They sailed for many days. Sasha let Toddy steer, but in the end Toddy preferred scaling the masts and exploring the floors belowdecks. So Sasha stayed midship, one hand settled on the helm and her musings drifting like feathers in the breeze. Occasionally, she’d look out over the ocean through a spyglass Toddy had found belowdecks and given to her. It was so strange to be away from the island, far from the sparkling tents and the friendly, colorful faces at the Cirque, and far from the dull, square buildings of the school and all the taunts there.
“Where are we going?” Toddy asked one day. He sat on the steps behind Sasha, whittling a block of wood with a knife he’d discovered in the captain’s quarters; the cutlass and sheath he’d also found there was tied securely around his waist. He paused to take a bite of crackers and dried beef, which he had found in a barrel. Pirate chased the cracker crumbs that fell and blew all around the deck.
“I don’t know,” Sasha replied. Then added absently, “Careful, Toddy. Don’t cut yourself.”
“I won’t. Do you think we’ll find sharks? Or mermaids?”
“Mermaids would be lovely.” Sasha rubbed gently at the scabs that had formed on her knees. Madame Mermadia was back at the Cirque. Was she all right? And Shelby and Griffin, too? “Or a princess.”
“Do you think Mr. Ticklefar knew the seed would grow a ship? Do you think we should have taken him along with us?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mom probably misses us, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know. I hope so.”
“Do you think she’s lonely without us?”
“Toddy! Stop asking so many questions!” Toddy was always doing that at home. Asking Sasha very serious, important things, but also silly things. You’re the only one who really listens, he always told her. You and Mom and Dad, but . . . Mom and Dad listen like grown-ups. You know what I mean. You listen with . . . real imagination.
“I would ask Pirate, but he never met Mom and Dad.”
“Maybe you should ask Pirate where we’re going.”
Toddy shook his head. “I did already. He doesn’t know. But he’s keeping his claws sharp, just in case.”
Toddy returned to the helm. He scaled the ropes like a mouse. How far could he see, up there? Sasha followed him up, picking her way carefully into the sky.
Once she’d reached the top and Toddy had helped her into the basket, Sasha walked in a circle to take in the scenery. A line of creamy Orangesicle sunset stretched as far as she could see to the south. To the north the sea was interrupted by dots of dancing gray seals and long brown shorelines.
It reminded her of Anders’ Rock on the island, where she and Toddy and Mom and Dad would picnic on days bursting with warmth. There they would search out turquoise sea glass and glittering silver rocks spit from volcanoes millions of years ago. Dad drilled tiny holes into them, and Mom strung them on twine to wear around their necks. We all belong to the land and the sea, she’d say, and they’d all get quiet and watch the waves lick the shore. Until Toddy got bored, and then they’d hop into the water and splash one another until they were shivering and desperate to climb back onto the rock to sun themselves toasty warm again, waiting for a colorful sunset to drop onto the island.
“Magic. I think we’re almost to the Edge of the World,” she said, pointing to the masses of seals. She squinted as the sun glinted off the dots.
As if to confirm her comment, the ship gave a mighty roar and teetered to the left. The masts whipped around them like tree branches in a thunderstorm. Sasha and Toddy grasped onto the basket with white knuckles and startled gasps. On the deck Pirate screeched.
Below them the sea churned, crashing this way and that, a whirlpool spinning just off starboard. Slowly a creature rose from the foaming white depths.
Sasha and Toddy gaped at the monster. Knobby green legs as long as a highway, topped with purple claws as big as a school bus, lifted into the air, breaking the agitated surface of the water with a wretched, piercing noise and a waterfall of ocean. Waving white tentacles reached to the clouds, and two eyes, like black boulders at the shore, narrowed as the creature spotted Sasha and Toddy in the crow’s nest. The creature’s mouth worked slowly, its fangs dripping salt water back into the sea.
“Who trespasses upon my ocean?”
Sharp, rotten fish-smelling winds rushed through Sasha’s and Toddy’s hair as the creature spoke. They took an involuntary step backward and clasped each other’s hands.
“I said, who dares traverse my sea?”
“Well, no, you didn’t,” Sasha said, poking her chin at the creature. “You asked who was trespassing, not who was traversing.”
The creature blinked his glassy eyes at Sasha and let loose a sound that might have been laughter. It was a rumble that stirred up the ocean to choppy white peaks.
