Copyright Merrie Koester Southgate. No part of this work may be reproduced in whole or in part.

Copyright Merrie Koester Southgate. No part of this work may be reproduced in whole or in part.

2

Agnes Pflumm and

the Secret of the Seven

By Merrie Koester Southgate

Copyright Merrie Koester Southgate. No part of this work may be reproduced in whole or in part.

3

Chapter 1  

The Quest Begins  Twelve-year-old Agnes Pflumm shiv-ered and drew her raincoat more tightly around her thin body. The ancient right whale was dead. A gill net ensnared its entire head, and its tail fluke and flippers were wrapped round and round with frayed fishing line. Agnes was alone on the edge of the winter sea with the spiritless beast. An oppressive northeast wind blew freezing rain and sand into Agnes’s face, and she could barely see. She dropped to her knees and began to crawl toward the animal. Agnes was at once fascinated and horrified. Through the gray mist, she perceived that the whale’s huge distended ab-domen had been ripped open by a venue of feasting vultures, now pacing in a circle around the body. “SHOO! SCAT!” cried Agnes, grasping a fallen Palmetto frond with

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which to sweep away the bloodthirsty birds. Reluctantly they withdrew, but only a few paces. Agnes inched toward the muti-lated carcass of the titanic mammal. The vultures stared mutely. Agnes Pflumm ignored them. Suddenly, from across the waves, through the forbid-ding mist, she heard a mournful cry. The whales!

Agnes pulled up sharply and strained her ears. This was not the first time they had spoken to her. She could hear them breaching. In an-guished, desperate tones, they im-plored:

“You are the one for whom The Last

Book was written. Our slain mother carries it yet within.

Let not its secrets be lost.”

“What?” cried Agnes. “I don’t understand!”

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And then, an answer from the gentle cetaceans: “What man once knew has been forgot-

ten. The Last Book holds The Truth.”

“Oh, no,” Agnes gasped with sudden understanding. “I don’t think I can….”

SLAP! CRACK! The breaching of the whales was insistent, sending an unequivocal message. “Allright. I’ll do it,” agreed Agnes fearfully. Dropping to her knees, she held her breath and plunged both her scrawny arms into the dead beast’s entangled entrails, groping for the stomach. Yes! Just as she had thought there would, was a ragged tear in the stomach wall (cour-tesy of the hungry vultures). Swal-lowing back vomit, Agnes probed

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through a congealed salad of partially digested plankton and along the deeply furrowed ridges of the massive digestive organ.

What’s this? Her fingers touched the edge of a hard, flat, boxlike object. Immediately, her fingertips began to burn with heat, and the offshore cries of the whales intensified to a piercing scream.

Agnes grasped the box with both hands and leaned outward from the whale’s body, pulling with all her might. But the thing was lodged against the whale’s rib cage! Now intensely excited by the delicious aroma of the stirred-up-dead, the vultures began to hop about impa-tiently. Agnes stepped back to let them go back to work, poised to frighten away the hungry scavengers the moment the elusive prize material-ized. Silently tearing at the whale’s flesh, the vultures feasted, while Agnes Pflumm quaked with cold and fear.

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Utterly distracted by the discov-ery of the beached whale, Agnes had completely forgotten she was to meet Edward Fartlesnap at dawn at the Periwinkle Rec Center. Edward looked at his watch for the third time in eight minutes. Where was she? Something must be wrong; for Agnes had never been late for one of their before-school beach walks. Edward set off at a run down the beach toward her house. At last! The box was in her hands.

“Thank you, vultures.” Agnes announced to the anxious birds. “Because of this great whale, you’ll live to fly another day.” Agnes turned the slimy, wrin-kled box over and over in her hands, searching for a way to open it; but it was completely sealed, as if shrink-wrapped in what looked like golden yellow eel skin. She held it up and

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shook it vigorously. She could feel something shifting about inside.

“Open, drat you!’ cried Agnes. She gnawed on the edge of the casing with her teeth, but her human canines were not made for such work. She needed a tool.

“Aha! You should do nicely,” ex-claimed Agnes, grabbing a large knobbed whelk half buried in the surf.

Impatiently, Agnes scratched at the box’s tough casing with the razor-sharp edge of the shell.

SCREEEEK. Whooooooosh…. A hiss of salt air squirted from inside the eelskin case. “Aha!” declared Agnes, tightening her grip on the slippery box. With the next frantic swipe of the shell, she sliced open the covering – and the top of her left hand, flaying open her own skin as well.

“Arghhh!” Agnes yelped, ignor-ing the blood dripping down her arm. “No hinges!”

