Rescue On Nim's Island Read online

  Also by Wendy Orr & published

  by Allen & Unwin

  Peeling the Onion

  Nim’s Island, illustrated by Kerry Millard

  Spook’s Shack, illustrated by Kerry Millard

  Mokie & Bik, illustrated by Beth Norling

  Nim at Sea, illustrated by Kerry Millard

  The Princess and Her Panther, illustrated

  by Lauren Stringer

  Raven’s Mountain

  Rainbow Street Pets

  First published in 2014

  Copyright © Text, Wendy Orr 2014

  Copyright © Illustrations, Geoff Kelly 2014

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  A Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available

  from the National Library of Australia

  www.trove.nla.gov.au

  ISBN 978 1 74331 678 8

  eISBN 978 1 74343 445 1

  Cover and text illustrations by Geoff Kelly

  Cover and text design by Sandra Nobes

  Hand lettering of title by Geoff Kelly

  Typeset by Sandra Nobes

  With thanks to Sue,

  who edits with passion and wisdom,

  fun and friendship.

  W.O.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  From: Nim@RusoeSanctuaryforRare&EndangeredSpecies.com

  To: [email protected]

  Date: Monday, 12 May, 5:45pm

  Subject: Invaders!

  Hi Edmund

  The island is going to be invaded again! Jack’s inviting four other scientists here for a conference on turning algae into biofuel. I can hardly believe it. I know how much he loves plankton and algae – but we’ve spent our whole lives trying to keep our home secret. He says it’ll be okay because the World Organisation of Scientists will choose who gets to come, so they’ll be people who understand how special this place is.

  Nim – as confused as Fred sleeping on Selkie’s back and ending up at sea

  P.S. They won’t even have to run away from home like the last invader …

  From: [email protected]

  To: Nim@RusoeSanctuaryforRare&EndangeredSpecies.com

  Date: Monday, 12 May, 4:55pm

  Subject: re: Invaders!

  And they probably won’t get grounded when they get home.

  But maybe they need an assistant? Someone who wants to be a scientist when he grows up, who already knows you and Selkie and Fred and Jack, and has already helped conduct important scientific research on the island?

  Edmund – as green as a tree frog with envy

  From: Nim@RusoeSanctuaryforRare&EndangeredSpecies.com

  To: [email protected]

  Date: Monday, 12 May, 5:58pm

  Subject: Are you still grounded?

  From: [email protected]

  To: Nim@RusoeSanctuaryforRare&EndangeredSpecies.com

  Date: Monday, 12 May, 4:59pm

  Subject: Grounding officially finishes June 30.

  When is the conference? Have you got a plan?

  From: Nim@RusoeSanctuaryforRare&EndangeredSpecies.com

  To: [email protected]

  Date: Monday, 12 May, 8:12pm

  Subject: My plan is useless

  The conference is Monday, 23 June. And Jack says the World Organisation of Scientists won’t accept research done by kids so we can’t be assistants. And they’ve already chosen the scientists so he can’t change the date. AND he’ll send you right back if you run away again.

  Nim – as mad as a hermit crab who’s lost her shell

  From: [email protected]

  To: Nim@RusoeSanctuaryforRare&EndangeredSpecies.com

  Date: Monday, 12 May, 7:13pm

  Subject: It was worth a try

  Edmund – as crushed as a shell-less hermit crab underneath Selkie

  From: [email protected]

  To: Nim@RusoeSanctuaryforRare&EndangeredSpecies.com

  Date: Tuesday, 13 May, 4:30pm

  Subject: Negotiations

  If I wash the dishes every night, take out the garbage, keep my bedroom clean AND babysit the twins downstairs – the naughtiest kids in the whole world – for the next two Saturdays, I’m ungrounded on Sunday the 22nd June.

  Edmund – rushing to clean my bedroom, just in case

  From: Nim@RusoeSanctuaryforRare&EndangeredSpecies.com

  To: [email protected]

  Date: Tuesday, 13 May, 5:35pm

  Subject: Yay for ungrounding

  But I still haven’t got a plan.

  I’ve never met any twins. I think it would be fun. How do you sit on them both at the same time? Maybe Selkie could help you. Ha ha! (I know that’s not what babysitting means! I’ve read books about it.)

  Nim – laughing about Selkie babysitting the naughty kids

  From: [email protected]

  To: Nim@RusoeSanctuaryforRare&EndangeredSpecies.com

  Date: Tuesday, 13 May, 4:37pm

  Subject: Selkie babysitting

  I’d like to see that.

  From: Nim@RusoeSanctuaryforRare&EndangeredSpecies.com

  To: [email protected]

  Date: Friday, 16 May, 10:11am

  Subject: Cross your fingers

  Jack got an email yesterday about the scientists who are coming. Two of them are married to each other and they want to bring their children. The other two work at a university in Brisbane but they aren’t married to each other and neither of them have kids. The family scientists have a boat so they’re going to sail it here and pick up the others on the way.

