About the Author:
I like long walks on the beach.
“GO AWAY!” I scream at my younger brother who has been following me around all morning.
“MOTHER, TELL CHARLIE TO LEAVE ME ALONE.” I yell down the stairs annoyed.
“Charlie, please leave your sister alone.” My Mom calls up to my brother.
I am the oldest one of my siblings, and they all want to be around me 24 hours a day, and I hate it. I have 4 younger brothers, 2 younger sisters, one mother, one father, and a lot of extended family. Having a big family is the worst, and my only escape from the crazy is reading.
I can only read at night, so I stay up late getting lost in the books. I read books about crazy adventures that are things that I could do one day.
I love reading in my room at night because the lighting is perfect. I have a silver-colored metal bed frame, off white sheets and comforter and ivory pillowcases with dark green pine colored walls.
My favorite one is about a guy that leaves his village on a boat to sail across the seas and only sees people once in a while when he needs to stop and get supplies.
I want to leave my hometown someday and explore the world until I find my purpose outside of this town.
I am reading one right now called A Wrinkle in Time. It is so good. It’s about a girl and her little brother and how they have been without their father for four years because he discovered a new way to travel in space, so he tried it and they think that it killed him. They think that because he has been gone for four years, but I don’t think that is true.
“Alina,” my mother calls,”come down for your birthday present.”
“Ug.” I say as I drag myself out of bed. I look in the mirror and see my mangled dark brown hair is standing on end, and my usually-bright blue eyes are more like a dull gray color, but I ignore this for now and go downstairs for breakfast.
When I see my birthday cake with a big 18 on it I instantly perk up because I am now free of this town that just keeps getting smaller and smaller.
For my birthday my parents and many, many relatives all chipped in and they bought me a sailboat. Finally I can go where I want when I want and be what I want! I became ecstatic when they told me. I can’t wait to try it out! My favorite part of the gift is that I get to pick out which sailboat that I want.
My parents say that we can leave after breakfast is cleaned up, so I get right on that and we are out the door in 15 minutes without even getting dressed. Thank goodness that it is only me and my parents going.
If we had brought all of my siblings it would have been chaos. The car ride to the Marina is only 30 minutes, but it feels like forever. When we finally get there it is a little after 10:00.
My parents say, “You can pick whichever boat you want!” I give them a big bear hug and thank them and then run off to find the perfect boat for me.
I need to find a person that works at the Marina to help find something that I could use by myself that I like. The first one I look at has one small bedroom, one even smaller bathroom, and something that can barely be called a kitchen.
I say to the people helping me look for the perfect boat that this isn’t the boat, and that I want to see something a little bigger. The next one has a bigger kitchen but a really small bathroom and bedroom. I say no to this one, too, and realize that I need to be more specific with the boat that I want. I look that the salesperson’s tag and see that their name is Betsy.
“Betsy, these boats aren’t exactly what I am looking for. Can we look at a boat with a big bedroom and bathroom and a medium sized kitchen, these are too small and cramped for me.” I say.
“Sure,” Betsy says and takes me to a section with bigger boats.
The next one that we looked at looks huge from the outside. On the inside it was almost perfect except that I came to the conclusion that I want a space to relax in other than my bedroom with a chair or small couch, so I tell Betsy and she takes me to see a boat called Sunsprint.
This boat look very spacious from the outside and I like the color of the outside of it. It’s pure white with black stripes. As soon as I step into the boat I get the feeling that this is the perfect boat. It smells just right, it feels homey with it’s warm feeling colors, and, most important, it has everything that I want and need.
“Betsy this is the right boat!” I scream excitedly.
“I am so glad that you found one that you like Alina. Your parents were telling me that you were going to be really excited when you finally found the perfect boat.”
My parents hear my excited voice and hurry over to see the boat that I have picked. When they see it their eyes light up, and I know that I have picked a good boat. They love it just as much as I do!
My parents say that they will deal with the official purchase of the boat and doing all of the things that you have to do when you buy a new boat, and we head home.
When we get back home we show my siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins pictures of the beautiful boat that I have chosen. They all have the same reaction as my parents and I. I am so glad that they like it as much as I do.
“Where do you think that you will go first?” My Mom asks.
