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Chapters (72)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright
  3. Epigraph
  4. FOREWORD
  5. INTRODUCTION
  6. Harding-Pencroft Academy
  7. The Freshman Class of Harding-Pencroft
  8. Chapter One
  9. Chapter Two
  10. Chapter Three
  11. Chapter Four
  12. Chapter Five
  13. Chapter Six
  14. Chapter Seven
  15. Chapter Eight
  16. Chapter Nine
  17. Chapter Ten
  18. Chapter Eleven
  19. Chapter Twelve
  20. Chapter Thirteen
  21. Chapter Fourteen
  22. Chapter Fifteen
  23. Chapter Sixteen
  24. Chapter Seventeen
  25. Chapter Eighteen
  26. Chapter Nineteen
  27. Chapter Twenty
  28. Chapter Twenty-One
  29. Chapter Twenty-Two
  30. Chapter Twenty-Three
  31. Chapter Twenty-Four
  32. Chapter Twenty-Five
  33. Chapter Twenty-Six
  34. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  35. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  36. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  37. Chapter Thirty
  38. Chapter Thirty-One
  39. Chapter Thirty-Two
  40. Chapter Thirty-Three
  41. Chapter Thirty-Four
  42. Chapter Thirty-Five
  43. Chapter Thirty-Six
  44. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  45. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  46. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  47. Chapter Forty
  48. Chapter Forty-One
  49. Chapter Forty-Two
  50. Chapter Forty-Three
  51. Chapter Forty-Four
  52. Chapter Forty-Five
  53. Chapter Forty-Six
  54. Chapter Forty-Seven
  55. Chapter Forty-Eight
  56. Chapter Forty-Nine
  57. Chapter Fifty
  58. Chapter Fifty-One
  59. Chapter Fifty-Two
  60. Chapter Fifty-Three
  61. Chapter Fifty-Four
  62. Chapter Fifty-Five
  63. Chapter Fifty-Six
  64. Chapter Fifty-Seven
  65. Chapter Fifty-Eight
  66. Chapter Fifty-Nine
  67. Chapter Sixty
  68. Chapter Sixty-One
  69. Chapter Sixty-Two
  70. Chapter Sixty-Three
  71. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  72. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

She sniffles some more. “That was a joke, right?”

“No. But no one will hate you.”

“What about the trustees? I told you what I know. They’ll disinherit me.”

“If the trustees give you any problems, I will personally kick each and every one of them in the groin.”

Ester considers this. She doesn’t ask if I’m joking. “Okay. That’s good. I love you.”

She says it with such a flat tone that anyone else could have missed it, or taken it as a polite, meaningless phrase, like How you doing? But I know she means it.

“I love you, too,” I say. “Can I ask you one more thing?”

She nods. As she strokes Top’s ear, I notice how badly she’s chewed up her cuticles.

I’m not sure I want to know the answer, but I ask anyway. “You said you knew what was going to happen to me. What did you mean?”

She frowns at the picture on the front of the book. A dark, jagged volcano rises from the churning sea. In the foreground, a drenched dog that looks very much like Top trembles alone on a tiny outcropping of rock.

“When your parents found the Nautilus,” she says, “they tried to open it. They tried to go inside. Your dad should have been able to do it. He was a direct descendant of Nemo. I don’t know exactly what happened, but something went wrong. That’s why HP was so careful with Dev. They didn’t want him to go near the sub until they understood—”

“Wait,” I say, my head spinning. “My parents’ death was an accident.”

“I don’t think so.” For a rare moment, Ester actually meets my eyes. “The Nautilus is dangerous, Ana. I think it killed your parents. I don’t want it to kill you, too.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Over the next two days, I try not to obsess too much about Ester’s words.

I don’t succeed. At night, I lie awake thinking about my parents’ deaths. I imagine them diving into the creepy rusted-out wreck of a sub, only to get trapped inside, or killed by some ancient booby trap. I think about Dev, and how it must have torn him up to keep so many secrets. I have nightmares about the dark arrowhead shape of the Aronnax hurtling toward us underwater, cracking the Varuna’s hull in two.

During the day, I’m too busy stressing about immediate problems to worry about problems that might kill me later. Thank goodness for small favors.