by Ali Sparkes
Books in the
S.W.I.T.C.H. series
#1 Spider Stampede
#2 Fly Frenzy
#3 Grasshopper Glitch
#4 Ant Attack
#5 Crane Fly Crash
#6 Beetle Blast
#7 Frog Freakout
#8 Newt Nemesis
#9 Lizard Loopy
#10 Chameleon Chaos
#11 Turtle Terror
#12 Gecko Gladiator
#13 Anaconda Adventure
#14 Alligator Action
Text © Ali Sparkes 2012
Illustrations © Ross Collins 2012
“SWITCH: Turtle Terror” was originally published in English in 2012. This edition is published by an arrangement with Oxford University Press.
Copyright © 2014 by Darby Creek
All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.
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Main body text set in ITC Goudy Sans Std. 14/19.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sparkes, Ali.
Turtle terror / by Ali Sparkes ; illustrated by Ross Collins.
pages cm. — (S.W.I.T.C.H. ; #11)
Summary: While on vacation with their parents in Cornwall, twins
Danny and Josh follow clues to another marble but find themselves trapped by the tide on a rocky island and the only way back is to use some pilfered REPTOSWITCH.
ISBN 978–1–4677–2114–1 (lib. bdg. : alk. paper)
ISBN 978–1–4677–2420–3 (eBook)
[1. Ciphers—Fiction. 2. Leatherback turtle—Fiction. 3. Turtles—Fiction.
4. Brothers—Fiction. 5. Twins—Fiction. 6. Science fiction.] I. Collins, Ross, illustrator. II. Title.
PZ7.S73712Tur 2014
[Fic]—dc23
2013019714
Manufactured in the United States of America
1 – SB – 12/31/13
eISBN: 978-1-4677-2420-3 (pdf)
eISBN: 978-1-4677-4024-1 (ePub)
eISBN: 978-1-4677-4023-4 (mobi)
To Archie Evans (Read on, Archie—read on!)
With grateful thanks to
John Buckley and Tony Gent of
Amphibian and Reptile Conservation
for their hot-blooded guidance on
S.W.I.T.C.H.’s cold-blooded reptile heroes
Dangerous Claws
Sinister Canister
Rolling Riddle
A Sticky Situation
Flipping Out
Net Result
Fat Lady Smells Funny
The Rocky Horror Show
The Scales of Justice
Top Secret!
Glossary
Recommended Reading
Above the churning sea, a boy clung to the rocks, the breeze blowing his spiky blond hair across his face. Above him was glory. Below him was death. Possibly.
“JOSH!” he yelled to his brother. “JOSH! Look at MEEEE!”
A short walk along the beach, Josh was keeping very still, watching shrimps and tiny crabs skittering about in a rock pool. Nearby, Piddle was licking an orange lump stuck to a rock, his tail wagging wildly. Neither of them looked up at Danny.
“JOOO-OOOSH!” Danny yelled. “LOOK! I’m right up at the top now! I’m like . . . Spiderman!”
Josh sighed and looked up at his twin. Danny had been scrabbling up and down the rocky Cornish beach all morning. He didn’t try to scale the actual cliffs—Mom and Dad had made him promise not to, especially while they were up in the cottage perched on the clifftop above—but the craggy rocks that rose out of the sand were just right for his Spiderman impressions.
“Yeah—great,” Josh yelled back. “Piddle!” he scolded, as their terrier (named after a certain habit he had when he got excited) flopped his long pink tongue over the orange lump again. “Leave that poor defenseless anemone alone!” Above the tide the sea creature looked like a half-sucked fruit gum, instead of the marigold-like flower it would be underwater, but Josh was pretty sure it didn’t taste like one. Piddle started digging in the sand instead.
Josh was about to go back to his rock pool gazing when he felt a twinge of nerves and glanced back up again. Danny was very high up this time. The rocky outcrop he had climbed was tall and jutted away from the beach and out into the sea, like a long stony finger. Danny had clambered all the way to the end, where the sea below was lively and deep, and was trying to climb over an awkward ledge and stand up on the top.
