by Ace Landers
You see, Hammerhead was fascinated with terrestrial life. Even if the other sharks weren’t, or made fun of her for it or said she wasn’t cool, Hammerhead just wanted to learn more about land-dwelling creatures. Breathe out of the water? That seemed like a thing only a superhero could do.
Thankfully, today, Hammerhead was pleased. Aboard the pirate ship, she had found a new oddity to add to her collection—a beautiful glass bowl.
The bowl was exactly what Hammerhead needed for her newest task: a land suit!
With a land suit, she could go where no shark had gone before (and lived to tell the tale) … the land.
Thus far, Hammerhead had collected an eggbeater, a trumpet, a tire, and a snorkel mask. That snorkel mask was what gave her the idea to build the land suit in the first place, actually. She just needed a bowl that would fit over her head and hold enough water for her to breathe. And now she had the perfect one!
Hammerhead stopped to admire her bowl again and try it on. She also wanted to make sure none of the other sharks were spying on her. If Tiger caught her, she’d never hear the end of it. But if Hammerhead’s invention worked, she knew that Tiger would be the first in line to try it out.
As she slipped on the bowl, Hammerhead heard it click into place. The silence of the ocean became even quieter.
Now it was time for step two: walking practice. If Hammerhead was ever going to travel above the water, she needed to know how to walk, because swimming on land—well, it just doesn’t work. She’d seen lots of other animals try, like those whales who kept getting stuck on the beach and the fish who got caught (they’d blub, blub, blub and never once got to walk for real). She didn’t want to suffer the embarrassment of having humans roll her back into the water. She knew Tiger would probably sell tickets to that kind of event!
Carefully, Hammerhead placed her tail on the ocean floor. Using all her concentration, she slowly straightened her back until she stood up. A school of young fish swam around the corner and stared at her. Hammerhead knew she must have looked silly to them, but she didn’t care. They were fish. If they laughed at her, she’d just eat them. Problem solved.
When she was steady on her fins, Hammerhead took her first step. It worked! Then a second … then a third … until she was walking toward her sunken pirate ship.
Of course her walking wasn’t the best walking in the world, but Hammerhead decided that since she was a shark, after all, it might be good enough.
She had just wobbled forward when she heard a dull thumping noise coming from behind. Hammerhead froze. She knew what that dull thumping noise meant.
It meant a shark.
Was it Tiger? Hammerhead closed her eyes. She wanted to spend the next second of not knowing for sure in total bliss. Then she opened them, one by one. There was a tail—
Phew. Hammerhead blew a bubble as a sign of relief. The shark nearing her was half swimming, half bouncing with the excitement of a giant puppy dog. Hammerhead had learned all about “puppy dogs” from a laminated magazine that she had found underwater. Puppy dogs, the article explained, were man’s—and woman’s—best friend. And although this wasn’t some kind of aquatic puppy dog, it was Porbeagle.
Porbeagle was Hammerhead’s best friend. Albeit her clumsy best friend.
CRASH! Porbeagle pounced directly on Hammerhead and knocked her down. Hammerhead’s mask flew off her head. She watched as the key part of her land suit flipped through the water in slow motion, then shattered against the ocean floor.
Hammerhead tried to stop it, but it was too late. The hermit crabs crawled from their hiding places and used the broken pieces as new homes. Hammerhead’s perfect helmet, her beautiful glass bowl, was gone.
Porbeagle, of course, didn’t notice anything except for the fact that he had found his best friend. He gave Hammerhead a big, slobbery lick with his tongue. It sounded kind of like this: Slurrrrrp!
Hammerhead pushed Porbeagle to the side and shook herself off. She wanted to be mad at Porbeagle, but gazing at her friend’s puppy-dog eyes, she knew she could never stay angry for long. Hammerhead knew that Porbeagle, unlike Tiger, meant no harm.
Porbeagle noticed the hermit crabs scurry to their new glass homes and swam over to inspect them. He sniffed them first, then picked one up in his mouth and spit it out. Hermit crabs do not taste good, Porbeagle decided. They were too crunchy.