“I don’t know. I was thinking that we are in a village in Southern Africa, so first I would go to Antarctica, and then maybe to South America and North America. After that I am not really sure, maybe Europe and then Asia and Australia and back home. I am going to plan out my route when I get started planning my stops and that will help me so I know what countries to go to.”
“Are you going to send us pictures from the different places that you go?” My Mom says.
“Of course I will.”
“Will you call us once a week?”
“If you want me to.”
“Do you promise to be safe and return home in less than a year-and-a-half?”
“I can’t promise that, but I can do my best to be home within that time.”
“Will you give us a radio that we can talk to you on?”
“If you want me to, but if any of this is going to happen I need to get a good night's sleep so I can get an early start on planning tomorrow. So goodnight, and I will see you in the morning bright and early.”
The next morning when I woke up I felt refreshed, and opened my eyes to see sunlight beaming through the window. I could feel the warmth it was giving me through the blanket.
“Ahhhh, I slept so well. So peacefully.” I tell my parents when I get downstairs.
“We were up all night thinking about what your route could be. At first we were thinking you could go to South America, then to North America. After that, Europe, Asia and Australia. Then the last continent that you would go to would be Antartica,” my mom tells me, “but then we were like, ‘no, she wants to go to Antarctica first,’ so we have another proposition for you. First go to Antarctica, then Europe. After Europe would be the Americas, then off you go to Asia and back home.”
“Woah, woah, woah. Slow down. I haven’t even started to think about this yet and you are already planning where I am going! I don’t think so!” I yell furiously. “You can help me plan where I will go and when, but you will not be planning my route without me. I will tell you when I would like to plan and you can sit with me. Ok?”
“Ok, ok. We will wait for you to be ready,” my mom says sadly.
Now I feel bad for yelling at them they were only trying to help me.
“I’m sorry for yelling at you. You were only trying to help,” I said. “We can plan my route together today. Let me just go upstairs to shower and get dressed first.”
“Ok,” they say together solemnly.
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By the end of the day we had all decided on a route that we all liked. First I am going to Antarctica, then South America, after that I am going to North America, we had trouble deciding where to go after that but in the end we decided that I would go to Europe next. After Europe I will go to Asia and them back home. I am going to spend about 2 months at each place staying longer if I really like it there. Deciding my route took the whole with lots of arguments and friendly disagreements. I was extremely tired by the end of the night and just wanted to fall over and collapse.
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The next day when I got up I said to myself, “Today I am going to plan what kind of clothing that I am going to need in the different parts of the world.”
So that is exactly what I did.
I started with Antarctica. I am going to need lots of layers that will keep me warm. In addition to the layers I will need, I will need extraordinarily warm snow pants because I will freeze if I don’t. I think that that is it. Wait… nope. I still need a jacket. A very warm one! I already have some layers I could bring, but I will need to get more. I have never had the need for really really warm snow pants or a jacket, so I will have to buy them from Amazon.
“Alina,” my Mom yells to me up the stairs. “Do you need any help with what to pack?”
“No!” I yell back ”I’m good!”
“Ok, have fun with it!”
“Thanks!”
Well now that I have my list I can order all of the stuff I need. First snow pants and a jacket from Amazon. Then warm layers from… Oh wait Amazon again. Well now I have two Amazon orders coming.
By the time I get everything picked out and ordered it’s late, so I yell down to my mom and dad, “I am going to bed now!”
“Goodnight sweetie! Did your ordering go okay?” They say.
“Yeah, it was great!”
“That's good. See you in the morning!”
When I go to brush my teeth and wash my face, I realize I need to order shampoo, conditioner, soap, face wash, and a travel toothbrush. I might be forgetting something, but that will have to wait until the morning.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Two weeks of planning later… we are on the way to the boat dock with all of the things I want to have easily accessible to me on the boat.
As we get closer and closer I smell the salty tangy air that accompanies the ocean everywhere.
The smell gets stronger and stronger, and I know that I have to do this.
“Are you nervous to be setting sail on your own?” My parents ask.
“YES.” I practically scream at them.
“I am sure that you will do just fine,” they say back, “You have always wanted to get away and travel on your own, and now is your chance.”
