Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3 Traitorous au pair or not, Dan was ready to go. He was at Oceanus, and nothing was going to stop him from checking out the water park. "What is it with girls— what's taking so long?" Dan was in his swim trunks, one hand on the doorknob as he watched Amy and Nellie burrow through their suitcases. Between the three of them, hardly half a dozen words had been spoken since the plane. Dan had spent the rest of the trip with his thoughts going around in circles. He kept trying to make a mental list of everything that had happened to them when Nellie was around. It wasn't easy, because she'd been around almost the whole time. And no matter how he added things up— from the streets of Paris… through the Australian outback… to the top of Everest— Nellie had helped them far more than she'd

hindered them. All those hotel rooms… Sometimes Nellie had stayed in the same room; other times she'd had her own room. No doubt about it, she would have had plenty of chances to stay in touch with McIntyre, and work out a scheme for betrayal. But why take so long? If she was in league with their enemies, why not just get them out of the way as soon as possible? It just didn't make sense. And Dan had spent enough time on the Clue hunt to know what that meant. Trouble. But for the moment, he had decided to put it out of his mind as much as he could. "C'mon, hurry UP!" he said, jiggling with impatience. "Sunscreen first," Nellie said, tossing him a tube. Dan threw his towel on the bed. He smeared a little sunscreen on his arms, stomach, and chest, then rubbed his greasy hands down the front of his legs. "There. Okay?"

"No, not okay," Nellie said. "Your back, your neck, and the backs of your legs, too. And your ears." "I'll do your back," Amy said quickly. Dan threw her a glance. It was clear to him that she didn't want Nellie in their lives any more than absolutely necessary— not even doing sunscreen duty. "I can do it myself," he said, and did an even worse job on his back than he had on his front. Then he grabbed his towel. "I'm not waiting any longer— I'm going without you." He saw Nellie roll her eyes. "Check in with me at that Dolphin Inlet place at"— she glanced at her watch —"two. And don't lose track of the time. I'm sick of getting freaked out when I can't find you!" He was out the door before she had finished speaking. Dan paid for his admission into the water park and got a rubber band to wear on his wrist. First stop: the Sun Palace waterslides. One of the slides

looked almost perpendicular! He went down as instructed by the park workers at the top of the slide: legs crossed at the ankles, arms crossed over his chest. What a breathtaking ride! Literally. Water sprayed into his mouth and got blasted up his nose; by the time he splashed into the pool at the bottom, he was choking and coughing and spitting water. It was glorious. For two hours, Dan ran around the water park. He couldn't decide if he should first try every single ride once, or if he should do the ones he liked over and over again. This might be his only chance; there wouldn't be any time for fun once they got back on the Clue hunt. This thought made Dan feel a tiny bit guilty. On the way to the next ride, he spent a few minutes poking around the bushes, looking for a cat. Not just any cat— a calico cat, that was what Hamilton had said. Then he saw a sign stating that pets weren't allowed in the park. That meant, of course, that the hunt for the cat would have to take place

outside the park. How many cats lived in the Bahamas? How were they ever going to find the right one? But the next ride put any thought of cats out of his mind. He got on an inner tube and went down a steep slide. The slide leveled out and led into a long tunnel. Except it wasn't like the usual waterslide tunnels. This one was made of clear glass— and it went through a shark tank. The sharks came really close— if the glass hadn't been there, he could have touched them! "It was WAY cool," he said to Amy when the threesome met up. He was only seven minutes late. "Yeah, well, this is way cooler," Nellie said. She held up a string bag full of weird–looking produce. Amy looked away, and Dan followed her lead in ignoring Nellie. But Nellie wasn't giving up. "You should have seen all the stuff at the market," she said. "Plantains, jack fruit, custard apples— I bought, like, one of everything!" She pulled out a handful of round dark brown nuts wrapped in what looked

like red tentacles. "Whole nutmegs. The red stuff, that's mace. You can hardly ever find it whole back home— it's way better for cooking than the powdered stuff. Smell." She thrust her hand out at Dan, who immediately backed away. "No, thanks," he said. "They look like turds. Designer dog turds, like from some fancy miniature show dog." Nellie put the nutmegs back in her bag. "Why do I even bother trying," she muttered. "Wait till you hear this," Dan said. "When I was standing in line, some people were talking about how a shark once jumped OUT of the tank and landed on the slide, can you believe it? And then it slid down and ended up in the splash pool!" Amy shuddered, and Dan knew that she was remembering Australia, where she'd had enough experience with sharks to last a lifetime. "Did anyone get hurt?" she asked anxiously. Dan shrugged. "Naw. It happened before the park was open for the day." His face fell a little. "But the shark died because of the chlorinated