by Davy Ocean
Rick is the school swimming captain and loves to let everyone know it.
Suddenly Rick spots our group and swims straight for us, pulling up at the last minute and showering us with air bubbles.
“Well, if it isn’t old Anchor Face,” he says.
“Good one, Rick,” says Donny, smirking away beside him.
“Oh, grow up, Rick,” says Ralph.
“Be quiet, Toothpick,” says Rick. Then he turns to Joe. “Oh look, it’s Jelly Belly.”
Donny is almost dying laughing, but before anyone can say anything else, the school bell rings.
“Last one in’s a sea snail,” shouts Rick as he swims for the door.
I’ll show him who’s a sea snail, I think as I charge after him.
“What are you doing?” Ralph cries.
“Be careful,” Joe calls. “You might sprain your tail or pull a fin muscle.”
But I don’t care. Nothing and no one is going to stop me. I’m going to teach that reef shark show-off a lesson. He might be the fastest swimmer in the school, but I have surprise on my side. Rick thinks no one would actually bother racing him because he’s the swimming captain, so he isn’t going that fast. I zoom past him into the school.
I speed along the corridor. The classroom door is getting closer and closer. I swivel my left eye backward and see that Rick’s gaining on me.
DERRRRRRR-DUN! DERRRRRR-DUN! DER-DUN! DER-DUN! DER-DUN! DER-DUN!
I think of Gregor the Gnasher’s theme song and make a desperate lunge for the door.
DERRRRRRR-DUN! DERRRRRR-DUN! DER
“Ow!”
I’m so busy keeping one eye on Rick, I forget that the doorway is kind of narrow and go slamming straight into it. I desperately flail my tail, but it’s no good. I’m stuck-my humongous hammerhead wedged in the door.
“Hey, Harry,” I hear Rick tease from behind me, chuckling, “I’ve heard of getting something in your eye-but a whole door frame?”
The entire class starts laughing their heads off. And they are still laughing as Ralph and Joe help me unwedge myself. I’ve never felt more embarrassed as I slink over to my desk.
But it had felt so good when I was actually beating Rick in the race. I decide then and there that I don’t care what it takes, I’m going to prove I’m just as good as the rest of them. I’m going to show them all what a hammerhead can do!
Creeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaak!!!
At first I think the noise is coming from the rotting planks of the Titan. Creeeeeeeeeeeee-ak-ak-ak-ak-ak!!!
But it isn’t the Titan.
It’s Joe’s backside.
Ralph and I give him a look.
“Well, it is a bit scary!” Joe says, turning from bright yellow to bright pink with embarrassment.
And to be honest, Joe is right. It is scary.
As Mrs. Shelby, our sea-turtle teacher, leads us closer to the Titan, the butterflies start to flap in my tummy too. The wreck looms out of the green deep-sea gloom, dripping with seaweed and rust. The dark portholes along the side are like rows of spooky eyes staring at us. They make me want to shiver. But I’m not going to show that I’m scared, not with Rick and Donny hanging at the back of the line chewing sea gum and blowing bubbles. And besides, Gregor the Gnasher wouldn’t be scared of an old shipwreck. No way.
Mrs. Shelby brings us to a halt beneath the enormous prow of the Titan. It towers over us like a cliff.
“Now, class,” Mrs. Shelby says, peering over her little round glasses. The shadow from the shipwreck has made her face dark. “Under no circumstances are you to go into the wreck. It is very, very dangerous in there. The Titan has been on the seabed for over a hundred years, and is rusting and rotting away. It could collapse at any moment and turn you into fish paste!”
Everyone giggles, until we see the serious look on Mrs. Shelby’s face.
“I mean it. You’re here to look at the area around the Titan for your geography project.” Mrs. Shelby begins handing out round, flat pieces of rock with writing. “Here is a list of everything I want you to find.”
Now, normally I love lists, but not this one.
1. A barnacle–boring!
2. Three different types of shell–more boring!
3. At least three colors of seaweed–I’m seriously starting to fall asleep now.
4. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz–see?
Ralph fins me in the side to wake me up.
“Once you’ve found everything on your checklist, meet back here, under the prow, okay?” Mrs. Shelby calls.
