Nadya Skylung and the Masked Kidnapper Read online

  The wind whistles over my shoulder, and I shiver a little. The dark thoughts I’ve been wrestling with since I lost my leg bubble up inside me, telling me my life’s over, that I can’t be who I used to be. I try to just let those thoughts float past. I’ll probably like playing goalie, and someday I’ll figure out how to play offense again. I’m gonna have a good time today. It doesn’t matter that I can’t run around anymore. Really. Not at all.

  * * *

  • • •

  An hour later, I’m on my knees protecting the goal as Salyeh and Pepper whack the ball around trying to get a good shot against me. Tian Li and Aaron buzz between them trying to nab a pass and go on a breakaway, and Tam shouts instructions his teammates totally ignore from the other goal. I’m sweaty and sore, and the Mighty Lady’s killing me, but I’m as happy as I’ve been in ages and I’m not going to let a little pain stop me from playing.

  It took a while to get used to the new rules, but they threw everyone else for a loop too. We had to adjust on the fly. Like it was too hard to get the ball away from the other team, so we decided each person can only keep it for five seconds before passing. And nobody was scoring much, so now goalies have to stay on their knees, but don’t need brooms and can use their hands. It’s too hard to get a good whack at the ball with a broom from your knees.

  It’s a lot harder to score with both teams having a goalie all the time. Our games used to end when one team scored twenty-five points, but this time around we’ve decided it’ll end when somebody scores five. It’s all tied up right now, 4–4. Pepper got the hang of the new rules fast, and she slipped three goals past me before Tian Li, Aaron, and I figured out what to do. Since then it’s been an epic comeback. Aaron scored twice, then Tian Li shot a rocket at Tam that he flubbed into the goal. After that, Pepper looked pretty mad, and she ran the ball so fast down the deck that our team stopped paying any attention to Sal. Just when we thought she was gonna let it rip, she passed it to him instead, and before I could react he slipped an easy shot into the goal behind my back. But Tam got distracted cheering, and I floated a long pass to Tian Li, who smacked it straight out of the air past him into the goal.

  Now Pep and Sal are clustered right around the edge of my little chalk semicircle. Tian Li’s guarding Sal as he tries to pass to Pepper, who’s somewhere behind me. I can’t take my eyes off him long enough to figure out where she is, because he’s got a way of flicking his wrist just so and sending a shot my way when I least expect it. Tian Li’s almost got the ball back when I catch a flicker of movement in the corner of my eye, and Sal loops a pass across the deck. Aaron shouts a warning, and I spin and dive blind, and WHAM, there’s the ball all right, flying right into my face.

  I catch it on the ricochet and curl it into my stomach, just to make sure it doesn’t go anywhere. My nose stings, my forehead feels like it got smacked by a hammer, and I might be bleeding from my lip.

  “Whoa!”

  “Goshend’s teeth!”

  “Are you all right, Nadya?”

  I open my eyes and stretch my face. It feels all rubbery and my eyes are watering, but I’m fine, and I notice two things:

  First, Nic’s come out of his cabin and is talking with Thom behind Tam’s goal. They look pretty serious. Thom’s not paying any attention to the game, which is weird because he loves watching us play, and also because I just got hurt and he seems to think it’s very important that he keep us from playing too rough.

  Second, Tam’s left his goal to come toward me, and Pepper’s right in front of me, crouching down to see if I’m all right. I’ve been concocting a plan for an epic dash all day, and I think now’s the time to try it.

  I moan theatrically. “My nose! I think it’s busted! Look!”

  I point to it. Tam, who’s almost reached us, runs faster. Pep kneels in front of me and rummages in her pockets for a handkerchief. “Oh geez. I’m so sorry, Nadya,” she says. “Here, let me—”

  Quick as a fish, I tuck the ball under my arm and scramble around her, between Salyeh’s legs, and straight down the deck toward Tam, who freezes. The Mighty Lady barks every time my leg hits the deck, but I keep the weight on my knees and elbows so she doesn’t get bumped around too much.

  “Nadya, what’re you—?” Tam blubbers, and then I’m past him, and there’s nothing but open deck between me and his unprotected goal.

