5 Ch5-Barrh! Barrh!

CHAPTER FIVE Barrh! Barrh! Jack splashed into the blue sunlit sea. He sank to the bottom and then bobbed back up. He coughed and pushed his hair out of his eyes. Annie was treading water nearby. "Hey!" she called. "Hey!" Jack sputtered.

"I was wrong! You were right!" Annie said. She sounded thrilled. "The Spider Queen just wanted to help us!" "Yeah," said Jack. He shook the seawater off his glasses and put them back on. "She must be really lonely!" said Annie. "She probably feels like she has to hide in that cave because she's so scary-looking!" "Maybe," said Jack. He looked around the second cove. Purple shadows stretched over a rocky seashore beneath the cliffs. The sun had moved farther across the sky. "We'd better hurry!" said Jack. "What do we do now?" "Read the rhyme!" said Annie.

Jack pulled the shell out of his pocket. Treading water, he read the next line in Merlin's poem: And swim with a selkie clothed in green. "What's a selkie?" said Annie. "Who knows?" said Jack. He looked at the cliffs and the shore. Is a selkie a fish? A person? What? he wondered. Then Jack saw two dark shapes speeding like fat torpedoes below the surface of the water. They were coming straight toward him and Annie. "Watch out!" Jack shouted. "Yikes!" Annie yelled. Jack and Annie swam out of the way as the creatures moved swiftly past them. Suddenly two

sleek gray heads popped above the surface. They had wide snouts and long white whiskers. They had tiny, wrinkly ears and big, dark eyes. "Seals!" cried Annie. The two seals turned their heads like periscopes. When they saw Jack and Annie, they opened their mouths, showing their small, pointed teeth. They seemed to be smiling. "Hi, guys!" said Annie. Barrh! Barrh! the seals barked. Then they rolled through the water and bumped Jack and Annie with their noses. They barked again joyfully, then darted toward the shore. "Come on!" cried Annie. "Let's play with them!"

"We don't have time to play!" said Jack. But Annie had already started after the seals, swimming toward the rocky beach. "Annie! Stop!" called Jack. "We have to hurry and find the selkie! And the Sword of Light! Before nightfall! Or King Arthur will meet his doom…." Jack's voice trailed off. Annie didn't hear him. She and the two seals had reached the shore and were getting out of the water. The seals clumsily hauled their chubby

bodies onto a big rock and flopped down. Annie climbed onto the rock, too. "Annie, come on!" shouted Jack. It could be as late as four o'clock now, he thought. And there was still a lot they had to do before nightfall. "Let's rest for a minute!" Annie called. She sat near the seals and patted their shiny heads as if they were big dogs. The seals barked. Actually, Jack wanted to rest, too. He felt really tired. Maybe we could rest for a minute on the rock with the seals, he thought, then search for the selkie. "Well, okay," he shouted. "But just for a quick minute!"