The Shark Bites Back

by Paul Cooper

  He looked down into the water and tried to face his many fears. Water up the nose? Easy – just hold your snout. Seawater stinging your eyes? No problem – stinging eyes never killed anyone. He was starting to feel more confident. So what else was he afraid of? Drowning? Being chomped by a vicious predator of the deep? OK, these two points were a bit trickier.

  ‘Think of Tammy!’ he told himself. ‘You’re a PiP now! And for PiPs, the only thing to fear is fear itself. So just count to three and jump in.’

  Curly counted aloud, ‘One … two …’

  The water looked dark and cold.

  ‘Two and a half …’

  Who knew if one of the sharks was still nearby?

  ‘Two and three-quarters …’

  He looked out and saw a fin in the distance. Was it heading for Tammy?

  ‘THREE!’

  Curly jumped.

  His immediate instinct was to flail about wildly, but for once he overcame this. He even opened his eyes and turned towards the holding tank. Slowly, with one trotter still holding his snout, he swam towards the control panel.

  All of the sea creatures in the tank watched him carefully through the glass wall. Curly pulled off the panel cover to reveal … an alphabet keypad! He had to key in a password! But what? Without air, his heart was thudding like a speed-metal drumbeat. He would have to push up to the surface soon.

  What password would Watson pick? he asked himself. Quickly he punched in the word SHARK. It did nothing. Curly tried again with GREAT WHITE, then REMORA. Nothing and nothing. The same was true for HUNT. Curly’s lungs felt as if they might pop soon. He couldn’t hold on much longer.

  Suddenly something loomed out of the murky water. It was Mrs Susan Prendergast! The great white was zooming towards him, mouth open, a hellish pit framed by double rows of dagger-like teeth, top and bottom. From the shark’s underside, Watson was eyeing Curly hungrily too. The suckerfish was grinning eagerly and mouthing something. Curly couldn’t hear it, but he knew what the suckerfish was saying, and it gave him an idea.

  He just had time to punch the letters in – SPLENDID – then hit the button. It worked! The exit door started to open.

  But now the great white was almost upon him.

  ‘It’s dinnertime!’ bubbled the suckerfish gleefully.

  ‘No, it’s HAMMER TIME!’ gargled Headstrong, shooting out of the holding tank and straight into Mrs Susan Prendergast. The great white was bigger and stronger, but Headstrong caught her by surprise. He knocked Susan off course, just enough for Curly to squirm away. The next thing the pig knew, a protective cloud of squid ink surrounded him, and a pair of eels were pulling him to safety.

  As he reached the surface, he sucked in enormous lungfuls of fresh air. How had he never before noticed how brilliantly sweet air was?

  ‘Where’s Headstrong?’ he gasped.

  ‘Gone to help your friend,’ answered one of the eels.

  ‘And where’s Susan?’

  ‘Gone to stop him, the only way she knows.’

  ‘How’s that?’ asked Curly.

  ‘With her teeth!’

  As Tammy trod water and waited for the sharks to arrive, an idea tickled at her brain.

  She’d heard that in the Bad Old Days just the sight of blood in the water could drive a shark into a feeding frenzy. Maybe, just maybe, Slurpo-Pop could make everything better.

  It was worth a try – Tammy took one last swig, burped, then emptied the can into the water. A dark red cloud blossomed around her.

  Moments later she spotted the first fin. Almost immediately, a second appeared from the opposite direction. Both were moving fast. Tammy waved one arm in front of her to churn up the water and spread the cherry pop as far as possible.

  Fang and Frenzy were almost here. If they’d been thinking straight, they might have wondered why this ‘blood’ smelled exactly like artificial fruit flavours, but just the sight of it had driven out all other thoughts. They went blood-crazy. Both sharks shot forward into the spreading cloud, and smashed right into each other.

  As Tammy rolled back into the water, the sharks thrashed around and snapped wildly at each other, driven mad by the idea of blood.

  Tammy didn’t waste any time patting herself on the back. It would take the sharks only seconds to calm down and remember she was in the water with them. She searched quickly for something to fight with.

