Shark Out of Water!

by Ace Landers

  Normally Tammy would never have done this. She would never approach a beached shark, especially not without parent supervision. But this was different. She could feel this was different.

  Tammy reached out and touched the shark’s back, making sure to stay far away from its jaws. The hammerhead’s eye closest to Tammy softened as if the shark needed her. She felt the animal’s ragged breath and immediately wanted to calm it down. She could sense that something was wrong.

  “It’s okay. You’re going to be just fine,” Tammy said, as if she were talking to a lost puppy.

  But the shark kept wiggling. Huh, Tammy thought. Then she realized! The shark wasn’t stuck at all.

  “Guys,” Tammy said, beckoning her friends. “I think this shark stopped on its own, almost like it wanted to get our attention.”

  And just when Tammy said that, the mako shark leaped into the air. It stuck its tongue out at Kyle, just as the porbeagle had done on Saturday.

  To Tammy’s surprise, Kyle was the first one to connect the dots. “Porbeagle,” he said solemnly. “They’re telling us that the porbeagle is in trouble!”

  Tammy focused on the hammerhead shark.

  “Porbeagle … is trapped?” she guessed. No response from the sharks. “Porbeagle … is missing?”

  As she said that, the hammerhead shark twisted around and nodded wildly, splashing its T-shaped head in and out of the water.

  “That’s it! The porbeagle shark is missing!” Tammy yelled to the others. “But how can a shark just go missing? We’ve got to help them find their friend!”

  Alex fished a pair of binoculars out of his back pocket. He adjusted the knobs on them and scanned the ocean, but there was nothing that he could see.

  “No splashes,” Alex said sadly. “Nada.”

  Tammy’s mind was racing. The sharks wanted their help. This might be a first-ever real human-shark interaction. Forget the MSC being cool; this was downright momentous! She could feel herself panicking for the little porbeagle shark too.

  Tammy sat back and thought. Where could the porbeagle have gone? It was low tide now … low tide!

  Of course! If the porbeagle wasn’t here in low tide, had it swum out earlier? During high tide?

  “High tide!” said Tammy. “That must be it! If the porbeagle came to find us at high tide, it might have swum into the cave. But when the tide went out, it could have gotten trapped in a deep tide pool!”

  Alex grabbed his video camera and ran quickly, but he accidentally dropped it along the way.

  “Oh no,” Alex sighed when he saw it crash to the shore and make a beep! but there was nothing he could do about it.

  Tammy and Kyle followed him until they were back by the tide pools. But whereas Kyle and Alex stayed inside, Tammy stuck her feet in the water.

  A faint splashing sound echoed off the walls of Tiburon Cove.

  It was Kyle, with his incredible artist’s brain, who located the sound and pointed to a tide pool farther back in the cave. “There!” he said.

  Tammy took off her backpack and put it on the ground. She grabbed her flashlight and switched it on. Although she’d originally wanted to photograph the sharks, that didn’t matter anymore. All she cared about was saving the porbeagle. She couldn’t think of anything else!

  The sound became louder and louder. Tammy tried to stand, but her ankle got trapped in some seaweed. She needed to untangle herself!

  While Tammy worked on untying herself, Kyle moved closer to the noise.

  “It’s the porbeagle!” Kyle gasped, edging closer to it and farther from Tammy.

  The poor porbeagle shark was trapped in a tide pool. Normally, the porbeagle shark could have gotten out, but similar to Tammy, the creature was tangled in a plastic six-pack yoke.

  Alex looked at the shark, and his heart suddenly felt very heavy. “It’s completely trapped,” he said sadly.

  Whoa, easy, boy,” Kyle told the shark. “We’re here to help.”

  The porbeagle shark was still very alarmed, trying its best to get out of the tide pool.

  “Of course it doesn’t trust us,” Alex said. “Humans are the ones who invented those plastic things, remember? And the ones who probably didn’t dispose of it properly, making him get caught.”

  But the porbeagle still wouldn’t relent.

