“I WONDER HOW Joon and Dylan are doing,” I say as we head down the dock toward the exit.
“Don’t worry about them. Just think—we have three gold tokens!” Liberty says. “Almost halfway there!”
“Yeah, but it’s well past one.” We squint in the midday sun as we turn onto the harbor walkway. “Like three and a half hours left. And we need to get four more tokens. Plus—are you hungry?” My stomach gurgles.
“Starved,” she says. “But first let’s open the clue envelope.”
We tear it open, and we both snort when we read it. Because it’s like the clue heard my stomach growl or something.
“It’s the best lunch spot,” sez . . .
Lorena Marquez.
“That’s it? Two measly lines?” Liberty says, her eyes wide. “From that long, complicated Black Widow clue to this ridiculous short one?”
We walk back along the harbor promenade, thinking.
“I am pretty sure Lorena Marquez was one of the Aquagirls,” I finally say. “I’m not a hundred percent sure. There’ve been a lot of Aquagirls.”
Liberty exhales hard. “I don’t get why they call the male superheroes men, like Superman, Batman, Aquaman. But the female superheroes are all called girls. Batgirl, Supergirl, Aquagirl.”
“Well, there’s Wonder Woman. And I think Lorena Marquez is supposed to be young, like in high school or something, so technically she is kind of a girl.”
“If that’s true,” Liberty says, “then Peter Parker should be called Spider-Boy because he’s supposed to be in high school, too. Sorry. It’s not right.”
“Agreed.” I think about the busty, crazy-shaped women they have in a lot of those old issues. “A lot of stuff in the history of comics hasn’t been fair to girls.”
“A lot of stuff in history hasn’t been fair to girls,” Liberty says, jabbing me in the arm with her bony elbow. “But let’s get back to the clue.”
I look at the ocean, sparkling right out there, beyond the harbor’s cluster of boats and ships. I imagine Aquaman and Aquagirl somewhere out there, swimming in their magical undersea world—looking for . . .
. . . the best lunch spot? Seriously. Weird clue.
“Let’s go find food,” says Liberty, turning inland toward the city and a nearby park. “Are you at least somewhat sure Lorena Marquez is Aquagirl?”
“Yeah.” I glance back at the ocean. “In fact, I think she was the Aquagirl in this cool series Joon has, called Sub Diego.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Okay . . . Imagine a typical sunny San Diego day like today. Lorena Marquez is a teenager, hanging with a friend at the zoo. Suddenly, there’s this level-one-million-on-the-Richter-scale earthquake, and—boom—half of San Diego drops into the ocean.”
Liberty’s eyes bulge.
I stare at the calm, still water beyond us, and think back to when Principal Coffin had a tsunami drill. We had to get on school buses and drive really fast uphill and inland, as if we were trying to outrace the rising monster tides.
I shudder. I didn’t like this Aquaman/Aquagirl story line. Joon laughed at me, but I didn’t want to read about my own town getting wiped off the map. Could it happen? It’s happened to other places in the world. It’s happened to people my dad has helped get back on their feet.
Liberty nudges me. “Go on. Does everybody die?”
“No. They don’t die. They morph—they grow gills, and end up creating a whole underwater city called Sub Diego, submerged off the coast.”
“Gills,” says Liberty, whistling. “So they adapt and evolve, happily ever after?”
“Not exactly. The gills are because—unbeknownst to them—the people of Sub Diego have been genetically manipulated for evil corporate aims of world domination—you know, the usual drill. Aquaman and Aquagirl try to fix everything.”
“Cool,” Liberty says, getting out her phone to text her mom again. “A submerged city.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Sub Diego.”
Click.
I look down at the small card in my hand while Liberty texts not dead yet to her mom again.
Click.
Lorena Marquez’s favorite lunch spot . . .
“Hey. Remember when we were studying in my room and talking about all the food trucks around here?”
“Yeah. Phil’s BBQ, the sushi truck.”
“Yeah. And the sub sandwich truck. Sub Diego.”
Our stomachs growl at the same time. We both smile.