Nim's Island: Chapters 1–2

Nim’s hair was wild, her eyes were bright, and around her neck she wore three cords. One was for a spyglass, one for a whorly, whistling shell, and one for a fat red pocketknife in a sheath.

With the spyglass at her eye, she watched her father’s boat. It sailed out through the reef to the deeper dark ocean, and Jack turned to wave and Nim waved back, though she knew he couldn’t see.

And from a rock by the hut, Fred came scuttling. Fred was an iguana, spiky as a dragon, with a cheerful snub nose.

He made sleeping mats stuffed with rustling palm fronds, a table and two stools, a desk, bookcases and shelves for his science stuff, coconut-shell bowls, and seashell plates.

They read what the barometer said, measured how much rain fell every day and how strong the winds were, how high the high tides reached and how low the low tides fell, and then they marked the measurements on a clean white chart with a dark blue marker.

Jack built a three-sided shed for the tools, with a hook for the bananas and his big machete to cut them with.

Sometimes for a whole day they talked in sea lion grunts or frigate bird squawks or plankton wiggles.

Jack loved plankton. Nim’s favorites were the ones that shone bright in the sea at night, but Jack loved them all because they were so little, and so important because little fish ate them, and bigger fish ate the little fish, and the biggest fish ate the bigger fish, and there wouldn’t have been any fish at all if it weren’t for plankton.

“Don’t forget to check the e-mail,” Jack went on. “Say I’ll answer in a few
days. Unless it’s the Troppo Tourists—I’d rather meet six hungry sharks than that pink-and-purple boat!”
“I’d rather meet a cyclone at sea!”

The clouds were scudding across the moon; the stars had disappeared and there was a lashing of rain.

Selkie nuzzled Nim’s shoulder and curled tight around her.

Inside, the hut was gritty with sand.

There were plants to prop up that had toppled over in the wind, weeds to pull, strawberries to nibble, and a huge bunch of bananas just green enough to pick.

Swinging hard and heavy, they hoisted the bananas up to the roof to ripen.

She picked up her book, and soon she wasn’t Nim anymore, she was a strong, brave hero scrambling up a cliff, she was swinging across a chasm, reaching for the other side…