Live and Let Swim

by Mo O'Hara

  Sanj looked up at Mark. ‘What are you doing now?’

  ‘I wanted to have the right look for when we capture them. What do you think?’

  Even I have to admit, he did look pretty evil.

  ‘Welcome, Mr Octopus,’ Mark went on. ‘We’ve been expecting you!’ He stroked Fang and did his trademark evil laugh.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Sanj shrugged. ‘It would probably have been more effective with a white cat.’

  Fang hissed.

  ‘Don’t you listen to him, my evil little kitty-witty,’ Mark cooed.

  Sanj sighed and shook his head. ‘Can we please just get on with the plan? Step One – we capture the octopus . . . and as luck would have it, the zombie goldfish too.’

  ‘Step Two – feed the moron fish to Fang,’ Mark interrupted.

  ‘No, no, no!’ Sanj shook his head. ‘We discussed this when we devised our back-up plan just in case those pesky brothers of ours manage to find out what we’re up to. No feeding the fish to Fang. We might need him alive.’

  Mark and Fang both sulked.

  ‘Step Two is where we coerce the octopus into believing that we will emancipate him and thus get him to use his innate psychic abilities to divulge those winning digits!’

  Sanj clapped his hands in a particularly evil way.

  ‘Hunh?’ said Mark.

  Sanj sighed. ‘We trick the octopus into thinking we’ll free him so he gives us the information we want, even though we’re not actually going to free him at all!’

  ‘Oh, right, yeah,’ Mark said, and slipped Fang into his lab-coat pocket. Then he jumped up and moved a trolley holding a large, water-filled fish tank so it was just underneath a pipe hanging from the ceiling.

  Sanj stood up and held an open jar under the spout of the pipe. ‘Any . . . second . . . now!’ he said.

  At that instant, Frankie swooshed out of the pipe and landed right in Sanj’s waiting jar.

  ‘Swishy fishy! Noooooo!’ Sami shouted, and ran into the room.

  Sanj clamped shut the lid of the jar and held it out of Sami’s reach.

  ‘Let Frankie go!’ I yelled, racing in just as Antonio tumbled out of the pipe after Frankie and landed in the tank.

  Mark slammed shut the lid and locked it.

  ‘Well,’ Sanj said to Mark. ‘I guess your “No Morons” sign didn’t work. But no matter. We’ll just have to resort to the back-up plan.’

  Mark rubbed his hands together. ‘I love the back-up plan. That’s the one with the sharks, right?’

  ‘Sharks?’ I echoed as Pradeep raced into the room and skidded to a halt next to me.

  Pradeep pointed down. ‘Um, Tom. Does this floor mat we’re standing on look weird to you? Because we have a really bad habit of getting stuck in booby traps and—’

  Whooosh!

  The next thing we knew, Pradeep and I had been scooped up by a giant net and were hanging from the ceiling!

  ‘Don’t you dare say I told you so, Pradeep,’ I mumbled, as I dislodged his trainer from next to my face. ‘Why does this always happen to us?’

  ‘We should probably just check for booby traps when we walk into any room,’ Pradeep said. ‘You know, trap doors, circles of rope, statues with mechanical arms . . .’

  ‘Good plan.’ I nodded.

  ‘Are you done?’ Sanj shouted up to us. ‘Can we get back to the evil plan now?’ He had Sami under one arm and was carrying the jar with Frankie in it in the other. Sami was wriggling and kicking to get free.

  ‘Naughty Sanj!’ she yelled. ‘Put me down!’

  ‘Hold still,’ Sanj said. He handed the jar with a thrashing Frankie inside to Mark, and wrapped a bungee cord around Sami and the chair to keep her in one place.

  ‘That ought to hold you until we can deal with the octopus,’ he muttered.

  Mark put the jar down on Sami’s lap. She stared at Frankie through the glass. His eyes were a bright, hypnotic green, but nothing was happening.

  Sanj tapped the glass of the jar. ‘Hypno-proof. No “swishy fishy” chanting for me today.’

  Then Fang jumped up on to Sami’s lap. She stared at Frankie and licked her lips.

  ‘Can’t I feed the fish to Fang instead of the sharks?’ Mark whined. ‘She looks really hungry.’

