It just so happened that Nelson had appeared in the very same spot a jelly freak had been standing, and the explosion had blown the nasty fellow to bits.
He was back on the monster battlefield and only meters away from his sister, who lay lifeless in the grass. Though his vision was blurry, Nelson could see the cows running away, clearly startled by his sudden and very noisy appearance. He felt his stomach retch and the fizzing Bang Stone pop out of his mouth. But he couldn’t breathe. He gasped and remembered he was half fish! Nelson used all the strength he had left inside him to flip his body, inch by inch, toward his lifeless sister.
* * *
Meanwhile, his seven monsters had been win-ning the battle and only three of the jelly freaks were left. The rest lay twisted and broken on the beautiful ground, which was busy absorbing their bodies and replacing them with stunning flowers and bushes and ferns. The fire that had raged through the treetops was now nothing more than a few cinders.
The deadly seven were more like the messed-up seven now. Nosh lay on his back, unable to digest anything more, smoke billowing from his gigantic mouth. Spike had fallen to his knees as every needle in his body had been spent and now he leaked water from every open pore. Miser had lost several tentacles, but despite the pain had managed to fight on with his remaining limbs. Puff was high up in a tree, having been tossed there like a toy by one of the jelly freaks, and pinned beneath him was Hoot, who had gotten his head stuck while trying to escape earlier. The last of the deadly seven still fighting were Stan and Crush. Stan’s red body was black and blue, and one of his eyes was swollen shut from what must have been a heck of a blow.
The only one still in any state to fight was Crush. Of all the monsters, it was Crush who had the most life left in him at the end, and he dispatched the last three jelly freaks by lashing them together with his chainlike arms and then using his head as a hammer to pound them to bits.
Carla lay among the ferns, gazing dreamily at the blue sky above. Nothing could dent her happiness. She didn’t even care that she was now missing the lower part of her right leg. Her transformation back from the whale-like creature to the beautiful woman she had been before the fire was complete. In many ways it was a shame that after all she had been through, Carla was about to be crushed like an ant.
“Crush! No!” shouted Nelson. Crush froze with his elephant-sized foot in midair, just about to bring it down on Carla’s head.
All the monsters turned to see a half fish, half boy kneeling beside Celeste with his flipper hands raised above his head. Dazed, injured, and exhausted, the monsters could only pant and stare as the fish-boy addressed them.
“It’s me! Nelson. Look, don’t kill her. Just leave her alone, okay? She’s not a threat to you or to anyone else anymore!” urged Nelson, whose evolution back into a human boy had thankfully begun with his lungs.
The monsters said nothing. Their red eyes had become glazed and their eyelids heavy.
Nelson squeezed the water from his T-shirt onto his sister’s face. The journey from the riverbed to her side had given him a sense of clarity he had never felt before. It was as if his mind had always been a bin overflowing with rubbish and now it was a glass of water. And water would save his sister. The River of Life might have closed up forever, but he hoped there was still enough of it soaked into his T-shirt to revive her.
He squeezed and twisted his T-shirt as best he could with his fish flippers and wiped as much of the water as he could onto her lips. Nelson didn’t stop until every last drop had been wrung out of his T-shirt. All the time he was doing this, he was becoming less fish and more boy. By the time he had finished, Nelson had fingers and feet, and when he laid his head on her chest he knew he had ears, because he was rewarded with the greatest sound he had ever heard.
A heartbeat.
* * *
Celeste was alive! Nelson felt his own heart beating so hard and so strong it was as if it had turned his chest into a disco. He checked again, just to be sure, and not only could he hear her heartbeat, but her chest rose and fell with her first new breaths. Tears filled his eyes as he cradled his sister’s head in his lap and wiped the hair away from her forehead. When he looked up he realized he was surrounded. Nosh, Spike, Crush, Miser, Puff, Stan, and Hoot were back to their original selves, except for their battle scars. They said nothing, only smiled. When you feel this happy words are pretty useless. Celeste was alive and the ache that had tormented them since Nelson brought them into existence was gone at last.
* * *
Phew.