Chapter Sixteen

SOMETIMES GREAT danger is lurking beneath a gentle mask.

The water along the coast was only fifty feet deep in places. After crossing the Atlantic, that seemed like nothing. At fifty feet there was nowhere to hide from the air, although I wasn’t really expecting helicopters. I didn’t know what to expect, actually, except that if we landed on the beach and climbed over the mountains we would find ourselves in the Sahara, the biggest desert in the world!

In the dark I chose a small bay, submerged to periscope depth and motored in until we were in only ten feet of water. The periscope showed no lights on the beach so I surfaced, opened the hatch, dropped our little anchor and inflated the dinghy. If we saw anyone we would run back to the sub and leave.

Hollie and I paddled to shore. Seaweed was standing on the beach already waiting for us. It was an exciting moment, stepping out of the dinghy onto the continent of Africa. Since there were no houses, power-lines, telephone poles, roads, bridges or signs of human habitation whatsoever, it was easy to imagine we were the first ones to discover the continent, though I knew that wasn’t true.

I put Hollie down and watched him run wild in the sand while Seaweed hopped up and down and flapped his wings. Hollie went around and around in circles until I got dizzy watching him. Then he broke the circle and ran all the way down the beach. I followed him. Hollie was a sailor dog through and through. I had found him on the sea, and he was spending his life there, but he sure did love to get out on land and run.

We were about half a mile down the beach when the sun came over the horizon and transformed everything into a golden haze. The air, the sea, the land, all of it changed instantly and became so bright it was almost blinding. Unlike the Atlantic, which was dark and gray, the Mediterranean was light green and sparkled in the sun. It was warmer too when I stepped in it, and saltier when I tasted it. The sand was also lighter and I wondered if that was because the sun had baked it so much. I used to think sand was just sand, but the sand here looked as if it had been painted by the sun.

I sat down and sifted my fingers through the sand and thought of things I had read about this place. Two thousand years ago there were lions on these beaches. The Romans caught them and shipped them across the sea to Rome for bloodthirsty entertainment in their coliseum. Now there were none. Ten thousand years ago the Sahara was a jungle. There were great rivers running through it like a spider’s web. That was hard to believe. The rivers are still there, scientists claim. They flow deep beneath the sand. When I thought about these things, Atlantis didn’t seem quite so far-fetched.

It was time to sleep. I stood up and turned to go back down the beach, then saw something really weird. There was an orange cloud rolling onto the beach from the direction of the desert. The strange thing was, I didn’t feel any wind. And then, I did! And it was coming fast!

I had never seen an orange cloud before. It wasn’t like a normal cloud. It was low, close to the ground and moving like a snake. But why was it orange? In less than a minute I had my answer.

Sand.

I thought sandstorms were things you only found in the desert, not on a beach. Oh well, I thought, it would be interesting to watch. Another minute later I realized something else — you didn’t watch a sandstorm, you got the heck out of the way! The sand in the cloud was a lot finer than the sand on the beach. It was more like a powder, and it quickly started filling my nose, mouth, ears and eyes. My eyes dried out immediately and I couldn’t blink. My throat started to dry and I found it hard to breathe. Suddenly, I couldn’t see anything!

Still, it took me awhile to realize how dangerous the situation was. I thought it was just a small cloud that was going to pass in a few minutes. I shut my eyes, held my breath and covered my ears with my hands. Hollie started to whimper.

“It’s okay, Hollie,” I mumbled. “It’ll pass in a minute.”

But it didn’t. We had to get out of there. I pulled my t-shirt over my head, reached down and picked up Hollie. I started to run, but couldn’t even find the sea! I went this way and that, gagging with the dry powder in my throat, until I felt water under my feet. I figured out the right direction, held Hollie’s face inside my t-shirt with mine and ran as fast as I could down the beach. I kept kicking my feet into the water to make sure I was going the right way.

It took forever to find the dinghy. Instead of blowing away, the dinghy was being buried in the sand. I turned it over and we crawled underneath. That didn’t help much. The fine sand got in everywhere! Hollie kept his eyes closed but he was orange with sand, and it wasn’t the kind of sand you could shake off, it stuck to you. I pulled the dinghy to the water, climbed in and paddled out. But I couldn’t find the sub!

“Come on!” I yelled. “Where are you?”

The wind was so strong it blew us quickly from shore. I couldn’t even paddle against it. If I didn’t find the sub, the sandstorm was going to blow us out to sea! I had to think fast. I left Hollie in the dinghy, jumped into the water and held onto the rope. My body acted as a kind of anchor and slowed the dinghy down. Then I slipped under the surface and looked for the sub. It was a lot easier to see under water, though I couldn’t hold my breath long because I couldn’t take a deep enough breath to start. But I found the sub, pulled the dinghy over and we climbed inside.

I gave Hollie some fresh water. He scratched at his eyes with his paws, the poor thing. I took a drink of water and threw up. Still, it was a huge relief to get inside. There was just one big problem: where was Seaweed?

I sat and thought about it. It made sense to think that he had flown out to sea and stayed ahead of the sandstorm. Maybe that’s what he did. The only trouble with that idea was that seagulls, as a rule, bedded down on the beach during a storm. They let the wind roar over them and waited it out. They didn’t go to sea. I didn’t know how far out to sea this sand was blowing, or how far I’d have to sail to be able to see through it to find him. And if he hadn’t gone out to sea and was stuck on the beach, it would be a long time before I’d be back. Would he survive a sandstorm? I thought of how quickly the sand had been covering the dinghy. I had to go back!

I pulled the anchor free, started the engine and motored in as close to the beach as I dared. I shut off the engine, dropped anchor again, grabbed a long rope, went out and closed the hatch from the outside. I took a jacket this time. After tying the rope to the portal, I jumped overboard and swam underwater to the beach, with the rope in one hand. I wrapped the wet jacket around my head and fought my way up the beach against the wind. It wasn’t howling the way storms normally do; it was more of a steady roar, like a jet engine.

I wasn’t expecting to find Seaweed by looking. I was hoping that if he heard me yelling his name, he would squawk, and I would follow the sound and locate him. And so I went around yelling as loud as I possibly could, with the jacket in front of my face. I refused to give up.

When I finally heard his squawk, it was weak. He had turned himself into the wind, just as I thought he would. But he had to keep shifting himself around because the sand kept trying to bury him. He was exhausted when I found him. Such a tough bird to have survived!

It was the only time Seaweed ever let me pick him up. It was the only time I ever tried. He didn’t like it. But I ran around until I found the water again, and then the rope, and then the sub. And I was so happy.

We motored out a few miles and settled on the bottom at seventy-five feet. I floated the antenna and turned the radio on low. A different kind of music entered the sub now — wooden flutes and drums and voices. I sat on the floor by the observation window and helped the crew clean the sand from their fur and feathers. After such a crazy and violent storm, the peace and calm inside the sub was heavenly. The music was peaceful. I didn’t know what language it was but the voices were of children, and they sounded happy. After I fed the crew and had a cup of tea, I lay down on my bed and fell asleep listening to it.