A thwapping sound echoed around the island and everyone instinctively looked up and then ducked as flaming tar balls soared overhead and pelted Artimé and Quill. “Let me know if you need anything!” Alex shouted to Claire as he and Simber continued around the island to check on others.
“I will,” replied Claire. She guided the boat and hit the throttle, speeding over the waves.
Simber flew to Lani’s team next and found them stomping out a fire in the tree-lined area where the Quillitary yard once stood. “Get us some buckets, will you?” called Lani. “Then we can fill them from the sea and be ready for the next round of attacks.”
“Great idea,” Alex said. He directed Lani’s squirrelicorns to follow him and Simber back to the mansion, where Mr. Appleblossom was anxiously trying to put out a fire from another flaming tar ball that had hit the roof. One of the main-floor mansion windows was smashed, and a tar ball smoked in the entryway.
Alex hurried to douse it with water from the kitchen and found a couple of chefs putting out another fire in the dining room. He grabbed as many buckets as he could stack and carry, and brought them outside, giving three to each squirrelicorn to take back to Lani, and then commissioning his own team’s squirrelicorns to take two each and fill them with water to help Mr. Appleblossom put the roof fires out.
He went inside the mansion for more. Once outside again, he balanced them on Simber’s back and hopped on behind so he could deliver them to the rest of the teams.
? ? ? ?
By the time Alex and Simber were off to make the rounds, Fox reached the ship that held Queen Eagala and Captain Baldhead. He scrabbled up the anchor chain so his ears were above the water, and hung on, listening carefully to the conversations on board like Alex had trusted him to do. It was a very important job, Fox knew, and he wasn’t going to mess it up.
He strained his ears like a smart, sensitive cat would do, and tried to understand what the people on board were talking about. Tar balls? Melee? Fox didn’t know what those things were, but they sounded like food and made Fox’s stomach growl. But then he heard the voice of the scary woman from Warbler, which Fox remembered well, and she said the most horrifying words that Fox had ever known. “The giant eel.”
Fox shuddered as the cool seawater dripped off his nose. He had seen the giant eel before, and he never wanted to see it again. He had to report back to Alex right away! All of Artimé depended on him!
With a tiny splash, Fox slipped into the water and began swimming toward Artimé’s pirate ship. But he didn’t make it very far before a slithering tail wrapped around his whole body. By the time Fox figured out what was happening, he was jerked underwater, his screams for help muffled by the waves and the thwaps of the catapults. When Fox’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw the sinister face of the eel staring at him from just inches away.
The Battle Rages On
Over the course of the afternoon, Alex distributed water buckets to everyone and checked on the teams. There was only one injury so far—a Necessary on Aaron’s team who’d been a little too close to an incoming flaming tar ball had gotten burned. Alex and Simber shuttled the injured Necessary to the hospital ward, and then continued on to check on Liam and Haluki.
One house in the quadrant nearest Haluki had suffered extensive damage, but no one inside was seriously hurt. On the north side of the island, the Ancients Sector took the brunt of the damage. Even the group of crotchety Wanteds, who lived crabbily on their little piece of sooty land, ran for cover. Carina’s, Sky’s, and Kaylee’s teams kept the Ancients Sector from burning to the ground and helped the Ancients find safer places to stay farther inland. The teams were tired and hungry, but for the most part everything was under control.
“They’re handling it,” Alex said to Florence once he and Simber returned from checking in on the north-shore teams. “So far so good.” Simber dropped Alex off on the roof so he could help Mr. Appleblossom put out the flaming tar balls that continued to hit it.
“Good,” said Florence, filling six buckets at once at the edge of the sea and then handing them up to Alex and Mr. Appleblossom at the lowest section of the rooftop. “But I wonder what else they have in mind. They’re tiring us out. I think that’s part of their strategy.”
“They’ll have to run out of tar balls eventually,” said Alex. Once the roof fires were extinguished, he poured water over the shingles to help keep them from catching fire when the inevitable next round came flying in. “Anyway, I’m feeling pretty good about it. This attack isn’t as bad as I had pictured. They haven’t even tried to come ashore.”
“Not yet,” warned Florence.