Page 79 of Outcast Fae
“Very good.” Meadow Song sounded pleased. “This way, everyone. Vaughn and Tally, you can watch your friends win their freedom.”
I glowered, but Vaughn gave my arm a tug. “We should watch. See what they’re up to.”
Acquiescing, I walked with the group toward the shore. I was expecting an elaborate obstacle course like before, but instead, there were three long, slender boats.
“Hawaiian canoes?” Elon said. “Who are we, Moana?”
Meadow Song smiled at his antics and shook her head. “For this challenge, you will have to use all you’ve learned in your time here at New Starts: teamwork, communication, perseverance, and good decision making. As you can see, you are sea travelers who need to find something out there on the water. You will form two groups, since there are only five of you, and the team that finds the object in the water will be the first to go home.”
She waved her hand and wooden oars appeared in the sand. Eight of them.
Gina, Henry, and Patricia walked toward the first canoe and picked up their oars.
“No fair,” Elon said. “I get stuck with the flim? And they have three and we only have two.”
All eyes fell on me and Vaughn as if Elon’s words could change our minds, but I was done. No more games.
“You have three,” a voice said.
Striding up the beach was my cousin, Sinasre. He appeared unharmed, moving in his lithe, catlike way toward where Elon and Daniella stood. He grabbed an oar up from the beach then flipped it over and firmly planted the handle into the sand like a flag. “That is if you’ll have me?” he asked Elon and Daniella.
They both nodded.
“Sure, dude,” Elon said, brightening.
“No, don’t do it.” I shook my head at Sinasre, my eyes trying to convey the urgency of my request.
“I can’t let them go alone, Tally. Someone might get hurt.”
Meadow Song seemed pleased. “Very well. You two teams will row out and search this area for your object, retrieve it, and bring it here. The first ones on the beach with it will get to exit the program. Ready, set, go!”’
She dropped her arm and a horn sounded, signaling the start of the competition.
As the two groups rushed to push their boats into the waves, Meadow Song and Silver Bear walked over to us.
“We’ll watch from up here.” She lifted her hand and the ground beneath us began to rumble.
A huge wooden platform rose out of the sand, lifting us as it grew as tall as the palm trees. Railings sprouted so we wouldn’t fall. For herself and Silver Bear, she constructed a bright blue canopy and two beachy type chairs. Vaughn and I stood off to one side, squinting into the sun as our friends battled the waves to get the canoes over the breaks.
The waves were choppy and the paddling hard, but each boat made their way out into the blue-green ocean. After ten minutes, I was stunned at how far out they already were. My eyes skimmed the water, searching for the prize that Meadow Song had indicated. Finally, I spotted it: a bright orange buoy bobbed back and forth, waving a similarly bright orange flag.
It was many oar strokes away, but not terribly far. They could row out in half an hour if they knew where they were going. Simple. Easy.
But they probably couldn’t see it from the boats, and each began paddling off in different but wrong directions. It was frustrating watching them go the wrong way. If only I could tell them, so they could get back to the beach where I felt they would be safer. But then, which team would I tell? My mind went to Daniella and Sinasre, but how would that be fair to Gina, Henry, and Patricia?
I glanced at Vaughn who watched with piqued interest. “This seems too easy,” he murmured.
He was right. This task had none of the other challenge’s style or flare. Was it all that it appeared to be?
“There. What’s that?” Vaughn pointed to a dark spot in the water.
I stared at the shape that slipped along below the water. Was it just a passing cloud that darkened the blue waves? No, this moved too rapidly. Yet, it was too big and too narrow to be any of the human sea creatures I was familiar with. Could it be like the squid we’d fought in the inland lake?
“What is it?” I asked, a growing sense of unease building.
The shadow disappeared under Gina, Henry, and Patricia’s boat. Within seconds, the sea canoe was rocking back and forth, almost tipping them all into the waves. Shrieks caught on the wind and made it to our ears. I couldn’t see their concerned faces, but I could guess their terror.
Suddenly, a monstrous head reared up in front of the boat. It was as tall as a person and ten times as broad with spiked horns and a wide mouth filled with curved teeth. It reminded me of a dragon or a snake, but dragons didn’t exist in this realm and I’d never seen a snake that large.
