Deep-Sea Disaster Read online

  It won’t budge either.

  “Or maybe we’ll get captured by leggy air-breathers who are doing research on the shipwreck, and no one will ever see us again,” I hear Joe muttering from the other side of the room.

  I take three swishes of my tail backward, turn and face the piano head-on, and leap toward it hammer-first. It hurts, but I manage to get the flat edge of my head into the opening beneath the piano lid.

  I flick my tail harder and the lid creaks up a tiny bit, giving me enough room to slide my eye into the crack. I can see Ralph. He’s on his side and still stuck, but he looks okay.

  “Don’t worry, Ralph,” I say. “I’ll have you out of here soon.”

  I can feel the weight of the pillar on the piano lid pressing onto my head, but I don’t care. I’ve got to get Ralph out. But how? Maybe if I twisted my head sideways I’d be able to lift the lid higher.

  I start kicking really hard with my tail fin.

  The lid moves up a little.

  I kick harder.

  It moves up a little more.

  I flap and flip my tail as hard as I can and twist my head until-

  The lid springs up, tumbling the pillar onto the floor.

  Ralph speeds out of the piano faster than a sailfish. I’m right behind him.

  “Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!” we both scream, high-finning each other and bumping chests.

  “I thought I was never going to get out of there,” Ralph gasps. “What happened?”

  “Part of the ceiling caved in,” I explain as we swim back over to the others. “And a smokestack came down and blocked the hole.”

  We swim over to Joe, who is still sittting on the floor, hiding behind his tentacles.

  “Look-I found Ralph!” I say.

  Joe moves one of his tentacles and peeps out. But when he sees Ralph, he doesn’t look happy.

  “What’s wrong?” I say.

  “We’re still doomed. Even if nothing happens to us, we’ll still starve to death.” Joe puts his tentacle back over his eyes.

  Ralph and I roll our eyes. I look about and my heart sinks. “Where are Rick and Donny?”

  “They said they weren’t waiting for you to find Ralph and were going to smash their way out,” Joe says.

  CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH!!!!

  “That must be them, then,” says Joe.

  Oh no!

  I swim as fast as I can to the metal door. Rick and Donny are bashing themselves against it in a panic. I try to swim between Rick and the door. “Stop it!” I yell. “You’ll bring the whole ship down on us!”

  But Donny noses me out of the way and Rick thuds into the door again.

  There’s nothing I can do to stop them.

  “Look at the smokestack!” Ralph yells.

  I look up. The smokestack is shifting again and the planks holding it up are beginning to give way. If we don’t get out of here soon, we’re fish cakes.

  I dart back to Ralph and Joe. “Come on, let’s try over there!” I point a fin to the far corner of the ballroom. Then I call back to Rick and Donny. “Come on, you two.”

  “You go if you w-w-w-want to!” Rick shouts at me. “But we’re not moving. This is the way w-w-w-w-we came in, and this is the way we’re going out. That way will just take you farther into the ship, and you’ll be even more trapped.”

  I don’t want to leave them, but if there’s another way out I have to find it.

  Joe, Ralph, and I swim along the wall, until we reach a jumbled pile of rotting furniture. We swim higher and higher up the pile, until, right at the top, we find a big sofa with springs popping out all over it, like a spiky puffer fish.

  “Careful,” I say to the other two as I dodge the springs. Once we’ve gotten past the pyramid of furniture, I can’t believe my goggly eyes. There’s a door! And it doesn’t seem to be blocked by anything. “Let’s see where it goes,” I call to the other two. “If it leads out of the ship, we can go and get Donny and Rick.”

  It’s even colder on the other side of the doorway. We swim down a short, dark corridor, which opens onto a massive landing and a huge broken staircase as wide as a whale sandwich.

  “Wow,” I say.

  Huge marble pillars have toppled down and smashed through the staircase. They look like a giant’s fingers breaking through the wood.

  Ralph and Joe start swimming around, looking for a way out, but there is only the staircase, which just seems to lead up to nowhere.

  “Looks like we’re stuck,” says Ralph.

