Chapter 1CHAPTER 1 The problem with living inside the belly of a magical whale for eighty-eight days is the boredom. My best friend, Germ, and I are making the best of it by playing War. "You got all the aces," Germ says. She is lounging on a La-Z-Boy, eating Doritos. "You always get aces." "You''re exaggerating," I say. But she''s right, I do get all the aces. I look at my hand, the wrinkled cards we''ve played a thousand times since boarding.
My pile is huge and Germ''s is dwindling. This happens all the time, and yet. and yet. somehow, even though it''s purely a game of chance, Germ always wins. I''m so close to victory, I can taste it, but I''m pretty sure it will slip away. I know this is not typically what anyone would expect to find in here, two twelve-year-old girls playing cards and stuffing their faces. To look around, you wouldn''t even know we''re inside an ageless, time-traveling creature at all. If anything, it looks like Germ''s grammie''s house, which I visited once when we were little.
Off to the right is our bedroom, with an orange rug and two beds where we sleep. Here in the center there''s a TV and two beat-up La-Z-Boys, with bowls full of our favorite snacks on a table in between. There''s also a dining table and a shag rug, and a treadmill and mini trampoline for Germ, who can never sit still for long. Still, there are some indicators that we''re not in Kansas anymore. For one thing, there''s a giant glass "moonroof" above that affords us a view of the blue ocean water above. There are travel brochures littering the room that offer guidance on trips to the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, specific eras like the Han dynasty, the Gupta empire, and so on. There''s also a full-color coffee-table book called Welcome to the Sea of Always that includes a primer on the magical creatures of the ocean of time, and a terrifying who''s who profile on someone called the pirate king and his army of bones. Plus a rundown on the rules of time travel, which includes things like: No crossing paths with your former or future self unless you want to create a troublesome wormhole.
People of the past can''t see you unless they have the sight. No returning to your starting place until your journey is at an end. The book and brochures came in a gift basket that was waiting for us when we boarded--the kind you get from nice hotels, full of colorful tissue paper and apples and pears and a pineapple and some chocolate bars, plus spare toothpaste and some welcome papers. Germ and I long ago devoured the chocolate, tossed the fruit, and made tiny spitballs out of the tissue paper to shoot through straws at each other. Anyway, we basically have everything two twelve-year-old girls could need while traveling through time--except our moms, and school, and humans besides each other. Germ''s theory is that the whale (whom she''s named Chompy. since her favorite name, Chauncey , didn''t fit right) provides everything you need for whatever kind of passenger you are, hence the Doritos and the Pop-Tarts. (The first three days, I ate Pop-Tarts until I barfed.
) It also explains why there are photos of her boyfriend, D''quan Daniels, and Olympic women athletes magically pasted on the wall beside her bed, while on my side there are favorite books of mine like The Secret Garden and One Crazy Summer and Because of Winn-Dixie , and some of my favorites from when I was little, like The Snowy Day . It explains why Germ''s favorite show, LA Pet Psychic , is on permanent loop on the TV and why we have several copies of Pet Psychic magazine on the coffee table. There are also cinnamon-scented candles (Germ loves cinnamon-scented candles) and matchbooks everywhere to light them. We have everything we need. But the truth is, time feels endless inside the whale, and I guess that''s because it is. I think it''s safe to say that in the outside world (the one we left behind), time is passing. but within our whale, time stands still. I know this because I have a tiny hourglass necklace given to me by a witch, and not a grain of sand has dropped through it.
and yet, according to Germ''s watch, eighty-eight days have passed. We keep track of that time (home time) by marking the wall with a Sharpie (thanks, Chompy!) every time Germ''s watch circles noon. So somehow time is moving, and also it''s not. Either way, we''re excruciatingly bored--and so we''ve passed the days by trying at least fifty ways to wear eyeliner, played at least a thousand games of War, painted our toenails every color of the rainbow, had hour-long burping contests, ranked all the boys at our school back home in terms of cuteness. (Germ is devoted to D''quan but says you can''t blame a girl for looking. And anyway, D''quan doesn''t know the real reason why we disappeared and might think we''re dead.) We''ve discussed what seventh grade is going to be like if we live to see some of it, and I have promised to let Germ drag me to more parties, and promised to at least try to like her other bestie, Bibi West (who now prefers to be called by her full name, Bibiana, though we can''t get used to it and always forget). We''ve read all the travel guides Chompy has provided.
