Part of Your Nightmare Page 5

  Kendall frowned, but her expression softened. “Fine. Luckily, we have one more shot, like coach said. Triton Bay still has the chance to win the Bayside Regional Trophy this year.”

  “Yeah, it’s only Kendall’s life goal,” Alana said, exchanging glances with her twin.

  “Yup, hashtag winning,” Attina said. “We’ve been planning it all summer. We’re going to throw, like, the biggest party to celebrate if—I mean when—we win.” She flashed a big smile.

  “That’s right,” Kendall said. “My parents promised us. So don’t ruin it, Shelly. Got it?”

  They all stared at Shelly expectantly.

  She forced a smile. “No problem. I’m just having an off day. I’ll do better next time.”

  She would do whatever it took. She never wanted to feel this way again.

  Nothing was worse than letting her friends down.

  “We’ll meet you outside,” Alana said.

  Without another word, Kendall, Alana, and Attina took up their backpacks and left, along with the other swimmers. But Shelly stayed behind and sat alone on a bench as a million terrible thoughts circled through her head. She kept envisioning the next swim meet and Judy’s purple swim cap, bobbing farther and farther out of reach. She had to find a way to swim faster. She had to find a way to beat Judy and win her race. She went to the sink and turned on the taps, splashing water on her face. But then something strange happened. The water tasted salty. Like seawater.

  Not only that, but it smelled like the ocean when a breeze wafted off it and onto the shore. But that was impossible! The smell grew stronger. She even heard seagulls squawking.

  Slowly, she backed away from the sink, still tasting salt on her tongue.

  Suddenly, a familiar voice echoed through the locker room, even though it was deserted.

  “Ticktock, ticktock, my dear!”

  Shelly spun around. Her heart thudded. “Who . . . who said that?” she asked.

  “Twenty-four hours,” Ursula said. “That was our deal. Time’s almost up.”

  But this is impossible, Shelly thought. It was only a nightmare! It wasn’t real!

  “You may feel like a fish out of water now,” Ursula said. The taps turned on their own, water gushing from them fast and flooding the sinks. “But I can change that—I can help you win your next big race. Remember your wish?”

  The water sloshed onto the floor, pooling around Shelly’s feet. She felt the urge to run, but something kept her rooted there. The sea witch in her nightmare had promised her one wish, hadn’t she? Was it possible that it hadn’t just been a dream? That it had really happened after all?

  She remembered the contract, printed on parchment paper in ornate golden cursive, tempting her to sign it. Three words from the contract came to mind: the fastest swimmer.

  Maybe it was a silly thought, but then again, hadn’t her day been odd without explanation? Maybe this was her chance.

  No more losing to Judy Weisberg and Little River. No more Kendall being disappointed in her. Better yet, if Shelly became the fastest swimmer on her team, she could actually help Kendall achieve her goal to win the Bayside Regional Trophy and throw the championship party.

  This wish could fix everything.

  “You . . . you can help me win my next race?” she stammered.

  “Of course, my dear,” Ursula said. “You’d better visit me again before it’s too late.”

  “But . . . how do I find you?” Shelly asked, staring at her own reflection in the fogged mirror. She felt crazy for talking to a sink, with nobody else around. “How do I get back there?”

  But the voice fell silent.

  Then the sinks abruptly shut off. The water that had cascaded onto the floor ran down the drain. No smell of the ocean anymore. No more strange, disembodied voice talking to her.

  But drawn in the condensation on the mirror was a simple swirl. It reminded her of something. . . .

  The nautilus! Of course!

  If Shelly touched the nautilus again, it would transport her back to the undersea lair.

  Feeling excited, Shelly fixed her gaze on the swirl. That was the answer. That was the way to solve all her problems. She could keep her friends—and win her next race. She could pay Judy back for the embarrassing prank. They’d get the trophy and have the celebratory party!

  Shelly took a deep breath. She knew what she had to do.

  She just had to hurry—before her time ran out.

