20,000 Nerds Under the Sea (10 page)

“I . . . S . . . T . .
.
H
,
UH,
M
. . . ,”
SAID NEIL, HIS EYES FIXED ON
the ceiling above. “Can you use it in a sentence again?” he asked Corinne's father.

Neil's pulse pounded. Not only from the pressure of his first ever spelling bee, but from knowing that every passing second left another shark in danger. And once the sharks were gone, what would stop Jolly from going after anyone else who wronged her—animal or human?

“‘Isthmus,'” said Corinne's dad. He was seated on the beige living-room couch with a huge dictionary
resting on his stomach. He drank a small glass of rice milk, which left traces in his fuzzy mustache.

“The volunteer fireman found a pony on the isthmus.”

What? Is that a sentence that someone has ever said in real life?

“Well, OK, ‘isthmus,'” Neil shrugged. “
I-S-T-H-M-U-S.
‘Isthmus.'”

“That is correct,” said Corinne's father. “Now on to round fifty-seven. Corinne, your word is ‘adrenaline.'”

“Corinne, Father of Corinne, I hate to be rude, and believe me I would love to sit around here and spell and drink rice milk with your dad,” Neil said, getting a glare from the spelling bee's judge, emcee, and timekeeper. “But we really need to go. I know I'm never gonna beat you in spelling anything.”

“That's true,” said the former spelling bee champion. She looked at Neil, then at her stern father. “If you really need my help, let's go. We're a team, right?”

Neil smiled, “We're a team!
T-E-A-M
.”

She and Neil celebrated with a salute. Her father cleared his throat.

“I've never seen someone last so long in a heads-up spell-off with my Corinne. Nicely done, Neil.”

Neil scratched the back of his head sheepishly.

“Nobody can beat your daughter, sir,” Neil said. “To be honest, I was guessing on most of those.”

“OK, Dad, I'll be back before curfew,” said Corinne to her father. She quickly tied her shoes and zipped up a thin blue jacket.

“Now where was it you kids were going?” said Corinne's father, looking over the opened dictionary. Corinne gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“Oh, just to study,” she said as the group skipped outside. “Be back soon!”

THE LATE-AFTERNOON SUN WAS TURNING THE SKY A LIGHT
orange as Harris's helicopter touched down in a cul-de-sac of a residential neighborhood. Tall evergreens shook as the rotor blades slowed their spinning.

“You two go get our man,” said Harris. “I'll stay here and watch the bird. If somebody puts a dent in this thing, my dad will take away international travel privileges.”

Neil laughed and quickly unbuckled his safety harness.

“And try and get ahold of someone. The White House, Jones, anybody who might help.”

Neil and Corinne ran out from the helicopter, hunched over as they headed toward the open door of a light-blue garage.

It was JP's, and he was inside, standing over a long table. It filled the space designated for two cars and was littered with random pieces of electrical wiring, several computers, and countless notepads filled with scribbled calculations. It was like a mad scientist's laboratory.

JP was hard at work on his science-fair magnets but looked up as Neil knocked on the frame of the open garage door.

“JP!” panted Neil. “We need you.”

The boy genius was quiet.

“Oh, really? You don't say,” JP answered. He had a small tray in his hands. It carried a few large potatoes. Yellow and blue wires curled out from the spuds. “You definitely didn't need me when you skipped out yesterday.”

“That's totally fair that you're angry, and I'm sorry,” Neil said. “But right now we truly need your help.”

“I can't help you. I have to win the science fair,” JP said proudly. “This week is nationals, Neil. The best presentation wins a scholarship. I have to dedicate every moment I have to this.”

“JP, I'm begging you,” Neil said.

“You can't leave a team to go to a yacht, just to come back in and flash a smile and win everyone over, Neil,” JP said sternly. “Even if someone told you to do it. That's not being a good friend.”

Neil let out a defeated sigh. They'd have to return to meet everyone without JP.

“JP, you have to trust him,” said Corinne. “We need you. Every shark in the world could use your help.”

JP looked puzzled.

“What's that?”

“We need your smarts,” said Neil. “There's a lunatic with a metal shark roaming the oceans right now, ready to change life as we know it.”

