CHAPTER 2
IN WHICH A GAME OF BROOMBALL IS WON, AND A MYSTERY DISCOVERED.
“Nadya!”
The stretchy-band fights me, like an eel wrapped around my calf . . .
“Nadya!”
The stretchy-band stretches, like an overcooked pork chop . . .
“Come on, Nadya! Are you ready yet or what?”
It’s the afternoon after our fishing expedition. The fish and the Flightwing are in the hold, the deck’s been cleared, and I’m trying my hardest to forget about the leviathan that almost gobbled us up, because we’re about to play broomball for the first time in ages. I just have to finish the Mighty Lady’s exercises first. Two more knee bends, and then I pull off the stretchy-band wrapped around my calf, tug it back, and slingshot it across my cabin. “Just a sec!” I shout, and I scoot off my bed and hop across the floor to my desk, where my journal’s open. I dash down a couple of my best lines so I don’t forget them.
“Nadya, we’ll start without you if we have to!”
I roll my eyes. If they play without me, the teams won’t be even. “Okay, I’m coming!”
I shut my journal and hop to the corner of my desk, where my crutches—an old one and one Tam made after I got hurt—are leaning, waiting for me. According to Nic, I’m still supposed to be taking it easy on my leg and shoulder.
I grin. Easy, in my book, doesn’t always mean what he thinks it does.
I crutch to the door and open it. Tian Li’s waiting for me on the other side, her hair waving like black seaweed in the breeze. She smiles. I think she’s looking forward to Far Agondy. Someday she wants to go back to the big city she’s from, T’an Gaban, and change it for the better, and whenever we’re in port she spends a lot of time ashore making notes about how she’s gonna do it. “Ready?” she asks.
I nod and look over the deck. Salyeh and Tam have cleared away everything but the capstans—two giant winches we use sometimes when we’re in port—and the ladder up to the cloud balloon in the center. Pep and Tian Li have hauled up two desk-sized goals made of spare pipes and netting and set them on opposite sides of the deck. One’s right near my cabin, and the other’s by the doorway to Nic’s cabin all the way down the ship.
I start sweating, even though we’re in the shadow of the cloud balloon and the breeze hasn’t slacked off. Broomball has always been one of my favorite games, but I haven’t played since I lost my leg.
The game normally has simple rules: two teams of two, with the fifth kid playing all-time offense. Every player gets a long broom with stiff bristles, and we use the brooms to bat around a heavy inflatable rubber ball the size of my head. We used to have problems losing the ball over the side, but now Tam puts up nets between the cloud balloon cables to keep that from happening. Broomball’s usually a fast-paced game, with the three kids on offense trying to get around the two kids on defense to score a goal, then scrambling back on defense if they lose the ball.
But now Aaron wants to play too, so we’ve had to change the rules. For starters, we’ll have two teams of three. That might make the deck too cramped, so Tam’s drawn a semicircle in front of each goal, and one player on each team will stay inside it as goalie, trying to keep the ball out of the net with their broom and their body. For this game, one of them’ll be me. Nic said goalie oughta be easier on my leg than jostling around with the others.
The wind whistles over my shoulder, and I shiver a little. The dark thoughts I’ve been wrestling with since I lost my leg bubble up inside me, telling me my life’s over, that I can’t be who I used to be. I try to just let those thoughts float past. I’ll probably like playing goalie, and someday I’ll figure out how to play offense again. I’m gonna have a good time today. It doesn’t matter that I can’t run around anymore. Really. Not at all.
An hour later, I’m on my knees protecting the goal as Salyeh and Pepper whack the ball around trying to get a good shot against me. Tian Li and Aaron buzz between them trying to nab a pass and go on a breakaway, and Tam shouts instructions his teammates totally ignore from the other goal. I’m sweaty and sore, and the Mighty Lady’s killing me, but I’m as happy as I’ve been in ages and I’m not going to let a little pain stop me from playing.