But this wasn’t what worried Josh. Danny was an excellent climber, and it would take a lot to make him fall. No . . . it was something else. Something that was making its way along the top of the same ledge that Danny was about to get up onto. Something about the size of a rugby ball. Something . . . with eight legs.
Josh jumped to his feet, his heart thumping. He nervously rubbed his sandy hands through his short blond hair and squinted hard at the eight-legged thing. Yep. Even from this distance he was sure what it was . . . and that it was on a collision course.
“DANNY!” Josh yelled, running across the warm sand toward his brother’s outcrop. “DANNY! Come down now! Come down!”
“Why? I’m nearly at the top!” Danny yelled back.
“COME DOWN!” Josh bellowed. The eight-legged thing was just inches away from Danny’s scrabbling fingers, as he sought a good handhold for the final pull up. “COME DOWN THE WAY YOU WENT UP! DANNY! NOOOOOW!”
But at that point Danny pulled himself up over the ledge and came face to face with one of the things he feared most.
He saw eight legs and a fearsome brown face grimacing at him.
And he screamed.
And fell backward off the rock.
And hit the sea.
Danny went under like a stone. One second he was scrabbling in the air and the next his world was a blur of roaring, rushing water. Instinct told him to lock up his throat and not try to breathe. At any second a jagged lump of granite could crack open the back of his head or snap his leg. But he was lucky—the area of water he’d fallen into was a churning, whirling cauldron, just deep enough. It broke his fall and stopped him from hitting the rocks at the bottom.
Blue-green water, particles of sand, bits of weed, and his own hair swirled around him. Danny began to struggle back up to the surface, pulling himself free of the strong undertow tugging at his legs. Ten seconds after he’d fallen in, he burst back onto the surface, gasping desperately for air.
The first thing he saw was a long wooden stick—the end of Josh’s shrimping net. Josh was lying flat on his chest on the lower shelf of rock where Danny had begun his climb. He was holding the net end and waving the stick at Danny. Piddle was running up and down the rocks, barking furiously. Josh’s face was white and his blue eyes round with fear as he shrieked, “GRAB IT! GRAB IT!”
As the next swell of water pushed him toward the shore, Danny grabbed it.
Soon he was back on the rock shelf next to Josh, spluttering and coughing and blowing gooey streams of seawater out of his nose while Piddle happily licked his ear. His knee was bleeding where it must have scraped against some rock, but apart from that, he seemed to be OK.
Eventually he turned to Josh and said, “
Sp-sp-spider!”
“Crab!” Josh corrected. “Spider crab. Not an arachnid—a crustacean. Probably migrating right now, as it’s September . . .”
“You—you—you freaky little nature nerd!” Danny squawked. “Can’t you just SHUT UP for one minute about your freaky little nature nerdy facts? I nearly DIED just then! That spider . . . crab . . . tried to kill me!”
“Erm . . . no . . .” Josh corrected. “That spider crab was just out for a little walk when these huge flappy hands started whacking at it and a big ugly human face reared up out of nowhere and screamed at it. It’s probably having a panic attack of its own now.”
“Oh—that’s right! Worry about the spider, why don’t you?” Danny muttered. He could never understand how his twin brother could be so different from him. Creepy-crawly stuff just freaked Danny out—but Josh couldn’t get enough of it.
“They’re nowhere near as scary as spiders,” Josh said. And he got up and started looking for the spider crab, much to Danny’s horror. “They’re amazing,” he went on, foraging around the beach end of the rocky outcrop Danny had just fallen from. “They look pretty grumpy, but they’re all right, really . . . Here you go!”
Danny yelled and ran back up the sand as Josh emerged from a clump of seaweed-covered rocks holding a spider crab. The beast was pale brown and waggling its spindly legs wildly, as well as fiercely snipping its chunky claws in the air. “Look at all these spines on it,” pointed out Josh, grinning lovingly at the crustacean that he was holding carefully on the top and bottom of its rough, rounded body. “They call them spiny crabs too. You should see a Japanese one . . . that’s huge. A six-foot leg-span, easily!”
