We Give a Squid a Wedgie (9 page)

“The chase is on,” she said.

“What?” said Ernest, who couldn’t hear her over the wind.

“I said the chase is on!”

“What?” He still couldn’t hear her.

“The! Chase! Is! On!”

“The chaise? What’s a piece of furniture got to do with anything?”

“I said chase! The chase is on!” she yelled back at him. “Oh, never mind. Just steer.”

Janice couldn’t believe she had to spend the next several weeks on this tiny boat with Ernest. She hoped they would meet up with Sir Edmund soon so she could take a shower and get some distance between herself and the celebrity impersonator. He was not an ideal partner in crime, but he would have to do until she got what she wanted. Luckily, he didn’t know how much Sir Edmund was really paying them to follow the Navels.

She did not intend to share it.

ON THE NEXT AFTERNOON,
the seas grew rougher, and the ocean swells grew larger. The
Get It Over With
rose to the top of each swell and then surfed down again into the deep trench between the waves.

For hours they followed their course, rising and falling, rising and falling through the swelling sea.

“Now you’re, like, really starting to turn green, dude,” Corey told Oliver, who was watching the first season of
Agent Zero
for the fifth time. “G-R-E-E-N, green. You gonna lose your lunch?”

“Shh … I’m trying to watch you on TV,” Oliver told him. “I’m fine. F-I-N—” But he couldn’t finish
spelling back at Corey because he felt his stomach do a somersault. He rushed from the cabin to the front of the boat. He knelt on the hot fiberglass deck, getting ready to return his lunch to the ocean, when he looked up to see a most bizarre sight.

The boat had slid down into one of the trenches between the waves, so there were walls of water on either side like an aquarium, except there was no glass. Oliver was looking straight into the face of a shark as it swam peacefully in the waves.

He forgot all about his upset stomach and nearly fell backward from the boat’s edge. Suddenly, the boat lifted onto the back of the next wave and the wall of water sank below them again.

Oliver stayed where he was so he could see into the ocean when they slid down into the next trench. It was like he was watching a nature show on television, except he could reach out through the screen of water if he wanted. All sorts of sea life floated in the swells—schools of large silver fish and small undulating squid, the long blobby tails of jellyfish, the doofus grin of a sea turtle, and the zombie-eyed stare of sharks.

“You’ve got to see this!” Oliver called out.

Corey and Celia came over and watched with Oliver as the live sea show sank again below them and the horizon rose up in the distance.

“I am, like, awed by the majesty of the sea,” Corey said.

“Yeah,” Celia agreed. She settled down next to her brother. They spent the entire afternoon watching the walls of water filled with sea life rise and fall. The twins forgot they had ever been mad at each other. They even forgot about the television down in the cabin.

Dr. Navel happily watched his children. It was nice to see them enjoying nature instead of television and even nicer to see them getting along again. He let them skip their turn at the watch so they could keep watching the ocean.

As the sun began to set, Big Bart came over to where they sat. Dennis the rooster clucked happily beside him.

“I thought you might like to eat out here,” he said, handing them each a steaming plate of rice and beans. “Just don’t eat too close to the edge of the boat.”

“Why’s that?” Oliver wondered.

“Well, it’s dusk,” said Big Bart. “They call this
the sharking hour. It’s when sharks hunt. Wouldn’t want one coming on board to snatch your dinner.”

“Sharks don’t eat rice and beans,” said Oliver.

“Oh, I suppose not.” Big Bart laughed. “But what about little children?”

“We’re not little children,” Celia explained with a sideways glance at Corey. “We’re almost twelve. That makes us tweens.”

“Tweens, huh?” Big Bart said. “Well, in that case I’m sure the sharks won’t bother you!” He chuckled and bid them good evening, lumbering his way back belowdecks, with Dennis hopping along after him.

“He’s weird,” said Celia.

“I kind of like him,” said Oliver.

“I think he’s pretty cool,” said Corey.

“I guess he’s okay,” Celia conceded. Oliver rolled his eyes a tiny bit when his sister wasn’t looking. They ate quietly and watched the sleek silver bodies of sharks slice through the water.

That night, the twins were sound asleep inside their bunks in the cabin when they heard a loud bang that shook the entire boat. The walls of the cabin flexed, like they had been hit with something really big. They heard a terrible sound from
outside, thrashing and scraping. It was as if a fight had broken out on deck.

They rushed outside to see what was going on and stopped short in the doorway.

Just in front of them, a large octopus was engaged in a violent battle with the ropes that Bonnie had spent so much of the afternoon coiling. Its tentacles were tangled and it was squirming and sliding, trying to get itself back to the water.

“Is that the kraken?” Corey wondered.

“It’s an octopus,” said Big Bart, standing beside him. “The kraken is a squid.”

“If the kraken’s real,” Oliver added, “it would have giant fangs and be about as big as this whole boat. But
Beast Busters
says it’s not real, so it doesn’t matter.”

“
Beast Busters
?” asked Big Bart.

“Don’t ask,” said Celia.