  All she could find as a weapon was the rope still coiled over one shoulder. She knew that it would be as effective against the great whites as a pea-shooter against an armoured car, but she still bunched it up ready to throw.

  The sharks lunged faster than she’d expected, but what happened next was completely unexpected. As she hurled the rope at the oncoming great whites, another shark – a hammerhead! – caught it. Headstrong!

  He grabbed one end of the rope in his teeth, splashed down, then swam away … leaving Fang and Frenzy right in front of Tammy!

  ‘Do you want to say any last words?’ Fang smirked.

  ‘Just this …’ said Tammy, looking down at the end of the rope in her trotters. ‘BYEEEE!’

  With Headstrong pulling the other end of the rope at high speed, it soon completely unwound, and when this happened the PiPs mechanic shot off. Water slapped into her face as Headstrong gained speed and dragged her through the lagoon.

  But the great whites weren’t about to let dinner get away. When Tammy looked back behind her, she could see two fins giving chase – and then a third, even bigger one not far behind – the dreaded Mrs Susan Prendergast.

  ‘Go faster!’ Tammy yelled to Headstrong as she bounced across the water.

  The hammerhead pulled her through a narrow channel carved into the rock. Tammy knew this must be the way out of the hidden lagoon, back to the open seas. Behind her, the great whites seemed to be getting closer, close enough to see that Fang’s big pointy teeth needed a good cleaning.

  The walls on either side became higher. Tammy glanced ahead – they seemed to be zooming towards a rock wall, but then she realized that the waterway carried on underneath the rock.

  ‘The exit must be near,’ she told herself, preparing to hold her breath. But then a dreadful thought struck her. Hadn’t Watson said that the underwater exit only opened from the OUTSIDE?

  So that meant they were blasting towards a dead end!

  CHAPTER 10:

  REALLY Extreme Watersports

  ‘Now!’ shouted Pete.

  Brian cut the rope and the palm tree SPROINGED upright. Pete flew off in the direction of the SkyHog jets.

  The PiPs captain loved all extreme sports, but flying had a special place in his heart – even planeless flying. Nothing could beat being a heavily built pig defying gravity.

  He soared upwards, with barely a glance for the circling sharks below. As he reached the highest point of his arc, he faced the island ahead of him. From this height, he could actually see the channel that led back to the sea. What’s more he could see a hammerhead shark zooming down it, towing an object so large and pink it could only be one thing – a pig! And close behind them was a line of three great white sharks! Pete realized that they were heading towards the hidden doorway he had seen earlier – which was currently closed!

  He looked back down, to see that he was hurtling towards the water. It wasn’t quite as near to the SkyHogs as Brian had figured – probably because Pete had lied about his weight when the medic was doing the calculations. It didn’t matter anyway – it was time for a change of plan.

  As he hit the water, he didn’t start swimming to the planes. Instead he dived deeper and deeper, down towards the spot where he’d seen the secret doorway. He knew he also didn’t have long before one of the tiger sharks came for him.

  Finally he reached the right patch of rock face and pulled back the starfish to reveal a button. All he had to do was push it, just as the pilot fish had done.

  Moments later, the hidden entrance to Shark Island slid open in a spray of bubbles.

 
; That should do it, thought Pete. Now I’m going –

  Before he could finish his thought, a hammerhead shark shot out of the exit. Seconds later a pink pig-shaped blur went by.

  Tammy! thought Pete.

  Right behind her came one of the great whites.

  Time to get out of here, Pete decided. Extreme sports fan or not, even he knew that swimming with renegade meat-eating great whites was not a sensible leisure activity. He frog-kicked his legs to reach the surface.

  Suddenly the second great white appeared from the hidden exit and its snout shot right between Pete’s open knees. If it had been just centimetres lower, there might have been enough clearance for the dorsal fin. As it was, the fin slammed painfully into Pete’s belly. ‘OOF!’ Instinctively, he gripped on to it, and the shark swam on. Now all Pete had to do was hold on tight and ride the Shark Express.

  From the desert island, Brian had watched in horror as his captain landed short of the planes.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ the medic muttered. ‘I triple-checked those calculations!’

  He waited anxiously for Pete to reappear but there was no sign of the PiPs captain. The two tiger sharks furthest from the island started towards where Pete had landed.