It took a while to get used to the new rules, but they threw everyone else for a loop too. We had to adjust on the fly. Like it was too hard to get the ball away from the other team, so we decided each person can only keep it for five seconds before passing. And nobody was scoring much, so now goalies have to stay on their knees, but don’t need brooms and can use their hands. It’s too hard to get a good whack at the ball with a broom from your knees.
It’s a lot harder to score with both teams having a goalie all the time. Our games used to end when one team scored twenty-five points, but this time around we’ve decided it’ll end when somebody scores five. It’s all tied up right now, 4–4. Pepper got the hang of the new rules fast, and she slipped three goals past me before Tian Li, Aaron, and I figured out what to do. Since then it’s been an epic comeback. Aaron scored twice, then Tian Li shot a rocket at Tam that he flubbed into the goal. After that, Pepper looked pretty mad, and she ran the ball so fast down the deck that our team stopped paying any attention to Sal. Just when we thought she was gonna let it rip, she passed it to him instead, and before I could react he slipped an easy shot into the goal behind my back. But Tam got distracted cheering, and I floated a long pass to Tian Li, who smacked it straight out of the air past him into the goal.
Now Pep and Sal are clustered right around the edge of my little chalk semicircle. Tian Li’s guarding Sal as he tries to pass to Pepper, who’s somewhere behind me. I can’t take my eyes off him long enough to figure out where she is, because he’s got a way of flicking his wrist just so and sending a shot my way when I least expect it. Tian Li’s almost got the ball back when I catch a flicker of movement in the corner of my eye, and Sal loops a pass across the deck. Aaron shouts a warning, and I spin and dive blind, and WHAM, there’s the ball all right, flying right into my face.
I catch it on the ricochet and curl it into my stomach, just to make sure it doesn’t go anywhere. My nose stings, my forehead feels like it got smacked by a hammer, and I might be bleeding from my lip.
“Whoa!”
“Goshend’s teeth!”
“Are you all right, Nadya?”
I open my eyes and stretch my face. It feels all rubbery and my eyes are watering, but I’m fine, and I notice two things:
First, Nic’s come out of his cabin and is talking with Thom behind Tam’s goal. They look pretty serious. Thom’s not paying any attention to the game, which is weird because he loves watching us play, and also because I just got hurt and he seems to think it’s very important that he keep us from playing too rough.
Second, Tam’s left his goal to come toward me, and Pepper’s right in front of me, crouching down to see if I’m all right. I’ve been concocting a plan for an epic dash all day, and I think now’s the time to try it.
I moan theatrically. “My nose! I think it’s busted! Look!”
I point to it. Tam, who’s almost reached us, runs faster. Pep kneels in front of me and rummages in her pockets for a handkerchief. “Oh geez. I’m so sorry, Nadya,” she says. “Here, let me—”
Quick as a fish, I tuck the ball under my arm and scramble around her, between Salyeh’s legs, and straight down the deck toward Tam, who freezes. The Mighty Lady barks every time my leg hits the deck, but I keep the weight on my knees and elbows so she doesn’t get bumped around too much.
“Nadya, what’re you—?” Tam blubbers, and then I’m past him, and there’s nothing but open deck between me and his unprotected goal.
“Nadya!” Pepper screams behind me. “That’s cheating!” I hear footsteps thumping and know she and Tam are racing after me and I’ve only got a few seconds to score. I’m still twenty feet or so from their goal, but I roll the ball into my hand and side-arm it as hard as I can, just as Pep catches up. She dives for me with her broom, bouncing on her chin and skidding across the deck, but my shot curves out of her reach and bounces into the goal.
Tian Li and Aaron cheer, and I roll over my unhurt shoulder and come up shouting a victory whoop. Tam stares at the ball in the net like he’s not sure what day it is, Salyeh laughs, Aaron jumps up and down, and Tian Li charges toward me with a grin the size of a leviathan on her face.
“That! Was! Amazing!” she shouts, and she scoops me onto her back and parades me around the deck, singing the crew’s victory song, which we picked up listening to people playing spike ball on the beach in the Free City of Myrrh, where Pepper’s from.
