Elsie Touches Everything

The water outside the porthole turned from green to blue, and then to a deep violet that swallowed the light. Elsie pressed her forehead to the cold glass and watched a silver shoal flicker past like dropped coins.

"Sixty metres," said Ezra the Explorer, tapping a dial. "Nobody has mapped this ridge, so touch nothing."

"I never touch anything," said Elsie, who had already touched three switches.

Ezra had built the little yellow submarine himself, and it had two seats, one robot arm and exactly two hours of battery. Elsie had argued for a whole week to be allowed to come.

The seabed rose out of the dark, ribbed with sand and dotted with pale starfish. A crab the size of a dinner plate raised one claw at them, as if it wished to complain. Then the submarine lurched sideways and stopped.

Ezra pushed the throttle forward. The motor whined. Nothing moved.

Elsie swung the outside lamp round. An old fishing net had wrapped itself around the rear propeller, and its far end was snagged on a rusted anchor.

"How much battery?" she asked.

"Forty minutes," said Ezra. "The surface takes twenty."

He pulled the red lever that dropped the heavy ballast weights. The lever moved halfway and jammed.

"The net is pinning the weights," he said, and reached for the manual.

Elsie's heart hammered. The cabin felt smaller, and the dark outside seemed to lean closer.

"Use the arm to pull the net off," she said.

"It can't reach the propeller. I tested it."

"Then run the motor backwards. The net unwinds, and the loose part swings forward."

Ezra frowned. "Or it winds tighter and we lose the motor."

"Then we're no worse off than now," said Elsie.

He glanced at the dial, which showed thirty-four minutes, and slid aside.

Elsie gripped the joysticks and eased the motor into reverse. The net shuddered, and a grey loop drifted into the lamplight like a lazy ribbon. She reached out with the claw and missed, and the loop floated away. She waited, breathing slowly, until it drifted back, and then she closed the claw around it.

"Now pull," said Ezra.

She pulled hard. The net tore free of the anchor with a soft shiver of sand, and Ezra yanked the lever all the way down.

The submarine rose. Violet faded to blue, and blue to bright green, and they burst into sunshine with eleven minutes to spare. Gulls wheeled and shrieked overhead.

Ezra opened the hatch and squinted at the dazzling sky.

"You touched everything," he said, grinning. "Have a lovely day, Elsie."