  The seconds stretched. Was Pete ever going to resurface? If not, what could Brian do? All of his brilliant ideas so far had failed. Feeling helpless, he watched the patterns of the sharks still circling the desert island – clockwise, anticlockwise, some slower, some faster, each in his own lane … The SkyHogs sat not too far beyond the furthest of the sharks. And that’s when one last idea popped into Brian’s head. Was it brilliant? Yes. Was it practical? No. Would it work? Almost certainly not. But with Pete nowhere to be seen, Brian had to try.

  He started counting the sharks’ laps, just waiting for the perfect moment – that one instant when all the circling sharks lined up. It only occurred every seven minutes, but it was coming up … NOW! Brian raced into the water and leapt. His left trotter landed on the closest shark, right in front of its dorsal fin. Kicking off before the shark could snap at him, Brian sprang forward again to the next shark, which was swimming in the opposite direction. Without stopping, Brian leappigged from this shark to the next, then from that one to the shark beyond.

  This was the last shark, but Brian jumped one more time. He landed on the pilot fish. Unlike the sharks, the little fish was not built to take the weight of a full-sized pig. When he woke up, he was going to have the worst headache ever. But Brian didn’t have time to celebrate. He started swimming as fast as he could towards the nearest SkyHog.

  An Olympic-standard piglete might have made it, but Brian was more of a quick-paddle-then-sit-by-the-pool-and-read type of swimmer. He knew there wasn’t much chance of him reaching the plane before the sharks got to him, but he didn’t stop trying. He swam by a couple of pieces of floating driftwood, the remains of their earlier raft. Knowing that the tiger sharks must be closing in on him from behind, he grabbed one piece. At least he wouldn’t go down without a fight.

  Suddenly he saw a different fin break the surface a few metres ahead of him. Long hours reading The Penguin Spotters’ Guide to Shark Fins meant that Brian, of all the PiPs, could identify shark species by their fin alone. This was a hammerhead, and it was swimming away fast. Then something else rose up out of the water, right underneath him. It swept Brian out of the water at high speed. He glanced down to see Tammy between his legs!

  ‘Sorry, Bri!’ Tammy cried in mid-air.

  ‘Not at all,’ he called out, remembering his manners.

  As the pigs crashed back down, Tammy’s trotters landed on one bit of the driftwood. Still gripping the rope, Tammy stood on the driftwood as it skimmed across the water. She took off like a water-skier, with Brian sitting across her shoulders!

  They were heading away from the jets now and out to open sea. From his position on Tammy’s shoulders, Brian could see a large tanker on the horizon. It was steaming towards them. Although he wobbled alarmingly, Brian risked a quick look back at the tiger sharks chasing them. They didn’t look happy. Nor did the two great whites also barrelling towards them. One of them appeared to have something on its back. Brian blinked away the sea spray in his eyes – if he didn’t know better, he’d swear it was Peter Porker!

  It was! Pete had swung his legs around the fin so he was facing forward like some crazed, overweight jockey. When Frenzy became aware of his passenger, he began to live up to his name. First he dived down in a spiral of bubbles. Pete held his breath and grabbed on tightly. Next Frenzy leapt up out of the water. Still Pete held on. In fact, he was starting to enjoy this! When the shark jumped out of the water again, Pete raised one trotter and waved it around in classic cowboy fashion, ‘YeeHA!’

  He promptly fell off.

  He thought Frenzy would loop back for him, but the great white swam off after Tammy and Brian, towards the huge tanker that was coming ever closer. However, even with Frenzy gone, Pete still wasn’t exactly safe – not when two of the tiger sharks were zipping his way.

  Suddenly he heard the sound of a jet engine firing up. SkyHog 1! But who was in the cockpit? With Tammy and Brian busy waterskiing, there could be only one answer – Curly McHoglet! The two eels had towed the trainee off the island and, because all of the sharks were busy chasing other members of the PiPs, the eels had been able to reach SkyHog 1 unharmed. Moments later the jet was zooming across the surface of the water. When it picked up enough speed, it rose into the air. The two water-skis folded back into the undercarriage.