Sweating despite the frigid air, Agnes worked feverishly to open the ancient wooden box, which was as

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hard as iron and completely stuck shut. Again, she used the shell as a tool, this time to pry apart the two halves of the box in much the same way a knobbed whelk itself would open a clam. One edge gave way slightly, but not enough. “Come on!” screamed Agnes, managing to insert the shell’s tip about a centimeter more. Just off-shore, the whales answered with a chorus of “V”-shaped sprays. Again, they called out. “The Last Book is with the Chosen One

at last!”

“Not yet it isn’t!” wailed Agnes, exhausted and bleeding.

“Let not the Great Truth be lost! Be

quick” Suddenly the sun broke through the clouds. “Wait! I’m so stupid!” cried Agnes. “I need a fulcrum!” With adrenaline surging to her very fin-

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gertips, Agnes scooped up the box with the shell’s siphonal canal still in it and ran over to a fallen palmetto. (The vultures eyed her warily, but kept eating.) Agnes balanced the wooden box across the top of the log. Then, straddling the fallen tree, she placed her foot on the left side of the box and pulled up on the crown of the whelk with her good right hand.

CREAAAK. CRACK. UMPHH

Mission accomplished.

Our heroine rejoices and stumbles backwards.

“The Last Book!”

called the whales, growing frantic. Agnes sat down with a thud, the now open box across her lap. She could not believe her eyes. Her growing panic now escalated to hysteria.

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“There is no BOOK inside!” gasped Agnes, barely able to breathe. She began to tremble. What was she not seeing? This was no book. In-deed, it was only a pile of what looked like ordinary sea lettuce, a type of green leafy algae one often sees washed up on the shore. Agnes gently lifted the edge of the first algal sheet and saw to her amazement that there was a dinner-plate sized sand dollar beneath it. In fact, each delicate sheath in the pile was separated by yet another sand dollar. Could these sheaths some-how be “pages” of some kind of liv-ing book?

“Hurry!” came the cry yet again.

“But I don’t see any writing!” wailed Agnes, frantically holding up the first sheath toward the bright sun. “Oh!!!! There’s something here! There’s a picture carved on it!”

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In the next moment, the delicate page shriveled in her hand, as dry as a potato chip nuked in a microwave.

“Oh, no! The sun!” shrieked Agnes. “I’m an idiot!” she wailed, hastily closing the box with its precious, priceless contents.

Agnes’s heart was pounding. Grabbing the poor knobbed whelk yet again, she gouged a shallow hole in the sand, digging until the groundwa-ter began to seep up into it. She thrust the book into the water and fought to catch her breath.

“Aaaaaagnes!” Edward called out into the wind. Then he broke into a sprint. He had seen the beached whale.

“Agnes!” cried Edward. Her back was toward him.

Agnes jerked her head up and around. She was pale, trembling and insanely disheveled. Her eyes were wild, her tear-stained cheeks burnt from the wind, her umber-colored hair streaked with gritty sand.

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“Agnes, what the devil are you doing?” exclaimed Edward, gravely alarmed.

Agnes turned to face him. Both her arms were covered with slimy strands of whale innards, and down her left arm ran steady trickle of blood.

“Ag, you’re bleeding!” cried Ed-ward, his eyes wide with horror.

“The least of my worries,” said Agnes waving him away. But Edward yanked a handkerchief from his pocket and gently began to wrap it around the nasty wound. One thing was sure - there would be no school for either of them that morning.

Agnes began to cry. “Oh, Ed-ward. I am such a fool,” she wailed, her back to the pool of water with its precious contents.

“We’re all fools at some time or another, Ag,” said Edward gently, kneeling beside his friend.

Meanwhile, the vultures had re-turned to their breakfast, turning whale into bird.

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Agnes stared out over the ocean. Her mind was racing. By whose hand had the pictographs inscribed on the sheaths of algae been written? Per-haps it wasn’t even a hand! Why not a fin, a tooth, a chitonous claw? The whales had not said. Suddenly, she spun in the sand to face Edward square on. “Edward, the Sun! It will de-stroy The Last Book before we can learn the Great Truth! The book is right here – in this pool of water!” “Ag, What are you’re talking about? You’re acting crazy.” Edward stood up and pulled Agnes up with him. “Here, let me take you home,” he said, grasping her right arm firmly. He hadn’t even looked in the pool of water. “NO! NO! NO! You don’t under-stand!” screamed Agnes, jerking away from Edward. “Blimey, Ag! Calm down. You’re losing it. Maybe that nasty gash is getting infected. Do you have a fever?”