“I am King Crab, and you do not have permission to cross here.”
“Are you the Magician at the Edge of the World?” Toddy asked. “You’re stinky.”
Time seemed to pause for Sasha. For a moment she forgot that King Crab was huge, frightening, and in their way.
“Oh!” Sasha gaped at her brother. “You’re talking to someone that’s not me.”
“I had to tell him about his smelly breath,” Toddy said.
Sasha nodded. “It’s terrible.”
“Besides, we both have to be braver now,” Toddy said.
“Yes.” Sasha snuck to the rear of the crow’s nest and began descending the shrouds.
“The Magician is far beyond me,” roared King Crab. “But it is impossible to pass through my sea to get to him!”
Halfway down the shrouds Sasha jutted her chin out. “Then we are in the right place. Let us through!”
“Go back to where you came from!” King Crab retorted.
Toddy brandished his sword and pointed it at the monster. “We shall never leave this sea! I demand that you let us through!”
“You must defeat me first!”
“We shall!” Toddy hollered as loudly as he could, then frowned, disappointed that the seas didn’t thrash as he did so. He turned to the side. “Sasha?”
“You have been abandoned!” King Crab screeched triumphantly.
“No, I haven’t.” But Toddy’s voice came out weaker than before, and he searched the shrouds for his sister. “Sasha?” All he saw was her retreating back, hurrying belowdecks.
King Crab laughed and whipped a claw at Toddy. With a battle cry Toddy swung his sword at the claw. The clang! could be heard for miles.
Sasha rushed to the gun deck. She glanced at the stalwart cannons. Hopelessness washed over her. They must have weighed hundreds of pounds. There was no way a girl a quarter of their size could maneuver and load one. Even if she knew how to load it.
She turned back to look for other ways to fight King Crab, but paused when her eyes fell upon a diagram inked on the wall. It was a series of pictures that showed how to load the cannons. Excitement washed over Sasha, until she realized that the cannon was being handled by two full-grown men in the pictures. Full-grown and very burly.
Sasha clutched at her shirt in desperation. She was strong, she knew she was. But as strong as two men? Kirk Stoddard’s words rang in her ears. Sausage here thinks she’s the toughest of us all. Well . . . yes. Except for the Sausage part. Sasha pursed her lips. Her eyes flashed with determination. The cannon beckoned to her, and she had to try. She would show everyone how tough she was. She reached out her hands, gripped the base of the gun, and pulled.
“Oh!”
Sasha fell backward, flat onto her behind, as the gun slid smoothly out of its port. She blinked but stood quickly and consulted the diagram. “Rope . . . goes in this way and . . . out here. Then . . . sand?”
Sasha winced at the sounds of battle above her. “Hurry, Sasha,” she told herself.
She peered into the dark shadows of the deck. The sack in the corner looked promising. She pulled the top back and dipped her hands into the black grains, wrinkling her nose at the acrid smell. “Drop this down this part and shove . . . paper? Paper.” Sasha looked around again but found only disorderly piles of old, torn sail. “This will have to work.”
Sasha collected a length of the sail and pushed it into the cannon with the rammer, her arms aching with the effort. “Time for the cannonball.”
The cannonball was a glass marble, swirling milk and honey, and it whispered terms of courage to Sasha and emboldened her so that she could do what she needed to do. Sasha took it into her hands; it was as big as a bowling ball and heavy. It clanged like the first strike of a gong when Sasha dropped it into the barrel. She shoved the rammer in once more, for good measure, and braced the balls of her feet against the slippery wooden floor. The cannon turned toward the port. Outside, King Crab’s legs scraped and flailed as the creature tried to get a grip on the ship’s planks. Pirate leaped gracefully all over the monster, swatting and biting at the tender joints in between King Crab’s armor.
“Mrowr!” Pirate declared as he landed a particularly good chomp.
“Avast, ye, enemy!” Toddy cried. There was a vicious clang of metal against shell and more wordless shouts.
Sasha’s heart pounded painfully. “Please be all right, Toddy.”
She was all he had left. And he . . . was all she had too.
The last scene in the diagram on the wall showed a crewman dashing two objects together to create a spark for lighting the fuse. Sasha stared at the picture for several seconds, her stomach clenching.
“After all this, I don’t know how to make a fire.”
Her hand dropped to her side. Her fingers fell upon her spyglass, tapped along the worn leather sides in frustration, and smoothed over the cool glass magnifier. Sasha started.
