We Give a Squid a Wedgie Read online

  “I guess we’ll just have to grab it and toss it overboard,” said Oliver.

  “Like we did with the octopus at the New Year’s Eve party,” said Corey.

  This time Oliver blushed. He didn’t like to be reminded about the killer ­wedgie he’d received.

  We should note that, much to their dismay, ­Oliver and Celia were no longer awed by the majesty of the sea.

  “No time to lose.” Big Bart stepped forward. “The shark will die if we don’t help it.”

  “Yeah,” said Celia. “But we might die if we do help!”

  “Come on, Celia.” Corey Brandt smiled. “I’ll make sure you don’t get hurt.”

  Celia nodded, and she and the teen star moved carefully after Big Bart toward the thrashing shark. Oliver let out a low groan and stepped up behind them. He almost wished he had just let his sister watch her soap operas and never seen Sharkapalooza at all. A little knowledge was a terrible thing.

  But it was too late for regret; it was time for action.­

  “I hate to rush you all,” Dr. Navel called from the stern of the boat, “but we seem to be heading into rough weather. We’ll want to throw those animals back in the water somewhat quickly! A storm’s a-comin’, as they say!”

  Oliver and Celia could swear they heard a bit of glee in their father’s voice. Shark and octopus wrestling reminded him of their mother.

  That’s how they had spent their honeymoon.

  “Oliver.” Celia looked back at her brother. “I’m really sorry I got us into this. I know it was my fault.”

  “It’s cool,” sighed Oliver. “It was, you know …”

  “Destiny,” said Celia.

  Oliver nodded. “Now let’s get this sharktopus wrestling over with.”

  12

  WE WON’T JUMP THE SHARK

  “WE’VE GOT TO JUMP THE SHARK,” said Big Bart, rubbing his hands together and preparing to leap. The shark and the octopus were battling each other, thrashing all over the deck.

  Big Bart timed his leap over the fish fracas—which is just another way of saying fight—with great care. One swipe with the shark’s muscular tail would send even a man of his size overboard and, in the growing sea swells in the dark of night, it would be impossible to rescue him.

  “You two wait here,” Corey said to Oliver and Celia, although it didn’t really seem necessary. They had no plans to jump the shark.

  “Corey! Be careful!” Celia exclaimed way too dramatically. She blushed. Oliver didn’t even bother to roll his eyes. His sister knew.

  Corey blew a strand of hair off his forehead, gave the kids his trademark wink and smile, and took his own running jump over the fracas. He overestimated and nearly jumped clear off the front of the boat. Big Bart caught him by one of the pockets on his Pocketed Pajamas and pulled him back on board.

  “Those are some good pajamas,” said Big Bart.

  “Double stitched,” Corey said. “I wouldn’t endorse a bad product. You know, I get offers all the time, for energy drinks and adventure gear and hair gel. But these Pocketed Pants products are the first ones ever to earn the Corey Brandt seal of—”

  “Guys!” Celia called out. “Shark? Octopus?”

  “Right,” Corey called back to her. “Sorry, Celia.”

  “It’s no problem,” Celia said. “I just, you know, thought I’d remind you.”

  “It’s no problem, Corey … you’re so dreamy … ,” Oliver muttered, mimicking his ­sister under his breath. She frowned at him and flicked his ear. “Ouch,” he said.

  “Okay!” Corey said. “Big Bart, you can take the … uh … shark, and I’ll handle the octopus.”

  “Sure.” Big Bart grunted. He called to Oliver and Celia. “When the shark is docile, you two start untangling it!”

  “Docile?” Oliver asked.

  “Easy to control,” said Celia. “You should know that one.”

  “Hey,” he objected, but just then Big Bart pounced onto the shark, pressing it down with the full weight of his body. He was trying to roll it onto its back with one hand while rubbing its nose with his other hand. Corey hesitated; a flicker of doubt crossed his face. Then the shark snapped at him and he dodged it. The jaw slammed into the deck of the boat with a crunch. Corey leaped out of the way and dove forward to catch the octopus. As soon as he landed on it, it slipped out from under him and slithered onto his back. He turned to catch it, but he found himself lifted into the air.

