And the funnel, blocking out the sun, roaring and spewing and writhing, was now less than five kilometers away.

  Alcie, Iole, and Homer came back on deck with all of their belongings just as the ship, as if it weighed no more than a feather, spun in a full circle on the water.

  “Hang on to something!” yelled Pandy.

  Iole glanced for only half a second at the approaching funnel, then headed straight for the main mast, throwing her arms around the pole as tightly as she could. Homer knelt down at the railing and thrust his huge legs and arms through the poles, hugging them tightly.

  Alcie had no choice but to hang on to Homer. She wrapped her arms and legs around his back, his robes blowing back over her face, blinding her.

  Pandy lurched toward the mast pole, trying to throw her body around Iole, the wind whipping her hair violently into her eyes. Dido skidded in front of her path and ended by slamming hard into the shipping crates at the end of the deck. As Pandy turned her gaze to follow her dog, she looked up.

  The funnel was upon them.

  With a roar that made the sound of the first storm seem like a whisper, the funnel began to tear the sails, crack the mast, and blow the shipping crates to bits. Rigging ropes were airborne snakes and anything made of metal had the deadly force of a spear. Sailors began to fly into the air, sucked up forty and fifty meters high, then belched out again into the water far away, or hurled into the side of the Peacock, or back on deck, unconscious or dead.

  Pandy, holding on to nothing, yet somehow standing stock-still in the middle of the funnel, felt the Peacock spin like a top as it was lifted out of the water and up into the gaping black mouth. She was struck dumb to her core, watching everything whirling around and feeling no wind, not realizing she was at the center of the tornado.

  But just as quickly the small center point of the twister shifted and Pandy, with nothing to ground her, was thrown high into the air, becoming part of the furious, swirling storm. Her last clear vision was of the captain hanging on with one hand to the passageway entrance, his body completely horizontal to the ship’s deck.

  Pandy’s mind went blank, except for one little thought: “This is how it must feel to be caught in a whirlpool.” Except that whirlpools dragged you down into a wet spiral and she was being tossed higher on cold air currents in an ever-widening circle. Her arms and legs were whipping and smashing into the sides of her body. She caromed off something hard: another person, the top of the mast pole, a really big bird—she didn’t know. She knew nothing except that now she had a shooting pain in her right arm, just below her elbow, and that these were probably her last moments alive.

  All at once, she was flying through the air, arcing out a hundred meters above the sea. Flashes of sunlight and deep blue water and light blue sky were all that met her eyes when she dared to open them. Then . . .

  Smack!

  She hit the water . . . and blacked out.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Rescue

  12:09 p.m.

  Pandy awoke underwater.

  Light was filtering down through the waves from overhead, but it was getting dimmer, which could only mean that she was sinking. And there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. There was no moving her arms or legs, no swimming back to the surface; she was just too, too tired. Plus, there was a strange ache in one of her arms. She turned her head in the fading light and saw that her right arm was swaying in the current at an odd angle.

  “Oh well,” she thought. “This isn’t exactly how I imagined it would all end, but there are worse ways to go.”

  Then she hit the bottom of the ocean.

  She looked up and could still see the blue of the sky. But when she realized she was completely out of air, Pandy started to panic.

  She didn’t want to go! Not this way, not at all! Her life, suddenly and without warning, became very, very precious to her.

  She struggled to move her left arm but it was caught in her robes and pouches. She tried kicking her legs, but the pressure of the water and her exhaustion made it too difficult.

  She felt the last of the air leave her lungs.

  The pain was incredible. Her throat seemed on fire. Just as she realized that not only would she never see her family or friends again, not only had she failed miserably in her quest, not only had she sentenced her family to eternal punishment, and on top of everything she didn’t have any gold coins left to pay Charon to ferry her across the river Styx and into the underworld . . .

  . . . the sunlight overhead got brighter.

  And brighter.

  And brighter.

  She felt the pressure of the water around her lessen as something carried her toward the surface. Her head was thrown back and it bumped up against something sticking straight up behind her. Something flat and thick and curved.

  A fin.

