Squid-napped!

by Davy Ocean

  I push and push with my tail and feel myself start to slow. I look up to the dim surface of the ocean, many fathoms above. If only I could push harder, if only I could find the strength. . . .

  “I promise I’ll never try and be a lone shark again!” I whisper as I kick and kick.

  It’s working. I’m starting to slow down. I might just pull this off!

  But that’s when the giant squid shoots out his longest and suckeriest tentacle and grabs me right around the middle.

  Puk!

  Puk!

  Puk!

  That’s the sound of the suckers attaching themselves to my skin.

  I wriggle and twist, push and kick, snap and crunch my teeth, but I’m stuck fast.

  “Let me go! Please! Let me go!”

  The giant squid sucks the suckers tighter and yanks me toward him, right up close to his hissing beak and huge, scary eyes.

  “Let you go? Why would I let you go? I haven’t had hammerhead in ages. Such a subtle flavor, the hammerhead. A reef shark or a great white can be tough and chewy, but a young hammerhead? Why, that’s a taste to be savored, make no mistake!”

  I gulp as the squid’s mouth opens and closes and inside I see a thick purple tongue getting ready for some hammerheady flavors.

  “I’m tough!” I yell, trying to break out of the squid’s grasp. “I’ll stick in your throat. I’ll give you indigestion! I’ll make your breath smell!”

  The squid hesitates for a moment. I think that maybe I’ve persuaded him not to eat me, but I’m wrong.

  Another tentacle snaps out above my head, and I can see that it’s holding a cookbook. Yet another tentacle starts to flip through the pages.

  “Hmm, angelfish soufflé, crab cheesecake, grilled coral with a rack of sea squirt-that’s a classic! Ah, here we are . . . hammerhead. Ooh, yes, that’s just the ticket! Hammerhead Wellington with puffer fish pastry and a big splash of jellyfish gravy.”

  The squid sniffs up and down my body, making me shiver and shake, then licks his lips with his purple tongue. Ah, so fresh, so tasty, so alive . . . for now!”

  I begin to struggle again, but all I’m doing is wearing myself out.

  It’s hopeless.

  The squid gives a contented sigh as I go limp in his tentacles. “Ah, yes, so much better when lunch doesn’t put up a fight.”

  Then he starts to swim down, carrying me like someone carrying their shopping home from the supermarket. I’ve never missed Shark Point so much in my life. I’m even missing Rick and Donny. What I wouldn’t give right now to be wearing two pink crash helmets and to have Rick playing bongos on my hammer head. Anything would be better than this!

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “To my kitchen, of course,” says the squid. “I need to cook you properly to make this meal the triumph I want it to be.”

  “Triumph? It’s just lunch, isn’t it?” I say sadly.

  The squid stops dead in the water and looks at me. “Just lunch? Don’t be silly, boy. Gordon Clamsey, Star Chef of the Seabed, doesn’t do ‘just lunch’! He creates menu masterpieces-he is an artist of the palate, a miracle worker of foodie wonder! You haven’t been caught by just any old squid, you know.”

  I frown. “If you’re a star chef, how come I’ve never heard of you?”

  The squid shakes a few of his free tentacles in disgust. “It’s not my fault those lame brains in Clam City aren’t ready for a chef of my caliber in their hideous little restaurants. Thrown out just because I ate a few of the diners! I mean, what’s a chef to do when he’s a bit hungry and it’s a slow day in the kitchen?”

  “But a chef is supposed to feed the diners, not feed on them!”

  “That’s just what the restaurant owners said. Before I ate them.”

  My stomach flips over three times.

  With a sniff and a ripple of his tentacles, Gordon Clamsey starts swimming down again. Soon the jagged boulder field that is the seafloor comes fully into view through the hazy blue water. Gordon pushes on toward a cave entrance. “Here we are, my boy!” he bellows. “Welcome to my kitchen, the place where the magic happens!”

  As we squeeze through the narrow opening, he bangs my head against the roof.

  “Ow!” I yell.

  “Just tenderizing the meat!” Gordon booms, with a hearty laugh that makes my eyes wobble.