We''ve read and reread our most important book of all, The Witch Hunter''s Guide to the Universe , backward and forward a thousand times. Germ has made me a special friendship bracelet to hold my whale whistle to my wrist. And now. we''re back to War. "Aw! Isn''t Chompy sweet?" Germ squeals, looking over at a small bowl of M&M''s that has appeared beside me. Staring at my M&M''s, I bite my tongue. Chompy does seem to anticipate all our needs. (He''s very subtle about it.
You look away for a moment, or blink your eyes, or start to daydream, and that''s when he changes things on you.) BUT Chompy also used to serve a witch (granted, the witch is dead) whose whistle now belongs to us. "He''d probably be just as eager to provide witches whatever they needed," I say. "Like, we get M&M''s. They get cauldrons for cooking children in." "Shh. You''ll hurt his feelings," Germ hisses, glancing at the domed ceiling above us. Chompy gives a shudder.
Which makes me, for a moment, panicked. I''m always nervous that at any moment something on Chompy could go haywire. In the grand scheme of things, we''re a very tiny vessel surrounded by seawater that could drown us, after all. "See?" Germ says with accusing eyes. "He was avoiding that octopus," I say, pointing out the moonroof at an enormous red creature floating above and past us. Germ softens again, and she grins. "Every time I think of octopuses, I think about that time in first grade." I lay my ace down and swipe Germ''s jack, flustered.
Here we go. It''s one of the infamous moments of my childhood. At school we were playing the Farmer in the Dell, where everyone picks partners until someone is a supposedly lonely, solitary piece of cheese. (Don''t ask me, I didn''t invent the special brand of torture that is the Farmer in the Dell.) Someone had already picked Germ, so I knew I would be the cheese at the end, which would be horribly embarrassing. And so when the game was whittled down to about three people, I pointed out the window and yelled that purple eight-armed aliens were invading from outer space and we all needed to run for our lives. Somehow, I was so convincing that I got everyone to look out the window at the sky. "That was the best," Germ says, ignoring the fact that being the girl who pretended we were being attacked by aliens turned out to be way more embarrassing than being the cheese.
She lays down an ace, her only one, and we go to war. She wins with a seven to my five, and gains a bunch of cards. The next round is a war too; Germ wins again. My pile dwindles. I feel a reluctant smile creep onto my face. Germ seems to think that all sorts of things about me are charming, things I wish I could change--like how I scowl at people I don''t know and spend most of our schooltime looking out the window imagining how nice it would be to walk through a door into the clouds, away from everyone but my best friend. She lays down a nine that brings us to war. While I''ve been ruminating on my shortcomings, she''s managed to get the last two of my aces.
Ugh. The rest of the game follows suit. Germ''s hands move quickly as she confiscates my best cards. Soon they''re all gone. She looks at me apologetically. "Sorry, Rosie, I really wanted you to win." "That''s okay," I say. "I wanted you to win too.
" She yawns. "I''m gonna turn in." Germ goes to our room and shimmies into a hot-pink pajama ensemble, provided by Chompy of course, that sets off her pale pinkish freckled cheeks and strawberry-blond hair and fits her ample frame perfectly. I change into an oversize T-shirt and sloppy flannel pants. Germ brushes her teeth and washes her face with this new cream she''s been using. I run a brush over my teeth but skip the washing. Germ says "I look gorgeous" to the mirror and crawls into bed--a waterbed she''s always dreamt of having. I glance at my own reflection--unbrushed brown hair, teeth too big for my mouth, shoulders too high for my neck.
I''ve been waiting for a growth spurt all my life, and now that I''m having one, it seems like all my body parts are growing at different rates. Germ kneels by her bed and does her nightly ritual: a Hail Mary and an Our Father. Then a prayer to the Moon Goddess for good measure. I.