1. The Pillars of Gibra

At turtle school, Slupper learned how to be boring, dumb, and unhappy. Or, rather, that’s how he saw it. As always, the teacher ended her lesson with a cheerful promise.

“And remember class, if you work hard at school, you’ll end up lonely and abandoned when you’re old!”

She pressed a piece of seaweed and a little bell rang. Behind her hung a sponge creature. Her fins pushed the homework for next week into it. Once she finished writing—which took a while since, for was still a turtle—she took one last look at her class.

Forty turtles swam in four neat rows behind each other. Everyone used the shell of the student in front of them as a desk. This meant the turtles at the front were the smartest: the teacher thought they would remember everything and didn’t need a desk.

The classroom was made of polished white stone with square windows. Underwater these glassless windows weren’t needed for fresh air, of course. They served as entrances and exits.

The room also had a door. Another mystery, since you could never open it against the water pressure.

All the students wrote diligently in their sponge notebooks, except for Slupper. He played with the colorful coral along the wall. Sometimes I feel like a totally different animal than the other students, he thought.

He was the same age as his classmates, but his oversized shell meant no one else could sit near him. He also had brown-speckled fins like the others, but his were thicker and didn’t taper to points. Still, what really caused everyone to laugh at him, were two red stripes on his head.

“Well done, everyone,” said the teacher. “Tomorrow you’ll learn how to yell ’leave me alone’ in every language. You may go home—except you, Slupper.”

She pressed a different piece of seaweed and a second bell sounded. The others swam through the windows in a orderly line; Slupper shuffled over to his teacher as if his feet weighed a thousand pounds.

“Dear boy, why don’t you do your homework?”

“You always say that, if I do, I’ll end up completely alone when I’m old. Cut off from the rest of the world.”

“Yes! Wonderful, isn’t it? Nobody to disturb your deep thoughts! That’s what you’re working towards.”

“Well … um … what if I don’t want that?”

“To grow old?”

“No, to live alone in a cave for a thousand years.”

“Oh, but you’ll still be with us too. In our hearts. And in our minds. But eventually, like all turtles, you’ll have to find your own little spot.”

“Has no one ever been different?”

“Of course there’s been someone, but—”

Slupper’s orange eyes lit up. The teacher’s brown eyes narrowed and she turned away. Though they were the same height, her shell was much longer and he ducked quickly to avoid it. She scraped the sponge creatures off her chalkboard.

He crept around her stone desk. “Who? Does he live here?”

“Yes, but he’s an exception. He went to the meeting at Vensala, as the turtle representative. A sort of mascot.”

“As what? Turtles don’t sail, do they?”

“No, that means we sent him there to represent us. There he became part of the Companions.”

“What are Companions?”

A bubble stream left the teacher’s mouth. “You were daydreaming again during all those lessons, weren’t you?”

Slupper wisely kept quiet until she continued: “A group of kings, one for each animal species. Together they made agreements to end the First Conflict. That’s why we now live in peace.”

“Awesome! Can I meet him? Can I go with him?”

“I’m afraid there’s only room for one of each species among the Companions, child. Besides, he still prefers to be left alone in his cave by the Pillars of Gibra.”

Slupper shot up from the seafloor. As he swam away, he churned up mounds of mud that obscured his teacher’s view.

“Shouldn’t have said that,” she mumbled to herself. By the time the water cleared again, however, he was gone.

Not far from school sat the town square: the heart of Turtle Town. An enormous fountain stood there. This was just as baffling in an underwater city as the door.

A pole decorated with seaweed and symbols held up four wooden arrows. Each pointed down a different broad path, sometimes hundreds of kilometers long, with houses and smaller streets around it.

The young turtles mostly lived—along with tiny fish—around the square. Older turtles went … somewhere. Slupper never saw them return. “And DON’T you dare come looking for us!” they shouted at their farewells. As such, large parts of the city remained unexplored.

I don’t know where the Pillars are, Slupper thought. But something so tall should be easy to spot. He followed the northbound arrow. This was the only path that quickly ended in an underwater jungle.

A city full of mysteries already, dear reader, but it gets even stranger. The turtles have no idea their cute but odd little town may have the power to change the world. And if you’re smart, trust me, you hope they never discover this.

He liked to play in the jungle. He probably knew the trees as well as the spots on his fins. As usual, a friend waved at him from a treetop. Slupper spiraled upwards and landed next to him.

“Detention or something?”

“Socipi, listen to this! I have a new adventure! Turns out there’s a special, wise, magical turtle that lives around here somewhere.”

“Where?” Socipi reluctantly rolled onto his webbed fins. He shook the leaves off his shell and ate a few.

“In a cave by the Pillars of Gibra.”

“Never heard of them.”

“Surely, you know what a cave is?”

“Uh-huh, but not where those Pillars of Gibberish are.”

“Gibra. Even I know that was the Serpentsuper’s name.”

“That’s what I said.”

Slupper rammed his friend shell-to-shell. “We’ll find those Pillars! And then we ask how to meet other animals!”

“I don’t think a pillar answers back.”

“No, silly, we’ll ask the Companion!”

“A Companion? Here in town?” Socipi’s eyes shot open. He leaped up and spun in fast circles, as if expecting to spot the Companion immediately.

“Well, I don’t know that. Maybe the pillars are outside town.”

Socipi swam north, further away from the square and houses. He nodded his head forward. “Who knows, we’ve never been there before.”

Because we’re not allowed to, Slupper thought. But he didn’t want to ruin the fun. Besides, Socipi never listened anyway. He flapped his flippers faster to catch up. “Think we’ll be home by evening?”

“No, that’s the best part.”

He winked at Slupper and swam past him. Hundreds of bubbles rose as they drifted between the trees. Slupper looked back, but really didn’t hesitate much longer. With his friend, he raced deeper into the jungle.

The broad canopy hid more and more light and they had to be mindful not to crash into dark brown trunks. They couldn’t even see if it was night yet. That’s a good excuse to use if we’re late, Slupper thought.

Brightly colored flatfishes regularly swam by. It would stare with bulging eyes and then slip quickly between them.

Until one of the fish lingered.

The turtle friends were searching so intently that they didn’t even notice. They studied the crumbled houses and broken statues on the seafloor. Each time a piece of stone jutted out, or they glimpsed something long and pillar-like in the distance, their hopes soared and they swam even faster.

For hours they combed through the jungle—until it suddenly ended. The trees halted to make way for a ravine.

“Oh, thanks for the ride! Toodeloo!”

Slupper and Socipi crashed into each other from shock. An fish, striped orange and red, dove into the ravine underneath them.

“Hey! Hold on a minute! A favor for a favor.”

The fish spun around and slithered back, as if dodging invisible obstacles. Her voice was high-pitched and often slipped into a squeak.

“What do you want? I’ve got nothing.”

“Information. We’re looking for the Pillars of Gibra.”

“… why are you looking for those cursed things?” Her fins kept fluttering.

“It’s a long story. Do you know where they are or not?”

“Hmm, it’s a long story.”

“Very funny.”

“You’re funny! Oh wait, no, that was meant as an insult. Ah, why am I so bad at this.”

He frowned at the babbling fish, as his front flipper landed on her trembling head. “You know what, we’ll find them ourselves.”

“No! It’s dangerous. Sometimes I hear the Pillars talk in my sleep. They say mean things, like … like … like you must not find us and this plan must remain secret.”

“Those don’t sound mean or anything,” Socipi said. “What if their secret plan is something really nice?”

“Just tell us where they are!”

“Can’t do it. I’ll have to show you.”