  “Great,” she thought, breaking the surface, her lungs now flat as two dried prunes. She hadn’t landed on the sea floor after all; whatever it was was very much alive, and now she was going to be eaten.

  She spit up whole mouthfuls of salt water, then gasped for air in tremendous, heaving gulps. Worn out from almost drowning and now about to be devoured, she rolled feebly to one side, trying to escape being a mid-meal.

  But the thing with the fin rolled right along with her, keeping her afloat.

  Pandy looked down. Gray, rubbery skin. Two flippers, one on either side. A huge dorsal fin (with her leather carrying pouch wrapped around it), coal black eyes, and a long pointed nose.

  She was sitting on top of a dolphin.

  “Hello-sorry-about-the-late-arrival-hope-you’re-not-too-waterlogged-I-didn’t-let-you-sink-too-far-so-you-shouldn’t-be-feeling-any-ill-effects-I-see-you’re-still-wearing-your-water-skin-but-your-leather-pouch-with-the-important-things-in-it-wink-wink-well-that-was-on-its-way-to-the-bottom-of-the-ocean-so-I-had-to-stop-and-pick-it-up-and-as-you-can-see-it’s-quite-safe-around-my-fin-and-that’s-actually-what-made-me-a-little-late-but-now-all-is-well-how-are-you?” it said, bobbing up and down in the water. The words came out so fast it was the same as hearing quick notes blown on a panpipe.

  Pandy looked around her to make sure she hadn’t actually crossed into the underworld without knowing it. Was riding on the back of a dolphin—already enough of a shock—going to be her fate for eternity?

  She saw the black funnel miles to the west, now small and distorted, as if it was running out of power. The lighthouse at Alexandria was a speck, barely recognizable by its teeny beacon of light. The Peacock was gone, and Pandy now saw splinters and shards of wood floating all about her.

  “Hi-down-here-the-thing-you’re-sitting-on-the-thing-that’s-talking-to-you-I-said-how-are-you?” the dolphin repeated.

  “Uh . . .”

  “Oh, Great Artemis’s Big Toe! Right . . . sorry, my fault! I forgot. Human, tiiiiny brain,” said the dolphin, slowing his speech way, way down. “I basically just said, ‘Hello, human.’ You know, Poseidon warned us that you all might be a little untalkative, and a few of my fellow cetaceans think humans are just plain rude. But I think you’re all quite nice for a species that uses just ten percent of the little brains Zeus gave you. And I don’t mind saying so.”

  “I’m sorry,” Pandy replied at last. “And I’m trying to use more than ten percent. I’m just not quite, um, sure where I am. I’m a little . . . like . . . oh, what’s the word . . . ?”

  “Disoriented?”

  “Yeah! That’s it.”

  “Not to worry!” said the dolphin, tossing his head merrily. “Do you have a name, human?”

  “Yes.”

  “And . . . you’d like me to guess what it is?”

  “Oh!” said Pandy. “No. Sorry. It’s . . . um . . . Pandora.”

  “Well, Um-Pandora, I am Sigma, pleased to carry you. Ready?”

  “No! Wait! For what? Ready for what?”

  “We have to get you out of here,” said Sigma. “We can chat a little later on. After all, we’re going to be with each other for a while. Are your lungs up to taking a deep breath?”

  “I think so.”

  “Good. You’ve ridden before, yes?”

  “A dolphin?” said Pandy. “No, never.”

  “Ah, so you need the signs. Here you go.”

  Two dim violet-colored squares lit up on either side of the dolphin just behind his eyes. Within each square was written the words PLACE HAND HERE. Pandy put her hands directly on the squares; the skin here was loose and easy to hold. Instinctively, she grabbed large handfuls.

  But as she tried to close her fingers, a sharp jolt shot through her right arm.

  “Ow!” she cried.

  “Pain?”

  “Yeah . . . my arm.”

  “No wonder. You flew about sixty kilometers; water does not a soft landing make! Place your arm against my skin, Um-Pandora. Anywhere. Go ahead.”