Just as Porbeagle thought the hermit crab would scurry off, it turned around and snapped at his nose with its claw. Ouch! Porbeagle thought. That hurt! He then made a very important observation. Hermit crabs are crunchy, but they are also claw-y.
Porbeagle decided he should not eat hermit crabs unless he was really, really hungry.
Then the playful shark turned and looked for his friend, but Hammerhead had already retreated into the sunken ship. Porbeagle swam after her through the hole in the side of the boat.
Porbeagle loved the inside of Hammer-head’s ship. It was filled with all her weird inventions. Porbeagle didn’t know why Hammerhead loved to build things so much, especially when there was tons of food in the ocean to eat! But he knew that all sharks were different.
Hammerhead floated in front of a map that hung on the wall. It showed the local ocean floor, but Hammerhead had circled all of the spots where she found cool treasures from the surface. There were a lot of circles near a place called Tiburon Cove.
Hammerhead pointed to the cove on the map, but Porbeagle wasn’t paying attention. He had just spotted a bright pink fish trying to sneak by them. Quickly, Porbeagle snapped it up, and although it was very delicious, the chewy fish gave out a loud “squeak-er! squeak-er!” with every bite.
Hammerhead hated that noise. She swam over and pulled the fish out of Porbeagle’s mouth. She shook her head at Porbeagle and showed him that the fish was not a fish, but instead one of the treasures from above the water that she had found.
She squeezed the fish in her fin, and the fish made the same squeaking sound. Porbeagle did an eager flip, as if this were the beginning of a game.
But Hammerhead was in no mood to play. She was on a mission! She needed to find another bowl for her invention. The first bowl had been half buried in the sea floor near Tiburon Cove. Maybe she could find another bowl there?
Porbeagle kept snapping at the fake fish, so Hammerhead threw it as far as she could.
Unfortunately (or rather fortunately, depending on whose side you take), Porbeagle was in the mood to play, so he raced after the fish squeaker and returned a few seconds later with the pink fish victoriously clamped in his mouth.
Hammerhead had way more important things to do than play with Porbeagle. And she could tell that this squeaker fish needed to disappear quickly. So Hammerhead took the fish outside and buried it deep in the sand while Porbeagle watched, very confused.
When Hammerhead was done, she shrugged at Porbeagle as if to say, I don’t know where that pink fish went, but it’s gone for good now.
But Porbeagle knew that wasn’t true! He dove into the dirt, spinning like a power drill, and found the squeaker in no time.
Filthy and covered with mud, Porbeagle swam over to Hammerhead and dropped the bright fish in front of her. Then he bounced around, ready to play some more.
Hmm, thought Hammerhead, smiling widely and flashing her sharp teeth. She suddenly had a plan for how to find another bowl. And she was sure that Porbeagle would dig it.
That plan was Tiburon Cove.
Hammerhead was excited to venture back there. She hoped that maybe, for shark’s sake, there would be another perfect glass bowl. Maybe one even better than the last. If she was really, really lucky, maybe there would even be a whole land suit tailored to her!
Hammerhead would quickly travel two swishes, but then turn around to see that Porbeagle was chasing either a jellyfish or an eel. It was a good thing that Hammerhead had brought the bright fish squeaker to get her friend’s attention. Otherwise, she wasn’t sure how they would make it to Tiburon Cove.
The idea fo
r the land suit had come when Hammerhead spotted a group of deep sea divers one day. The humans wore masks to help them breathe air underwater as they explored the ocean. But when Hammerhead swam over to inspect how their masks worked, the divers were not as excited to see her as they were to see the other fish in the sea.
The divers saw Hammerhead and swam away faster than a sailfish in a riptide! Hammerhead was pretty sure she even heard them scream in horror, but when she looked around, she couldn’t see anything scary in the ocean. Humans were very weird like that. Hammerhead was only trying to be friendly!
When Hammerhead and Porbeagle had almost reached the cove, Porbeagle stopped and raised his ear. He heard the strangest noise. Hammerhead stopped too, because even she heard the noise. It sounded like the entire ocean was splashing. They could feel the ripples echoing everywhere.