  “Ow!” he yelled as his feet left the deck. The octopus wrapped one tentacle around his waist, while another pulled at his legs.

  “This thing is giving me a killer wedgie!” Corey yelled. “K-I-L-L—ow!”

  “See?” Oliver pointed.

  “My pants!” Corey cried. “The wedgie-proofing doesn’t work! The wedgie! It’s terrible!”

  “What should we do?” Celia shouted.

  “I dunno,” said Oliver. “I never watched a show about octopuses giving wedgies!”

  “Octopi!” Celia yelled. “What about Squid Whisperer?”

  “That’s about squid! They’re different!”

  “Corey,” Celia yelled at him. “Rub the nose!”

  “Where’s the nose?” Corey shouted back.

  Oliver and Celia looked at each other and shrugged.

  The octopus had wrapped another arm around Corey’s head. Every time he tried to grab its body, the octopus slipped out of his grasp.

  The shark, meanwhile, was resting calmly as Big Bart rubbed its nose. Corey wished he’d chosen the shark.

  “Watch out!” Celia shouted as a tentacle whipped around at Oliver. He jumped just in time.

  “Help,” Corey croaked as the octopus started to move toward the edge of the boat, dragging the teen heartthrob with it.

  Celia and Oliver sprang into action. Without a word to each other, they both leaped at the oc­topus. Sometimes it was nice having a twin. Oliver was glad to have his sister back on his side. Celia was glad her brother wasn’t being a jerk ­anymore.

  They grabbed at the creature’s arms, trying to pull Corey free. Every time they grabbed onto it, the octopus seemed to change shape and slip free.

  “Ow!” Oliver yelled as the octopus hoisted him into the air by his pants. “Not again!”

  “Oliver, you’ve got to—” Celia started, but the octopus caught her too. Its sharp beak was chewing on her hair and it started to pull all three of them off the boat.

  They heard a splash as Big Bart rolled the shark back into the water.

  “Help!” Celia yelled.

  Suddenly the octopus dropped her. She hit the deck with a thud. Oliver and Corey fell after her. They looked up to see Dennis pecking at the ­octopus’s head.

  “Bwak! Bwak!” Dennis clucked and squawked as all eight arms of the sea creature flailed around him.

  “Dennis!” Big Bart yelled, charging forward and landing one hard kick right at the octopus. It flew through the air, arcing high into the night, and splashing back into the inky-black ocean. They saw its dark shape dart away under the water, probably just as relieved to be off the boat as they were to have it gone.

  “I played kicker in high school football.” Big Bart smiled. “Kicking an octopus isn’t much harder than kicking a football.”

  Celia slumped back against the railing of the boat, exhausted. Oliver and Corey slumped next to her.

  “That’s twice we’ve almost been killed by a normal octopus,” said Celia. “I really don’t want to meet the kraken.”

  “How many times do I have to explain that the kraken is a squid?” Oliver muttered. “If it’s even … oh, never mind.” He dropped his head to his chest, too tired to argue.

  Celia nodded, too tired to win an argument. She looked at the deck of the boat next to her foot. There was a large sharp tooth stuck into the fiberglass. She yanked it out.

  “Shark tooth,” said Big Bart. “They say it’s good luck.”

  “Yeah,” said Celia. “Good luck it didn’t eat us.”

  Sh
e put it in her pocket anyway, just in case.

  The whole ordeal had lasted only minutes, but it felt like a lifetime. It was only after they caught their breath that they noticed the boat was pitching wildly from side to side.

  They looked up and saw the last of the stars blotted out by heavy black clouds. The boat lurched sickeningly upward and crashed back down again with a blast of salt water.

  Oliver and Celia were already soaked and they smelled like fish. They were scraped and bruised from the octopus’s suckers. Aching, they ran to the cabin, swaying from side to side like Professor Rasmali-Greenberg after too much sherry.

  “I don’t feel so good,” said Oliver.

  Corey began barking out instructions to ready the ship for the worst of the storm, although by that point it was almost impossible to hear him over the howling wind. Walls of water crashed around them, leaving entire schools of fish ­flopping on the decks, only to be washed away again by the next crashing wave. Inside the cabin, a soup of seawater and stray fish sloshed along the floor.