“If you bring that thing anywhere near me, I’m going to throw sand in your face!” Danny warned, picking up a wet handful. Piddle ran round in excited circles, hoping for a game of catch, and then piddled on the sand. Danny dropped his handful and ran after Piddle. “Piddled-on sand!” he warned Josh, pointing to the wet patch.
Josh chuckled and put the spider crab down. It scuttled away noisily across the rocks and plopped into a large seaweed-y pool.
“I wonder it there’s such a thing as CRUSTASWITCH,” pondered Josh as he sat down next to Danny on their beach mats a minute later. Danny was glugging orange juice from a bottle, hoping the sugar in it would help his state of shock, and letting the hot sun dry out his T-shirt and shorts.
“CRUSTASWITCH?” he echoed.
“Yeah—you know,” Josh said, his eyes shining. “BUGSWITCH turned us into insects and spiders, AMPHISWITCH turned us into frogs and newts, and REPTOSWITCH turned us into lizards . . . but imagine being a crustacean! If we were spider crabs we could walk along the seabed. That would be so cool. We’ll have to ask Petty Potts if she can make a new S.W.I.T.C.H. spray!”
“Josh. Pay attention. I am never going to be a spider crab—get that?” Danny said. “It was bad enough being a spider! And anyway—we’re not thinking about any S.W.I.T.C.H.ing, are we? We’re just having a vacation—hundreds of miles away from Petty Potts and her secret lab and her S.W.I.T.C.H. spray . . .”
“Yeah—I s’pose,” Josh said, lying back on the beach mat and putting his hands behind his head. “We probably do need a break from all that excitement and danger. Getting turned into insects and spiders and frogs and lizards is amazing—but it wears you out.”
“A nice, peaceful holiday,” agreed Danny. Piddle returned to his hole and carried on digging for a while before heading off up the cliff path, obviously hoping to get some lunch from Mom or Dad at the cottage.
“Yup,” Josh said. “With nothing getting S.W.I.T.C.H.ed and no sign of Petty Potts and her genius experiments anywhere.”
And that was when a parachute landed on the beach next to them.
For a second Danny thought it was a reckless sky diver landing dangerously off course. And then he realized he’d just gotten the scale wrong. It wasn’t a big parachute, far away—it was a small parachute, close up.
Josh was already on his feet and running across to the billowing yellow chute, which was in fact about the size of a playground merry-go-round. Danny ran to it too and began to gather up the fine silk in bunches to stop the sea breeze from tugging it along the beach.
“What is it?” Josh peered beneath the chute. “A teeny weeny thrill-seeker?”
Attached to its web of fine white cords was not a tiny skydiver but a silver cylinder with a screw top, about the size of a jam jar—but much lighter.
“Aluminum, probably,” Josh said, picking it up.
“Who dropped it?” Danny scanned the high cliffs above them but could see nobody.
Josh was looking around too. “And were they dropping it for us?”
There were very few other people on the beach. Their holiday was during school term, so no other kids were around at all—just adults, dog walkers, and a couple of surfers. And they were all a long distance from where the parachute had landed.
“Go on then—open it!” Danny said.
Josh shrugged. “Well . . . if nobody’s coming to claim it, we might as well.”
He struggled with the lid. It was very tightly screwed shut.
“Here—let me, you wuss!” Danny grabbed it off his brother and twisted with all his strength. Then he paused. “You don’t think it’s full of toxic gas, do you?”
Josh laughed. “Um—no! We’re not in Petty’s lab now!”
“OK.” Danny gave another twist and the lid gave.
Inside was a piece of folded yellow paper.
Danny stared at Josh, his heart suddenly beating hard. “You know what this is, don’t you?”
Josh could hardly believe it. “Here? Two hundred miles away from home?” He felt slightly panicky.