  Inside the cave it’s almost completely dark. It’s also dead cold, and I shiver. As my eyes adjust to the light, I wish that it was completely dark. The cave floor is covered in bones. Fish bones, crab shells, and the jawbones of sharks. I see one huge jaw with a rack of teeth that can only have come from a great white, a great white who must have been as big as Gregor. If a shark like that can’t escape from Gordon Clamsey, what chance does a wimpy hammerhead like me have?

  None. Gulp!

  Gordon pushes me up against the wall and ties me to a rock with thick, sticky strands of seaweed.

  Ugh! It’s like being tied up with giant boogers!

  Gordon swims back a little to admire his tentacle-work. He smiles and says, “Now, wait there. I’m off to get a few things to help you make my taste buds explode with delight. Stay fresh, now!” And with that Gordon leaves, and I’m all alone. Alone apart from the bones.

  I jerk and strain in the cold, sticky grip of the seaweed but, like Gordon’s suckered tentacles, it’s far too strong for me to wiggle out of.

  I think of how Rick and Donny would be killing themselves laughing if they knew how Harry the Lone Shark had found himself on Gordon Clamsey’s menu as soon as he’d left town.

  What about Joe and Ralph? How would they feel? They tried everything to make me stay and I didn’t listen. They’ll probably blame themselves. And Mom and Dad? Oh, man! Now I feel really bad. Especially when I think of how mean I was about my birthday cake. I feel so ashamed.

  I have to get out of here.

  I try shouting “Help!” a few times. But the cave is probably too deep down. And if the locals know there is a huge killer squid chef living in a cave of bones, I hardly think any of them will try to rescue me.

  I try to calm down a bit, but I can’t get the thought of that huge, scissory, squiddy beak coming toward me out of my hammer head! I bite my lip. What should I do? What should I DO??????????

  PING!

  PING!

  Huh? Why is my hammer-vision suddenly going off?

  PING!

  It’s picking up movement outside the cave. Gordon must be coming back!

  “Typical!” I groan. “Hammer-vision is supposed to show me the things I want to eat, not show me the things that are coming to eat me!”

  I close my eyes as it gets even closer.

  PING!

  PING!!

  PING!!!

  “Yikes! You’re in a pickle, aren’tcha?”

  What?

  I open one of my screwed-up eyes.

  “What’s up?” says the minnow. “You got time for a chat, or are you a bit tied up right now?” The minnow laughs his head off at his joke, even though it’s bad enough to be one of Dad’s.

  Then he comes up close to my face. “Thought it was you. I heard you yelling for help. You’re not that brave for a lone shark, are you?”

  I’m so pleased to see someone who isn’t going to eat me that I don’t care that the minnow’s being mean.

  “Get this stuff off me,” I say.

  The minnow looks at the sticky, boogerlike seaweed and makes a face. “You think I’m touching that? It looks like the squid sneezed on you.”

  “Please,” I say, making my hammerheady eyes as big and as appealing as I can. “You can nibble through it and I’ll be free!”

  The minnow shakes his head. “Listen, pal, there are two reasons I’m not going to get you out of that stuff. One, it looks like squid snot, and two, what’s to stop you from eating me if I let you out, huh?”

  “I promise I won’t eat you.”

  “That’s just what that fat great white, Gregor the Gnasher, said to
my cousin Monty.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep. Just before he ate him.”

  “Oh. Look, I don’t know your name, and I’m sorry I tried to eat you before, but please help me. I promise I’m not like Gregor the Gnasher.”

  The minnow isn’t listening. “See, if you don’t wanna get caught by a giant squid, what you don’t do is swim straight at one.”

  “I didn’t know it was a giant squid!”

  “Classic errors all the way, pal. Out in the open ocean? All alone? Error. Not really knowing what you’re doing? Massive schoolshark error. Not even fast enough to overtake a minnow like me? Asking for major, error-y trouble, my friend. . . .”

  “How does telling me that now help?”

  The minnow nods his head. “Good point. Oh well, must be off. Places to be, sharks to annoy. . . .”

  “Wait!”