  “Bonnie!” The twins knocked on the door to her bunk. “Bonnie, there’s a storm. Wake up!”

  “Is it time yet?” she called through the doorway.­

  “Time for what?” called Celia.

  “Nothing,” groaned Bonnie. “Wake me in the morning.”

  Oliver and Celia knocked for a few more minutes and then gave up.

  They poked their heads back outside.

  They saw their father at the wheel, struggling to keep the boat pointed in the right direction and to keep himself from being knocked overboard by the raging water. Corey was further forward, trying to tie the sails down so the heavy winds didn’t tear them to shreds. He had tied a rope around the mast and looped it around his waist so he didn’t get washed away.

  Big Bart was racing this way and that, falling over with every crashing wave that hit, trying to get himself to the cabin.

  Oliver and Celia took one more look around the battered deck and one look at each other and quickly ducked back inside.

  “I bet we’d just be in the way out there,” said Oliver.

  “And we wouldn’t want to distract them from their work,” said Celia.

  “And Dad would probably worry about us going overboard,” said Oliver.

  “Right,” said Celia. “He’d be worried for our … um … safety.”

  Neither of the twins believed it. They could hear their father’s whoops of excitement even through the sound of the howling wind. He loved a duel with nature.

  “Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow!” they heard him yelling.

  Oliver looked questioningly at Celia. She shrugged.

  “I mean, we did wrestle an octopus,” she said.

  “Yeah,” Oliver agreed.

  “And someone will need to be rested for the morning watch,” she said.

  “Yeah,” Oliver agreed again.

  “So I think,” said Celia, “that we should get some sleep.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Oliver a third time. It felt really good to agree with Celia again.

  They had their hammocks strung up in the corner of the cabin like bunk beds, one above the other. Celia put her foot right on Oliver’s face on the way up to the top bunk.

  Yep, he thought. His sister was back to herself again. Oliver flipped on the TV so they could watch Sunset High reruns while they slept. If they weren’t sailing through a storm in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on their way to meet a mysterious sea people who would lead them to an island guarded by mythic squid where their mother may or may not have discovered Plato’s map to Atlantis,­ things would be almost normal.

  “Bwak,” said Dennis, racing into the cabin. He settled comfortably down below the hammocks.

  “I hope chickens don’t snore,” said Celia.

  “He’s a rooster,” said Oliver.

  In the galley, pots and pans crashed from side to side with wild seas. As the boat rolled and swayed, the hammocks hung smartly, rocked gently on their hooks. Dennis didn’t snore. Neither did Oliver and Celia. Outside, however, the wind howled.

  13

  WE SLEPT WITH THE FISHES

  WHEN THE TWINS WOKE UP, rested and relaxed, the sun was high in the sky; the seas were calm, and the deck of the Get It Over With looked as if it had been redecorated by a stampeding herd of yaks. They stretched and rubbed their eyes.

  “I guess the storm was pretty bad,” Oliver observed.­

  “Guess so,” said Celia, taking in the scene on deck.

  Coils of rope were tossed every which way. Containers of supplies had spilled open, their contents no doubt washed away. The boat bobbed slightly on the water. All was quiet.

  Dr. Navel and Big Bart were sound asleep, leaning on each other, both of them lashed to the wheel with a thick rope. Corey Brandt had somehow tangled himself into the mainsail. He was lying flat out on the boom of the mast a few feet above the deck, snoring lightly, with the sailcloth pulled around him like a blanket. One arm hung limply out of the tangle and a thin stream of drool dangled from his mouth almost to the deck of the boat. He looked quite unlike a world-famous teen heartthrob. His hair, however, was still perfect.

  Bonnie hadn’t come out of her bunk and Twitchy Bart was still high up on the mast, snoring and sopping wet.

  “Should we wake them?” asked Oliver.

  “Well,” said Celia, “we’ll need breakfast.”

  They went to their father and poked him with a paddle that was lying on the deck.

  “Is that all you’ve got, you thunderbolts of Zeus!” Dr. Navel yelled as he snapped awake. Oliver­ and Celia jumped backward. “Oh, children. Hi. Good morning.”

