JACK STILL HADN’T moved. He still couldn’t believe that Alex had gone, and still couldn’t figure out what to say to Nim. ‘Let her be happy a little longer,’ he decided, and went on staring out at the empty sea.

ALEX WAS STILL frozen in her seat, clutching the envelope the pilot had handed her just before she’d jumped on board.

She knew it held the first copy of her new book, and she wasn’t ready to see it yet. There was also a credit card, passport, and a thick contract saying that her apartment and furniture had been sold. She’d asked Delia to do that, but she was surprised that there was no letter explaining it.

Just as she remembered that there had been a letter and realised she must have dropped it as she climbed on board, the little red seaplane bumped gently down onto the waves and pulled up beside the Sunshine Island wharf. Alex wiped her eyes and climbed out.

It was three months since she’d landed here on her way to find Nim. She’d been nervous then, afraid of flying, afraid of crowds, afraid of the sea – yet it had been exciting too, because she’d been turning into someone new. But if Nim didn’t want her on the island any more, there was nothing to do but go home.

Except that, according to the contract she’d just read, she didn’t have a home.

‘You have to go somewhere!’ she told herself.

‘Can you take me to the airport on Isla Grande when you’ve refuelled?’ she asked the pilot. He shook his head.

‘I’m afraid my old plane needs more than fuel after such a long flight. She’ll have to be completely serviced before I take her anywhere else.’

‘How about when you’re finished?’

‘It’ll be too dark,’ the pilot said. ‘I’m not an adventurer like you, Alex Rover! The Sunshine Island Seaplane and I don’t fly at night.’

‘Okay,’ said Alex. ‘I guess I’ll have to find the pilot who flew me here from the big island before.’ She took a bus to the little airport.

‘Sorry, miss,’ the man in the terminal office said. ‘The Thursday flight to Isla Grande left half an hour ago. We won’t be going again till Tuesday.’

‘Five days!’ Alex exclaimed. ‘I can’t wait that long!’

‘Well, there’s a cruise ship coming in this afternoon.’

‘I’ll take it,’ said Alex.

‘It’s going all the way to New York City if you like.’

‘I’d like,’ said Alex.

As the man processed her ticket, Alex looked around the terminal. In a little bookstore just across from her she saw a sign:

COMING SOON:

THE NEWEST BOOK BY ALEX ROVER!

NO DETAILS REVEALED UNTIL

PUBLICATION DATE: JULY 7!

BUY IT HERE SOON!

‘What’s the name on the ticket?’ the man asked.

‘Al …’ Alex looked at the sign again, and shuddered. ‘Alice. Alice Dozer.’

She signed for it quickly, so he didn’t notice that it wasn’t exactly the same name on her credit card.

Then she went to the dock to wait for the ship.

‘IT’S SIMPLE,’ Nim told Fred. ‘All we have to do is search the ship, and we’ll find Selkie.’

The Kids’ Klub was in the stern, so they walked past the elevator and the long rows of locked cabin doors to the set of stairs and elevators up front in the bow.

‘Up or down?’ Nim asked Fred.

Fred couldn’t decide, but the animal buttons outside the elevator showed that the Armadillo Deck was the tenth deck above the water, and there were only three more decks above it. The next level up was the Sea Lion Deck.

Aha! Nim thought, and raced up the stairs.

They came out into bright sunshine and saw a small pool with a flat rock in the middle and a wall around the edge saying SEA LION DECK.

There were no sea lions inside it.

Grabbing her shell whistle, Nim blew two long shrill notes that would call Selkie in from the farthest reef at home on the island.

But Selkie didn’t come. Nim looked for her in the huge swimming pool with the long curving waterslide, and in the hot bubbling pool where people lazed the way Nim liked to float in her own rainforest pool. The only sea lions she could find anywhere were plastic, set out on a giant chessboard with other life-sized animal pieces.

And beyond the ship, whichever way Nim looked, there was nothing but empty sea. Her island was far, far away.