  “Why?” The minnow frowns at me. “We’ve pretty much covered everything. You’re squid food and I’m off to have fun and not get eaten.”

  “Wait!” I plead. “If you won’t get me out, please can you go to Shark Point and find my best friends Ralph and Joe? They’ll come and rescue me!”

  The minnow thinks for a moment. “And what’s to stop this Ralph and Joe from eating me then, huh?”

  “They’re not sharks!” I say triumphantly, sure this will persuade the minnow.

  “What are they, then?”

  “Well, Ralph’s a pilot fish and Joe’s a jellyfish.”

  The minnow makes a disgusted face. “Eeew! Being a pilot fish has got to be the worst job in the world. You wouldn’t catch me eating stuff out of sharks’ mouths!”

  “Please! Will you go?”

  But before the minnow has a chance to answer, we’re startled by a suckery sound from outside the cave.

  “It’s hammerhead Wellington time!” calls Gordon’s booming voice.

  Swish!

  The minnow vanishes.

  Looks like I’m on my own.

  Gordon enters the cave and grins. He waves a few tentacles around, bows as if he’s in front of an audience, and holds up two shopping bags.

  “You need three things to be a successful chef,” says Gordon to the cave.

  I look around to see if there are any other squid who’ve come along to watch, but there aren’t any. Perhaps Gordon just thinks he’s talking to lots of other squid. I shiver some more. Being in the clutches of a killer chef is bad enough, but I’m in the clutches of a killer chef who’s completely bonkers!

  “First,” continues Gordon, “you need the finest ingredients known to chef-kind!” Gordon empties the bags on the cave floor. I can see packets of dried jellyfish, bags of Piranha Puffs, and all kinds of weeds and spices. “Second, you need a kitchen worthy of your ingredients!” Gordon’s tentacles shoot out in all directions, and from the dark corners of the cave he drags a fancy captain’s table (complete with red-checked tablecloth), a Coral and Limestone cooking stove connected to a sea gas canister, a huge number of shiny cooking utensils and, last, a clutch of sharp, evil knives.

  I really don’t like the way the blades glint in my ever-more-goggly eyes.

  “And finally,” bellows Gordon, throwing his tentacles wide, “the thing you need most of all is . . .”

  I take a deep breath, terrified of what that last thing might be and how it might be used to chop me into tiny pieces of shark sushi, or blend me into hammerhead-fin soup.

  “The right hat!”

  Huh?

  Reaching up into the dark ceiling of the cave with two of his tentacles, Gordon brings down a huge white chef’s hat. I look at it closely and see that it has been stitched together from several wrecked-ships’ sails.

  Gordon places the chef’s hat on his head, like a mer-king putting on a crown. The puffy, mushroom-shaped top of the hat settles down and Gordon strikes a pose, folding his tentacles one over the other over the other over the other over the other over the other over the other over the other over the other.

  “And now,” Gordon whispers, “we can begin!”

  I try to push myself into the rock as Gordon picks up one!, two!!, three!!!, four!!!! of his sharpest knives and slowly makes his way toward me, licking at his razor-sharp beak with his leathery purple tongue.

  “Wait!” I scream as Gordon gets closer. “Wait! You’ve forgotten something really important!”

  “No, I haven’t,” says Gordon, unconvinced. He looks around. “Ingredients. Check. Cooking stove. Check. Knives. Check, check, check, and check. Huge, floppy chef’s hat. Check! Table. Check. Tablecloth. Checked. What else can I possibly need?”

  Think of something! I say to myself. “You don’t have . . .” Come on!!! Come on!!!

  Then I have a brain wave. On all the cooking programs Mom watches, they’re always going on about something called seasoning.

  “You don’t have the right seasoning!” I say with a gasp.

  Gordon’s chef’s hat has fallen over the tops of his eyes. He pushes it back, scratches at his forehead with three spare tentacles, and peers at me. “I’ve got all the seasoning I need right here.”

  “No, you haven’t!”

  Gordon pushes his hat so far back that it falls off. He scrabbles around on the floor, picks it up, and puts it back on his head. “Look, you, zip it. Food should not answer back. Now, back to the matter at tentacle. . . .”