  He smiled and knocked some water out of his ear. Suddenly he squirmed and made a strange face. He pulled a large silver fish out of his shirt. He studied it curiously for a moment and tossed it back into the sea, where it darted away under the waves.

  Big Bart stretched upright and cracked his neck, slowly untying himself from the wheel.

  They worked together to wake up Corey. He didn’t respond to shouting or poking or jostling. They eventually had to raise the sail so he flopped onto the deck of the boat in a puddle of seawater and dozens of those silver fish. He clutched one of the fish to his chest like a teddy bear. It was only when it flopped onto his face that he stirred, muttering about not being in the mood for sushi.

  “Oh, guys, hey,” he said when he finally opened his eyes and saw the Navels and Big Bart standing over him. “Morning.”

  “Land ho!” Twitchy Bart shouted from above. “Land ho!”

  They squinted at the horizon and saw, barely higher than the gentlest of waves, a colorful patch of huts.

  “That’s not land,” said Big Bart. “Those are rafts and boats. Dozens of them tied together.”

  “The Orange Lords?” Oliver wondered.

  “Orang Laut,” said Dr. Navel. “They tie their boats together to trade and socialize. We’ll take the dinghy over to them.” He pointed at the small inflatable motorboat tied to the back of their sailboat. “Corey, why don’t you stay with the crew and keep us in ship shape. Kids, you want to come with me to meet one of the last of the nomadic sea peoples on earth?”

  “Not really,” said Celia.

  “Nope,” agreed Oliver.

  Dr. Navel shook his head and sighed. He had thought he was making progress, but Oliver and Celia were just as incurious as ever.

  “Well,” he said, “I need someone to come with me.”

  “I’ll go,” said Corey. “Meeting the Orang Laut would be M-E-G-A, mega!”

  “Mega,” Oliver mouthed to Celia and rolled his eyes, but she was gazing at Corey and didn’t notice.

  “All right,” said Dr. Navel. “Oliver and Celia can take command of the ship until we’re back.”

  “I’ll go too,” said Celia.

  “Wait a second,” said Oliver.

  “I mean, you know. It could be not totally terrible.” Celia smiled at Corey. “They spend their
whole lives on the ocean … that’s, um, mega?”

  Corey nodded and the three of them climbed into the dinghy. Celia saw that Oliver was giving her that look of his with the wrinkled eyebrows and the frown.

  “Sorry,” she mouthed to him. She hoped he’d understand. How often was it that she got to ride in a dinghy with Corey Brandt? The girls at school would go crazy.

  “I can’t command the ship!” Oliver complained. “I’m eleven!”

  “Eleven and a half!” Celia corrected him again.

  “I believe in you!” Dr. Navel smiled as he tossed off the rope, tugged the engine to life, and sped off toward the collection of boats, taking Corey and Celia with him.

  His sister hadn’t changed at all, Oliver thought. Just after they’d finally made up, she was ready to abandon him for Corey again. She was just like their mother, always leaving Oliver behind. She didn’t even look back as they sped away, just watched Corey laugh at something that was probably dumb.

  “D-U-M-B,” Oliver spelled out loud.

  “Don’t worry, little bro.” Big Bart came up beside him. “Command ain’t nothin’ to be afraid of. You got us crew here and we’re at anchor. All you have to do is make sure we stay at anchor.”

  “Whatever,” Oliver grunted and went to sit in the captain’s chair behind the wheel. The deckhands all came together for lunch, but Oliver didn’t feel like being sociable. He watched the dinghy arrive at the rafts and watched Corey and his sister wave at the fishermen.

  “Stupid teen heartthrob,” Oliver muttered. “Thinks he’s so cool.”

  While Oliver watched Corey and his sister and his father, he didn’t notice the deckhands signaling to each other with their eyes, and one by one disappearing into Bonnie’s bunk, where they shut and locked the door.

  14

  WE COME IN PEACE

  AS THEIR DINGHY PULLED AWAY from the Get It Over With, Celia started to feel bad about leaving Oliver behind with the weird deckhands and that chicken. She was going to turn around and at least wave to him as they sped off toward the Orang Laut, but just then Corey turned to her.

  “Did you hear the joke about the two squid?” Corey asked.