  “Trapped in a watery grave,” says Joe mournfully.

  I swim to the bottom of the stairs and squint through the waving strands of seaweed and murky water. Then I catch sight of something.

  “Yes!” I cry.

  Up high, almost but not quite out of range of my hammerhead eyes, I can see a tiny glimmer of light. I swivel my eyes and focus them as hard as I can. There, high above us, in the roof of the Titan, is a skylight. It’s been smashed, and through it I can see a beam of sunlight in the water.

  It’s a way out!

  We’re saved!

  Or we would have been. But that’s when the whole ship begins to shake and rumble, and the hugest CRASH!!! yet comes from the direction of the ballroom.

  Ralph, Joe, and I burst back into the ballroom and find the water churning up like a whirlpool, full of dust and bits of wood.

  “Rick!” I call. “Donny! Are you okay?” But there’s no answer. “Split up,” I say to Ralph and Joe. “We’ve got to find them and get up those stairs.”

  “Okay,” Ralph says.

  Joe is fishing pieces of dirt out of his mouth with his tentacles. “Mmmphmmmph we’ll be exploded into jelly beans mmmph,” he says.

  “Come on!” I say.

  We all swim off in different directions. I head for the metal door, and just when I think the day can’t get any worse, it does.

  Donny is swimming in circles by the door, crying and shaking.

  “Where’s Rick?” I say.

  Donny slowly points a trembling fin behind me.

  I turn and squint through the murky water. And see Rick trapped inside a glittery gold cage. I can hardly believe my eyes. So I blink them. Then I swivel them. But I wasn’t seeing things-Rick really is trapped inside a glittery gold cage.

  What I think happened is this:

  1. Donny and Rick kept smashing into the door. (NOT GOOD.)

  2. The vibrations they caused traveled up through the ship until they reached the ceiling. (NOT GOODER.)

  3. This shook one of the enormous chandeliers so much that it crashed down on top of Rick and trapped him on the floor. (NOT GOODER-ER!)

  “Get me out,” Rick wails.

  RUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMBLE!

  The whole ship vibrates. Clouds of splinters puff out from the beams above us like coral blooms. The ballroom is about to collapse completely. Ralph and Joe swim over in a panic.

  “Don’t just float there! Get me out!” Rick yells.

  Donny is still swimming around and around in circles. I grab him by the fins. “Donny! We need your help. We won’t be able to get Rick out on our own.”

  Donny’s eyes are filled with tears, and his bottom lip is trembling. “You don’t even like Rick, so why would you want to help him?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t leave him here to get crushed, would I?”

  Donny sniffs. “I guess not.”

  “Good, now are you going to help us or what?”

  Donny nods, and I pat him on the fin.

  “Get me out!” Rick screams.

  “Right,” I say, trying to sound like I know what I’m doing and I have a plan, which I don’t. “Ummmm . . .”

  The chandelier is massive. The gold rails are all bent over in arches. There are lots of little rings attached, which were probably used for glass jewels or something, but now they’re just empty. These rings are what I’m really interested in.

  Now I have a plan!

  “Okay, everyone wedge your fin into a ring on th
is side of the chandelier,” I say.

  No one moves.

  Joe opens his mouth to speak, but I cut him off.

  “No, we’re not going to freeze to death, or become ice pops and eaten by whales, or get turned into plankton, or get featured in the Seaweed Times, or get captured by leggy air-breathers, or starve to death, or explode into jelly beans. At least, we won’t if you hurry up!” I say.

  “No, it’s not that,” Joe says.

  “What is it, then?” I ask.

  “GET ME OUT!” Rick yells.

  “What if you don’t have a fin?” Joe asks.

  “Oh! Well, use your strongest tentacles,” I say.

  RUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMBLE!

  “Now!” I shout. “We don’t have time to be scared!”

  I wriggle my right fin up into a ring and shove my dorsal fin against it. The others do the same, but I can see the fear in their faces as they all look over at me to show that they’re ready.

  This had better work.

  “Rick-get ready to swim out, okay?” I say.

