Read Online Rescue On Nim's Island by Orr Wendy - Free Book Online

sunshine was blinding after the hours of darkness; he leaned against the side of the hill as he waited for his eyes to work again, and listened.
    He’d told Nim and Edmund that he’d heard something because he didn’t know how else to explain the feeling. It was like a warning siren inside him: Something’s wrong! Pay attention . But outside, he could almost hear it with his ears. It was a very faint, gasping noise, like the sound that Ollie made when he’d cried so much he couldn’t cry any more.
    The only other time Tristan had ever felt anything like this was when he and Tiff were seven. He’d been at a friend’s house when Tiff had fallen off the monkey bars and broken her arm. Tris hadn’t waited to tell his friend he was leaving: he’d just run all the way to the playground. He’d got there just as his mum’s car disappeared around the corner on the way to the hospital.
    He’d never forgotten that feeling.
    So he headed down the hill now, still listening. Whatever it was sounded more and more like sobbing, and by the time he got to the Emergency Cave, Tristan was running so fast he skidded right past the entrance.
    ‘Tris?’
    He spun around. His sister and brother were huddled on the floor.
    ‘How come you weren’t here before?’ Ollie demanded. ‘We were going to give you a big surprise!’
    ‘You did,’ said Tristan.
    Tiffany sniffed, wiped her nose on the back of her arm, and stood up. ‘Something terrible’s happened. Lance and Leonora want whatever it is you’ve found, and they say nothing’s going to stop them.’
    T RISTAN LED THE way back up the path, faster than they’d ever thought they could walk at the top of a cliff. He turned where two sticks lay crossed in front of a tree, and disappeared through the hole in the rock.

    ‘I thought I’d looked everywhere,’ Tiffany said bitterly. ‘But I went right past it!’ She boosted Ollie in through the hole, and slid in after him.
    There was a boom of thunder. The first fat raindrops chased her through the hole into suffocating darkness. If she hadn’t been tied to her little brother Tiff would have climbed right back out again. She’d rather be wet than cramped in a low, dank tunnel.
    Tristan turned on his torch. ‘The fossil is on the other side of the wall, right about here.’
    ‘But we’ve got to go down the tunnel to get there?’ Tiffany asked, pulling her own torch out of her pocket.
    Before she’d had time to switch it on, Tris and his light turned into the side tunnel. Ollie followed close to his brother, and for a second, as Tiff stepped into the vast, eerily glimmering cavern, she was alone. She forgot the bats, she forgot Lance and Leonora, she forgot to be afraid. She felt as if she’d stepped into an enchanted world, and she didn’t know yet if it was good or evil.
    Then the sheet around her waist tugged her along, and she hurried around the bend.
    Nim and Edmund stepped back in surprise as Tristan appeared with Ollie. Their lights shone on the huge opal turtle, and when Tristan added his, the blues and greens gleamed as if the sea was caught in the rock, with hints of fire flashing from the heart of Fire Mountain itself.
    Nim prickled. She didn’t want Tiffany here. This was the most special thing she’d ever discovered. Every time she rubbed another little bit clear – another vertebra in the turtle’s neck, or a deeper patch of colour on the shell, excitement bubbled up in her all over again. Now Tiffany was going to say something sarcastic and wreck that feeling.
    ‘Wow,’ Tiffany breathed, exactly like Tristan had. ‘That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.’
    Nim waited. ‘Really?’ she asked at last.
    ‘Totally,’ said Tiffany. She touched the turtle’s shell with a careful finger, as if she were stroking a butterfly – and the coldness of the touch seemed to wake her up.
    ‘This is terrible!’ she said urgently.
    Nim bristled again.
    ‘It’s so amazing, the Bijous are going to want it