Danny stared at the canister and then up at his brother. “Not Petty Potts. And now I sort of wish it were Petty Potts. Even if she was barmy enough to follow us all the way down here, at least she’s the kind of barmy we know. But this . . .” He opened the paper with the familiar spidery writing on it, just like the other ones. “This is . . .”
“ . . . from the Mystery Marble Sender,” whispered Josh. “Now I’m freaking out.”
Danny opened the note out and read aloud.
GREETINGS, JOSH & DANNY. ARE YOU READY FOR CLUE 3?
He gulped. “Whoever this is, they are definitely watching us. Following us. Tracking us. I mean . . . when they sent the first two clues it was all at our house and that was freaky enough—but following us here?”
Josh felt shaky too. The Mystery Marble Sender had been in touch with them over the past month, sending clues to get them to find marbles. But not just any marbles. These marbles contained a hologram and a code—just like the top secret holograms and codes hidden inside Petty Potts’s BUGSWITCH and REPTOSWITCH cubes. Josh and Danny had helped Petty to find five of her missing REPTOSWITCH cubes so she could develop her REPTOSWITCH spray and they could try out being reptiles. But it seemed someone else had a code too, hidden in these mystery marbles.
What Josh and Danny couldn’t work out was why that someone kept sending them clues and getting them to find the marbles.
“We really need to tell Petty about this,” Josh said. “It’s time she knew!”
“Yes—as soon as we see her,” Danny said. “But that won’t be until next week, after our holiday. For now—we’ve got another clue and another marble to find.”
He read on. “OK—here we go:
IN THE LOW, CLIMB HIGH. IN THE HIGH, LIE LOW. AIM HIGH—SHOOT LOW!
“What is that supposed to mean?” Further down the paper the message continued.
DARE YOU SEEK YOUR DESTINY?
And at the bottom of the page was something that looked remarkably like a splodge of melted chocolate. Danny sniffed it. It was melted chocolate.
“Weird,” he remarked to his brother, but Josh was staring out to sea.
“Look!” Josh pointed across the flat, sandy beach toward the water.
Danny looked and shrugged. “W
hat?”
“All this HIGH and LOW stuff,” Josh said. “That’s got to be the tide, hasn’t it? See the fort?”
Danny squinted at the stubby, ruined fort that sat a quarter of a mile from the beach on a tiny island of rock. It had been there for five hundred years, their dad said.
“You can only get out to it when the tide is low. You can walk across. So . . . ‘in the low, climb high.’ It’s high up, isn’t it? When you get out to it. But you can’t reach it at high tide, so you might as well ‘lie low.’”
“What about ‘aim high, shoot low?’”
Danny asked. He was getting a fizzy feeling of excitement in his belly. He thought Josh was right—and now he badly wanted to get across to the ruined fort and search for the marble.
“Don’t know—but we might as well go and look!” Josh’s eyes were shining—he was excited too. Even though there was something very sinister about the Mystery Marble Sender following them all the way to Cornwall, he still couldn’t resist the challenge.
Five minutes later Josh and Danny were running across the wet sand revealed by the low tide, heading for the ruined fort.
With stout rubber beach shoes on, they could jump nimbly across the rocks that reared up like small islands in the sand. Danny ran up one particularly high outcrop beside a large rock pool and jumped over the edge.
There was an angry shout. He had landed on a person. A person wearing a bright orange raincoat and an affronted expression. And turtles in her armpits.
“I don’t believe it!” Josh said, crouching on the rock just above Danny’s shoulder. “PETTY POTTS!”
“What the devil are you doing here?” Petty spluttered, getting up off her backside, where Danny had knocked her. This wasn’t easy with a turtle in each armpit. “I thought you were Victor Crouch’s government spies come to get me!” Her eyes swiveled anxiously around the beach. Petty was always convinced that the government was spying on her. She believed her former government scientist friend, Victor Crouch—who she claimed had tried to steal her S.W.I.T.C.H. secrets and had burnt out her memory—was still out to get her.