“I know, but I have never been on my own and am a little nervous, but I am going to have an amazing time on this trip, so I am more nervous than excited.”
“Oh, I am going to miss you so much,” my mom cries as she hugs me.
I can feel my eyes fill with tears as she says that. When she lets go of me I can see her eyes are filled to the brim with tears almost spilling over down her cheeks. Then I turn to my dad and see that his eyes are also filled to the brim, but his are different than my mom’s because his have already spilled over and are running like rivers down his cheeks.
“Goodbye,” he tells me in a teary voice. “Go, have a good time. We will be here waiting for you when you get back.”
“I am going to miss you soooooo much,” I say, just as tearfully as he did. I hug him as tight as I can so I won’t miss him.
“I am going to miss you sooo much,” my brother weeps as he squeezes me as hard as he can.
“I know I am going to miss you so much more,” I say just as weepy.
“Then why are you going?” He asks.
“I want to be able to find my place in the world, which I can’t do here. I will get too restless,” My answer could’ve been more creative, but I don’t have much emotional energy left anymore.
“Goodbye everyone,” I say, as I get onto my boat, “I’ll miss you.”
At this point I am full on crying, and so are my parents, but we all know that I have to go. Otherwise I will feel like our small town is closing in on me.
They undo the rope tying me to the dock, and as they do it I say to myself,” You can do this, you can do this, you can do this.”
I head into the captains area so I can start steering and notice that there is a little note card folded over on it’s side with my name on it, probably from my parents. I pick it up and look on the inside and it says:
Dear Alina,
We are going to miss you so much and hope that you have a great trip. Don’t forget to call us using the radio we bought you. We wanted to give you one more going away present. We weren’t sure what to get but in the end we decided that you have everything you need for your trip. All you are missing is a little money to shop with when you get somewhere with a place to shop and things you would like. So, in the safe behind you we have put $300. I guess you probably want to know the code. It’s 2468. Have fun!
Love
Mom & Dad
As I leave the harbor I can see the open waters ahead of me and scream at the top of my lungs “I AM FREE!!!!”
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Sooner than I think I should be I am feeling the air get colder and the water get rougher, and I know I am getting closer to Antarctica. I go into the main cabin where all of my stuff is and get my winter jacket off the hook where I put it when I was loading everything in to the boat.
The hook was on the back of the door, so when I went into the cabin I looked out the window and saw small chunks of ice floating around the water.
I didn’t think it had been that long since I had left, but maybe I was wrong. I have been keeping a tally of the days that have passed since I left my home in Africa. The tallies are upstairs in the steering room.
When I get up there and look at my tallies I see there are two slashed lines already carved into the wood. Wow, I have been so full of adrenaline that I haven’t felt the days pass by.
It is getting so cold I think I need another layer, so I go back down to my cabin to get my snow pants. I feel so much warmer when I put them on. It’s like a thick blanket of warmth. Did I mention that I got the kind that are heated?
They are SO warm!! I love them!
When I get back to the steering room I look out and see the ice chunks getting bigger and bigger.
And all of sudden EERRRRR BANG.
“Uh oh,” I say to myself. “This can’t be good”
I run out onto the deck and all around me it is windy. Cold, strong winds blow from all directions. I can smell the salty water and the bitter cold is freezing my nose, so all of a sudden I can’t smell the salt anymore.
My head is bowed against the wind.
When I open my eyes and see the deck, it has water frozen all over it. I convince myself to look up into the raging wind.
It is like hundreds of little piranhas are biting my face all at once. I quickly look around me and see white, white, and more white.
I immediately know why the boat has stopped: it got stuck in the ice and snow.
“Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness,” I say to myself over and over.
I need try and stay calm so I can get help.
I race up to the steering room and look to the front window and look at the deck. It is starting to sink down into the deep, dark, cold water below. I start to freak out.
I struggle to find the radio. Then I remember that I put it in the cabinet under the steering wheel incase of emergency. I rip open the cabinet with my freezing hands as fast as I can.
My heart is pounding my lungs seem to think that I’m running a marathon.
I press the talk button on the radio.
“Hello? Is anyone there? My boat is taking on water and sinking,”
No response.
I press the button again.
“Is anyone there? I need help!”