  * * *

  After dinner out with the swim team, Kendall’s mom dropped Shelly off. As soon as she’d closed the door behind her, Shelly darted through the townhouse, zigzagging around the furniture, through the kitchen, down the hall, and into her room. She needed to get that shell and get back to Ursula’s lair before her time to make her wish ran out. She dove for the hamper, which was shoved into the closet and stuffed with her dirty clothes, and started pawing through it, feeling for something hard. But her hands only sifted through soft, crumpled clothes. She dug deeper, reaching the bottom of the hamper. But nothing.

  The nautilus wasn’t there.

  “Where is it?” she said in frustration, wheeling around. This was her one chance to fix everything in her life. She had to find that shell. Her eyes darted to the clock. Over an hour had elapsed since she was in the locker room. She searched her memory. She’d been upset from the nightmare—the nightmare that apparently wasn’t a dream but was real after all. But she clearly recalled tossing the shell into her hamper before leaving for school.

  Then she saw a note pinned to her mirror.

  Scrawled in crayon was Dawson’s terrible chicken scratch: I KNEW YOU STOLE IT, SHELL-FISH! YOU’RE NEVER GETTING IT BACK NOW!

  “Dawson, where did you put it?” she yelled at the mirror, ripping off the note. Her cheeks felt hot with anger. Sure, she wasn’t supposed to have the shell. Technically, it belonged to him. She had given it to him as a gift. But he wasn’t allowed to enter her room without her permission. Dawson was many things, but he wasn’t very creative. It had to be in his room.

  She had to find it. She couldn’t let Kendall and her friends down again. She needed the sea witch’s help to win their next race. She flew through the hall and pushed open his door. Fortunately, Dawson was staying at their dad’s house that night.

  Piles of dirty clothes covered the floor. She couldn’t even see the carpet underneath. Stray toys were strewn through them, just waiting for her to step on them and injure her foot. She started searching through the clothes, but there was no sign of the shell. She tried his closet, but it was so stuffed with toys it was impossible to make headway. The second she opened the door, they all spilled out. No way had he hidden it in the closet. There wasn’t space.

  She tried under the bed. On his desk. In the drawers. The bedside table.

  Still nothing.

  “Where are you?” she muttered, wiping sweat from her forehead. Her eyes darted to his clock and widened. It was almost ten o’clock. She didn’t have much time to find it and return to Ursula’s lair. Could Dawson have taken the shell with him to their dad’s house? If he had, she was done for. Or what if . . . ?

  Suddenly, a thought took the breath from her: if Dawson had found the shell, maybe it had transported him into the treacherous undersea lair.

  Just as the panic of that possibility set in, her eyes darted to Dawson’s bookshelf, where Mr. Bubbles’s dirty aquarium now sat on the top shelf. She dashed over, reached up, and pulled it down—and sure enough, there it was. The nautilus sat at the bottom of the filthy tank.

  “Thank goodness! There you are!” she said, fishing the shell out of the filmy water. But nothing happened at her touch. “You said it would bring me back!” she yelled, feeling silly. “Well, I found it! I’m ready to make my wish!” She clutched the shell tightly in her fist.

  She tried yelling again and waving the shell in the air.

  Fear rippled through her.

  Was she too late?

  No—she thought back to her dre
am. Shelly had asked for one more day—and the sea witch had agreed. It hadn’t been a whole day yet. She had a few minutes left. She was sure of it.

  “Come on, why aren’t you working?” she muttered to the shell. Now she felt even sillier for standing in Dawson’s room. Anyone who saw her would think she had completely lost it.

  “Fine, I give up,” she said dejectedly. “All I wanted was to be the fastest swimmer—”

  As soon as the words left her mouth, the seashell started to pulse with its eerie yellow light.

  Then, in a flash, she was plunging through the ocean, down, down, down. Water flooded her mouth, rushed down her throat, filled her lungs. She was choking, gasping for breath. Shelly felt like she was about to pass out, and then, suddenly, as if someone had flipped a switch, it was over and she could breathe again.

  Shelly coughed and glanced around. She was trapped once more in the dry hollow of the crystal ball, which meant she was back in Ursula’s lair. She could see that something large swam around in the shadows, just like before.

  “I’m here. . . . I—came back!” she gasped to the darkness, pushing back against her fear, which made her want to scream. “I want to sign the contract. I want to be the fastest swimmer.”