  ‘We agreed on the sharks. Every time we try to feed the fish to Fang it goes wrong. Besides, sharks just have more impact,’ Sanj replied. ‘And they’re cooler than kittens.’

  Fang growled at him.

  ‘So why do you want Frankie and the octopus?’ I yelled, playing for time while we tried to figure out a way to escape.

  ‘Your moron fish was just a bonus,’ Mark said with a sneer. ‘It’s the octopus we’re after. We set up the whole thing – taking out all the filters on the pipes to lead the octopus directly to our evil hideout. It took us ages, and we had to keep sneaking past that creepy janitor guy.’

  ‘It seems a kinda long-winded way to trap the octopus,’ Pradeep said. ‘Antonio’s always climbing out of his tank on his own. You could have just walked in and taken him.’

  ‘We know that Antonio is prone to escaping,’ snapped Sanj. ‘What do you think we are? Fools? That’s why we came up with the plan. If we had just walked in and stolen him, the Aquarium would have got the police involved. But if the octopus escaped through, say, some faulty filters in the tank systems, no one could possibly blame us. They’d probably just fire that old janitor for not doing his job properly.’

  ‘No! Oddjobz loves his job,’ I whispered to Pradeep.

  Sanj carried on. ‘You see, I’ve been observing Antonio on the Aquarium CCTV cameras that I hacked into. That octopus can understand and communicate far more then they know. I’ve seen him read signs, watch guards entering codes on keypads and then punch in the same codes when he’s trying to escape . . . I’ve even seen him disable security cameras.’

  Frankie was still thrashing in his jar on Sami’s lap as Fang circled, just in case the jar fell on the floor.

  ‘But when I saw him predicting football scores and election results, I realized this was not only a very intelligent octopus. It actually has psychic powers. We had to be certain, so Mark and I snuck into the Aquarium last weekend and ran tests using playing cards. The octopus had a near flawless rate of predicting the card I was holding. This octopus’s talents are wasted on picking the winning team in some infantile football match.’

  ‘Though I still wanna know if the Barrington Bounders will win today,’ Mark added.

  Antonio made a thumbs-down sign with two of his tentacles.

  ‘Oh, man . . .’ Mark mumbled.

  ‘I’ve reconfigured Sami’s “Say It, Spell It” to be a waterproof communication device for the octopus,’ Sanj said, holding up the toy. ‘Whatever the octopus types will be vocalized through this wireless speaker.’ He clipped a pink plastic box to the side of the tank.

  ‘Naughty Sanj broke my toy!’ Sami shrieked. ‘Bad Sanj!’

  ‘It’s all in the name of science, Sami,’ Sanj said. ‘Now let’s see if Antonio can work out how to communicate with us.’ He lifted the lid and dropped the device into the tank with the octopus. Immediately Antonio started typing away on the keypad.

  The pink speaker burst into life with a weird robotic voice. ‘My name is Juan Antonio Ignatius Carlos Octopus, but you can call me Antonio. I was captured off the coast of South America last year. Gracias for your communication device. It is mucho helpful. Excuse my grasp of English. I am translating from Octopus to Spanish to English. It can get jumbled. I long to get back to mi casa, my home . . . the sea.’

  Pradeep pushed a bit of net away from his eyes and stared down at his evil older brother. ‘Wow, for once you’ve done something not “mostly evil”, Sanj!’

  Sanj looked offended. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Your discovery of this communication method with the octopus. It’s a major scientific breakthrough! You could benefit animals all over the world. Now we can show this to the Aquarium people and they’ll relea
se Antonio back into the wild.’

  Sanj threw his head back and gave an evil wheezy laugh, and Mark joined him.

  ‘Mew, mew, mew, mew, mew!’ echoed Fang.

  ‘Are you kidding?’ Mark said.

  ‘There’s money to be made from this octopus,’ Sanj snapped. ‘The only person I want to benefit from Antonio’s psychic powers is me!’

  ‘And me,’ Mark added.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Sanj mumbled. ‘And him. I just had to make sure Antonio could communicate complicated thoughts with me. I don’t give a stuff what he’s feeling or if he wants to go home. Boo-hoo! Poor little octopus!’ He tapped the glass of the tank. ‘You might be extraordinarily smart and frustrated by the staggering array of ordinariness around you, which I completely understand as I constantly feel that way myself, but I honestly . . . don’t . . . care. All I want you to do is make me money.’