  The sight of his jet back in the sky filled Pete’s heart with hope, but not for long. Those two tiger sharks were getting closer and closer. It wasn’t a question of IF he’d get eaten, or even of WHEN. Now it was just a question of WHO got to him first.

  Suddenly the most fearsome great white of them all smashed her way greedily between the squabbling tiger sharks.

  ‘PIG!’ bellowed Mrs Susan Prendergast.

  But then the air was filled with a deafening SkyHog roar. A shadow passed overhead and a rope ladder slapped Pete in the face. He grabbed it just in time and was wrenched out of the water.

  ‘Ham’s off the menu today!’ he called.

  But Susan wouldn’t give up her second pig of the day so easily. She leapt at Pete. Her immense jaws just missed his legs, but they snapped shut on the lower rungs of the rope ladder and gripped them like a vice.

  The plane’s engine sputtered. It wasn’t designed to carry something this heavy. Unable to go any higher, it flew along with pig and shark dangling just above the water’s surface.

  Pete’s arms ached as he clung to the rope ladder, but he had good reason not to let go – lots of reasons if you were counting all of Susan’s teeth.

  The plane turned now in the direction of the water-skiers, who were still zipping towards the big tanker. Pete tried to shout: ‘Not that way! You’ll never get enough altitude!’

  But the roar of the engine drowned his words. He looked down and saw the great white inching up the rope ladder, using her teeth!

  ‘I’ll get you, pig!’ she snarled.

  Pete glanced ahead at the approaching ship. A familiar bulky figure stood on the prow – it was Peregrine! The PiPs commander looked his old self. He waved a signal and a troop of shark fins appeared from behind the tanker. Peregrine had come with reinforcements!

  But they were too late to help Tammy and Brian. The hammerhead towing them was slowing down at last. He swerved to avoid the tanker and the two water-skiers were whipped into the air. Seizing the moment, Fang and Frenzy put on a final burst of speed, and leapt out of the water like two sea-to-air missiles with teeth.

  But SkyHog 1 was on the spot too. It dipped suddenly under the weight of its load and the bottom half of the ladder – where Mrs Susan Prendergast dangled – slammed straight into the two airborne great whites. WHACK! The impact knocked all three predators sideways, right on to the deck of the ship, while Tammy and Brian splashed down into the water. Pete saw that th
ey were in no danger now – the sharks that had arrived with Peregrine were busy arresting the tiger sharks.

  ‘Pull up!’ Pete yelled.

  With the extra weight gone, Curly pulled the plane up steeply. The rope ladder just missed the ship but Pete got a good view of the deck.

  The tanker had been bringing food supplies to Shark Island. The three sharks had landed in a massive container of kelp.

  ‘Hope you’re still peckish!’ Pete shouted.

  CHAPTER 11:

  Never Give a Sucker an Even Break!

  Down on the sea floor, someone waited.

  Watson’s plans were in tatters, most of the evil sharks under arrest. Now the cursed PiPs and their kelp-loving shark friends were looking for him. They had begun swimming out in ever-wider circles. The wretched pigs went with them, riding on the sharks’ backs.

  The only one left behind was the oldest pig – the fat one called Peregrine. He had sailed to Shark Island and convinced the authorities that they had to help his team. Now he sat alone in a boat, with just one young blue shark as a guard. Watson couldn’t shake the feeling that this pig looked slightly familiar.

  ‘We can get up now, Flat Stanley,’ he said.

  The camouflaged angel shark peeled itself from the sandy bottom, and Watson detached himself from the bigger fish.

  He was a slow swimmer, but the suckerfish reached the blue shark without being seen. He attached his sucker-pad delicately to the shark’s underside, then whispered, ‘Pssst! What’s all the fuss about?’

  ‘We’re looking for a suckerfish called Watson,’ replied the blue shark to the suckerfish called Watson. (OK, he wasn’t the brightest, even for a shark.) ‘Have you seen him?’

  ‘No,’ said Watson, adding, ‘So who’s in the boat?’

  ‘Pig.’

  ‘Really? You know what they say about pigs, don’t you … scrumptious eating! Absolutely splendid.’