by Eric Bower
“What does ‘hyperventilating’ mean?” I yelled.
M, who couldn’t hear me, just waved to me and smiled, before turning to the control panel.
“I believe in you!” Rose shouted.
Waldo screamed something at me, and even though I don’t speak monkey, I’m pretty sure he was trying to say, “I hope you get eaten by a big ugly sea monster!”
The metal door closed in my face, locking me in the back room of the submarine. I stared pathetically through the little round window in the door, trying to make my family take pity on me with my sad and desperate eyes. I’m not good at a lot of things, but I’m pretty darn good at looking sad and desperate.
The back of the submarine began to open, the wall slowly disappearing and allowing the seawater to pour inside. I turned around and pounded on the door, pleading with my family to open up and let me back into the submarine, even though I knew that at that point they wouldn’t be able to. The water quickly filled the open room.
It was strange being able to breathe in a room full of water, and it was also pretty amazing. I was able to appreciate what a wonderful invention the underwater suit really was. I took deep breaths of fresh air as I jumped up and slowly floated through the water, feeling very much like a bubble-headed fish. It was almost like flying, only better, since it would be almost impossible for me to crash land.
And then I looked out into the open sea ahead of me.
I almost fainted with fear.
I turned around and pounded on the metal door until my fists hurt. Then I kicked it until my toes hurt. And then I head butted it until I realized that it probably wouldn’t be a good thing if my helmet cracked.
I sighed. It looked as though I had no choice but to do what I was told.
Using my feet to push off from the door, I propelled myself out of the submarine and into the open sea. The lights mounted on the outside of the submarine allowed me to see everything in our general area, but everything beyond was covered in darkness. Terrible, horrible, knee-knockingly, teeth-chatteringly, pants-wettingly scary darkness. Anything could be out there. And there was nothing I found more frightening than anything.
The tube that ran out of the top of my helmet not only gave me air, it also attached me to the oxygen pump that P had locked into place in the backroom of the submarine, so I wouldn’t get lost. Of course, if that tube was cut, not only would I be lost, I’d also be without air . . . which probably wouldn’t be a good thing. I like air quite a lot. In fact, it’s one of my favorite things to breathe.
I’m not a particularly good swimmer, but that didn’t seem to matter. The rubber suit was weighted, which meant I could just walk across the ocean floor to the shipwreck, occasionally jumping up and flying in slow motion as I paddled with my arms and kicked with my legs, which was actually sort of fun.
Once I reached the shipwreck, I noticed a long sheet of metal stuck into the ground, and so I began to dig around it. As I dug, I realized for the first time that there weren’t any fish around, not by the submarine or by the shipwreck. In fact, the whole area seemed to be completely free of fish, despite the fact that there were slimy little plants sticking out from the ground, the sort of slimy plants that tiny fish usually enjoyed nibbling on.
That seemed rather odd, but I was a little too nervous and distracted to spend too much time focusing on odd things. To be perfectly honest, there are so many odd things in my life that if I actually took the time to focus on them all, I’d never have time to do anything else.
After I had dug up most of the metal sheet, I began to pull on it, slowly extracting it from the sand. That was harder than I thought it would be, but I somehow managed it, and somehow I did it without hurting myself, which was nothing short of a miracle.
I carried the metal sheet into the open room at the back of the submarine. After I had set it on the ground, I knocked on the door so they could let me back in. My father’s face appeared at the little round window, and looked down at me. I pointed to the metal sheet that I’d found. He looked at it and frowned, before pulling out his notepad and pencil. He quickly jotted something onto the pad, and then held it up to the window.
“GET MORE”, the paper said.
I shook my head no.
P nodded his head yes.
I shook my head no.
P nodded his head yes.
I wanted to shake my head again, but shaking my head in the underwater suit was starting to make me dizzy.
P put down the paper and mouthed that I was doing a good job while scratching the crown of his head with both hands. M and Rose leaned into the window and smiled, mouthing that they were proud of me. When they had left, Waldo’s little monkey face appeared at the window. For a moment he just stared at me, and then he blew a raspberry with his tongue, before turning around and shaking his little monkey backside at me.
Lousy, stupid, sassy monkey . . .
I walked back to the area surrounding the shipwreck and searched for more loose metal. I couldn’t find any more metal in the sand, so I decided to check inside the ship. A huge hole had been ripped into the side of it, presumably from the crash that had caused it to sink. With a jump so graceful that I could hardly believe it was done by me, I made my way inside.
The inside of the ship was covered in seaweed and sea grass and other slimy sea stuff which I couldn’t identify, even if you gave me a year to do so. I really don’t like touching slimy things. I have never in my life heard of a good thing that’s happened to someone as a result of touching a slimy thing. No one that I know has ever said “Oh boy! There’s some slippery and slimy goop on my hand! Huzzah!”
As I was exploring the remains of the ship, my hand scraped against something sharp. I saw that I had cut my finger. I tried to do what I normally did when I cut myself, which was to put my cut finger inside my mouth. But the stupid helmet got in the way. It was probably for the best. The last thing I wanted was a mouth full of salt water and slime.