“Hmm, like that game?” JP said. He continued to tweak the wires connected to tiny silver disks. “From RebootCon?”

“Exactly.”

“Even so, I can't leave—these magnets have been my life for months,” JP said. “Today I had a breakthrough with the directional technology. I can pinpoint any magnetic metal up to five hundred yards away.”

“Magnets are magic,” said Neil. “I get that.”

“Right? Aren't they exciting?”

It was becoming clear JP wouldn't be interested in anything nonmagnetic.

“So show me. Target . . . the helicopter rotor blades,” Neil said, pointing to the aircraft outside.

“Yeah!” added Corinne. “Your project's already good enough to win, JP. I know it.”

JP held up his potato display. “Behold.”

After he plugged a few wires into the potatoes, the metal tray became a magnet. He leaned over his creation and pointed a metal disk at Harris and his chopper, aiming with his left eye. After flipping a small black switch, the magnet buzzed to life with a high-pitched ringing. After a second, the metal blades atop Harris's helicopter began to spin.

“Wow, that's awesome!” said Corinne.

“Thanks,” JP said, a happy grin on his face.

“Well, good luck in the science fair, I guess,” said Neil. “Let's go, Corinne. We've got to get back.”

Neil and Corinne began walking down the smooth blacktop of JP's driveway.

“Wait,” said JP.

Neil and Corinne turned to see their friend leaving
his garage laboratory, carrying a red duffel bag full of his experiments.

“I can call this experimenting in the field,” JP said. “I'm always there for you guys. We've got sharks to save.”

Neil was beginning to feel like a hero once again.

“What took so long?” said Harris when they got back to the helicopter. “I called the White House three times. Got a message they're closed on Sundays. Looks like we're on our own.”

Sounds good to me. We can do this.

NEIL WAS THE LAST TO STEP OUT OF THE HELICOPTER AND
back onto Harris's island. The four friends dodged ostriches as they walked to Weo's office.

On the ride over, Neil had made a satellite call to his mother, claiming he was getting a sneak peek at Reboot Robiskie's latest helicopter-themed game. Surprisingly, she'd already talked to Biggs's mom, who had filled her in about the gracious offer from the Robiskie Foundation and that they'd been given the VIP treatment. Neil's mom seemed worry-free about Neil's arrival and was looking forward to seeing Biggs's mom at this year's Quinoa and Gluten-Free Summit.

“Back up and running?” Neil asked Weo.

The rest of the team joined Corinne, JP, and Neil in Weo's office. His desk was in disarray, covered in wires as he attempted to fix the phones and the internet connection.

“Not yet,” Weo said. Neil looked around at his friends. But as he counted everyone, he saw there were only nine of them. Eleven with Weo and Harris. Either way, they were still short.

“Wait, where are the Jasons? And Trevor?” Sam asked, the roar of engines finally dying down.

“We thought you guys picked them up. Weren't they stranded at the airport?” said Harris.

“We thought you guys picked them up!” replied Biggs.

Neil felt a pit in his stomach. He knew there was only one person responsible for his missing friends—Jolly Rogers the Third.

“SO TREVOR AND THE JASONS ARE JUST
MISSING?” SHOUTED
a panicked Yuri. “I was at that airport. I thought they got home.” He leaned forward in a leather office chair.

“I wouldn't say they're missing,” Neil explained. “More that they've been taken by a madwoman, and she's probably making them do her evil bidding.”

“That's reassuring,” said Yuri. The whole crew looked at Neil expectantly.

“So tell us, who is this girl again?” asked Corinne.

“Her name is Jolly Rogers,” Neil said.

“The Third,” added Sam.

“She created that shark game we played at the convention,” said Neil. “Or at least kind of. She made Harris and other people build it for her.”

The convention
—
wow, that seems so long ago.

“OK, what else? We were promised metal sharks,” said Waffles. He wore his favorite camouflage bandanna, and still had splotches of paint on his left cheek.

“What?” said Riley. “Metal fish, Sir Neil?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” Neil said. He paused for a moment to begin his best Jones impression. “Jolly Rogers has created a shark-submarine monster, and she's using it to find every shark in every ocean.”

