Giving the canoe a strong push, he launched my brother and our friends into the water, then came over to where I was struggling to get out of the wheelbarrow.
“Help me out of this thing,” I told him. “I’ve changed my mind—I don’t have time to take this tail off. I’m going to have to swim for it.”
He nodded. “I’ll grab a kayak and follow you.”
“Wait! Before you do, could you go tell my aunt True? We’re going to need backup, and she’ll know what to do.”
“Sure.” He leaned over to heft me out of the wheelbarrow. “Oof! Dude, you weigh a ton!”
“I’m wearing thirty pounds of shimmertail!”
“Really? I hadn’t noticed,” he gasped, staggering across the sand toward the lake, but he winked to show me he was only teasing.
Out on the lake, my brother and our friends were paddling furiously, as instructed, but Dr. Appleton was already rounding the H dock in pursuit.
“She’s moving fast,” I fretted. “They’re never going to beat her to the island!”
“They might not, but you will,” Calhoun told me. “You’re the best swimmer I know, Truly.”
He smiled at me, and I smiled back at him.
Now, I thought, remembering Mackenzie’s advice.
Maybe Calhoun was thinking the same thing, because a moment later our noses bumped together.
“Ouch!” I protested, rubbing mine.
“Sorry,” he said. “I was just—”
“Yeah, me too.”
We smiled at each other again, and then he dumped me into the lake.
CHAPTER 38
I was flying.
And it wasn’t just the shimmertail. Calhoun had tried to kiss me!
I am Grania—hear me roar! I thought, slicing through the water. It was half a mile to Cherry Island from shore, roughly eight hundred meters. That was farther than I’d ever swum the butterfly stroke. Usually I swam butterfly as part of a relay, but it was my best stroke, and my fastest, and I needed every ounce of speed if I was going to reach shore first. I fell into the rhythm of it easily, grateful for the shimmertail, which propelled me faster with each thwack of its flukes than my own size-ten-and-a-half feet ever could.
Too bad Coach Maynard isn’t here to clock my time, I thought, as I passed Bud Jefferson’s canoe. Hatcher waved his paddle and gave a Texas-size whoop.
“Go, Truly!” shouted Scooter.
I pushed on, sucking down air with each forward arc of my body. Thanks to countless hours spent in countless pools at countless swim team practices, my legs and arms knew exactly what to do. As the shimmertail propelled me up and out of the water again, I glanced quickly over my shoulder. Dr. Appleton’s kayak was closing in fast. I couldn’t see Calhoun. Had he alerted Aunt True? I hoped so.
Amanda Appleton and I were almost neck and neck by the time we reached the shore. I gave one last flying dolphin leap and flung myself onto the sand. “I claim this island and any treasure it may contain!” I managed to gasp.
If Dr. Appleton heard me, she didn’t give any sign of it. She threw her paddle aside, scrambled out of her kayak, and crashed away through the undergrowth without a word to me.
What just happened? I thought as I lay there in the shallows like a beached whale, struggling to catch my breath. I pondered my next move. I desperately needed witnesses to my claim. Otherwise it would be her word against mine, and who would believe a kid like me over someone with a PhD?
I could see the canoe moving steadily toward the island, and I heard the thrum of Camp Lovejoy’s ski boat in the distance. Calhoun had come through—help was on the way.
But I couldn’t just sit here and wait.
It wouldn’t be long before Amanda Appleton found the boulder, and with it, the entrance to the cave. I, however, had one last card to play: The underwater entrance. Dr. Appleton may have overheard us talking about the tunnel, but she didn’t know about the underwater entrance yet. If I could find it first and get to the treasure, surely that would be all I needed to stake my claim?
When my heart had stopped racing and my breathing had returned mostly to normal, I pushed out into the water again and dove down, making a slow pass along the shore. I wished that I had my swim goggles. The sun was sinking lower in the sky, and the water was murky. Still, it was obvious there wasn’t an opening anywhere.
I surfaced again, feeling frustrated. What was it that Nathaniel Daniel’s last will and testament had said? Where the eagle flies, there lies the prize. Where the eaglet sleeps, harken to the deep. There was something else, too, though. Something I was forgetting. I racked my brain, trying to remember. Something about courting days, and—wait, that was it!—the sunrise of our youth.
I glanced behind me, where the sun was slowly sinking toward the horizon.
I was on the wrong side of the island! I was on the west side, and the entrance was on the east—the side where the sun rose!
The canoe bearing Hatcher and Scooter and Cha Cha and Jasmine was in clear view now. I waved my arms overhead to attract their attention, then thrust a finger in the air and motioned going over the island, hoping they’d get the message that I was heading to the opposite side.
Without waiting for a response, I slipped beneath the surface and circled the island as quietly as I could. There was no point alerting Dr. Appleton to my plans. When I reached the other side, I looked for the tallest tree, the one with the eagles’ nest in it. It wasn’t difficult to spot—one of the enormous birds was perched on its edge, watching me. Hopefully he didn’t think I was dinner. I did not want to tangle with those talons.
I did another surface dive and this time almost immediately found a spot where the shore fell away into a sharp drop-off.