I finally discovered some more loose scrap metal further inside the sunken ship, and went to work collecting it. I wasn’t sure how much metal P and M needed to repair the submarine, so I decided to grab all the metal that I could carry. After I had taken three large pieces and two small pieces and stuck them under my arm, I looked up and found myself staring into the third ugliest face I’d ever seen.
In case you’re curious, the second ugliest face I’d ever seen belonged to Weasel Face, or Veezlefayce, or whatever his name was. And the ugliest face I’d ever seen belonged to a man from Nevada named Spud Spuddlesworth. He had a face that only a mother could love, assuming that mother had been born without eyeballs.
But while this face wasn’t as ugly as their faces, it was far more dangerous and frightening. It was the face of a giant eel, with yellow eyes and sharp looking teeth. It whipped its body around as it showed me those sharp looking teeth, flashing me the evilest grin I’d ever seen.
“Good eel,” I said cautiously as I slowly backed away, hoping that what eels liked more than anything was compliments. “Nice eel. Pretty eel. Gentle eel. Lovely eel teeth you have there. Very long and pointy looking.”
As I backed away, I felt the backside of my rubber suit bump into something solid that I didn’t remember being there before.
When I turned around, I saw that it was a giant shark. A giant and hungry looking shark.
The shark stared at me. I stared at the shark.
“C’mon!” I said to the shark as I pointed to the eel. “Let’s get him!”
But the shark wasn’t interested in the eel, and the eel wasn’t interested in the shark. They were both only interested in me, the weakest and tastiest one there.
The shark and the eel slowly began to close in on me. They both looked quite hungry. And, just my luck, I happened to look absolutely delicious in my little rubber suit.
It appeared to me that there was only
one thing left that I could do.
I quickly curled up and pretended to be a shell.
A Monkey Watching Humans Act like Apes
I thought my plan was pretty clever, until I heard the sound of shark teeth tapping against my helmet. When I looked up, I saw both the shark and the eel shaking their heads at me, letting me know that I hadn’t fooled them. I shrugged and smiled.
“Can’t blame a fella for trying, right?”
Apparently, they could blame a fella for trying, since they both lunged at me with their mouths wide open. One of them likely would have taken a large bite out of me if they hadn’t accidentally bonked their heads together.
I laughed at the stunned looks on their faces but quickly realized that it might not be a good idea to laugh at something that’s trying to eat you.
They both pouted for a moment, embarrassed by their underwater clumsiness, but their embarrassment quickly transformed into rage.
“Uh oh,” I said, and then I pointed behind them. “Look! Over there! An even bigger and slower kid for you to eat!”
When they turned around, I put my feet against the side of the wrecked steamship and pushed off, sending myself shooting through the water in the direction of the submarine. When I began to slow down, I kicked my feet and paddled with my arm that wasn’t carrying the scrap metal, attempting to swim the rest of the way back.
I wasn’t going very fast. In fact, I wasn’t really going anywhere at all. I was just sort of spinning around in a circle. My heart was racing, and I was breathing so hard that I was actually fogging up the inside of my helmet. I remembered what M had told me about “hyperventilating.” I wasn’t sure what that meant, but it sounded like something that had to do with breathing. My brain told me that since I was underwater, I would need to breathe twice as fast and twice as hard as I normally do, so that’s what I did.
As I spun and breathed quickly, I saw the eel and the shark staring at me with expressions of disbelief on their faces. They looked at one another and shook their heads again. The eel said something to the shark. The shark laughed.
“Hey!” I called angrily over my shoulder as I continued to spin and pant. “It’s rude to make fun of people behind their back!”
They waited until I had spun around and was facing them again before they made another joke about my swimming, and then they had another good laugh.
It was still pretty hurtful, but at least it was more polite.
The shark and the eel then decided to charge me again. They both had the same clever idea of going for my head, but, unfortunately for them, my head was the best protected part of me. Their teeth met the glassy material with a loud CLANG! which echoed inside my helmet like a bell.
But it also knocked me backwards in the direction of the submarine.
“Is that the best that you can do?” I called to the sea creatures with a pant, as I continued to float closer and closer to the open entrance of the backroom. “It feels like I’m being attacked by guppies! Tiny, little, baby guppies!”
The shark and the eel both charged at me again. I lowered my helmet, and this time when their jaws crashed into me, they knocked me only a few feet away from the submarine. I was now close enough to walk right in, knock on the inside door, and say goodbye to my underwater nightmare for good.
My nonstop, fast breathing appeared to be working. I was suddenly overcome with a total sense of calm. My brain was firing on all cylinders, instead of the one rusty and squeaky cylinder it usually fired on. Suddenly, I felt like the smartest kid in the world, and it was all thanks to my fast breathing. Maybe that’s been my problem all along. I just haven’t been breathing enough. I’d have to remember that when I got back on land. It looked like science would once again save the day. Good old hyperventilation.
“I’ll see you later, guys!” I called to the confused looking shark and eel. “Probably at the end of a hook! Or maybe on a dinner plate! Heh heh heh . . .”