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he asked, reaching to touch Agnes’s forehead. “I’m fine!” Agnes declared. “And I’m not crazy.” She took his hands and pulled them both back down to their knees in the sand. “I know this sounds weird,” Agnes continued, star-ing into Edward’s wary eyes. “But the whales have spoken to me, given me an important task.” “You’re crazy all right,” cracked Edward, unable to keep from smiling. “Edward Fartlesnap, just be quiet for once!” ordered Agnes. “Be still, and I believe they will speak to you as well.” “I suppose I might as well stay here with you, “sighed Edward. “The first bell has already rung. Now we’re truants. My parents are going to ground me for life.” Wave after wave crashed upon the winter beach. The two friends sat huddled together and waited. Edward cupped his ears, straining to hear something, anything. And then

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abruptly, a new call came from the whales – this time to both youth: “A half grown child will lead the way,

and a human heart will summon its kind to love and to understand before it is too

late to protect the sea.” Edward jumped up, astounded. “You heard them, too, didn’t you, Edward?” “Please say you did!” pleaded Agnes, grabbing his shoulders and staring wildly into his eyes. He nodded, his eyes filled with astonish-ment. “Okay, Edward, let me ask you something,” mused Agnes. “Miss one day of school – or save the ocean planet? Which do you think is more important?” Edward just shook his head and stared out at the horizon, hoping to hear the whales speak again. “Be quick, lest The Last Book vanish.”

“Agnes, what’s this Last Book?” demanded Edward.

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“That’s what was I was trying to tell you, Edward,” said Agnes, jump-ing up and scrambling back to the pool, which was now almost com-pletely dry. “Oh, no!” exclaimed Agnes. “We’re too late! The box is drying out.” “Too late for what?” asked Ed-ward, immediately at her side. “Is The Last Book inside that box?” “Yes!” managed Agnes. “But its pages are made of sea lettuce. There are strange picture symbols carved on the surface of each sheet, but the only way to see them is to hold the sheet up to the sun.” “So, open the box, and let’s start going through it,” said Edward sensi-bly. “No, Edward, it’s not that sim-ple,” explained Agnes. “Within just a few seconds of holding a page up to the sun, the algae disintegrates.” “Okay, that’s a problem,” agreed Edward, suddenly spying Agnes’s orange backpack in the sand near the

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whale. He brightened. “Ag, do you have your sketchbook with you?” “You know I do, Edward.” “Great! I have a plan, but it would mean you’d have to draw with your right hand. Can you do that? “Yes, but not as fast,” answered Agnes. “Just do your best,” said Edward, running to retrieve the backpack. He withdrew the sketchbook and a pencil and handed them to Agnes, who turned to a clean sheet of paper. “Can you remember what the first picture looked like?” asked Ed-ward. “I’ll never forget it, Edward. It was like a young child’s paper cut-out.” “What was it?” “Four humans floating hand in hand on the water, declared Agnes. “Here, I’ll draw it.” Edward watched in amazement while Agnes’s graphite pencil moved awkwardly across the paper. Sure enough, the image of four simple human forms materialized.

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“Are they floating face up or face down?” “I’m not sure, Edward,” said Agnes. “I think that’s going to be impor-tant,” Edward said, thinking hard. “Okay, are you ready for the next page?” asked Edward. We’ll work as a team. I’ll hold up a sheet of sea lettuce, while you draw the picture on it as fast as you can.” “I’m on it!” cried Agnes, turning to a fresh sheet in her sketchbook. She brushed the hair from her eyes, and repositioned the pencil in her right hand.

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“Ready?” asked Edward. “Yes.”

As gently as possible, Edward extracted the topmost leaf of seaweed from the wooden box and held it up to the daylight. Beside him, Agnes cop-ied into her sketchbook the primitive drawing etched on the seaweed parchment. But just as before, in less than thirty seconds, the second page, too, was reduced to a crunchy, shriv-eled ruin.

Edward looked at Agnes with horror.

“Another page!” screamed Agnes. The pair worked silently, almost

without breathing. There seemed to be over fifty seaweed pages here. The pool had completely dried up. They were just finishing the seventh page when Agnes looked down and saw with horror that Edward had forgot-ten to replace the lid of the box.

“Oh, no! We’re too late, Edward! Look!”

The Last Book and all the remaining pages began to disintegrate, releasing

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sparkling bubbles of gas. Within sec-onds, it was nothing more than a gelatinous green mush, sticking to the inside of the wooden box, which had kept it safe for who knew how many years. Its urgent secrets were now lost forever

“Oh, Edward, we’ve failed,” moaned Agnes, throwing her body backwards onto the cold sand.” Offshore, the whales were pro-foundly silent, while Edward grieved for his oversight.