  “Just hurry up!” Rick yells.

  “Okay, everyone!” I shout. “Swim up now!”

  I kick with my tail. Ralph and Donny do the same. Joe does something complicated with his tentacles.

  The chandelier shifts a tiny bit, but not enough!

  “Get me out!”

  CRRRRREEEEEEEEAAAAAKKKKKK!!!

  This is our last chance!

  “One . . . ,” I count.

  “Two . . .”

  Joe’s bottom toots.

  “Three!”

  I kick and kick and kick my tail, harder than I ever have before.

  The chandelier starts to move.

  “Keep going!” I shout.

  Kick.

  Kick.

  Kick. Kick. Kick!

  The chandelier lurches upward. Rick flattens himself against the floor and slides underneath the edges of the cage. He’s out!

  “Okay, let go!” I yell.

  We all swim away and the chandelier crashes back to the floor.

  “Follow me,” I say, swimming for the doorway leading to the staircase. We zoom across the deck, up over the pile of wrecked furniture, past the springs of the busted sofa, and out through the door into the dark corridor. I can hear the others flapping behind me. I turn to make sure everyone is through the door okay. Rick, Donny, Ralph, and then Joe, puffing up behind. Jellyfish aren’t exactly built for speed, but he’s doing a great job.

  “Everyone up the stairs. Up to the skylight. Come on!”

  We race up the stairs toward the skylight and burst out of the roof like corks from a bottle, whooping and high-finning each other like crazy. Down below us there is a final RUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMBLE as the Titan collapses like a seashell being squashed by a giant fin!

  I don’t think I’ve ever seen Mrs. Shelby look so happy. She’s smiling wide enough to swallow a baby whale.

  “Harry! Ralph! Joe! Donny! Rick!” she calls to us. “Oh my goodness, I’ve been so worried!”

  We swim down to the seabed, where Mrs. Shelby has gathered the class together out of danger. All the kids look pretty scared of the noises coming from the Titan. Not only is Penny Puffer-Fish still spiky, but all the hermit-crab kids have gone right inside their shells and shut the doors.

  We skid to a halt in front of the class, me doing a triple nosey and the best gill grind ever.

  “We thought you were trapped inside!” Mrs. Shelby says, hugging each of us. She probably hugs Joe just a little bit too tight, because he toots again, but she doesn’t seem to mind.

  I’m just about to tell her everything that happened, when a fin slaps onto my face and covers my mouth so I can’t speak. The fin belongs to Rick. He pushes in front of me. “Well, Mrs. Shelby, if I hadn’t gotten everyone out, we might not have made it at all. Right, Donny?”

  I stare so hard at Rick that it feels like my eyes might pop out of my hammerhead. I can’t believe what he’s saying. Just a couple of minutes ago he was shrieking for help, stuck under a chandelier.

  “I tried to tell them not to go into the Titan, Mrs. Shelby, but they wouldn’t listen,” Rick continues. “And I couldn’t just let them go in alone, could I?”

  I glance at Ralph and Joe. They look just as annoyed as I am. We’re all so annoyed, we can’t get any words out!

  This is so unfair. I start to open my mouth to complain, but then all the kids in the class start laughing. Great! So now not only do they think I’ve got a weird hammerhead, they think I’m reckless, too. But as I swivel my eyes around I notice that the rest of the class is all pointing and laughing at Rick. As he swims around in front of Mrs. Shelby I see something glinting and sparkling on his back. Some jewels from the chandelier have gotten caught on his dorsal fin like a princess’s tiara.

  He looks ridiculous.

  I begin laughing too, so hard I end up doing three barrel rolls. By the time I finish, Mrs. Shelby is waving her big flippers to calm the class down and Rick is just floating there with a bright red face.

  “What are you all laughing at?” he whines.

  Ha! Now that he knows what it feels like, maybe he won’t flubber my head so much in the future. Win!