  A moment of silence. Just the shifting of shadows and the strange tentacles.

  Ursula’s voice echoed out. “Are you sure, my child? It’s binding. There’s no going back.”

  Shelly took a deep breath. “I’m sure. I want to be the fastest swimmer on my team,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “I need to be the fastest swimmer. You promised to help.”

  Again it was quiet except for the soft hum of the ocean current swirling through the lair.

  Then: “As you wish, my child.”

  Suddenly, the contract materialized in the crystal ball above her. In another flash, the fish-bone pen appeared in her hand. The pen shimmered with a golden light. The tip glowed with golden ink. She raised it over the contract.

  I HEREBY GRANT UNTO URSULA, THE WITCH OF THE SEA, ONE FAVOR TO BE NAMED AT A LATER DATE, IN EXCHANGE FOR BECOMING THE FASTEST SWIMMER, FOR ALL ETERNITY.

  The current picked up, swirling through the underwater lair. Then she heard shrill voices rising from the water. She couldn’t tell where they were coming from, which made them that much eerier.

  “Don’t do it!”

  “. . . you’ll regret it—”

  “. . . can’t trust her—”

  “. . . she only takes!”

  “I’m sorry, but I need this,” Shelly said softly, more to herself than to the warning voices. She gripped the pen and pressed it to the parchment. “I don’t have a choice.”

  She scrawled her name—Shelly—across the signature line.

  The whole contract flashed with light. It rolled up into a scroll, then vanished in another flash and reappeared outside the crystal ball. A black tentacle reached up, encircled the parchment, and unrolled it, then scrawled a name onto the other signature line below Shelly’s:

  Ursula

  “Oh, you’ll be the fastest swimmer,” she said, cackling. “You’ll swim like a fish!”

  Emerald light flashed through the lair, followed by a deep rumble of thunder. The ocean currents whipped up. The walls of the crystal ball dissolved, and once again the ocean claimed Shelly, choking her and expelling her from the underwater lair. As she felt the ocean sweep her away, a deep cackle made Shelly shiver with fear.

  “Just remember our deal. After you win your race, you have to come back here. You owe me a favor. I gave you something, so now you have to give me something I want in return.”

  Shelly had a sinking feeling about what she had just done.

  But she pushed it away.

  I had to sign it, she reminded herself. I didn’t have a choice.

  She couldn’t afford to lose her next race. Otherwise, she risked losing her friends and going back to that horrible new-kid-in-school purgatory, where she had to eat lunch alone and walk to class alone and do everything alone. Having no friends was the worst, the absolute worst.

  Or was it?

  Shelly woke up clawing at her throat on her bedroom floor.

  Her lungs pulled at the air, but something felt different. She couldn’t explain it. It took longer to get enough oxygen. As she caught her breath and her vision cleared, she took in her room. Morning light flooded through her curtains. Half asleep and very groggy, she stood up on autopilot and staggered to her closet to pick something to wear. After she got dressed, she inspected the state of her hair in the mirror, wondering how long she’d have to spend taming it with the hair iron. As she gathered it up, she gasped and backed away.

  “What is that?” she hissed at her reflection. She stepped closer to the mirror to inspect what she had seen. On each side of her neck were parallel slits. When she breathed, the slits flared open, freaking her out even more. What happened to my neck?

  She wondered if she’d injured it at the swim meet. But nothing jumped to mind.

  The day before, her neck had been normal. She was sure. That wasn’t something one failed to notice, like a zit on a chin that was just beginning to blossom. No, that was unmissable. They were completely noticeable, especially with the whole flaring-open-when-she-breathed thing.

  “What happened to me?” she whispered to her reflection, studying her neck slits.

  A door slammed down the hall, making her jump back from the mirror with a start. She was late. Any second, her mother would rap on her door and let her know that the bus was waiting. She had to hide her neck—and fast. She couldn’t let her mother catch wind of what was going on.

  What was going on?

  Shelly rustled through her closet, her fingers coming upon a winter scarf from some long-forgotten family ski trip. It was far too warm for the mild California winter, but it was made from thick wool that promised maximum coverage. She started wrapping the scarf around her neck.