‘Even if we find her,’ she said to Fred, ‘how are we going to get home?’

Fred stared hard.

‘You’re right!’ Nim said. ‘The important thing is to find her – we can figure out how to escape once we’re all together.’

The next deck up was the Flamingo, where two long-legged pink birds stood in a shallow pond inside their narrow cage. People at white tables sipped drinks while others whooshed screaming down the waterslide into the Sea Lion Deck pool. Nim thought about how much Selkie would love the slide. Fred tickled under her chin to say he’d like to try it, too.

Upstairs, at the very top of the ship, there was only a half deck, where joggers in shorts ran on a track through an aviary of eagles.

‘So now we have to go down,’ Nim said. She decided to take the elevator – and even though her stomach still flip-flopped, it wasn’t quite so bad now that she knew it was going to happen.

They went down past the Flamingo and Sea Lion Decks, past the Armadillo Deck where the Kids’ Klub was, and got out on the Toucan Deck. It had a path outside, where people leaned over the railing to gaze out to sea, and inside it was full of cabins, with a hall down the middle.

In every hall was a cage with the animals the deck was named after. After the toucan were chinchillas, and then parrots, but the one that made Nim feel the saddest and sickest of all was the cage with six frightened baby spider monkeys.

But on the Monkey Deck, down the outside path on each side of the ship, was a row of lifeboats hoisted high on strong steel frames, with a cover like a little roof on top of each one. Most were big enough to hold lots of people, but in the middle was a small, inflatable motorboat, like the one that had picked her up this morning, with a canvas cover on top. Exactly like the one that had seal-napped Selkie.

Nim whistled her shell whistle again, loud and clear under the boat, and again under the one on the other side of the ship.

There was no answer, not the slightest thump or whuffle.

Nim ran on down to the Butterfly Deck, which was full of rooms with things to buy, and rooms with food and drink – but most of all, full of people. Men and women, old and young, fat and thin, bald and hairy, in bathing suits and white uniforms, in shorts and T-shirts and long silk dresses. People, people, people! Nim thought. It was like being in the middle of sunbaking sea lions, but noisier.

She opened a door to a library full of books and quiet, but she couldn’t hide there until she’d found Selkie. Behind another door, amidst a room of smiling people, a woman with a long white dress and flowers in her hair was walking up the aisle to a man who looked so happy he was nearly crying.

A wedding! Nim thought. I’m seeing a real wedding!

She felt like crying too, but not because she was happy.

Nim and Fred looked in cafés and restaurants, beauty salons and barbershops, dress shops and pyjama shops, sports shops and toy shops. On the next deck, they watched a cougar snarling as it paced its cramped cage in a room with bright lights and red velvet. They searched in video arcades, piano bars and theatres. They were back down on the deck where they’d come on board, but there was still no sign of Selkie.

Fred rubbed his spiky back against Nim’s neck.

‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘We’ll find her. We just have to keep going.’

DOWN THE STAIRS Nim ran, past the Piranha Deck where Kylie’s cabin was, down to the lowest deck of all.

There weren’t any people on this deck; the engine’s deep rumble was louder and thumped more strongly through her feet, with a smell that reminded her of the seaplane. And instead of a painting of an animal at the bottom of the stairs, this sign said:

CREW ONLY! NO PASSENGERS ALLOWED!

Nim put on her Troppo Tourist jacket.

A man in grey overalls came out of a doorway. ‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded.

‘I’m … I’m taking him back to the Professor,’ Nim said, pointing to Fred on her shoulder.

‘His door’s behind you.’

‘Thanks!’ said Nim, hoping he wouldn’t hear her heart, which was thumping as hard as her feet on the steel floor. She turned to the door that said:

FOUNDATION FOR RESEARCH ON INTELLIGENT, UNIQUE AND INTERESTING ANIMALS DANGER: KEEP OUT.

Nim went in.