  The octopus started typing things very fast on the keypad. Sanj quickly pressed mute on the speaker.

  Pradeep stared down at the keyboard from our position hanging in the net. ‘It looks like he’s saying something in Spanish, but they’re not words we’ve learned in school,’ he whispered.

  ‘Ignore that!’ I whispered back. ‘We need to think of an escape plan, and fast!’

  ‘I would like to remind you there is a small child present,’ Sanj snapped at the octopus, and pointed at Sami. ‘I’m going to turn the speaker back on now, and I do not care to hear any of those words again.’

  Antonio looked over at Sami. ‘Sorry,’ came the robotic voice.

  Sami smiled back at him.

  ‘Now,’ Sanj carried on. ‘You have a single job to do for us, Mr Octopus. You are going to predict the winning lottery numbers for tonight’s Billon Pound Rollover win. With that money Mark and I can build the evil lair we’ve always dreamed of.’

  ‘Yeah, with sharks and everything,’ Mark added. ‘And a kitten palace with more string then you could ever shred, Fang. And loads of fish to eat . . . even if they’re not zombie goldfish.’

  Fang sharpened a claw on the ground and grinned.

  ‘Why would the octopus agree to that?’ I asked.

  ‘Will you release him back into the ocean?’ Pradeep said.

  ‘Of course not!’ Sanj answered. ‘Why would I throw a money-making octopus back out to sea?’

  ‘Then I don’t think the octopus is going to want to help you,’ I said.

  ‘That’s where you come in,’ Sanj smiled.

  He pressed a button on the wall and the net Pradeep and I were trapped in started to travel along a track on the ceiling.

  ‘This is how they transport really heavy fish from one tank to another,’ Mark said.

  ‘I’ve programmed it to head for the shark tank,’ Sanj added. ‘Shall we see if it works?’

  Frankie thrashed like mad in his jar and Antonio pushed at the lid of his tank, but there was no way out.

  Sanj and Mark followed us, Mark pushing Antonio’s tank on the trolley and Sanj pushing Sami, still tied up in her chair with Frankie and Fang on her lap.

  I could see us getting closer and closer to the shark tank. It was HUGE. The glass on one side faced into the ‘Staff Only’ section of the Aquarium. The other side had a black curtain hanging in front of it, just like the one that was in front of the octopus tank earlier. This must be the shark-feeding tank. Only today, we were on the menu!

  I stared into the tank. The glass on the back wall looked like a mirror from up here.

  I shot Pradeep a look that said, ‘I think the back of the tank is one-way glass, like they use in cop shows.’

  ‘It looks like it,’ his look replied. ‘I guess that’s so the audience can’t see what’s behind the tank.’

  The net slid along until it came to a stop over the exact centre of the shark tank. Shark fins sliced through the surface of the water, and we could see the distinctive outline of hammerhead sharks.

  ‘Hammerheads!’ Pradeep said with a gulp. ‘They’re known man-eaters.’

  ‘I don’t really want to be shark lunch,’ I whimpered.

  ‘Or dinner or a snack!’ Pradeep added. ‘Hang on. I have a plan . . .’

  He whispered something and we both started searching through our pockets.

  ‘OK, Mr Octopus, this is how it works.’ Sanj spoke over us. ‘Give us the winning lottery numbers for tonight’s big draw . . . or we lower the morons into the tank.’

  ‘¿Qué? Morons? ¿Idiotas?’ came the robot voice from Antonio’s tank.

  ‘I should have added a translation algorithm,’ muttered Sanj. ‘I’ll lower the boys into the shark tank.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘For a psychic octopus, you are being very obtuse.’

  No sound came from Antonio’s tank.

  ‘Right, that’s it!’ said Sanj. ‘Lower the morons!’

  ‘For real?’ Mark cried. Then he started to whisper, but we could still hear bits of what he was saying to Sanj. It sounded like, ‘Blah, blah, blah, just wanted to scare the octopus, blah, blah, blah, not really gonna dunk them, blah blah, blah, real sharks and all?’

  ‘Just go along with it!’ shouted Sanj.

  Mark pressed another button on the wall by the tank and the net started heading for the water.