As they stood watching the octopus struggle in the ropes, a large tiger shark darted along the wall of water alongside the boat. It gave no warning, but in a flash it turned its whole body around and shot toward the deck, slicing right through the wall of water, and, much to its surprise, plummeting through the air and landing right beside its prey. The shark’s eyes glistened in the moonlight. Its rows of razor-sharp teeth shined.

As the
Get It Over With
rose to the top of the swell, the octopus and the shark found themselves
thoroughly out of the water. The octopus’s eyes scanned the shark beside it and the shark did what came naturally to a fish out of water: it panicked.

Ropes and tools went flying. A heavy steel winch handle, used for raising the sails, plopped overboard and disappeared into the ocean. The shark tried to snap its jaws around the octopus. The octopus tried to wrap itself around the shark to sink its sharp beak into the shark’s head. Black ink sprayed from its belly, smearing all over the deck. The humans dove for cover.

“Dude!” Corey Brandt shouted, not very helpfully.

“We’ve got a shark on board,” Dr. Navel announced from the steering wheel at the back of the boat. “And an octopus.”

“We noticed!” Celia yelled.

“Don’t panic!” yelled their father.

“Keep it down, down there!” yelled Twitchy Bart from high above in the mast. “I’m trying to sleep.”

“I don’t get paid enough for this,” said Bonnie. She turned around and went back to her bunk to sleep.

“Don’t worry, kids,” said Big Bart, putting his massive arms around Corey, Oliver, and Celia. “I’m here to help. Just tell me what to do.”

“How should we know?” objected Oliver. “We’re eleven!”

“And a half!” Celia added.

“Well.” Big Bart turned to Corey. “You’re the Celebrity Adventurist. What do we do?”

“I, like, never did an episode about this,” said Corey.

“Oliver.” Celia turned to her brother. “You watch
Sharkapalooza
! What have you learned?”

“Sharks live in the water!” Oliver yelled.

“Well duh, professor,” Celia scoffed at him.

Oliver hated when his sister made fun of him for not knowing something when she didn’t know it either. And he didn’t like looking like an idiot in front of Corey Brandt or Big Bart.

“Dad!” he yelled. “What do we do?”

“Don’t panic!” their father added again. That seemed to be as much advice as he could offer.

“Well …” Oliver racked his brain to remember something useful, anything useful. “They say that
if you rub a shark’s nose and flip it upside down, it sort of falls asleep.”

“Rub its nose?” Celia repeated in disbelief.

“And then we can push it overboard,” Oliver said miserably.

“What about the octopus?” Corey wondered.

“I guess we’ll just have to grab it and toss it overboard,” said Oliver.

“Like we did with the octopus at the New Year’s Eve party,” said Corey.

This time Oliver blushed. He didn’t like to be reminded about the killer ­wedgie he’d received.

We should note that, much to their dismay, ­Oliver and Celia were no longer awed by the majesty of the sea.

“No time to lose.” Big Bart stepped forward. “The shark will die if we don’t help it.”

“Yeah,” said Celia. “But we might die if we do help!”

“Come on, Celia.” Corey Brandt smiled. “I’ll make sure you don’t get hurt.”

Celia nodded, and she and the teen star moved carefully after Big Bart toward the thrashing shark. Oliver let out a low groan and stepped up behind them. He almost wished he had just let his sister
watch her soap operas and never seen
Sharkapalooza
at all. A little knowledge was a terrible thing.

But it was too late for regret; it was time for action.­

“I hate to rush you all,” Dr. Navel called from the stern of the boat, “but we seem to be heading into rough weather. We’ll want to throw those animals back in the water somewhat quickly! A storm’s a-comin’, as they say!”

Oliver and Celia could swear they heard a bit of glee in their father’s voice. Shark and octopus wrestling reminded him of their mother.

That’s how they had spent their honeymoon.

“Oliver.” Celia looked back at her brother. “I’m really sorry I got us into this. I know it was my fault.”

“It’s cool,” sighed Oliver. “It was, you know …”

“Destiny,” said Celia.

Oliver nodded. “Now let’s get this sharktopus wrestling over with.”

“WE’VE GOT TO JUMP THE SHARK,”
said Big Bart, rubbing his hands together and preparing to leap. The shark and the octopus were battling each other, thrashing all over the deck.

Big Bart timed his leap over the fish fracas—which is just another way of saying fight—with great care. One swipe with the shark’s muscular tail would send even a man of his size overboard and, in the growing sea swells in the dark of night, it would be impossible to rescue him.

“You two wait here,” Corey said to Oliver and Celia, although it didn’t really seem necessary. They had no plans to jump the shark.

“Corey! Be careful!” Celia exclaimed way too dramatically. She blushed. Oliver didn’t even bother to roll his eyes. His sister knew.

Corey blew a strand of hair off his forehead,
gave the kids his trademark wink and smile, and took his own running jump over the fracas. He overestimated and nearly jumped clear off the front of the boat. Big Bart caught him by one of the pockets on his Pocketed Pajamas and pulled him back on board.