  “Nadya!” Pepper screams behind me. “That’s cheating!” I hear footsteps thumping and know she and Tam are racing after me and I’ve only got a few seconds to score. I’m still twenty feet or so from their goal, but I roll the ball into my hand and side-arm it as hard as I can, just as Pep catches up. She dives for me with her broom, bouncing on her chin and skidding across the deck, but my shot curves out of her reach and bounces into the goal.

  Tian Li and Aaron cheer, and I roll over my unhurt shoulder and come up shouting a victory whoop. Tam stares at the ball in the net like he’s not sure what day it is, Salyeh laughs, Aaron jumps up and down, and Tian Li charges toward me with a grin the size of a leviathan on her face.

  “That! Was! Amazing!” she shouts, and she scoops me onto her back and parades me around the deck, singing the crew’s victory song, which we picked up listening to people playing spike ball on the beach in the Free City of Myrrh, where Pepper’s from.

  My head spins, and I have to catch my balance on Tian Li’s shoulder with my bad arm, which sends a stabbing sensation up it. Now that my mega-dash is over, I’m really feeling the Lady too. I think I probably overdid it, and maybe reopened my wound, because the Lady feels sharp and stretched and there’s a trickling sensation on my skin. Thinking about my leg too much makes it hurt worse though, so I just join in Tian Li’s song:

  “We’re unstoppable! Unstoppable!

  So wonderfully sweet improbable!

  You can’t beat us today,

  because weeeeeeeeeeeee’re unstoppable!”

  We laugh, and Tian Li parades me toward our goal, where Aaron joins the song and Sal hands me my crutches. I slide down from Tian Li’s back and lean on them, hurting and happy, basking in the sun and in winning. For the first time since I lost my leg, I feel like I can do anything. I can be my old self. I can run and scramble and keep up with the others. I can score goals. I can win.

  Grinning like a honey-drunk bee, I look for Pepper. She’s my best friend. I want to celebrate with her. But all I see is a flash of her hair as she disappears down the stairs, heading belowdecks toward her room. That’s weird. Usually she doesn’t care who wins or loses at broomball as long as it’s a good game, and this was a great game.

  I start to crutch after her, but then the Lady howls like she’s been slapped with a cheese grater. I yelp and notice blood on my calf, and Nic thumps across the deck with an enormous frown and tells me he’d like to see me in the infirmary, immediately.

  * * *

  • • •

  “Ouch!” I shout. I have to bite my lip to keep from swatting Nic’s hand away from the scar on the Lady’s face.

  He looks up, still frowning. He’s got his spectacles on, glinting gold in the afternoon light through the infirmary’s porthole, and he’s dabbing some iodine on a little rip that’s trickling blood at the end of my scar. You’d think he could give me a break. It’s my first game back at broomball after all. But he’s all business. “If you don’t let this heal, Nadya, it’s always going to hurt.”

  I sigh and flex the Lady back and forth. The skin over the end of her feels swollen and maybe a little bruised, and the ripped scar stings, but it was worth it. I won. I was the hero for a minute, just like I used to be. “It is healed, Nic,” I say. “You told me it was never going back like it was, to learn to live with it like this. That’s what I’m doing!”

  Nic straightens up, gently setting my leg on the examination table and throwing away his iodine swab. He takes off his glasses and polishes them before r
eturning them to his shirt pocket. “It’s mostly healed, Nadya. The wound has closed, and it looks fine from the outside. But it won’t be finished healing on the inside for a long time. It will keep changing for months. Years, even. The things you do now will help set the course for that long process. If you take care of it—if you’re kind to it—it will heal well. If you abuse it, you could set yourself up for a lifetime of pain.”

  I huff and turn away from Nic. He may have once been a doctor, but he doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about. Then what he said—years—sinks in, and my anger bubble pops and I start sniffling. That happens now sometimes, when I think about a whole life having to deal with my leg and how hard it might be. The month since my amputation has been so tough already.

  I wipe my eyes and stay facing the wall. I don’t want Nic to see me crying, but he does anyway. He never misses a thing.

  He sits on the table next to me, then clears his throat. “You’ll be all right in the end, Nadya,” he says. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned about you over the years, it’s that you always are.”

