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The ticket that swam
The invitation swam out of Nila's sandwich. It was flat and clear, shaped like a fish, and had apparently been hiding between the cheese and the cucumber. It flapped across the table in Mallow's cabin, landed in the butter and attempted to look innocent. Nila caught it under her empty cup. Outside, the boats of Button Bay knocked gently against their moorings. Inside, her friend Jem stopped unfolding his blue notebook. "Your lunch is making a break for it," he said. Nila lifted the cup. Golden letters appeared along the fish's transparent side: TUMBLEWAKE. ADMIT ONE QUESTION AND WHOEVER IS CARRYING IT. Underneath, in smaller letters, was an address: DOWN, THEN SOMEWHERE ELSE.
Nila was eleven, with medium-brown skin and a chin-length mass of black curls held back by a yellow triangular clip. She wiped the invitation on her coral-red dungarees, earning a butter mark beside an older paint mark. Her cream shirt had thin blue stripes; her sea-green boots had never been inside a submarine that actually went anywhere. Mallow was her aunt's newest invention, rounded and turquoise, with brass ribs and a circular front window wider than Nila's outstretched arms. An amber lantern hung inside the bow. Beside it, Jem's round blue glasses reflected two small suns. He was eleven too, fair and freckled, with sandy hair that stuck up as if it had already enjoyed a brisk voyage.
Aunt Oona emerged from beneath the wheel, her orange neckerchief crooked above her cobalt work jacket. At forty-three, she could mend a propeller, whistle through her teeth and lose a screwdriver while holding it. Silver threaded her thick black braid; a streak of grease crossed her dark-brown cheek. "Tumblewake," she said. "Well. That explains the butterfly in my toolbox." She had arranged a short evening voyage with both children's families. An invitation to the travelling underwater fair was an excellent reason to make it a slightly longer one. Nila held the fish beside the lantern. Its shadow pointed downward. Jem tucked their orange pencil through its string loop on the notebook. "My question," he announced, "is whether the fair has dinner that stays on a plate."