  So I told Jack if other kids were coming that you should too, because you know all about babysitting, and we don’t know how old these kids are. This morning he FINALLY said he’s going to email your parents and the Brisbane scientists and ask if you can come with them!!!!

  Nim – as excited as Fred with a smashed-open coconut

  Chapter 2

  IN A PALM TREE, on an island, in the middle of the wide blue sea, was a girl.

  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 whirly, whistling shell and the other a fat, red pocketknife in a sheath.

  With the spyglass at her eye, she watched the boat chug closer. It was a wooden fishing boat with a green-painted cabin; it was solid enough to cross the deeper dark ocean but small enough to weave through the maze of reef protecting the island. The people on the deck were waving and pointing. Nim’s stomach tumbled like a coconut falling from a tree, and she d
idn’t know if it was excited-tumbling or scared, or maybe just not-quite-believing. For three days and three nights, strangers were going to be on the island. Seven strangers – and one friend.

  She whistled her shell, three short, sharp notes that carried up to the lab in the rainforest where her father was working. Sometimes Jack was so busy studying his plankton or researching his algae that he forgot to listen. But he whistled back right away: one-two-three, and a moment later he was zipping down the hill on the flying fox.

  He let go of the rope and skidded onto the sand below Nim’s tree.

  ‘Are you ready?’ he called.

  ‘No,’ Nim called back. In all those months she’d been waiting to see Edmund again, she hadn’t imagined meeting him in front of so many people.

  But Selkie was lolloping across the beach, barking deep, anxious sea lion grunts about a new boat coming in to their island. Nim couldn’t let Selkie face the strangers alone.

  ‘Come on, Fred!’ she said.

  Fred was an iguana, spiky as a dragon, with a cheerful snub nose. He clung tightly to Nim’s shoulder as she slid down the tree.

  The motor’s chugging stopped. The boat rocked gently in the silence. A cheerful-looking man with dark skin and a red T-shirt was standing in the bow, at the very front of the boat. He bent to drop the anchor over the side, and Nim heard the rattle of the chain as it settled onto the sandy ocean floor.

  Together, Nim and Fred, Jack and Selkie headed across the beach to meet their visitors.

  EDMUND WAS ON the deck. He waved to Nim, but looked as if he didn’t know what to do next. Behind him were a tall, slim woman, pale as a lily, and an even taller, thinner and paler man. They stayed in the cockpit as the man in the red T-shirt returned to the stern of the boat, unclipped the rubber dinghy hanging on the back rail, and lowered it to the water.

  He climbed in and picked up the oars. ‘Who’s first ashore?’

  The tall couple stepped over the railing and down to the dinghy.

  ‘Go ahead, Edmund,’ a blonde woman called from the wheelhouse. ‘I’ve got to sign off the logbook.’

  ‘Thanks!’ said Edmund, and he said it again as the dinghy’s rubber bottom touched the sand a few minutes later. He was back in his favourite place in the world – he could hardly believe he was here.

  He splashed in through the sparkling blue water. He had a pack on his back and his shoes in his hand, and he was looking all around him, drinking in every detail that he might have forgotten.

  The tall couple took off their shoes and waded in after him, and the man in the red T-shirt rowed back to the boat for his family.

  The blonde woman came out of the wheelhouse holding a toddler by the hand. The little boy squealed with excitement as she lowered him into his father’s waiting arms.

  ‘Tiffany and Tristan!’ she called. ‘Time to go ashore.’

  A boy and girl came out from the cabin. They were the same height and had the same dark hair and wary expressions as they climbed down to the dinghy after their mother.

  They’re twins! thought Nim. Like the naughty kids Edmund babysits. Except they’re our age, and they’ll be nice. Suddenly the scared part of her excitement evaporated into the clear blue sky. Her friend was here, and two new friends as well. She ran the rest of the way across the beach to meet them.

  UNTIL A YEAR ago, Nim had never wanted any friends except Selkie, Fred and the other animals. She’d lived alone on the island with her father for as long as she could remember, until Alex Rover, the most famous adventure writer in the world, had come to rescue her when Jack was lost at sea. In the end Nim had to rescue Alex, but when Jack came home, Alex decided to stay. Now Alex was part of the family and Nim didn’t want her to ever leave again. But she’d still never thought she needed friends who were kids like her, and could talk with words instead of iguana sneezes and sea lion whuffles.

  That was until the Troppo Tourist cruise ship had sealnapped Selkie. Nim had stowed away to steal her back again, and met Ben and Erin on the ship. When it was time to say goodbye, they were all so sad that Jack said her new friends could visit the next summer. Nim knew that they’d love the island and that she’d love showing it to them. But Erin and Ben hadn’t been able to come after all. Their parents had said that the family couldn’t afford to travel so far again.

  For the first time in her life, Nim was lonely. She swam with Selkie and explored with Fred; she had school with Jack and read Alex’s books – but sometimes she wished she had someone else to do things with.