  Pandy laid her arm against the dolphin’s flank. She felt a small pulling sensation—as if her arm were being adhered to his skin—and a warmth moving from her elbow to her wrist. Sigma was silent for a moment. Then he shuddered slightly.

  “You’re in luck. It’s just a sprain. Could have been worse!” he said. “I’ll have it healed by the time we get there.”

  “There?”

  “Later. Now, remember,” said the dolphin, “big breath!”

  Pandy inhaled as deeply as she could. The air rushing into her deflated lungs felt like she was sucking in nails; but something told her she’d better hold it in.

  Sigma dove under the surface and shot forward with such speed that Pandy felt her lips part, the water flowing over her teeth and down her throat. She pressed her mouth closed. She hung her head to the side and flattened her body as best she could against the back of the big, beautiful mammal, surprised by how warm his skin felt against hers.

  He didn’t dive deep, only about two meters below the surface. After about ten seconds, he rose again.

  “How was that?”

  “I’m okay,” Pandy answered. “I’m good . . . I think.”

  “Excellent! A little longer underwater this time. We’ll take this slow. Breathe!”

  She inhaled once more and he dove under the waves. This time he stayed under for almost twenty seconds.

  “How’re we feeling?” he said, resurfacing.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You most certainly are, Um-Pandora! You’re doing wonderfully well.”

  “My name isn’t . . .”

  “Now we’ll try for twenty-five seconds,” Sigma went on, “and if that’s comfortable, we’ll use that as a gauge all the way up.”

  “Up?”

  “Later. Breathe!”

  But twenty-five seconds was too much for Pandy’s lungs.

  “Ah,” said Sigma. “We’ll scale it back then. Get it? Scale? Fish? Ha! You see, I can say that because some of my best friends are fish!”

  Friends!

  “My friends!” said Pandy, realizing that she had forgotten about Alcie, Iole, and Homer.

  And Dido.

  “My dog!” she squealed.

  “Nice pitch! You’d do well underwater,” Sigma replied. “Look behind you.”

  Pandy twisted around.

  In the distance, Homer was just breaking the surface on another dolphin, his hands firmly placed on the dim violet squares. The dolphin appeared to be having a little trouble keeping the huge youth stabilized; it already looked weary.

  Before she could wonder why Homer had also been rescued, she caught sight of Iole, farther back, just emerging. Already, she and her dolphin rescuer were getting along famously. Iole’s mighty brain was proving a delightful human exception, and the dolphin was chattering away furiously, lifting Iole in a graceful arc.

  “Well, I have some pretty strong thoughts about the Pythagorean theorem myself, and I must disagree with you,” Pandy heard Iole respond before she disappeared back into the sea.

  Suddenly, on her other side, Pandy heard a shout. Whipping her head around, she saw Alcie, quite motionless, arguing with her dolphin.

  “No . . . I got the hands part . . . with the little square thingies! But what about the feet? Figs! Where do I put my second left foot? Huh? This might come as a surprise, but I’ve got two left . . .”

  Obviously out of patience, her dolphin snorted, Alcie screeched, and they both disappeared into the sea.

  Then, to Pandy’s right, Dido broke the water on the back of a small light gray dolphin. All four paws were planted firmly on four little violet squares. He turned for an instant to look at Pandy and gave two joyous barks before he went back under.

  After coming so close to death yet again, Pandy had no idea why she would be smiling. But seeing her friends and her dog safe—ish—comforted her as if she were back at home on her own sleeping cot. She tossed her head back and let out a huge laugh.

  “Satisfied?” said Sigma.

  “Yes . . . thank you.”

  “And so we will be on our way. Breathe!”

  Pandy took a deep breath and under they went. Rising and submerging, she grew comfortable enough after some minutes that she began to look around her, both above and below the water.

  The group of dolphins was breaking the surface more or less together, although everything was dependent on each rider’s lung capacity: Iole’s small lungs required that she surface more often.

  Above the waves, Pandy began to piece together a picture of where they were. If the lighthouse at Alexandria had been off to the west when she had first surfaced on Sigma and they were now swimming east, that meant . . . well . . .

