Florence looked like she could cry. She turned to Pan. “How did you do that?”
“I didn’t know it would work,” the ruler of the sea said softly. “But dragons can do things one wouldn’t expect them to do.”
Finally Henry stopped choking long enough to speak. “My vest!” he rasped. “Florence, where is it?” He coughed again.
Florence looked around. She’d flung it aside. Where was it? “It’s gone now,” she told him. “But there are extra components in the crate in case we need them.”
Henry struggled mightily to sit up next to Florence on Pan’s back. His eyes were bloodshot, and his hair stood on end. “No. You don’t understand—I have to have it!” he cried. “The medicine for Karkinos is in there!”
“What?” cried Florence.
Alarmed, Spike wasted no time. She dove underwater in search of the vest, and Pan ducked her head below the surface to look around, letting her tremendously long tail slither through the water in search of it too.
“I didn’t know that’s where you kept the medicine,” Florence said, distraught. “I’m sorry. I thought it was packed with the other supplies.”
Henry stood on Pan’s back, holding on to Florence’s shoulder, peering anxiously at the water even though he could see very little in the darkness. “If we don’t find it we’ll have to go get more, but it comes from Ishibashi’s island,” he said. “We don’t have time to go all the way back there!”
Florence put a hand to her forehead as she realized the severity of the consequences. “I thought you were dead,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking about the vest. I was thinking about you.”
“Oh, Florence,” Henry said, reaching out to her. “I’m not blaming you. Thank you—you saved my life. I just hope . . .” He stared at the water in the darkness, waiting.
Minute after agonizing minute went by. Henry coughed now and then, still recovering. He drew strength from his fear and focused only on the water. How could Spike or Pan possibly find the vest in the vast, churning waters of the sea?
After a time, Florence detected a ripple in the water’s surface a short distance away. “I hope that’s not another eel,” she muttered.
Henry looked up.
Pan lifted her head up out of the water as the ripple got closer, and soon the tip of Spike’s spike was evident, coming toward them. When the whale reached Pan’s side, she rose up, and there, hooked around the base of her spike, was the vest.
“Spike, you found it!” said Florence.
“Oh, thank goodness,” Henry breathed. “You have no idea what this means.”
Florence reached out to get the vest and handed it to Henry. Anxiously he checked the special pocket, and there he found the tin of seaweed, safe and sound. He slumped back in relief, then put the vest on and secured it.
“Well done, Spike,” said Pan, like a queen to her favored subject.
Spike bowed to her, then turned to Henry. “I am terribly sorry I hurt you,” she said.
Henry stroked the whale’s forehead. “You couldn’t help it,” he said. “And I’m all right now. I would have been fine if I’d just taken a breath before we went under. I was just surprised.”
“We all were,” Pan said. “We’re lucky Spike detected the eel coming at us when she did or we’d be in much more dire circumstances now.”
Spike bowed her head humbly and sidled up to the dragon. “We must go,” she said. “We have lost too much time.”
“Are you fit to go again?” Florence asked Henry.
The boy nodded. His vest was in place and secured, with the container inside its pocket. That was all he needed.
Florence helped Henry climb from Pan’s back onto Spike’s. He slid into the cocoon, and when all was well again, the four continued their journey.
The Dragon’s Triangle
As Kaylee gazed at the map on the table, Alex, Sky, and Lani looked curiously at her.
“The Dragon’s Triangle?” Alex asked. “What’s that?”
Kaylee gave him a grim smile. “It’s a mythical place. Or at least that’s what I used to think.”
Sky and Lani exchanged a questioning glance. “We’re not mythical,” Lani said. “We’re real.”
Kaylee continued to explain. “There are a few places in the world—the world I came from, I mean—where ships and airplanes have been lost and never found. The Bermuda Triangle is one. The Dragon’s Triangle is another.” She pointed them out on the map. “In the old days sailors would avoid the mysterious waters in those places for fear of being lost for good.” She pulled a dining chair out from the table and sat down heavily. “I remember studying it before I set out on my journey, knowing I’d be passing nearby. A fleet of Japanese military ships disappeared there—here, I mean—in the 1950s.” She looked up. “When I saw the Quillitary vehicles on your island, I wondered if they’d come from those missing military ships.”