go to Maldives tube 3047. Got it?”
Wesley whispered it to himself three times. “Got it,” he said. Tube trips didn’t have to be scheduled ahead of time, but it guaranteed no waiting — always helpful if trying to travel as a group.
“We’re coming!” Hallie shouted.
2. Can an Island Sink?
That next Tuesday night, Wesley set his silent vibrating alarm watch for 1:35 a.m. in the middle of the night. When the watch woke him up, Wesley did exactly what Travis had taught him to do. When Wesley had turned six years old, Travis had told him the secret of Tube World.
Wesley changed into his swimming suit and nothing else. He hid his pajamas. He left a note for his parents, just in case. He crawled under the covers, shutting out all light. At exactly 1:36 he whispered “Sebut Nepo.”
WHAM! There was nothing under Wesley’s feet, and he was falling fast — faster than a race car or a roller coaster, faster than spinning on a ride at the park that usually made Wesley dizzy. But this was dizzier. Wesley was falling like a rock through a bright, shiny tube at 100 miles per second. The air was blowing his hair straight up. It felt like it was blowing his skin up too. Wesley was totally out of control. But he knew he would be all right.
After 33 seconds, Wesley entered the center of the Earth, feet-first. He slowed down but was still moving very quickly. He was inside a giant sphere full of air. The inside surface of the sphere was made up of the round openings for 5,607 billion tubes. Some of the tube entrances were closed off with rubber trampolines. Wesley aimed his feet for a trampoline a little to his right and bounced.
Then Wesley looked quickly above his head. His eyes scanned the names of the open tubes. He found one labeled “Maldives 3047.” Wesley stuck his hands into the tube, followed by his head, shoulders, and the rest of him. A half a minute later, Wesley took a breath and closed his mouth just in time.
Wesley shot up from the bottom of a swimming pool. He swam towards the surface. It didn’t take much effort, as he was already moving so fast. But Wesley spotted his big cousin Hallie’s feet right above him. There was nothing to do but tickle!
When Wesley came to the surface, Hallie wasn’t laughing. “Travis took the wrong tube,” she said.
“Where’d he go?” Wesley and Hallie were in a beautiful swimming pool full of people and surrounded by palm trees. It was not the middle of the night, but bright daylight. They swam toward one wall.
“I don’t know, but he went before me, and he’s not here,” Hallie said.
“Well,” said Wesley, acting grown up with his big cousin, “I’m sure he’s O.K. All the swimming pools are safe, and he can go straight home if he wants to.”
“He won’t do that,” said Hallie. “He’ll go exploring whatever place he ended up in.”
“Do you want to go home?” Wesley asked.
“No,” said Hallie. “I have to show you.”
Wesley hadn’t even researched where he was going, as he counted on Hallie to know. “Where are we?” he asked.
“Come on,” said Hallie. “I’ll show you.”
Hallie and Wesley climbed out of the swimming pool and immediately saw the beach. It was whiter and hotter than the beach in Delaware. It was lined with palm trees and colorful chairs and umbrellas. But along the ocean, right where everyone ought to have been playing and splashing, there was a long line of what looked like big garbage bags filled with something and piled on top of each other to form a wall.
Hallie led Wesley there. “Good morning,” a man said to them as they left the swimming pool. He spoke English but with a funny accent. “Good morning,” said Hallie and Wesley.
“These are sandbags,” Hallie explained when they reached the ocean. “They’re piled up to keep the water out. “The Maldives, where we are, is a country of 2,000 islands. And there’s not one mountain. There’s not one hill. These islands aren’t even as high as a boardwalk, and they’re in the middle of the Indian Ocean.”
“The islands are shrinking,” said Hallie. The coasts are crumbling. Palm trees are falling into the ocean. Look over there. Here, climb up on the sandbags and look down the shore.”
Wesley saw dozens of palm trees that had fallen down into the water, some with just their tops dipped into the waves and their roots still visible, others almost swallowed up by the sea.
“Are you Hallie?”
The question came from a woman standing right beside them on the beach. They hadn’t seen her coming. Wesley was so surprised he almost fell off the sandbag wall. Hallie had to grab him.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m Eva. You are Hallie, aren’t you?” Eva spoke English with an accent that sounded Indian.
“Yes,” said Hallie. “Thank you for meeting us. This is Wesley.”
“Wesley, it is a great pleasure. I thought there were to be three of you?”
“No, just two,” said Hallie.
“Well, let me show you some of the damage, and some of the danger, before I have to get on a boat.” They all began walking down the beach. “I suggested this island when you emailed, Hallie, because you said you needed to have a swimming pool in which to train for the Olympics. That is simply marvelous!”
Hallie (who was not really training for the Olympics) gave a sharp look to Wesley, who was clearly about to start laughing. She elbowed him in the ribs.
“But,” Eva continued, “this is not the worst case island. Many islands have already been abandoned, largely because of what happened in the tsunami, the big storm, of 2004. Enormous waves absolutely ruined many buildings. Even on this island, the seawater is getting into and ruining the ground water supply. Look right here.” Eva pointed to what looked like a little stream running into the ocean, except that the current was running away from the ocean instead of into it. “This is new,” she said. “There was no water here before.”
“Can you build a real wall?” Wesley asked.
Eva smiled. “Good idea. We’ve built a big wall around one island, and it’s working, if you consider living inside a wall a good solution. But we have about 2,000 islands, and building walls that hold out water is very expensive. It gets more expensive as the water rises. Right now there remain only two possibilities. Either the sea stops rising and our nation is saved, or the sea continues rising and our whole nation disappears. We have 300,000 people. Where will we go? Will the countries burning the coal and oil welcome us?”
Wesley knew that where he lived everyone used a lot of gasoline and coal. “I’m not burning coal and oil,” he said, giving Eva a mean look.
“Oh, Wesley,”