  ‘I can predict that the boys are actually in pequeño danger,’ the robot voice suddenly said. ‘The sharks are well-fed and used to having divers in their tank. I predict the boys will remain calm and use the sharp whittling edge of their Aqua Survival key rings to cut themselves free as soon as they hit the water. They will then simply swim to the escape ladder located by the rear south corner of the tank, and get away. I will not help you.’

  ‘Gah!’ shouted Sanj. ‘Mark, stop the net.’

  Mark pressed another button and we ground to a halt.

  Sanj squinted up at us as we quickly tried to hide our Aqua Survival key rings.

  ‘Wow, how did Antonio know that?’ I said from the swinging net. ‘I mean, not that it was EXACTLY our plan or anything –’ I looked at Pradeep, who was still shoving his key ring back in his pocket – ‘but it was kinda close.’

  Sanj turned back to Antonio. ‘OK, let’s try something different.’

  He grabbed the jar with Frankie in it from Sami’s lap, then climbed up the emergency ladder to the tank and started unscrewing the lid.

  ‘We know how much you wanted to munch on this delicious zombie goldfish. So either you get to eat the fish, Mr Octopus . . . or the sharks can have him,’ he added. ‘You decide!’

  At that moment, Fang leaped off Sami’s lap, bolted up the ladder and knocked the jar from Sanj’s hands.

  ‘Stupid cat!’ yelled Sanj, as Frankie and the jar both tumbled into the shark-infested water. He leaned back to get away from Fang’s razor-sharp claws and toppled off the ladder with a thud.

  Fang looked like she was going to jump in after Frankie, but as soon as the tip of one of her paws touched the water she pulled it back with a frightened ‘Mew!’ and jumped on to the net Pradeep and I were trapped in.

  ‘Frankie!’ I shouted from the net, while trying to avoid Fang’s claws digging into the top of my head. ‘Zombify them!’

  The sharks started to circle around Frankie. His eyes glowed green and he curled up his fins, ready for a fight.

  ‘I don’t think he can hypnotize them!’ Pradeep said. ‘He can’t look into both eyes of a hammerhead at the same time!’

  ‘Nooo! Swishy fishy!’ Sami shouted over us. She was wriggling so much that she had got herself completely tangled up in the elastic bungee cord that Sanj had used to secure her to the chair.

  ‘Mark, tie her up again properly!’ Sanj shouted from the floor where he’d landed.

  Antonio thrashed angrily in his tank. He grabbed the ‘Say It, Spell It’ and started typing, but before he could get any words out Sami leaped up off the chair.

  Sami was an expert wriggler. Somehow she had managed to slip out of the cord at the exact moment that Mark went to retie it. She ran between his legs, c
ircled around and then dashed underneath the chair, causing Mark to become tangled. Stretched to its elastic limit, the bungee cord suddenly pinged back, pinning Mark’s arms to his sides and trapping him in the chair.

  ‘Hey, not fair. Let me outta this!’ Mark shouted.

  Sanj had just pulled himself to a sitting position and was rubbing his head when Sami stepped on him to get to the first rung of the ladder.

  ‘Ummmph!’ he spluttered as she clambered over him.

  ‘Sami!’ yelled Pradeep. ‘Stop!’

  But she didn’t stop. In fact, Sami pretty much forgot to stop altogether when she reached the top of the ladder.

  ‘Fishy!’ she shouted as she tumbled towards the water.

  ‘Sami!’ yelled Mark, Sanj and Pradeep.

  ‘Got you!’ I cried, as I reached through the net and just managed to grab the tip of her shark-fin life vest.

  Now we were stuck in a net dangling over a shark tank, with Sami dangling below us

  The black curtain on the public side of the tank was still closed as Sami hung face down above the tank.

  ‘Help!’ she whimpered.

  ‘I’ve got you, Sami,’ I cried. ‘I won’t let you fall.’

  Below us, Frankie was swimming for his life, dodging sharks as they swiped past him.

  The octopus typed furiously on the keypad. There were words, ‘Little shark-niña! I must help the child who was kind to me.’ Then there was a long sequence of numbers.

  ‘Yes!’ Sanj shouted, leaping up and running towards Antonio’s tank. ‘The lottery numbers.’

  He lifted the lid to free Antonio the octopus. ‘Now you can eat the fish!’ he said.

  Fang hissed.

  Sanj immediately picked up his tablet and started typing.