  The door to her room swung open.

  “Mom, she took it again!” Dawson. Her dad must have just dropped him off and he’d gone right for the shell, of course. His little face was blotchy and twisted up with anger.

  “Get out!” Shelly yelled, shutting the door on him. Her eyes darted to the shell on her bedside table. She swiped it and stashed it inside her closet. She couldn’t let him have it back; it had strange powers. Plus, she owed the sea witch a favor and she needed the shell to fulfill the deal.

  But Dawson had blocked the door with his foot.

  “You’re not allowed in my room!” Shelly said. With one hand, she tried to cram the door shut while desperately attempting to finish wrapping the scarf around her neck with her other hand.

  Luckily, Dawson was so focused on getting through the door that he didn’t seem to notice Shelly’s neck. At least, she hoped he didn’t. Suddenly, the click-clack of her mother’s high heels sounded. They hit the hall carpet and quieted, which meant her mother was coming closer.

  “What now?” her mother said when she reached Shelly’s room. “Open the door, please.”

  Reluctantly, Shelly stepped away from the door.

  Dawson was pushing on it so hard that as soon as she released it, the door flew open. He staggered into her room and fell flat on his face. Her mother followed him in, surveying the room. When she saw Dawson pouting on the floor, she helped him up and looked hard at Shelly.

  “What in the world is going on with you two?” her mother asked.

  Before Shelly could answer, Dawson wailed, “Mom, she took my special shell again! I found it in her room yesterday, so I hid it in my aquarium tank. But it’s gone again!”

  Shelly felt a flood of guilt. He was right, of course. She did steal it back. But there was nothing she could do about it now. Carefully, she shut the door to the closet, where she’d stashed it.

  Then she knelt down on the floor by Dawson. “Bud, I’m sorry, but I think it’s gone for good,” she said, hoping he would leave it at that.

  He sniffled and stopped
wailing. “It’s not fair.”

  “I’ll get you a new fish for your aquarium. A real one! Like Mr. Bubbles.”

  “Will he have a black stripe, too?” he asked.

  Mr. Bubbles had had a distinctive black stripe that marked his side. “Black stripe and all.”

  Her mother’s frown transformed into a relieved smile as she leaned close to Shelly. “Thank you, Shell. I’m proud of you for working this out with your brother.” Her mother glanced down at her watch. “Now, hurry up, you two, or you’ll miss the bus and be late for school. And, Shelly, honey, please make sure your brother gets his homework from the kitchen table.”

  After her mother kissed the top of each of their heads, she looked at Shelly. “Why are you wearing a scarf?”

  “It’s the latest trend,” Shelly lied, holding the scarf to her neck to make sure it didn’t slip.

  “Kids these days,” said her mother with a laugh as she headed back down the hall.

  Shelly snatched up her things, grabbed Dawson’s homework from the kitchen, and quickly tied his shoelaces before locking up and heading out.

  * * *

  Shelly walked down the hall with her hand pressed to the scarf wrapped tightly around her neck.

  Her eyes darted around nervously. She hoped nobody would notice how strange it was that she was wearing a winter scarf inside. Worse, this wasn’t her only problem.

  There was still the matter of the dead-fish juice in her locker. The day before, she’d picked them up and thrown them away to avoid making it smell any worse than it already did, but there was still the stinky residue to deal with. A few minutes later, she reached her locker—and stared up at it in horror. Something was spray-painted across the front in shoddy teal handwriting.

  FISH LOVER

  Who had done that to her locker? Was it Judy Weisberg and the Little River swimmers pulling yet another prank? Or some other kid from her school who had witnessed the fish incident the day before?

  She held her breath as she cranked in her combination, expecting the fish stench to assault her. But when the door swung open, her locker didn’t smell fishy at all. The sudden disappearance of the smell was as strange as the appearance of the fish in the first place. How could the fish smell simply vanish? In fact, her books and smattering of pens were dry, without any stains or any indication that her locker had been filled with fish and slimy garbage. Once the shock wore off, she felt relieved. Why was she upset the fish smell was gone?