With a swoop of her hand she lifted the spyglass from her belt and examined the brass instrument. The large glass piece at the end was attached to a ring. Sasha fit her palm around the ring and twisted. It was rather tight, but after a few seconds of work, she loosened the ring, and the glass piece fell into her hand. There was just enough room above the cannon to catch a beam of fading sunlight. Sasha held the glass between the beam and the fuse.
“Keep steady, hand,” Sasha whispered. Everything—the ship, the sea—seemed to wait silently for the fuse to catch. And when it did, and Sasha had blown on it gently until it sizzled like bacon in a frying pan, the world came alive again.
“Your defeat is nigh!” Toddy bellowed to King Crab. Despite the raging battle, Sasha had to hold back a giggle. He sounded just like Mr. Ticklefar back at the Cirque when the old ringmaster introduced an act, saying, Danger is nigh!
The ship groaned and creaked as it tossed. Water splashed against the exterior with a roar like an African lion. Pirate yowled.
King Crab snapped his claws with a triumphant clack! Sasha peered out the hole and shrieked: Toddy was clamped in one of King Crab’s claws. A flash of color whizzed across Sasha’s line of vision. A bird . . . one she’d seen before. It attacked one of King Crab’s eyes. The great beast waved his claws in the air.
“Toddy!” The fuse went silent. The whole world did, just for a moment.
Then . . . BOOM! The entire deck shook. Sasha fell flat onto the floor while water rose in waves all around her. Millions of particles hit the ship and splashed in the water. Sasha’s body rolled and swayed with the motion of the sea. When the quaking ceased, all was quiet. The only sound was a low buzzing in Sasha’s ears.
“Toddy?” Sasha said, even though Toddy couldn’t possibly hear her from the gun deck. Sasha couldn’t even hear herself. She raced to the top deck and leaned over the railing, searching the seas for her brother and Pirate the cat. First Dad and then Mom. She didn’t know what she would do if she lost Toddy. “Toddy!”
The sea took on a horrible stillness, the water like mirror-glass. Sasha looked left and right, searching desperately for some sign of her brother. The tears that welled up in her eyes made her vision blurry, but she angrily wiped them clean. She had lost her whole family. It was all her fault they were gone.
Sasha’s heart squeezed and squished until she couldn’t breathe. She would do anything—anything!—to get her family back again. How could she have ever wanted anything but to be with Mom and Dad and Toddy at Cirque Magnifique?
Just then a bit of seashell bounced off Sasha’s head. No, not seashell but crab shell. Sasha looked up. Dangling over the rail of the crow’s nest by his legs was a boy with a kitten clinging to the front of his shirt. He waved both his arms at her, mouthed something, and pulled himself back into the basket. Sasha jumped to her feet and raced across the deck. At the same time, Toddy descended by sliding down the mast. He looked a bit worse for the battle, with a long scratch along one cheek and his clothes in tatters. When they met in the middle, Sasha flung her arms around her brother, squashing poor Pirate, and cried even harder.
“That ol’ beast!” Toddy yelled. “He couldn’t keep me in his big claws. Not after you blew him to smithereens! He flung me into the air. It was a good thing I landed on the ship. I was yelling at you for ages, though. Why didn’t you look up?”
Sasha shook her head with confusion. King Crab had let go of Toddy, but not because of the blast. Because of . . .
Had she really seen the bird, or had she only imagined it? She couldn’t think properly. The buzzing in her ears was too loud. “It doesn’t matter. You’re here! And we’re going to find that horrid Magician and get Mom and Dad back.”
They stood together to look over the side of the ship. King Crab floated upon the sea in dozens of pieces.
“Ew,” Sasha wrinkled her nose.
“Don’t worry, the gulls will take care of it. See?” Toddy pointed to the horizon, where a swarm of sleek white birds were racing to the scene. Sasha and Toddy watched as the first of the birds landed upon the sea and began to feast. One even turned to them and nodded its appreciation.
Sasha squinted, looking for color in the sea of white. But there was none.
“They’ll always remember you for this,” Toddy said. “You’re the queen of the seas now, Sasha. That was a super shot. How’d you do it?”
Sasha clutched her brother to her. Relief overwhelmed her. “There was a diagram . . . and we have to be braver now, and . . . I’m just glad we’re past King Crab.”
Toddy nodded. “Now let’s get Mom and Dad.”