  I sniffle a little more, and I stare at the corner of the infirmary. “I miss Mrs. T,” I mumble. Mrs. T was our tutor and a skylung like me, but she stayed on the pirates’ ship last month so the rest of us could get away. Some nights I dream she’s back on board, teaching me about being a skylung and the Roof of the World where we came from, telling me about my parents, holding me and making me tea and saying she’s proud of me and that I’m doing wonderfully at a hard job. She was like a mother to me. Sometimes I miss her even more than I miss my leg.

  Nic takes a deep breath and sighs. “I do too,” he says. “But we’ll get her back. I promise.”

  I lean against him. His shirt smells like soap and seawater and iodine. His arm trembles a little, like it’s hard for him to hold the weight, but that’s okay. He’s Nic. He’s always been there one way or another, ever since he and Mrs. T found me in a cloud balloon in the desert. And he’s always looked out for me. If he says we’ll get Mrs. T back, we will. We just have to get to Far Agondy so he can make it happen.

  CHAPTER 3

  IN WHICH NADYA FIGHTS WITH PEPPER, AND DISASTER STRIKES.

  After I leave the infirmary, I head straight for Pepper’s room. Whatever’s bothering her, I want to sort it out now and not have it hanging over our heads when we get to Far Agondy. That city’s got fire spirits, smoke, skyscrapers, zip lines, and enough people to cause anybody a whole mess of problems. I’ll feel a lot better there if I know Pep’s got my back.

  I knock six times, in the rap-a-tap-tap-tap-rap pattern we use between the two of us.

  “Come in,” Pep mumbles.

  I open her door and crutch in. It’s edging toward evening, which is why she’s here instead of working on the engines. Her room’s almost exactly the same as the last time I saw it: mirror in the corner, big cargo net full of stuffed toys on the ceiling, bed up against the wall under the porthole, bookshelf full of engineering manuals and storybooks all jumbled together, desk against the wall she shares with Tam. The only difference is there’re some papers on her desk with a bunch of stuff scribbled out on them, like she’s been writing something over and over trying to get the words right.

  Pep’s sitting on her bed with a book in her lap. When she sees me, she pushes her curls out of her face and takes a deep breath. “Hey,” she says.

  I crutch toward the chair by her desk. “Hey.” Something must be wrong. Usually Pep’s all fire and energy, ready with some game to play or story to tell. Usually she’s got something to tease me about or wants to tell me what happened with the engines or something one of the other kids on the crew did. When she’s quiet like this, it always means trouble.

  Pep nods toward my leg. “Your visit with Nic go okay?”

  I shrug. “He told me to take it easy, the usual stuff.”

  Pep fiddles with her book. “That’s good.”

  I lean forward. “Pep, what’s going on?”

  She pushes her curls back, then huffs. “You . . . you keep . . .” She goes over to the shelf and starts moving books around like she’s organizing, except she’s not because she never organizes them. She must just be nervous. “I’m mad at you.” She looks at the floor, like it’s hard for her to say it.

  My stomach flutters. I mean, I knew she was upset, but it always feels sorta like finding out the sky is upside down when Pep’s mad at me. Things aren’t supposed to be like that. “About what?”

  Pep fiddles some more. The Adventures of Spiritus in the World Beyond changes place with Principles of Steam Locomotion, and An Annotated Encyclopedia of Fire Spirits moves to the end of the shelf. “Lots of things. Like today. You cheated. You embarrassed me in front of everybody. You took advantage of the fact we’re friends, just to score a stupid goal.”

  I keep real quiet and still on the outside, but on the inside my mind’s running a million miles an hour. This can’t just be about broomball. It’s lots of things, like she said. A month ago we were tight as vines and flowers, so whatever happened must’ve happened since then. Pep helped me get better when my leg was at its worst, but I don’t think she’d be mad about that. I sat next to Tian Li instead of her at dinner a couple times, but I don’t think she’d be mad about that either. She wanted to sit next to Tam.

  She’s been spending a lot of time with Tam, actually. Like in the Flightwing when they go fishing. And she seemed kinda frustrated after I upstaged her in front of him this morning. And then when I beat her in broomball when she was on his team.

  Oh. Ohhhhh.