  Finally, Tammy untied herself. She was free! She turned to the hammerhead shark, who had arrived right by the ledge where she’d stuck in her feet.

  “We want to help,” Tammy said slowly, emphasizing the word “help.” “Can you tell your friend?”

  Hammerhead seemed to nod. Then it emitted a great big bubble.

  Tammy wasn’t sure if the bubble meant anything, but then again, she didn’t speak Shark. It clearly meant something to the porbeagle, because the little shark instantly relaxed. It looked at Kyle with hope in its eyes.

  “I’m going to be honest,” Kyle said as Tammy got closer. “I don’t think I’m qualified enough to handle this. I wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for you guys. Tammy, you should do it. You’re the president of the MSC.”

  Tammy nearly laughed. “President of the MSC? Kyle, forget the MSC!” she said. “This isn’t about some dumb Waverly Middle School club; this is about doing real stuff. And I know you can do this, Kyle. I know you weren’t really interested in marine science at first, but you’ve learned so much. Who cares if we’re not the coolest club in school? We think we’re the coolest, and so long as we think we are, that’s all that matters.”

  Alex smiled at Kyle. “You got this, buddy,” he said.

  The hammerhead and the mako seemed to agree.

  Carefully, Kyle eased his hand into the water. He watched as the little porbeagle relaxed. Kyle gently touched the porbeagle’s tail and tried to slide off the plastic ring, but it was too tight.

  “I can’t do this,” Kyle said again, looking defeated.

  “You have to do this,” Tammy told him.

  “We believe in you,” said Alex.

  With his friends’ words close to his heart, Kyle tried again. He slipped his nail into the plastic and tugged at it with all his might. Then Kyle let out a gasp! The porbeagle shark was free!

  The porbeagle let out a huge bubble, and the other sharks jumped for joy. Tammy and Alex screeched, “Wahoo! Kyle, you did it!”

  Kyle smiled to himself. “Huh,” he said, “I guess I did it.”

  Then the porbeagle gave Kyle’s arm a soft nuzzle with its nose.

  “I think it likes you,” said Alex. Then, with Tammy’s flashlight still illuminating everything, he was finally able to look around the dark cave. “Look at this mess! People don’t realize what kind of damage we’re doing to our oceans and beaches.”

  “Yeah, but the sharks do,” said Kyle as he patted the porbeagle’s back. The small shark swam back and forth under his grasp, like a puppy dog searching for a scratch behind the ear.

  “Maybe people just need to see what’s going on and they’d help make a difference,” suggested Alex. “My parents buy soda on those six-pack plastic rings all the time for their pizza shop. They don’t mean to cause harm, but this could very easily have been from their new shop.” Alex looked really sad.

  “You can’t beat yourself up over that,” Tammy said. “Besides, if you cut those pieces of plastic into bits, you can make sure the animals won’t get stuck in them, just in case it ends up in the ocean.”

  That gave Kyle an idea. “What if we organized a beach cleanup?” he said. “I know MSC isn’t exactly cool, but if we got the teachers on board and organized it as a field trip during the day, I think lots of Waverly Middle School kids would be interested. And it would stop the trash from harming the sharks.”

  Tammy and Alex smiled. “Kyle, that’s brilliant,” Alex said.

  The sharks splashed some more, and Tammy realized this was probably them saying good-bye again.

  “I hope to see you all soon,” Tammy told the sharks. “We’ll come back. I promise.”

&nbs
p; The sharks splashed again, as if thanking her. Then the hammerhead shark brought a purple shell up to the surface. Tammy knew it was thanking them not only for saving the porbeagle, but also for the gift she’d given it, since the shell was purple, like her ribbon.

  Tammy, Alex, and Kyle collected everything they’d dropped behind and walked away. Even though they had no way to prove it, they knew that this wasn’t the last time they’d see their shark friends.

  Tammy had to admit it: Alex’s parents’ pizza was delicious.