We all nod and start to swish away.
“Wait!”
We all stop.
“I need to put you in your groups.”
Mrs. Shelby has a thing about us working in groups. It’s really annoying. Doesn’t she realize that I’m a shark, a lone hunter of the waves? I bet Gregor never gets put in a group. When she first starts reading the names of my group, it isn’t too bad.
1. Me.
2. Joe–Yay!
3. Ralph–Double yay!
4. Donny–Boooooo!
5. Rick–Double boooooo! with extra boooooo! on the side and sprinkled with grated boooooo!
“Now, don’t forget what I told you,” Mrs. Shelby yells as we start to swim off. “No going inside the Titan-UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!”
“Yes, Mrs. Shelby,” we all mutter.
Of course Rick immediately takes the lead in our group and decides which way we swim. We all follow him around to the collapsed stern of the Titan. It must have hit the seabed with a massive crunch. The whole back of the ship with its enormous propeller is ripped open and we can see right inside. The decks are layered like Mom’s coral cake, and great piles of stuff like bed frames and chairs and doors and ladders have all fallen out onto the seabed in a big fan-shaped mess. It’s starting to get covered in seaweed and barnacles and coral-it won’t be long before the whole thing turns into a new reef. And Rick is leading us straight into it!
I look around but can only see the back of Mrs. Shelby’s shell as she comforts Penny Puffer-Fish. Penny has gotten all spiky. Puffer fish only get spiky when they are very afraid and think they are about to die. Penny must be very scared of the Titan.
“Rick!” I call as loudly as I dare. “You heard what Mrs. Shelby said.”
Rick looks back, smirks, and says, “I thought you were a hammerhead, not a scaredy-catfish. Donny and I are going into the wreck, ’cause that’s where all the best barnacles are, and we’re going to have the best project. Are you coming, or are you going to stay there making bubbles with your rears?”
Donny and Rick slap fins and swoosh off, right toward the hole in the back of the Titan.
Well, I’m not going to stand for that. “Come on, guys, let’s go!” I cry.
“Where?” Ralph and Joe say together.
“With them!” I shout, pointing after Rick and Donny. I can see that Ralph isn’t sure, and Joe is actually trying to hide under himself.
“It’ll be fine,” I say.
“Yeah, if ‘FINE’ stands for ‘we’ll be Fish food, If Not Exterminated,’ ” Joe mutters from beneath his tentacles.
With a bit of pushing and pulling, Ralph and I and, finally, Joe, head off toward the wreck.
Rick and Donny have already disappeared by the time we get to the massive hole in the back of the ship. Jagged strips of metal hang above us as sharp as razor shells. Thick, waterlogged beams of wood ripped from floors and walls look splintery and deadly.
“It feels colder. Does it feel colder to you?” Joe says with a shiver. “I’m turning from a jellyfish into an ice pop. I’m going to freeze and die. I’ve already lost the feeling in my seventh tentacle!”
Ralph swims up to me with a barnacle in his fins. “Got one-let’s go,” he says with a tremble in his voice.
I’m just about to agree when some stuff happens. Stuff that means I’m not leaving the wreck. Well, not yet.
The stuff that happens is:
1. Rick appears with a bi
g, toothy grin.
2. Donny arrives too (but he doesn’t look as grinny. In fact, he looks a bit sick to his stomach).
3. Rick flubbers the side of my hammer with his fin.
4. Flubbering the side of my hammer with his fin makes my stupid rubbery head boing about and makes my words come out all flibbery.
5. “D-d-d-d-d-d-don’t d-d-d-d-d-d-d-do d-d-d-d-d-d-dat!”
See?
Luckily, Ralph and Joe know what to do. They each catch an end of my head and hold on tightly until it stops flibber-flabbering.
“Come on, Rubberhead,” Rick says, “look what we’ve found!”
I hate it when Rick flubbers my head. Hammerheads are the only sharks you can do it to, and he does it all the time. It makes me feel dorkey. Well, I’m not going to let him see me scared, too!
With one kick of my tail, I follow, and since Ralph and Joe are still holding on to my head, they come too.
