Nessie Quest by Melissa Savage

Author:Melissa Savage
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2020-01-13T16:00:00+00:00

We are drowning in green.

A curtain of green lush leaves and grasses and trees and moss all around us.

We rendezvoused at the arch over the black diamonds at six acorns to the wind on the dot for Hammy Bean’s top-secret odyssey. I actually got there early because I was bursting to show off my new code knowledge. And not to be the one to point it out or anything, but Dax didn’t show his face until six oh five acorns.

I’m just saying.

“Where are we going?” I demand, pushing branches out of my face.

It turns out that this top-secret odyssey is so top-secret that Hammy Bean couldn’t even add it to the code list and, once we rendezvoused up at the bridge, he made us both cross our hearts again that we wouldn’t tell another single, solitary soul.

We’ve walked so far through thick trees and bushes along the loch that we’re all the way to the other side of the Fort Augustus beach. Lucky for us, today the clouds are in the sky where they’re supposed to be, there’s no rain in sight and the sun is so warm that I have my sweatshirt tied around my waist.

“We’re almost there,” Hammy Bean calls back to us.

Mac-Talla is leading on the leash with Hammy Bean following her, me following him and Dax following me.

He’s so far ahead of me now, all I can see are bits of his captain’s hat bobbing up and down between the leaves.

“How much farther?” I call up to him.

That’s when Hammy Bean stops.

“Shh,” he hisses. “Haud yer wheesht.”

We stop too.

“Close your eyes and listen,” he tells us.

I close my eyes and listen, hearing all the sounds around me that I hadn’t even noticed before.

A full orchestra of noises.

Traffic swooshes from the roadway above.

The wind blows the leaves, making a sssss sound.

Trees sway and the bark cracks.

Birds sing their morning ditty.

Water laps and licks over rocks at the shore.

“I hear water lapping,” I tell him.

“Exactly,” he calls.

Mac-Talla barks three times and then they start to run.

“Hurry!” Hammy Bean shouts.

“Pick up the pace, Denver,” Dax calls from behind me. “We’re going to lose them.”

I start to run now too and so does Dax. I can hear Ole Roy smacking against his back with each stride.

I push at more branches and leaves and trip over unearthed tree roots stretching over the path until, finally, the green curtain parts and we reach a small smooth-stone beach at the edge of the loch.

Stretched out beyond the rocky shore is a weathered rickety wooden dock with missing slats and peeling paint that bobs in the water with a bitty dinghy tied up next to it. The dinghy is supposed to be red, but the years and weather have peeled it to mostly drab gray wood with just a hint of red still hanging strong. The top is lined with small round windows. The only new thing on it is the fresh-painted letters on the back.

THE SS ALBATROSS

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