Free Zeuglodon by James P. Blaylock Page B

from the Peach journals along with the rest. They were bound up in a lead box that he had dipped in wax in case they had to be thrown overboard to sink into the ocean if we were betrayed. Uncle Hedge had cleverly hidden a radio locater inside the box so that they could be found again. We locked up the house and set out, Hasbro included, and drove on down to the airport at Little River, carrying doughnuts and cocoa in a thermos and a basket lunch, because you really can’t eat airplane food and be happy about it. There was no sign of Ms Peckworthy, and that was the best part of all, but I knew that I wouldn’t stop being nervous about her until we were in the air. One thing we found out at the airport was that Lala Peach had booked a flight into San Francisco the very morning that she stole the key and ran for it, although of course she never got a chance to use the ticket. From San Francisco she was booked into Manchester, England. She hadn’t come out to “visit” at all. Just like the Creeper, she had come out merely to steal the key. She had been better than the Creeper at stealing it, although not so good at getting away.
    It was a beautiful sunny day, with just a few floating clouds, and the salty ocean wind smelling like freedom when we walked out onto the tarmac toward the plane.The Creeper’s car was gone, and the parking lot of the airport was nearly deserted except for the Zeuglodon, which Mr. Vegeley would pick up later in the day, and then drive it home and lock it in the garage. In no time at all we found ourselves taxiing down the runway, picking up speed, and finally angling up into the air, the buildings below dwindling in size.
    I had just settled back in my seat when Perry said, “There she comes! The worthy Ms Peck!” He was pointing out the window toward the ground, so we crowded around to look. Sure enough, Ms Peckworthy’s red car, looking like a toy car now, was just then pulling into the airport parking lot. For one bad moment I thought that she would still be able to stop us—that the pilot would put on the brakes, or whatever you put on when you’re flying, and we would fall into her clutches after all. But that didn’t happen. Ms Peckworthy got out of her car, tiny as a bug, and stood there looking up at us as until we disappeared into a cloud. When we came out into blue sky again, she was lost behind us, and there was nothing but the tree-covered mountains of the Coast Range below and the shimmering ocean away on the right.

Chapter 10

    Aboard the S. S. Clematis
     
    Off the southeast coast of Newfoundland there’s a cold ocean current called the Labrador Current, which flows down out of the Labrador Sea and the frozen arctic waters in the north. A warm current called the Gulf Stream comes up from the south and heats the air above it, and when this warm air over the Gulf Stream meets the cold air above of the Labrador Current, it generates fog like a great huge machine. For days and weeks the fog doesn’t clear up, because there’s always more fog being made, and it’s so thick that when you’re standing on deck you can’t be sure whether you’re looking out at gray ocean water or at a curtain of fog.
    Old Captain Sodbury taught us about currents on board ship. It’s the kind of thing they can tell you in a science class, but what they can’t tell you is what it’s like to be there, in the midst of it. There are clear places in the fog, like hidden rooms, and suddenly the ship would sail out into one of those clear spaces with the sun shining and glittering on the water, and it’s so bright that you have to squint your eyes. Behind you and way off in front of you and to either side are the gray walls, swirling and moving as if they’re full of restless ghosts, but you’re no longer part of the fog or of those ghosts, but are alone on your own little patch of sunlit ocean. The sound of the ship’s engines and the calling of the sea birds that fish over the Grand Banks are