As I swim on into the Titan it gets darker and darker. I’m not really noticing what’s around me-I’m just determined to keep up with Rick and Donny. I can hear Ralph and Joe making muffled cries as they hug my head, but I’m not stopping for anything.
Then!
Wow!
We have come out into a huge ballroom right in the middle of the Titan. The whole place is lit up, but I don’t understand why. Then I look up to the ceiling. There’s a hole in it and sunlight from the ocean surface is pouring in. I can see more collapsed decks above it leading up to massive smokestacks, bent over at crazy angles. They look like they’ve been caught in mid-fall by invisible hands. It looks really spooky! Although the middle of the ballroom is quite bright from the sun, the edges are covered in really dark shadow. Anything could be hiding there, waiting to pounce. . . .
Rick starts swimming around the ballroom, darting in and out of the seaweed-covered pillars. Then he starts doing barrel rolls and fin slides. He tail-flips into a double nosey and skims underneath me with a triple gill slap.
Show-off, I think.
“How cool is this place, and how cool am I?” shouts Rick as he shoots off again.
That’s the final straw. It’s time I show this show-off exactly what a hammerhead is capable of! Shaking Ralph and Joe clear, I speed off after Rick, knocking Donny right out of the way as I do.
Rick skids into a full tailspin. I give him my best double gill flip. Rick just laughs in my face and is off again, tail-grinding along a handrail and single-finning across the hole between two torn-open rooms.
I follow. And then I make several mistakes, so many I can make a list of them.
1. I follow Rick without thinking–bad.
2. Not thinking means I don’t measure the hole he goes through–bad, bad.
3. Not measuring the hole he goes through means I crash into the ragged gap in a half-twisty double-fin with pike–bad, bad, bad.
4. And I was probably traveling at twice my normal speed–bad beyond belief.
Creeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaakkkk!!!!
“That wasn’t my rear!” I hear Joe shouting as I thud into the wall with a huge . . . thud.
I have just enough time to look up before the half-collapsed smokestacks above the ballroom start falling toward us with a horrible crashing, smashing, tearing, ripping sound.
And then everything goes dark!
I think what happens next is this:
1. Donny crashes into Rick.
2. Rick crashes into me.
3. I crash into Joe.
4. Two of Joe’s tentacles get stuck in my nostrils and I have to shake my head like crazy until my slimy jellyfish friend lets go.
The smokestack has crashed down over the hole in the ballroom ceiling, and nearly all the light is gone. I try to keep calm, but it’s not easy. Especially when you’ve had jellyfish fingers stuck up your nose. But now that Joe has finally let go, I’m finding it easier to breathe. And I might not be able to see much, but I can still hear stuff.
I can hear someone’s teeth chattering.
“Is everyone okay?” I ask.
“I want my mommy,” says Joe.
“Me too!” says Donny.
“M-m-m-e-e thr-r-e-e-e,” says someone else.
“Ralph? Is that you?” I ask.
“N-n-n-n-no,” says Rick, “It-it-it-it’s me.”
I’m shocked. Big, brave Rick the reef shark is so scared he can’t keep his teeth still!
“Wh-wh-wh-what happened?” Rick asks.
“The smokestack fell down,” I say.
“We need to get out of here!” yells Donny. “It’s not safe! We’ll be crushed!”
“He’s r-r-r-r-right!” Rick says.
“Wait!” I start to say, but Donny is off. I feel him skim past me.
“No!” Donny calls back. “I’m going back out the way we-”
BOINNNNNNNNNNNG . . .
CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAK . . . CRASH!
I think these noises are:
1. Donny going BOINNNNNNNNNNNG as he bounces off a big metal door that has blocked the way we came in.
2. The vibration of the BOINNNNNNNNNNNG causing the smokestack to CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEAK again.
3. The CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAK of the smokestack causing a load of wood from the ceiling to CRASH down. Only just missing me, Joe, and Rick!
“Nobody move!” I shout. “We can’t see anything, and every time we knock into something we make things even worse.”
“Wh-wh-wh-wh-why are y-y-y-y-you s-s-s-suddenly in ch-ch-ch-ch-charge?” Rick chatters.
