smashed to the shore. It was a deadly game the adults would have banned outright, if they’d known.
    â€œJust play it as pinball,” says Rowan.
    â€œYour call then,” says Mara. “You’re pinball king.”
    Rowan groans, laughs, and heads for the control cabin. There’s a glint of fear in his eyes, but Mara pretends not to see.
    She follows him into the cabin, bolts the door against Ruby, and crosses her freezing fingers. There’s a rescue rope looped on the cabin wall and Mara is suddenly tempted to make a lucky wind-knot, like the fishermen on Wing would do when caught in hard seas. They need all the luck they can get.
    She closes down the navigation program and switches the ship to manual steering.
    â€œHere we go.” Rowan frowns as he stares at the mass of controls and the radar screen. “I thought you said the ice is all melted.”
    â€œMost of it must be or the world wouldn’t have flooded, would it? The book on Greenland said icebergs are like small mountains and these are just hills. Maybe this is all that’s left of the ice—baby icebergs and ice-soup sea.”
    â€œLet’s just hope there isn’t a daddy one lurking,” says Rowan, without a hint of a smile.
    â€œRemember what you see above the surface is—”
    â€œâ€”the tip of the iceberg. I’m the son of a fisherman, Mara, I know.”
    He’s snapping at her because he’s too weak to take on this fleet of icebergs, and he knows it. Rowan is used to being strong. Mara has an idea and opens her backpack.
    She pulls out a bottle of bright orange liquid. IRN-BRU, ENERGY DRINK, says the label.
    She unscrews the cap. Candleriggs gave her the bottle. It’s something the old Treenester kept from before the world’s drowning and Mara promised she would drink to her when they reached the North lands; but they’ll never get there if Rowan can’t outwit the icebergs.
    The drink gushes out in an orange froth. Mara puts the bottle to Rowan’s mouth. He looks at it suspiciously but glugs it, splutters, then grins.
    â€œMore.”
    The Irn-Bru gives him a spark of his old self back. His cheeks are less gray, his hands steadier. Mara takes the chance to slip back out on deck. She has to push through a noisy crowd. Ruby has gathered followers around her. Mara doesn’t stop to listen, but pops her head back into the control cabin.
    â€œLock the door. Trouble’s brewing out there,” she tells Rowan, before bolting past Ruby’s crowd to the bow of the ship.
    Queen Cass’s crown of stars sparkles high in the night sky. Her fallen jewel, the Star of the North, glistens behind a blur of cloud. At the top of the world, the North Star would be directly overhead; that’s what Granny said. So they are on track, but how much farther is there to go?There is no moon but the sprinkle of starlight picks out a dazzling mosaic of ice that is so fragile it shifts with the movement of the sea. And there is something else. A long silver point is sticking up out of the thin crust of ice.
    Mara screws up her eyes. It looks like a sword.
    The silver sword vanishes then reappears farther in front, breaking a path through the icy waves. Another sword