  Pep stops fiddling with her books, sighs, and plonks down on the end of her bed. “Whenever you’re around, people don’t pay attention to me,” she says. “And you always—”

  I cut her off. I’m pretty sure I know what’s going on. “Like Tam?” I say.

  She seizes up like a cat that’s just spotted a dog. “Yeah,” she says slowly. “Tam too. But—”

  “You’ve got a crush on Tam, don’t you?” I grin.

  Pep turns bright red. She turns away from me and looks at the wall.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “I mean, I sorta think maybe he likes me a little, but it’s not a big deal and—”

  “It’s not about that!” Pepper shouts. She whirls around and I realize she’s not red because she’s embarrassed, she’s red because she’s mad. Her curls fly in front of her face, and she shoves them back and snorts. “Yes, I have a crush on Tam. But that’s not what—you know what? Forget it.” She crosses her arms. “Just forget I said anything, okay?”

  The rush of figuring out what’s bothering her fades. She’s still mad. “I can help,” I say. “I won’t show you up in front of Tam anymore, and maybe I can even talk about how great you are, kinda—”

  Pep smacks her bed so hard they can probably feel it on the deck, and I stop talking. “It’s. Not. About. That,” she growls. “You never listen!” She shakes her head, and her lip quivers. “Never mind, Nadya. Just go.”

  I feel like she punched me in the gut. “What’s it about, then, Pep? What’s the problem?”

  She looks up, and there are tears in her eyes. “You’re supposed to be my best friend, Nadya. You figure it out.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Fighting with Pep feels like having the flu. I can’t concentrate on anything else, and my stomach is queasy. It gets worse when I go down to feed the gormling, which is what we call the baby leviathan. Doing that takes me past the room we turned into a jail for the three pirates we captured last month. They always jeer at me and make fun of my missing leg, but Nic told me I couldn’t retaliate anymore after I threw a bucket of fish guts and gormling muck on them. Luckily, today they’re asleep when I go by.

  At dinner Pep won’t look at me, and even though Nic’s whipped up an amazing meal out of fresh fish, dried vegetables, rice, and powdered milk he’s some
how turned into a salty, savory sauce, I don’t feel like eating. I sit next to Salyeh at the end of the table and watch Pep, who looks as sick to her stomach as I feel. I want to keep talking with her, but she made herself pretty clear. She wants me to figure out what’s bothering her on my own, and I guess that’s fair. I am her best friend. I oughta be able to do it.

  I head up to the catwalks with Aaron after dinner, checking on the plants, carefully working my way between the bays they grow in and taking soil samples to test at my chemistry bench tomorrow. The plants out here are doing fine. They’re green and vibrant, and they get plenty of water from the clouds we’ve been flying through as we work toward Far Agondy. There’s no yellowing, no pests, no signs that anything’s wrong.

  With the plants doing so well, I have time to think about what Pep said. Something about people not paying attention to her when I’m around. I don’t see it, though. I mean, sure, she gets less attention when I’m around, but that’s normal, isn’t it? Like, everybody has more people to pay attention to.

  I sigh, leaning back in my harness, and give my mind a rest from Pep being mad at me. This is one of the best parts of my job these days. Even with two legs, you have to be pretty careful when you’re crawling around the plant bays on the outside of the balloon, so only having one doesn’t slow me down too much. The sun’s just set over the ocean to the west, and the sea and the thin strip of land to our east are plunging into darkness. The stars are coming out. The deck lamps are on, and below me Tian Li’s reading the stars and charting our course. Everything’s normal. Everything feels good. I’m on top of the world.

  Nadya, I hear in my head, is this plant supposed to be pink?

  I frown. The voice is Aaron’s. He’s just a few feet above me on the catwalks, but he’s talking to me over the Panpathia, a web of golden light that links everything in the world. Cloudlings and skylungs can use it to talk to each other and to other creatures, like the plants and animals in cloud gardens. All I have to do is shut my eyes, step onto it with my mind, and flow along the golden lines I see until I find whatever I need to talk to. Mrs. T said the best skylungs can talk from one side of the Cloud Sea to the other, but I can’t get that far. Normally I just use the Panpathia to keep tabs on the garden and let the plants and animals inside know what’s happening on the ship, but lately I like going on it because I still see myself with two legs there, the same way I do in my dreams.