Suddenly, Hammerhead and Porbeagle were surrounded by panicked schools of colorful fish that fluttered past them in a wake of a thousand tiny waves. Hammerhead covered her eyes—she was always getting poked in the eyes. Porbeagle, on the other hand, took a few yummy bites. After all, it was not every day that your dinner jumped right into your mouth.
In a flash, the fish were gone and a fast-moving shadow appeared. Hammerhead immediately knew who it was: Mako.
Great, thought Hammerhead. First Porbeagle, now Mako! She loved her friends, but it was as if the ocean didn’t want her to finish building her land suit.
Mako was one of Hammerhead’s dearest friends, but he was … well, loud. When Mako was a baby shark, he found a giant metal box at the bottom of the sea. Like any normal shark, Mako was curious about it. The side of the box had strange writing on it that looked like this: H-O-T C-H-O-C-O-L-A-T-E.
Mako couldn’t read, but he could smell. There was a small brown cloud escaping from the metal box through a set of doors on the side that must have broken when it hit the ocean floor. Mako sniffed the cloud carefully. A strong scent filled his nose. It was like nothing he had ever smelled before in his life, and he had to eat whatever was making that smell!
The little shark squeezed through the doors and discovered a treasure of sweet-smelling cocoa beans. Mako couldn’t help himself. He ended up eating every bean in that giant container. Bad idea.
As soon as Mako chomped down on the cocoa beans, his eyes grew wide and his smile became wider. In a flash, Mako was overcharged and bounced around the metal box until he broke through one of the sides.
Mako’s never going to sleep again, Hammerhead had thought, watching her friend swim about in bursts of energy.
Now Hammerhead barely dodged Mako as he shot past. But when Hammerhead darted out of the way, she swam right into a coral reef. Her head slipped between the colorful corals, and when she tried to pull it back out, the broad blades of her head were stuck!
Hammerhead felt her cheeks turn red. At least Tiger Shark wasn’t around to see her.
But then more fish from the reef swam out to see what was going on. They all erupted in bubbles of laughter at the silly shark.
Hammerhead’s tail hung low. Why did the most embarrassing things always happen to her? She tried to lurch forward and scare the fish away, but it was useless. The coral wouldn’t budge.
Then the fish stopped laughing. Hammer-head looked up to see Porbeagle swoop in and chase the fish right into the reef. After he was sure all the fish were gone, Porbeagle returned and helped free Hammerhead.
Hammerhead smiled and rubbed Porbeagle on the head. She knew that no matter what, Porbeagle would stick by her.
Mako swam back to them too. He had heard the commotion and wanted in on the action.
Even though Hammerhead knew it might not be a good idea to invite Mako to Tiburon Cove, she waved for the wild shark to follow them. And when she did, the three friends were already on their way.
The three friends were part of what Hammerhead liked to call the Terrestrial Science Club. Although she was pretty sure that she was the only shark interested in it, the three had banded together in a way she couldn’t have with the other sharks in the ocean. They helped her on her quest and at least always pretended to be interested in terrestrial things.
In the cove, Hammerhead could relax while she studied the things that lived above the water. It was a strange world up there, and sharks were always discovering new types of creatures. Just the other day, Hammerhead had seen a “seagull.” She heard a human call it a seagull; that was how she learned its name. Before that, she just called them nee-yiy-yiy-yiys, because that was what they were always screeching, and wouldn’t you expect them to be named whatever they screeched?
Hammerhead often wondered what a nee-yiy-yiy-yiy—no, wait, what a seagull tasted like. If she ate one, would it give her the power to fly? A flying shark would be cool. Hey, maybe then Tiger wouldn’t pick on her! Because, you know, she could fly over and bite Tiger on the nose. Not that Hammerhead had ever thought of that, of course …
As the three sharks entered the cove, Hammerhead could smell something fleshy out on the beach. It smelled like humans.
You have got to be kidding, Hammerhead thought. After all that, was she still not going to get to go to the cove because the humans would scream in terror at the sight of them? What a day!
Normally, Hammerhead would retreat if she saw humans, but this time she just didn’t care. She needed that land suit finished, and she needed it done quickly. She wanted to be cooler than Tiger!