Again nothing.
I frantically try over and over again.
Each time there is no response. By this point the whole boat is sitting lower in the water, and more and more water is spilling over the sides of the boat.
I give up, because there is nobody there to help. I decide to try one more thing.
I change the channel to the one that my parents told me to use to talk to them. Channel 5.
So I switch it.
“Mom? Dad?”
Nothing.
“Is anyone there?”
Still nothing.
At that point I lost all faith that anyone would respond.
The boat is sinking lower and lower into the water.
I can hear my heart pounding. It is getting louder and louder as my level of panic increases. The boat is sinking lower and lower until the whole deck is covered in water. It’s only a matter of time before it gets to where I am.
I sit down on the blue Linoleum. It is cold and hard, but I don’t care. In a few short hours I could be dead so it doesn’t really matter.
I fall into a deep sleep to temporarily relieve my stressed-out brain, but I wake up much too soon. At the same time it was perfect timing because the water was sneaking up onto the floor. I quickly get up and look out the window, and an even bigger wave of panic rises over me.
Outside of the window there is water coming up the side of the boat all the way to the very top of it where I am. Slowly the boat is sinking lower and lower into the cold dark water that I can see will put me into a watery grave. The thought scares me that I could die right now and no one would know for a long time.
Time feels like it is speeding up. The seconds turn into minutes and now the water is up to the window outside and there is ankle deep water where I’m standing. It is just as it looked earlier: cold, dark and uninviting. Except earlier it was farther away. I am now seeing it up close.
The water is coming up faster and faster until it is coming up to my waist. Now it’s at my shoulders, chin, and it is finally at my eyes. All of a sudden I am submerged. There is no more air in the room, and I am beginning the short process of drowning.
As fast as I can I swim over to the window and start kicking it as hard and fast as I can, but it won’t budge. I get more and more panicked as I start to need more and more oxygen. Every second I can see the water around me get darker and darker, colder and colder, until I can feel nothing, and it all goes black.
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Slowly I begin to bring my unconscious brain to a jolting start.
“What is going on?!?” I try to scream, but it’s lost into the water when only bubbles come out.
I start to freak out more and more. I grow increasingly panicked because somehow I am living and breathing under water. I take in a large lung-full of air. I’m surprised that I don’t start coughing and choking on it. In fact I don’t seem to be affected. Can’t understand what is happening because as far as I know I died when the boat sank, like any normal person. My brain is full of questions to the point that it might explode.
I look down at myself. I am still wearing the snow pants and jacket but they are so waterlogged that I don’t think they are doing anything. I don’t even feel cold anymore. The water around me feels… warm. Which is weird because I am at the bottom of the Southern Ocean near the Arctic Circle.
I take off the snowpants. I still feel warm, it’s like my body is heating me and the water around me.
I take off my jacket, and I am still as warm. The warmth is so welcoming after being in the freezing wind for a day.
I am still in the steering room and want to get out so I can see if I am dreaming or dead. I try to swim out whoosh, bang, Owwwww. I crash into one of the walls in the steering room.
“Ohhhhh,” I wince when I see a bruise coming ever-so-quickly.
All of a sudden it is gone.
Nothing hurts anymore.
I touch it and press on it.
Nothing, no pain at all.
Okay, now I am really freaked out. Why? How? So many thoughts are running through my brain. The most important ones are: What am I? Oh wait, not that one. How am I here and not dead? Why can I not move around without running into walls?
I try again to swim out of this room. I go slowly and carefully until I see a flash of bubbles around me, and then crash I right into the wall in the room I was trying to swim into.
“Owwwwwww!” I do not want to do that again. It feels like I am breaking every bone in my body, but it ceases to be painful after a short while.
Once again I ask myself, What is going on?
I decide to not try and go anywhere so that I don’t feel the pain of a rhinoceros stomping on me.
In a blink of an eye, out from the shadows, come women. I shrink back into the corner realizing that this must be the devil coming to collect my soul.
Then they smile, it looks creepy and that scares me. I huddle into corner as small as I can to hide, but it is as if they can smell me. They come closer, and closer, and closer.
I hide my face plead with them,”Please, don’t hurt me.”
“I promise we won’t hurt you. We want to help you,” they say at first.