  And then one day a boy had arrived. Edmund had been saving and scheming ever since he’d seen the island from the Troppo Tourist cruise ship. He’d run away from home, jumped off a fishing boat with his rubber dinghy, and rowed all the way to Shell Beach in the middle of the night. Nim had been suspicious at first but by the time Jack sailed Edmund home again, they’d had adventures, proved that the island was an international sanctuary for rare and endangered species, and turned into friends.

  That was six months ago.

  Now Edmund was back on the island, and part of Nim wanted to leap and shriek like an excited monkey. The other part couldn’t remember how to talk to real people who were outside the computer.

  Edmund looked as if he couldn’t remember how either.

  The tall couple could. They were both smooth and elegant, polished as sea glass. On a gold chain around her neck, the woman wore a chunk of gleaming yellow amber with a scorpion trapped inside.

  The man shook Jack’s hand. ‘Dr Lance Bijou,’ he introduced himself, ‘and my wife Dr Leonora Bijou.’

  Those aren’t the right names! thought Nim.

  ‘Where are Dr Selina Ashburn and Professor Peter Hunterstone?’ Jack demanded.

  ‘Unfortunately,’ said Leonora, ‘they were both taken ill at the last minute.’

  ‘We expect them to recover next week,’ said Lance, ‘but for now, they are too sick to travel.’

  ‘That’s terrible!’ Jack exclaimed.

  ‘Sad,’ Lance agreed. ‘But as my wife is a biologist and I am a geologist, we volunteered to drop everything and take their places.’

  ‘And since they’d agreed to bring Edmund,’ said Leonora, ‘we felt we had to do that too.’

  ‘That was kind,’ said Jack.

  Leonora nodded graciously.

  Like a queen, thought Nim. She looked across at Edmund. He was too busy hugging Selkie and scratching Fred’s spiky head to look back at her.

  This isn’t how it’s supposed to be! Nim thought. Maybe Alex was right to hide from everyone.‘I don’t want anyone to know I’m here,’ she’d said. Because even though Alex Rover was the most famous adventure writer in the world, she was still afraid of spiders, snakes, and meeting new people. That’s why only Jack and Nim were on the beach meeting the scientists.

  THE DINGHY LANDED and the family splashed out, the mother carrying the toddler. The twins didn’t look as if they wanted to be there. Their father pulled the dinghy up high on the beach and turned it upside down so it wouldn’t fill up with rain.

  ‘At least no one’s going to steal it here!’ he laughed.

  The woman put the toddler down on the sand. ‘I’m Anika Lowe, the coral scientist. This is my husband Ryan, the climatologist, and Ollie, Tiffany and Tristan.’

  ‘You’re looking forward to this, aren’t you, Tiff-Tris?’ said Ryan.

  The twins didn’t answer. They stared around as if they were wondering what was worth looking at, then put on their headphones and sat down, back to back on the sand.

  Leonora caught Nim’s eye and smiled. ‘Don’t worry about them,’ she whispered. ‘I’m very excited about being on your beautiful island!’

  IN FACT, NIM’S island was the most beautiful island in the whole world. It had white shell beaches, pale gold sand and tumbled black rocks where the spray threw rainbows into the sky. It had a fiery mountain with green rainforest on the slopes and grassland at the bottom. There was a pool of fresh water to drink and a slipper
y waterfall to slide down.

  There used to be a hut in a hidden hollow of the grasslands, but when it blew away, they built a new house higher up the hill. It was tucked deep in the rainforest, close to the freshwater pool, and the corner of two walls joined the trunk of the most magnificent tree in the forest. The tree was so tall that no matter how far Nim tilted her head back to see the top, she couldn’t see where the tree ended and the sky began. Its oldest roots were solid grey walls higher than Nim, and its youngest roots were vines dangling from the trunk. Nim liked to sit in its branches and imagine the stories it could tell about the animals it had seen, from the tiniest creeping insect to Galileo the great-winged frigate bird skimming overhead.

  Jack said the tree was so old it could have seen Chica’s great-great-grandmother laying her eggs on the beach. Chica was a sea turtle, and they can live for a hundred years, so it was a long time since her great-grandmother had hatched and crawled to the sea.

  Alex thought it had even seen dinosaurs playing when it was young, but Alex was better at imagining than science.

  Nim just knew that it was a tree full of stories, and soon it would have a new one about the people coming here for Jack’s conference. Maybe it would be a story that could save the world.

  ‘We need a new fuel that can run any kind of motor without polluting the earth or sky or sea. I think algae are the answer – and if we get different scientists together, with different ways of looking at the problem, maybe we’ll come up with the right question,’ Jack had said. ‘Sometimes the greatest discoveries in science are found by accident.’

  Chapter 3

  NO ONE KNEW what to do first. Tiffany and Tristan went on listening to music with their eyes closed. Edmund wandered down the beach. Ryan and Anika looked all around, smiling and swinging Ollie between them.

  Leonora pulled a slim bottle out of her bag. ‘Coconut oil is very good for the skin,’ she said to Nim, smoothing a few drops into her hands. ‘Try some!’

  Nim couldn’t say that Alex always said so too, and that was why she’d made coconut oil for Alex’s birthday last month. She held out her hands obediently.