  “So I was thinking about your biodegradable hair ribbon, and I think we can incorporate some biodegradable plates and utensils into the restaurant,” Alex said. “I’ll talk to my parents about it later, but I think they’d really like that plan.”

  “That’s awesome,” said Kyle. “Almost as awesome as this pizza!” He dug in to his slice. Opened up next to him was his sketchbook. Kyle was drawing the porbeagle eating pizza.

  “I’m just sorry we didn’t get any kind of footage or photography for the MSC. That would’ve really been amazing,” Alex told Tammy. He picked up the video camera he’d dropped while running.

  “It’s a bummer, but it’s okay,” Tammy said. “Like I said, helping marine life is way more important than being cool.”

  Then Tammy furrowed her brow. “Hey, what’s that?” she asked, pointing to a faint red light flashing on the video camera.

  “Huh, I guess it’s recording,” Alex said. “I didn’t press record, though. I don’t know why—”

  Tammy nearly spit out her delicious extra-cheesy pizza. “Alex, I think when you dropped it, the camera accidentally turned on and started recording! Play it back, play it back!”

  Alex did as instructed. Kyle stuck his face in to see too. And sure enough, the camera had recorded not just their pizza get-together but the whole rescue of the porbeagle too!

  “Dudes!” Alex nearly shouted. “This—this means …”

  “Our beach cleanup is about to get a whole lot bigger,” Kyle said.

  Tammy couldn’t help it. She smiled from ear to ear.

  “The Marine Science Club is on the map, baby,” she said. “I’ll give the Waverly Middle School paper a call tonight—this is grade A news they will not want to miss. Hey, maybe I’ll even contact the local news. This is going to be the biggest, baddest ocean cleanup there’s ever been. And it’s all thanks to you guys. Seriously, thank you both. I couldn’t ask for two better founding members of the MSC.”

  Kyle smiled. “I was thinking about that, actually,” he said. “And if you’re president, Tammy, and you’re VP, Alex—maybe it is a good idea that I become treasurer.”

  Tammy couldn’t help herself. She whooped, and whooped loud.

  “Would you really be our treasurer?” she asked, smiling at her friend. “Oh, Kyle!” She scooped him up in a big hug, then and there.

  “Hey, I think this is cause for some celebration,” Alex said. He stuck his fist into the middle of the table and stared up at the other two hopefully.

  Tammy and Kyle exchanged a hesitant look. Then they laughed and stuck their fists in too.

  “Science!” they all said together.

  Although Tammy, Kyle, and Alex were safe, don’t ever approach a wild shark! If you see one in the ocean, make sure you alert an adult.

  Porbeagle Shark

  Most porbeagle sharks live in the North Atlantic and the Southern Hemisphere. They like to swim in cold water. The porbeagle shark eats mostly bony fish. It has a highly active lifestyle.

  Hammerhead Shark

  Hammerhead sharks have wide eyes that set them apart! On average, they live twenty to thirty years and can weigh as much as 1,000 pounds. Stingrays are hammerheads’ favorite meal, and the sharks use the stingray’s unique shape to locate their prey.

  Mako Shark

  Mako sharks are found all over the world. They are one of the fastest sharks out there and weigh in at around 375 pounds. These sharks are known for jumping out of the water. Scientists believe this is how they search for their prey.

  Special thanks to our chums at Ubisoft and Future Games of London, and a jaw-some thanks to Sam Fry, Valentina Marchetti, Caroline Lamache, Anthony Marcantonio, Lena Barendt, Thomas Veyrat, James Varma, and Giorgia La Rocca.

  © 2020 Ubisoft Entertainment. All rights reserved. Hungry Shark is a trademarkof Future Games of London. Ubisoft and the Ubisoft logo are registered or unregistered trademarks of Ubisoft Entertainment in the U.S. and/or other countries. Future Games of London is an Ubisoft Entertainment company.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First edition 2020

  Cover design by Carolyn Bull and Mercedes Padró

  e-ISBN 978-1-338-60875-5

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