Then, “You have been turned by the gods into one of us. You have a choice. We can take you with us and you can live with us and be at peace with us, or you can go on your own and be against us and we will kill you in a way that will send you to hell where your soul will be tortured by Satan himself. But the choice is yours.” The person in the front of the formation says.
Those both sound like scary optionw. The first one means I am going to go to some stranger’s house and live there for the rest of eternity, and the second option is that I go to hell and get tortured for eternity.
“I need a minute to think about it,” I tell them.
So many thoughts are running through my brain. Should I really trust these people? Or should I go off on my own and be on the run for a all of eternity?
decided.
"I know what I want to do,” I tell them.
“I am going to live with you and the others. I want to live in peace, and I want you to teach me how to live underwater, and most of all I want a family that I can count on when I need them but isn’t always following me around.”
“Lesson number one.” They start.
“I am going to decide what the first lesson is,” I say as I cut them off.
“You are going to teach me how to swim without crashing into the wall. No, you are going to tell me what I am, then you will teach me how to swim.” I say a little nicer, but with a lack of trust towards them.
“You are no longer part of the human race but a part of the Arksune.”
“What?”
“An Arksune has to protect the oceans from potentially harmful creatures, or potentially our own.”
“Now tell me how to control the speed that I swim at.”
“If you use only your hands to propel yourself forward you will go slow enough to stay in control, like this.”
She puts her hands in front of her and scoops them forward toward me and she goes slow. I want to go that speed and not run into walls.
“See, it’s easy. Now you try”
I extend my arms slowly into the water ahead and feel like I am floating towards the floor so I use my legs to swim higher in the water, ooommpff.
“Oops, I forgot not to use my feet.”
That hurt, but the pain is going away already.
I try again.
I extend my hands out in front of me like the leader of the Arksune did. So far so good. I do an underwater doggie paddle with one hand slowly, and I slowly move forward. I do it with the other hand, and move forward again. I keep doing the hand movement and keep inching forward slowly until I get the hang of it going faster and faster the better I get.
“I DID IT!” I scream with joy. I can finally swim. Using my hands I swim excitedly around the room.
“I am ready to go and see your home,” I tell the Arksune.
“We will take you there, but first you must know our names, and you must tell us yours.”
The one on the far left says her name is Violet, next to her is Ella, the woman next to Ella is strikingly beautiful, and her name is Renée. Next to Renée is Olivia. Last, but not least, is the leader. The original Arksune that started the whole dynasty, is Elizabeth.
“You can call me Lizzie though,” Elizabeth tells me, “that is what everybody calls me.”
“My name is Alina Angevin.”
“We are ready to take you to our home now,” Lizzie tells me.
“I am so excited!” I say a little loud and too enthusiastically.
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I am so astounded by the beauty of their underwater home I have to stop to take it all in. Ivory walls with the smallest bit of algae. Carvings on every part of it. It is truly a work of art. We haven’t even made it inside. The original door looks to be wooden, but that has since come off. I am not sure if that was nature’s doing or the Arksune. The walls look like they could be granite and could have a slimy texture.
We get closer and closer to the door and when we get close enough to touch it I reach out. I was wrong earlier, the walls aren’t slimy. They have been perfectly preserved, and the granite is not granite. It’s marble. That surprised me. I didn’t think someone would have enough money to buy, build, and carve something this big.
When I finally get myself together enough to move into the village, I see many more houses.
“Alina, your house is over here,” Lizzie tells me.
“I get my own house!” I exclaim.
“Yes, of course you do. We all have our own houses.” She responds like I should know that.
“This place is fantastic!!! No, not fantastic, it’s wonderful!” I scream to anyone that is listening.
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That night I get unpacked and all settled in. When Lizzie invites me to come eat dinner with them I said yes. I have missed eating dinner with other people.
I follow her outside, and there are four men outside the house holding knives against the others. I see three more coming for me and Lizzie.
“Go! I will try hold them off. You must go and find more people like us, and teach them our ways of living, and then bring them here to live and help you find others. We can’t have any people like us roaming free in the oceans.”
I kick with my feet as fast and hard as I can, but it isn’t enough. I know they will get me.
All I can do is swim.