I chuckled to myself as I entered the back of the submarine and walked towards the door, but I stopped laughing when I felt an eel tail whip me on the backside. I slowly fell forward and bonked my head on the metal floor. This time when I bonked my head, I heard a light crunching sound.
At first I was confused, but then I saw the fine line of a long and splintered crack forming across the front of my helmet.
“. . . Uh oh.”
Recognizing the fact that I was weakening, the shark darted forward and tried to take another bite of me, its multiple rows of teeth scraping against the helmet, causing the crack to widen.
“Stop that!” I cried through my quick breaths. “If this helmet breaks, my hair will get wet!”
I backed into the door and knocked on it as hard as I could.
My father’s face appeared at the little round window. When he saw the giant eel and the shark behind me, he started screaming. He rushed back to the control panel and tried to close the back end of the submarine, so he could drain the room that I was in and allow me back inside.
I suppose P thought that when the back of the submarine began to close, the sea creatures would panic and immediately swim out so they wouldn’t be trapped. But that’s not what happened. As the back of the submarine began to close, the shark stuck out its tail and blocked it. And since it couldn’t close all the way, the back of the submarine slowly began to open again. My father must have invented some sort of clever safety feature which would protect people from getting crushed by the back of the submarine if they happened to be in the way of it while it was closing.
“Lousy, stupid, clever safety feature . . .” I muttered, hating the fact that my parents’ inventions were all so annoyingly brilliant.
The creatures looked from my cracked helmet to my rubber suit, and for the first time they realized that there were other parts of me that they could try biting, parts of me which wouldn’t be as hard and unpleasant. The shark licked its lips, even though it didn’t have lips. The eel drooled, which is rather difficult to do underwater.
I looked at my body and wondered which part of me they were planning to eat first. I would probably go for my left leg if I were them, though I can’t quite say why. I took another step backwards, got tangled in my oxygen tube, and fell.
Falling underwater is rather strange because you do it at less than half the speed you do on land. So as I slowly fell to the floor, I noticed one of the smaller pieces of scrap metal that I had dropped. It looked quite sharp. After I landed on the ground, I picked it up and pointed it at the shark and the eel.
They found that pretty funny. I suppose I would too if I were them. After all, they had sharp teeth, as well as great strength and underwater speed, and here I was, a silly little land creature who could barely swim. In fact, it was so funny, that I started to laugh as well, wildly and uncontrollably, the sort of laughter that actually hurts your stomach and your brain. The shark and the eel swam over to me, daring me to stab them with the sharp piece of metal, presenting me with their fishy faces so I could have a free shot.
My hyperventilated brain then gave me a great idea. If land creatures grew smarter with more oxygen, then sea creatures would likely grow stupider with more oxygen! It made perfect sense! Because . . . well . . . because of opposites!
I took the sharp piece of metal . . . and used it to cut the oxygen tube attached to my helmet.
As my oxygen was cut off, a stream of powerful oxygen bubbles began to pour out from the end of the tube. I pointed the tube into the suddenly shocked faces of the eel and the shark. They both silently screamed before spinning around and swimming out of the backroom as quickly as they could. They found the intense bubbles pouring from the tube to be terrifying and unpleasant, and I can’t say that I blamed them. No one likes having bubbles blown into their face. They must have been terrified by the effects of opposite hyperventilation.
With the outer door closed and the seawater dra
ined from the little backroom of the submarine, my parents were finally able to open the door to let me back in.
The moment I stepped inside, they both wrapped their arms around me so tightly that my ears popped and my eyeballs bulged out. I knew they were talking to me because I could see their mouths moving, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying because my ears were ringing too loudly. When they had finished hugging me, Rose Blackwood rushed over and did the same. There were tears in her eyes as she spoke to me, but I couldn’t hear a single word that came out of her mouth.
I was also feeling really woozy. I’m guessing it’s because I had almost been eaten by two of the scariest creatures I’d ever seen, while trapped at the bottom of the sea, with only an untested experiment providing me with oxygen. But I could be wrong. Maybe I just need more vitamins and exercise or something.
When everyone had finished hugging me, I pulled off the cracked helmet and took a deep breath. The room was spinning, and I was seeing double. No, make that triple. No, never mind. It was double. Quadruple? What’s it called when you see five of something? It was that plus two. Actually, I was so dizzy that I couldn’t really tell how many of anything I was seeing. I was too discombobulated to count. Maybe some hyperventilating would help. I took a few quick breaths, and nearly toppled over.
“Well?” the three (maybe four? Two? Six and a half?) Roses said to me. “Do you?”
“Huh?” I said as I rubbed my blurry eyes. “Do I what? Hold still, Roses. Stop spinning around. All nine of you.”
“My poor son!” M cried, pulling me in for another big hug. “You were so brave out there, W.B.! Please forgive us for risking your life.”
“Oh. Sure.”
I suppose I would have agreed to anything at that point. My brain felt as though had been churned into butter and slathered over a piece of sourdough toast, which reminded me that I was actually feeling pretty hungry.
“Your eyes look strange,” M said with a frown as she opened my eyelids and examined my eyeballs. “Did you hear what I said about hyperventilating?”