Kid vs. Squid by Greg van Eekhout Page A

chart, one of Skalla’s minions steals it while we’re adrift. Every summer I must begin anew, from scratch.”
    â€œI don’t understand why the curse works like this,” Trudy said, annoyed at her own lack of understanding. “If Skalla hates you so much, why not just drown you outright? Why keep you coming back here every summer?”
    â€œAh, because she needs us, you see. We don’t know what for, but she has a plan for us, so the very same spell that condemns us also keeps us alive. The currents bring us to this beach that, in old days, was Skalla’s hideaway, her refuge and stronghold. We wash ashore here every summer, and the witch keeps us enslaved to the tourists, humiliated.”
    â€œBut not after midnight,” I pointed out. “Here, right now, you’re not all zombified.”
    Fin steepled his fingers. “We are a strong people. Even as our hands squirt mustard on hot dogs, we fight. Years ago, with the help of our few land-dwelling allies, we almost won a victory. As the king’s sorcerer, I used my own small magic, and we gained this modicum of freedom—a place of our own to dwell in thelongest hours of night, where we can plan, and calculate. Even if it is all for nothing in the end.”
    These land-dwelling allies Fin mentioned—he was talking about the Keepers. Like my uncle.
    â€œSo when is Last Day?” Trudy asked.
    Fin smoothed out the butcher paper. “There is an unusually strong high tide due soon, the strongest of the century. It coincides with the full moon, an arctic storm, the approach of an undiscovered comet, the venting of an underwater volcano, the braiding of geomagical force lines.… It is very complicated. But I believe I know when.”
    â€œAnd ‘when’ is … ?”
    â€œThree weeks from today.”
    Trudy and I exchanged wide-eyed stares.
    â€œThree weeks?” I shouted. “We’ve only got three weeks before we’re all floating garbage?”
    â€œOh, it is even worse than that,” Fin said. “Something even larger is happening this year. More than merely Flotsam being drawn to the drowning. I have been unable to put my finger on it, but I believe there is a disaster coming. I do not know its nature, nor its magnitude, but who is to say it won’t be of a proportion even greater than the storms that befell the last Atlantis?” He paused. “Are you sure you wouldn’t care for some soup?”
    Another Flotsam entered the kitchen. I thought I’dseen him selling churros on the boardwalk. “The king has returned,” he announced. “He demands the witch and prisoners be brought before him.”
    â€œThey’re not prisoners,” Fin said. “They are guests and allies.”
    â€œPerhaps you would like to tell the king that,” the newcomer said.
    Fin thought about it. “You had better go up to have your audience,” he said to us in a conspiratorial whisper. “It won’t be so bad. If he puts you in the dungeon, I will bring you soup. If he does worse … well, let’s hold that thought in reserve for now.”
    The Atlanteans took Trudy and me up to a huge room on the second floor. I figured it had once been a dining hall. Fin followed us, carrying Trudy’s backpack. A chair of driftwood, adorned with pearls and spiky frills of coral, loomed at one end of the room. Leaning against a seat back made from a giant clamshell, the man sitting in the chair watched without expression as Trudy and I were brought before him. He wore a T-shirt with a faded crown on it and a tan raincoat thrown over his shoulders like a cape. With one hand, he stroked a long, braided beard fastened with a gold hoop—a napkin ring. His other hand gripped a trident spear. Back on the boardwalk, he’d told me that I was smelling the scent of thesea, and that I should buy popcorn. In this setting, he seemed very different.
    â€œI am