“And whither once these sharks are netted?” asked Riley.

“Well, her plan is to ultimately capture them all. After that, I can't imagine she'll do anything good with them.”

“Who would want to eliminate every shark?” asked Dale.

“Someone whose family has a long history of death by shark,” said Sam.

“Yeah, that'll do it,” said Dale.

“I'm sick of people like Jolly hating on sharks!” shouted Biggs. He didn't seem to be himself, constantly wringing his hands and cracking fewer and fewer jokes. Neil felt bad for his friend. He knew that for someone who loved Earth as much as Biggs did, the idea of wiping out a whole species had to be terrifying.

“After we left Reboot's yacht, Jolly kidnapped us to force us to do her dirty work,” Neil continued.

“So she used you for your gaming skills?” asked JP.

“Exactly,” Neil said. “Luckily, we escaped. We damaged her shark,
Magda
, but something tells me she's going to be harder to stop than that.”

Yuri raised his hand, and Neil pointed to him.

“Was Reboot's yacht cool?” he asked timidly.

“Very,” said Neil.

“Everybody come see me after the mission. I'll give you some of Reboot's candy,” added Biggs.

The group put their hands in the middle of a circle and did a giant high five. They were ready.

When everyone had settled down, Neil continued, “Jolly's boat had some sophisticated technology, like the jet fighters we piloted,” said Neil. “I'm sure everything is cloaked, but her big secret is that her family's
ketchup drives sharks crazy. It's how she lures them to her, so we can hopefully just follow their trail.”

“Yes!” Weo shouted. The group turned to face him.

“Sorry,” the boy president said. “I've got a connection, is all.”

“No, that's good,” said Biggs.

“No calls, unfortunately. Only internet, and it's sketchy—I'm bouncing a signal off some satellites.”

“Nice—that's a pro move,” said Yuri.

“But . . . I think I've got some news that may be helpful. Did you just say ketchup?” said Weo.

“Yeah, krill ketchup,” said Neil. “She said it works better than anything to attract sharks. It's a secret recipe. I think her great-grandparents stole it from somewhere in Japan, during their pirate days.”

“What did you find, Weo?” asked Sam.

“I just got a breaking news story emailed to me,” said Weo. “The headline today was ‘ketchup.'”

“So?” said Waffles, who was walking around the office and playing with ostrich toys.

“It looks like today was the biggest ocean ketchup spill in over seventy years. Since the great Tomato Tsunami, whatever that was.”

Neil stared at the computer screen. A red banner was stretched across the top of the screen announcing
BREAKING NEWS
. Weo pressed play and clicked the volume to its highest setting. The video struggled, moving in choppy spurts.

“Breaking news internationally from the high seas,” a newscaster said, her voice a powerful monotone. “In our top story, several freighters leaving from Japan and carrying high-end ketchup have all crashed in the Pacific Ocean during a routine shipment, spilling thousands of gallons of ketchup.”

Neil gasped. The video continued, pausing a moment to buffer.

“And later, we break the story on yet another reported mass shark migration. We'll have live interviews with fishermen in Hawaii as they describe the incredible sight of hundreds of the wild animals swimming past their boats.”

The anchorwoman turned to a new camera angle, shuffling a few papers in her hands.

“And now more on the Japanese freighters. From our business insider report, the cargo of most ships was mainly bottles of a rare luxury ketchup.”

The anchorwoman continued.

“Spills have been reported from every corner of the Pacific Ocean but seem to be centralized toward the southwestern United States area. We'll keep you updated with every piece of information, no matter how small or unimportant.”

The video stopped, and another about a waterskiing hedgehog began to load. Biggs looked conflicted as Weo exited the video player.

“We have to stop her!” Corinne yelped.

“You guys think those spills are this Jolly person?” said Weo. “If so, our islands aren't too far from their location.”

“I know they aren't. The ketchup makes sharks go crazy. Jolly will be headed right for them, scooping up as many sharks as she can,” said Sam. “Or making somebody else do it.”

“I think she kidnapped Trevor and the Jasons to drive the megalodon,” said Neil.