“Because my mouth isn’t doing weird things with my teeth,” I say.
“I-I-I-I-I-I’m j-j-j-just c-c-c-c-cold,” Rick whines. “That’s all.”
Yeah right, I think. But I don’t say anything, because I have more important things to think about. Like where’s Ralph?
“Where’s Ralph?” I ask.
Silence.
“Ralph! Ralph!” I shout.
“He’s probably dead,” Joe says gloomily. “I told you we’d be fish food if we came in here.”
Silence.
POP.
“Joe!” Donny yells.
“Sorry,” Joe mutters.
I swim around a bit, slowly and carefully. “Ralph? Are you okay?” But there’s no sound apart from-
CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAK.
The wood and the smokestack shift again. But this time with no one bumping into anything. This is getting serious. We’re trapped in a collapsing ship and I can’t find my best friend! I clamp my jaw shut to stop my teeth from chattering with fear. I have to at least pretend to be brave or we’ll never make it out.
“Okay, listen up, everyone, we’ve got to find Ralph and then we can get out of here.”
“He’s your f-f-f-friend, you f-f-f-find him!” says Rick. Donny just looks away.
I’m not going to get any help from the Terrified Twins, that’s for sure.
I turn to look at Joe. He’s wobbling his tentacles around in panic, mumbling, “Fish food, If Not Exterminated. Why doesn’t anyone ever listen to me?”
I’m beginning to wish I had listened to him.
There’s nothing else I can do. I gulp and try not to look scared. “Right, you all stay here and I’ll go and look for Ralph.”
I kick my tail and swim off cautiously. My goggly eyes are a bit more used to the dark now, and I can start to make out some shapes. Lots of the ballroom’s ceiling has come down all around us, but the huge rusty smokestack is lying right across the hole. You couldn’t even fit a flatfish through the gap now. We are really, truly trapped.
I start to swim around in a circle, looking up and down, hoping that Ralph hasn’t been hit by any of the falling wood. My heart is beating so hard I can feel it shaking my whole body.
From the other side of the ballroom Joe starts muttering again. “I reckon we’re going to be stuck here so long we won’t be home for dinner.”
I swim alongside a pile of crushed chairs.
“In fact, we’ll probably freeze to death before
we ever get out.”
I dart over broken, seaweed-covered tables.
“The only way I’m getting out of here is if some whale crashes his way in and wants a jellyfish ice pop.”
I stick my head into a slimy fireplace. Still no Ralph.
“Or we’ll get crushed up into plankton and eaten. Everyone will wonder where we’ve gone. They’ll probably run a missing fish ad in the Seaweed Times, but it’ll be too late. I just know we’re not going to get out! I can sense it.”
I’m just about to tell Joe to shut up, when something hits me like a wet fish in the face.
Sense it!
Joe said he could sense it.
Oh flibbery-flump! Of course. I can use my sensors to try to find Ralph. I quickly turn them on and start moving my hammerhead about, scanning the room. It’s really faint, but I can definitely sense some movement coming from the other end of the ballroom. I swim off past Joe and I zoom in on the tiny vibration I can sense in my hammer.
BRRRRRMMMMMM.
As I reach the far end of the ballroom the vibration gets much stronger. It’s not clear exactly where the vibration is coming from, but it’s definitely around here somewhere.
I look left.
BRRRRrrrrrrrrmmmmmmmm . . .
I look right.
. . . mmmmMMMMBBBBRRRRRR!!!
I go right, and find a big wooden pillar. Underneath the pillar is a grand piano-one of those that has a big lid on top. It’s standing all lopsided on broken legs. The lid is shut, and covered in pieces of the fallen ceiling. But what I see sticking out from the lid makes my hammerhead quiver. Waving slowly in the tiny opening is the bottom half of Ralph.
He’s trapped inside the piano!
“Ralph! Ralph! It’s me!” I shout.
“Harry?” Ralph squeaks from inside the piano. “Help! I can’t move.”
I rush forward and try to push the piano lid up with my fin.
It won’t budge.
I flip around and shove my tail up against the wooden pillar that’s on top. I push as hard as I can.