Nadya Skylung and the Masked Kidnapper by Jeff Seymour

Author:Jeff Seymour [Seymour, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2019-06-25T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

IN WHICH NADYA LOSES SOMETHING PRECIOUS.

A storm blows in soon after Raj leaves. It starts off soft, just rain and a bit of wind, but by the time dinner’s cleaned up it’s raging hard enough to shake the docking spire. There’s lightning and thunder everywhere. With the weather this bad, there’s no way Gossner’s going to make it out to bring Alé home, so we get ready for her to stay overnight. Nic and Thom suggest she stay in Mrs. T’s old room, but when I offer to let her share my cabin instead they leave the decision to her, and she takes me up on it.

She seems excited about staying over. Tam helps us battle through the wind and the rain to my cabin, then says goodnight. We’re both pretty wet, despite the rain slickers we have on, but Alé still grins like she’s on the biggest adventure of her life. I turn up my oil lamp, show her where to hang her slicker, and grab a couple towels from my dresser for us to dry off with.

“Thanks,” Alé says. The floor shimmies underneath her, and she nearly loses her balance. “Think I’m gonna sit down.” She slumps into my desk chair and takes one of Nic’s empanadas, wrapped in a napkin, out of her pocket. “Mmm,” she says as she wolfs it down. “Man, this is good. Like the ones my dad used to make. Does the floor move around this much all the time?”

I finish with my towel and drape it over the footboard of my bed. “Just during storms, and even then it’s not usually this bad. We try to run around dangerous weather, and even if we get caught in it at sea, there’s room for the Orion to move with the wind. We only get shaking like this when we’re tied up in port and a storm hits, or if we have really bad luck in the open.”

Alé nods, wrestling with her boot, then plonking herself on the floor so she can pull on it harder. She wiggles her hurt ankle a little. “Ow. Goshend’s eyeballs, that hurts. Captain Vega thinks it’s just sprained, but it might take weeks to heal.” She slides onto her back and puts her foot up against the wall. “He wants me to keep it elevated. Says it’ll help.”

I only half pay attention, reaching under my bed for some extra blankets for her. She keeps talking.

“So you guys really see the whole world, huh? What’s it like, having that kind of freedom?”

I snort, tugging out two heavy blankets I reserve for winter and storm nights and nabbing a spare pillow from my bed. “What freedom?” I grumble. “We just go where Nic tells us to.”

Alé reaches over to the coat hooks and fishes around in one of her pockets, then pulls out a rubber ball and starts bouncing it off the wall. “I picked up on that,” she says. “He seems kinda strict.”

I roll my eyes. “‘Kinda’ doesn’t even start to cover it.

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