Neil was worried about Trevor. Not only was he an efficient and skilled pilot, but he always seemed to be out to prove himself. Mixed with the fact that Jolly was probably offering him a fortune beyond his wildest dreams,
Neil understood that it was not an ideal situation.

“I wish I could say I had some kind of foolproof plan, but I don't,” Neil said to the team. He felt like he should be giving a brave speech like Major General Jones would—but his mind was blank. “I know that there's nothing we as a team can't solve, even if we're not all together.”

The group remained hushed. Getting back together was the easy part. Now they were facing Jolly Rogers, the real threat.

“Well, time's ticking,” said Dale. “Let's do this.”

Dale nodded to his brother, Waffles, who took down a brightly colored Feather Duster 3 poster from the wall. He laid it out on the desk, leaving its blank white side facing up.

“Operation Shark Salvage and Condiment Cleanup is now officially under way,” said Waffles, who uncapped an ostrich-shaped marker from Weo's desk. “We've got to get our friends back.”

He drew a tiny shark in the upper right corner.

“And stop Jolly and her shark before it's too late,” added Biggs.

Neil put a hand on his friend's shoulder.

“Right,” said Dale. “A good plan always starts with a list of assets.”

“Copy that,” said Waffles. Across the top of the page he wrote
Things We Have
, underlining it for good measure.

“So, what
do
we have?” said Dale.

“I have about three thousand stuffed ostrich toys,” said Weo. “And an entire shipment of defective ostrich visors, if that helps.”

Waffles wrote
Ostriches?

“I have my science-fair project. Would magnets help?” JP said.

“Definitely,” said Neil.

“I have about eight uneaten chicken nuggets from the airport food court,” said Yuri. “And seven different kinds of role-playing game dice.”

Waffles continued to add items to the list.

“Whilst my saber is being sharpened, I am without a weapon,” said Riley. “But I am clothed in a skin of metal.”

Waffles began to write but paused.

“Chain mail, my lords and ladies.”

“We have our vests,” said Waffles, gesturing to his
black puffy vest that was peppered with paint. “Tear resistant. Fashionable.”

“Oh, and my lasso. Can't leave home without it,” said Dale.

The list was getting longer, but it read more like the lost and found from Reboot Robiskie's convention.

“Let's find a way to call Jolly. There's got to be a way we can reason with her,” said Biggs.

“Working on it,” said Weo. Yuri stepped next to him to help survey the issue.

“Until then, let me add to the list. I've got an almost-empty packet of red Singapore goo,” said Biggs. Waffles slowly printed out the word “goo?”

“Wait,” said Neil. He focused on a spot on the floor, processing something in his head.

“What is it?” asked Sam.

“Robot poodle.”

“Is that like a comic book? Or a superhero I'm unaware of?” asked Waffles, pausing his marker before continuing with the addition.

“None of those things—just your old-fashioned real robot poodle,” Neil said. “I met a girl named Marla at a science fair thing a while ago who was supposed to win
a meeting with Reboot Robiskie. Instead, I have a hunch Jolly hijacked her prize-winning invention. She's been getting kids to do everything for her.”

“And you have it on you?” asked Yuri, looking at Neil's normal-looking pants pockets.

“No, Jolly has it. But I bet I know exactly where it is,” Neil answered. “And it has the ability to disable any electronics in the area.”

“Robot poodle!” Waffles shouted, writing it down.

“Maybe we can try to stop the sharks from getting eaten,” said Biggs. “Like dilute that ketchup or something.”

“Nothing a few thousand ostrich toys can't suck up,” said Weo.

Neil was getting excited. This was beginning to sound like, well, a plan.

“There's just one little problem, guys,” said Harris. “The boat's getting a tune-up. And we can't fly a jet to a spot in the ocean.”

“Um, helicopter?” said Sam, pointing toward the machine outside. On the poster Waffles wrote
CHOPPER!!!

“I don't know if we'll be able to get far,” Harris said.
“We used up a good amount of fuel, and our next shipment doesn't get in for a few days.”

The group hushed, deep in thought.

“We're in luck,” said Neil with a proud smile. “We've got a guy.”