My head spins, and I have to catch my balance on Tian Li’s shoulder with my bad arm, which sends a stabbing sensation up it. Now that my mega-dash is over, I’m really feeling the Lady too. I think I probably overdid it, and maybe reopened my wound, because the Lady feels sharp and stretched and there’s a trickling sensation on my skin. Thinking about my leg too much makes it hurt worse though, so I just join in Tian Li’s song:
“We’re unstoppable! Unstoppable!
So wonderfully sweet improbable!
You can’t beat us today,
because weeeeeeeeeeeee’re unstoppable!”
We laugh, and Tian Li parades me toward our goal, where Aaron joins the song and Sal hands me my crutches. I slide down from Tian Li’s back and lean on them, hurting and happy, basking in the sun and in winning. For the first time since I lost my leg, I feel like I can do anything. I can be my old self. I can run and scramble and keep up with the others. I can score goals. I can win.
Grinning like a honey-drunk bee, I look for Pepper. She’s my best friend. I want to celebrate with her. But all I see is a flash of her hair as she disappears down the stairs, heading belowdecks toward her room. That’s weird. Usually she doesn’t care who wins or loses at broomball as long as it’s a good game, and this was a great game.
I start to crutch after her, but then the Lady howls like she’s been slapped with a cheese grater. I yelp and notice blood on my calf, and Nic thumps across the deck with an enormous frown and tells me he’d like to see me in the infirmary, immediately.
“Ouch!” I shout. I have to bite my lip to keep from swatting Nic’s hand away from the scar on the Lady’s face.
He looks up, still frowning. He’s got his spectacles on, glinting gold in the afternoon light through the infirmary’s porthole, and he’s dabbing some iodine on a little rip that’s trickling blood at the end of my scar. You’d think he could give me a break. It’s my first game back at broomball after all. But he’s all business. “If you don’t let this heal, Nadya, it’s always going to hurt.”
I sigh and flex the Lady back and forth. The skin over the end of her feels swollen and maybe a little bruised, and the ripped scar stings, but it was worth it. I won. I was the hero for a minute, just like I used to be. “It is healed, Nic,” I say. “You told me it was never going back like it was, to learn to live with it like this. That’s what I’m doing!”
Nic straightens up, gently setting my leg on the examination table and throwing away his iodine swab. He takes off his glasses and polishes them before returning them to his shirt pocket. “It’s mostly healed, Nadya. The wound has closed, and it looks fine from the outside. But it won’t be finished healing on the inside for a long time. It will keep changing for months. Years, even. The things you do now will help set the course for that long process. If you take care of it—if you’re kind to it—it will heal well. If you abuse it, you could set yourself up for a lifetime of pain.”
I huff and turn away from Nic. He may have once been a doctor, but he doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about. Then what he said—years—sinks in, and my anger bubble pops and I start sniffling. That happens now sometimes, when I think about a whole life having to deal with my leg and how hard it might be. The month since my amputation has been so tough already.
I wipe my eyes and stay facing the wall. I don’t want Nic to see me crying, but he does anyway. He never misses a thing.
He sits on the table next to me, then clears his throat. “You’ll be all right in the end, Nadya,” he says. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned about you over the years, it’s that you always are.”
I sniffle a little more, and I stare at the corner of the infirmary. “I miss Mrs. T,” I mumble. Mrs. T was our tutor and a skylung like me, but she stayed on the pirates’ ship last month so the rest of us could get away. Some nights I dream she’s back on board, teaching me about being a skylung and the Roof of the World where we came from, telling me about my parents, holding me and making me tea and saying she’s proud of me and that I’m doing wonderfully at a hard job. She was like a mother to me. Sometimes I miss her even more than I miss my leg.
Nic takes a deep breath and sighs. “I do too,” he says. “But we’ll get her back. I promise.”
I lean against him. His shirt smells like soap and seawater and iodine. His arm trembles a little, like it’s hard for him to hold the weight, but that’s okay. He’s Nic. He’s always been there one way or another, ever since he and Mrs. T found me in a cloud balloon in the desert. And he’s always looked out for me. If he says we’ll get Mrs. T back, we will. We just have to get to Far Agondy so he can make it happen.