  Ralph swims past me and turns to the class. “We wouldn’t have gotten out of there if it wasn’t for Harry, Mrs. Shelby,” he says. “It was Rick who wanted to go into the Titan, not Harry. When the smokestack collapsed and everything went dark, I got trapped inside a piano and it was Harry and his hammerhead sensors that got me out. Rick was too busy trying to save his own skin. Harry is the bravest shark in the whole sea.”

  I feel my hammerhead turning coral pink as the whole class looks from Rick’s tiara to me. I don’t really like being the center of attention-even if it’s for a good thing. But Ralph keeps going. “And when Rick got trapped under a chandelier, it was Harry who showed us how to get him out, and it was Harry’s awesome hammerhead eyes that found the way out through the skylight. All Rick did while we were in there was show off and cry.”

  Everyone in the class is staring openmouthed at me. Even Mrs. Shelby. I don’t know what to say.

  Mrs. Shelby closes her mouth, thinks for a moment, then calls Rick and me forward. “You two boys are very, very naughty for disobeying me and going into the Titan. If you’d listened to me, none of this would have happened, and none of you would have been in any danger at all. Do you understand?”

  We both nod. This makes Rick’s tiara sparkle, and the three angelfish behind us giggle under their breath.

  “Really, I should punish you all for going into the ship,” Mrs. Shelby continues, “but since Harry has been so brave, and he managed to bring you all back to safety, I’ll let you off the hook. But just this once, understand?”

  The class cheers and claps. Ralph and Joe swim up to me and we high-fin and high-tentacle.

  Donny swims off to one side with Rick, and I watch as he whispers in his ear, telling him about the tiara. Rick twists and turns his pointy face, trying to get a look at his fin.

  “Get it off me!” he yells at Donny.

  Donny pulls at the jewels with his teeth and Rick twists some more. But the jewels are stuck tight and the sharks’ struggles only make the class laugh even louder. Donny and Rick look like they are dancing together in that really embarrassing way that moms and dads do.

  Mrs. Shelby calms the class down all over again. Then we set off back to school. As we go I make my final list of the day-of all the good things that have happened:

  1. Everyone is safe. (Genius.)

  2. Rick’s tiara incident is going to keep him from picking on me for a while. (Super genius!)

  3. What started out as the worst day ever has turned into the best day ever! (More-super-than-Rick’s-tiara genius!)

  Being a hammerhead might not be so bad after all. . . .

  THE END

  Meet Harry and the Shark Point gang. . . .

  HARRY

  Species:

  hammerhead shark
/>   You’ll spot him . . .

  using his special hammer-vision

  Favorite thing:

  his Gregor the Gnasher poster

  Most likely to say:

  “I wish I was a great white.”

  Most embarrassing moment: when Mom called him her “little starfish” in front of all his friends

  RALPH

  Species:

  pilot fish

  You’ll spot him . . .

  eating the food from between

  Harry’s teeth!

  Favorite thing: shrimp Pop-Tarts

  Most likely to say: “So, Harry, what’s for

  breakfast today?”

  Most embarrassing moment: eating too much cake on Joe’s birthday. His face was COVERED in pink plankton icing.

  JOE

  Species: jellyfish

  You’ll spot him . . . hiding behind Ralph and Harry, or behind his own tentacles

  Favorite thing: his cave, since it’s nice and safe

  Most likely to say: “If we do this, we’re going to end up as fish food. . . .”

  Most embarrassing moment: whenever his rear goes toot, which is when he’s scared. Which is all the time.

  RICK

  Species: blacktip reef shark

  You’ll spot him . . . bullying smaller fish or showing off

  Favorite thing: his black leather jacket

  Most likely to say: “Last one there’s a sea snail!”

  Most embarrassing moment: none. Rick’s far too cool to get embarrassed.

  Shark Bites

  Sharks have been swimming in the world’s oceans for more than 400 million years.

  There are more than four hundred different species of shark, from the giant hammerhead to the goblin shark.

  Sharks do not have bones. They are cartilaginous fish, which means their skeletons are made of cartilage, not bone. Cartilage is a type of connective tissue that is softer than bone. Humans have cartilage in their ears and nose.