  “Honestly, you don’t have the right seasoning-for hammerheads you need . . .”

  Think. Think. THINK! Yes!

  “. . . you need pink plankton. That’s the best thing for hammerheads.” I remember how it had taken Mom ages to find pink plankton for the icing on the top of my birthday cake. If I can convince Gordon to go looking for some, it might buy me some time. . . .

  “Pink plankton?” Gordon eyes me suspiciously. “I’ve never heard anything about hammerheads and pink plankton before.”

  “It’s true,” I say. “I saw it on . . .” THINK! What’s that program Mom watches? “. . . Musselchef. Honestly, if you don’t have pink plankton, I am going to taste really boring. And I wouldn’t want to see a brilliant chef like you make such a huge mistake.”

  “Well. . . .”

  Yes. Yes. Come on.

  “All right.”

  SCORE!

  Gordon sighs. “I’ll go and find some, but when I come back, you’re going in the pan and I am frying you up for lunch and then having leftover hammerhead sandwiches for later. Is that clear?”

  “Yes! Yes, it is!” I have to stop myself from cheering.

  Still clutching the knives, Gordon turns around and swims out of the cave, grumbling to himself.

  I know that this is my very last chance. If I don’t get away now . . . I shiver at the horrible thought of being a giant squid’s lunch (and dinner!).

  The seaweed’s too strong for me to get out of on my own, so if I’m going to get free, I’ll have to find something that will help. Okay. Concentrate. Find something. Anything to get me out of this mess.

  I look around. Because I’m tied to this dopey rock, my nose and fins can’t reach any of the knives and utensils Gordon has left out on the table. I can’t bend my neck to get my teeth working on the icky seaweed, either.

  So what’s left?

  I look down and see that my tail is free. Great. That will be really helpful. Not.

  But then . . .

  I look beyond my tail to the floor of the cave. It’s covered in bones and teeth and fish jaws. What if . . . ?

  I ping on my hammer-vision and start scanning the cave floor. Look. Look. Look! Yes! There! Just in reach!

  I start moving my tail. I swish it as hard and as fast as I can over the small patch of cave floor below me. Soon a huge cloud of sand and silt is rising into the water. As I dangle, I’m uncovering more and more bones, and then, as the sand clears, I can see the edge of the cuttlefish bone I’d detected with my hammer-vision.

  Cuttlefish bones are razor-sharp.

  I push as hard against the seaweed as
I can and wriggle my tail down a tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiny bit more. The tip of my tail just brushes the top of the exposed cuttlefish bone. That’s a start!

  I take a deep breath and squiggle down as hard and as far as I can. The bonds shift a little, and I can just . . .

  YES!

  My tail finally squirms under the cuttlefish bone and I flip it up.

  The bone spins lazily into the water on a cloud of sand.

  I reach out with my left fin.

  Missed!

  I lunge with my right fin.

  Missed again!

  The bone is still going up. I kick and kick, forcing myself against the snotty seaweed, and open my mouth to . . .

  Chomp!

  The cuttlefish bone is in my mouth. Luckily, not sharp-side up.

  YES!

  I tilt my head down to work on the seaweed.

  The edge of the cuttlefish bone cuts through the sticky seaweed like a swordfish through sea-cow butter.

  With a shake of my shoulders and a half-piked tail flip, I’m free of the snotty weed!

  I shake the last pieces of seaweed from my fins and kick away toward the entrance of the cave, and out into the dark water.

  I’ve made it! I’m free!

  Ping!

  NO!

  Ping!

  NO!!

  PING!!!

  NO!!!!

  My hammer-vision picks up a huge shape swimming toward me. A huge giant squid shape. Gordon Clamsey is back!

  I thrust myself forward into the water, back toward Shark Point, but I can feel from the currents in the water that he’s getting closer.

  “You tricked me!” Gordon shouts. ’You don’t season hammerheads with pink plankton!”

  “You don’t?” I call back, swimming as fast as I can.

  “No, and you know very well that you don’t. I went to the library and got a kid-squid to look it up for me on the Interwet. And now,” booms Gordon, “it’s definitely time for lunch!”