But as Hammerhead got nearer, she realized the humans at the beach were an odd assortment. There were three of them, for one—there were never three people down at the cove. (Hammerhead often heard them remarking that it was a very, er, smelly place to be.) And they weren’t bathing in the water or splashing one another or being rowdy. No, they looked interested in the tide pools. Hammerhead had never seen anyone like that before.
And if they’re interested in the tide pools, she thought, maybe they’d be interested in helping me find a new piece for my land suit.
So Hammerhead did something that surprised even her. She stuck her fin out of the water and swam toward the shore.
No way,” said Kyle. “Uh-uh, not in a million years, you couldn’t pay me enough money to go in the ocean around sharks.”
Tammy rolled her eyes. “No one is going in the ocean, Kyle. We’re just studying them. You know, for science.”
“Come on, Kyle,” Alex pleaded. “I’ve never been this close to a shark before. Just imagine the kind of art you can draw when you’re that up close! Not only do the fins keep sharks steady when they swim, but they also let you know when a shark arrives at the party. It’s all like, Yo! Sharks in the house!”
Now both Tammy and Kyle rolled their eyes.
“Listen, we are the Marine Science Club,” Tammy started.
“Or MSC,” interrupted Alex.
“Or the MSC,” Tammy repeat-grumbled slowly. “So if anyone was going to use this opportunity to learn about and photograph some sharks, it’s us.”
The sharks floated in the water. It was as if they were waiting to see what the kids would do.
Even Kyle had to admit it. He felt drawn to these strange creatures.
“All right, I’m in,” Kyle said. “What do we do now?”
Tammy jumped up from the tide pool. “First, let’s split up. Kyle, you stay here. Alex, walk over to the left side of the cove, and I’ll head to the right side. Maybe we’ll be able to tell what kinds of sharks they are.”
The kids split up. Tammy kept her eyes on the sharks as she walked. One floated along with her. When it came close to the surface, Tammy could immediately make out the odd flat shape of its face.
“Hammerhead,” she muttered, then said it louder. “One of the sharks is a hammerhead!”
Alex’s heart was beating hard in his chest, but it was the good kind of intense heartbeat. Like the one he got before his mom set out his favorite Sicilian pizza slice, with mushrooms and green bell peppers on top.
Alex could see one of the sharks traveling l
ike an underwater cheetah beneath the cove. He knew there weren’t many sharks who could move that quickly, and even fewer who could sustain themselves in this kind of water. Plus, this one was too small to be a great white shark. It was even too small to be a nurse shark. Alex was playing process of elimination, trying to determine which kind of shark it was …
Then a seagull dipped down to the water.
“Big mistake,” Alex whispered.
Suddenly, the shark sprang out of the ocean and chomped madly in the air. The shark missed the bird, but it gave itself away. That nose, those snaggletoothed snappers, its precise motion and appetite … Alex smiled.
“This one is a mako shark,” he cheered.
Kyle stared at the last shark who circled the middle of the cove. He watched as the shark flipped in circles, dragging a long tongue behind it.
“I think this one is broken,” he told the others. “But I like it the best. It does tricks.”
Tammy came running back. “Tricks? What do you mean?”
“Like doing flips, swimming in circles, and even floating upside down.” Kyle pointed to the ocean and the shark became stiff, as if it were pointing back at him.
“Whoa,” called out Alex from the other side of the beach. “I think it’s mimicking you! Kyle, quick! Try something else!”
Kyle jumped up in the air and waved his hands. The shark disappeared deeper into the water.
“So much for that idea,” said Kyle. “I must have scared it.”
“No, wait!” called Tammy. “Look!”
There was a loud splash as Kyle’s shark broke the surface of the water and shot into the air. It wiggled all its fins and tail and stuck out its tongue at the kids before crashing into the water.
Tammy jumped up and down too, smacking Kyle on the back. “That’s a porbeagle! And it is totally mimicking you! We need to record this—no one is gonna believe this.”
Tammy booted up the camera on her phone. But from this side of the cove, the location was too dark. She could see only a faint green glare on the bottom right of her screen.