Pa put his arm around Emmie’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze.

Emmie pulled the sheets and blankets up to her chin. The slope of the tent canvas was rippling ever so slightly above her in the gentle evening breeze. They’d only had time to explore a little before nightfall, when the two sailors Pa had employed were setting up the camp. Emmie had passed the dead chimney-like fumaroles and miles of black sandy soil dotted with cactuses; she’d even tried the famous prickly pear, which wasn’t quite as delicious when a person wasn’t marooned and dying of thirst. Her camp bed was set behind a cotton curtain and was as comfortable as she could ask for. Pa’s section of the tent had a small desk and a lamp. She watched his silhouette. Her eyes stung with tiredness, but her mind raced.

“Get some sleep now, Emmie,” said Pa, although she hadn’t made a sound. He turned down the lamp. “We’ll be up at daybreak.”

“Play for me?” she said.

Pa sighed but fetched his fiddle all the same and then the swooping notes of the lullaby he’d written for her as a baby filled her ears and switched off her mind. Her eyes instantly grew heavy …

The cream canvas slanting above her suddenly ballooned inward with a ripping sound. Pa’s fiddle screeched a jarring note and Emmie gasped and covered her head, thinking something had fallen on them, or the whole tent was coming down.

“Pa?” She sprang up in bed as the canvas billowed back out again. “Pa! What was that?” she said, swinging her legs over the side of the bed, staring up at the canvas, blinking.

“Stay where you are, Emmie, don’t move,” he hissed.

She hugged herself, teeth clenched tight. It must have been a huge gust of wind? Just out of nowhere? But the canvas was now still, it made no sense. Unless … it had been something above, passing overhead. But it would have to have been … huge.

Pa and one of the other men spoke in hushed tones at the entrance of the tent and then he came back in and crouched by her bed. He tucked in the covers and kissed her forehead.

“What was it?”

“I don’t know for certain. But it’s gone now. Get some rest.” He looked down at her, but his eyes were far away, and they didn’t seem afraid. They shone in the yellow light of the oil lamp.

Suddenly Emmie wondered if it was possible Pa had always told her the truth. About everything. That none of it was make-believe. No, that was impossible.

But whatever made the tent move like that hadn’t been an albatross, or a blue-footed booby, or a flamingo, or any of the other Galapagos animals he’d told her about.

There was only one thing in the air that big.

And it wasn’t … real.