Daughter of the Deep

by Rick Riordan

Nature’s creative power is far beyond man’s instinct of destruction. —Jules Verne, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

Here’s the thing about life-shattering days. They start just like any other.

I suppose I should get this out of the way. Harding-Pencroft is a five-year high school. We’re divided into four houses, based on the results of our aptitude tests. We call the academy HP for short. And, yes, we’ve heard all the Harry Potter jokes. Thanks anyway.

the impossible is merely the possible for which we don’t yet know the science.”

I’ve heard “experts” say that autistic people have trouble with empathy, but sometimes I wonder if these experts have ever actually sat down and talked to autistic people.

Top sits at my feet and wags his tail. He gives me his most soulful stare. I’m a very good boy. I almost killed someone earlier.

This is how they wear you down: They just keep making the same “oopsie,” hoping that you’ll eventually get tired of calling them on it.

I’ve learned that the world doesn’t care what is right for me. I have to make it care.

I swallow the metallic taste of fear. I’ve just been made acting captain of a ship with a crew of twenty freshmen, a dog, a dolphin, and one comatose adult.

Top will follow Ester around and look cute. Socrates will come and go as he pleases, eating fish and playing in the ocean. Why do the animals get the best jobs?

“The Nautilus is dangerous, Ana. I think it killed your parents. I don’t want it to kill you, too.”

Now I’ve lost Dev, too. Why do I keep missing my chances to say good-bye?

Given the choice between destruction or lasagna, I will choose lasagna every time.

How to make twenty freshmen hyperactive: 1. Give them access to an espresso machine. 2. Offer them a safe haven after seventy-two hours of running from death. 3. Feed them a home-cooked meal made by an orangutan. 4. Tell them that tomorrow, they will get to see a make-believe submarine from the 1800s that is actually not make-believe.

Top sits patiently at Ester’s feet. He doesn’t beg—he’s too clever for that. He just looks cute and sad, staring into the distance as if thinking, Alas, my poor stomach! Whenever someone slips him a scrap, which happens frequently, he looks surprised. For me? Well, if you insist.

I try not to feel self-conscious about addressing an open hatchway. I have talked to dolphins, dogs, orangutans, and even students from Land Institute. Talking to an antique submarine shouldn’t be any sillier.

And I step over the last threshold my parents ever crossed.

The first thing you want to install in your high-tech super sub? A pipe organ, of course.

I turn to Gem. I wait for him to tell me that he, too, is staying behind. He will want to be where the fight is. “Oh, no,” he says, reading my expression. “My orders are to keep you safe. Where you go, I go.”

To my surprise, he’s starting to feel like someone I want at my side, like Ester and Nelinha, and I’m not sure how to process what that means.

“Gather the crew. Get the orangutan. I’m taking command of the Nautilus.”

Top rests his head on her thigh. I think he is reminding her that food is important and also it tastes good.

Then again, our labels always depend on who’s doing the labeling. Patriot, freedom fighter, terrorist, thug. Prince Dakkar was a brown man fighting the colonizers. I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t have helped his reputation in Europe.

“It’s okay to be emotional.”

I never realized how much of leadership is learning to sound confident when you’re actually terrified.

Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.

The dolphins welcome him to the neighborhood with an extreme tail-fin smackdown.

I don’t know what Land Institute’s school motto is, but I want it to be This is why we can’t have nice things.

“Not a bodyguard. Maybe I could just, you know, stay as a friend.”

I remember what Gem told me days ago, in Lincoln Base’s sick bay: I don’t have many connections. So the ones I do have are important. I realize I am now included in that very small group of important connections, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I’m grateful to hear this, but I also feel strangely uneasy. I wonder if this is what it means to be a leader, and if the doubts ever go away.

I can’t trust Dev. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to, but I do love him. He’s still my brother. Maybe he can start to realize what he has done, and how far he needs to climb to come back to me.

I have to be strong for him, as I was for my crew.

I stand over him as he cries, and I watch the flowers of the sea changing color in the light of the Nautilus. I say good-bye to my mother and father. I say a prayer for my brother, and fo...