  She had no idea what that meant.

  She became increasingly frustrated and very sorry that she had never really paid attention in Master Epeus’s class when he was teaching geography; instead she had been staring out at the olive groves and doodling pictures of her heartthrob, Tiresias the Younger.

  “Okay,” she mused, “I must really think about it, reason it out . . .”

  She remembered something vague about Egypt having a tremendous river flowing through it—the Nile. It branched off into two main tributaries as it neared the ocean (maybe she’d been paying a bit of attention after all). One went east, one went west. If Alexandria, closer to the west arm of the Nile, was behind them, and the sun was also behind them, then they were heading into the eastern arm of the river.

  “Wow,” Pandy thought, “I’m thinking like Iole.”

  But she had almost no time to be pleased with herself. The group of dolphins was slowing down, spending less and less time underwater with each dive. Finally they all came to a halt, forming a tight ring so everyone, dolphins and humans, could speak together without shouting.

  “You guys all right?” asked Pandy quickly.

  “I’m okay,” said Iole, shivering slightly.

  “Good,” Homer replied.

  Dido barked his agreement.

  Everyone looked at Alcie.

  “Apple skins and lemon rinds,” she said finally, her curls soaked to her face like little snakes.

  “Good!” said Pandy, smiling. “That was so completely aweso—”

  “You’ll forgive me,” said Sigma, whose voice was now all business, “but we have no time for idle banter. We’ve stopped only to let each of you check to make sure you have everything of importance and then we’re off. The Lord of the Sea said that we must hurry . . .”

  “Poseidon?” said Pandy. “That’s the second time you mentioned him. Did he send you?”

  Black eyes flashed as the dolphins looked at one another.

  “Of course,” said another dolphin. “The Sea-God controls everything under the waves. Nothing is done without his knowledge.”

  “Then he’s helping!” Pandy said excitedly. “You see, guys, we’re getting help when we’re not even asking.”

  “He revealed little to us of you specifically, Um-Pandora, or why you are so special to him,” said Sigma. “Only that you all were tagged for retrieval and delivery.”

  “Excuse me,” Homer said, looking at the dolphins and the girls, “but, like, why am I here? Not that . . . y’know . . . I’m not, like, grateful.”

  “Prudent question,” Iole said looking at Pandy. “I was just cogitating the same thing.”

  “Maybe it’s because he overheard us talking and the gods don’t want anyone going around blabbing and frightening everyone about how the world’s in such big trouble,” Pandy replied.

  “I wouldn’t blab—”

  “This is our quest, Homer. You don’t have to come with us if you . . . ,” Pandy began.

  “He has to be here,” said Alcie.

  “He does?”

  “I do?”

  “The gods don’t do anything without a reason, right?” Alcie went on. “Homer knows things we don’t. He can do things we can’t. He’s been to gladiator school. He’s bigger, stronger, and handso—bigger than us. We need him—or at least, we probably will—and the gods know that! So he stays.”

  Everyone stared at Alcie.

  “I’m just saying,” she said.

  Homer thought only a moment: working in his father’s import/export business or saving the world.

  “I’m in.”

  “Look,” said Pandy, turning to Sigma, “I mean . . . please, can’t you tell us anything? At least tell us where we’re going? You can do that, right?”

  “I can tell you this much, Um-Pandora,” said Sigma, who was clearly in charge. “We’re members of DIASOZO. That means—”

  “Rescue,” said Iole.

  “Right,” said Sigma. “We’re Poseidon’s safety net for humans. We save those the great Water-God wishes. I’m Sigma. This is Delta, Iota, Omega One, and Zeta.”

  Each of the dolphins flipped their heads in turn.

  “Alpha is scouting ahead and Omega Two has the rear . . . just to make sure we’re not being followed.”

  “Who would want to follow us?” asked Homer.

  “Hey! The first letters of each of your names spell out—,” Alcie suddenly realized.

  “Who would want to blow you out of the water? That’s a better question,” said Omega One, ignoring Alcie as he bobbed gently in the water with Iole on his back.