The Sea-Quel (4 page)

I held my hand over the side to help pull Pradeep in too.

That's when I saw a fin, then another fin, and then the tail. It whacked against the side of
A Vision of Velma
, knocking me over and shoving the boat out of Pradeep's reach. When I scrambled back to my feet, I could see that the evil eel was surrounding Pradeep.

“Look out!” I yelled.

Suddenly I saw a flash of orange fins and green eyes swoosh past me.

Frankie had leaped out of his bag and into the water. His eyes were pulsing with green zombie power as he flung himself toward Pradeep.

Sami stood up in our boat next to me. All I kept thinking was, “Come on, Frankie. Come on!”

Mark yanked on the fishing line again, which seemed to make the eel even more angry. It tightened its grip around Pradeep as he tried to swim back to our boat.

“Help!” Pradeep gasped as he struggled to keep his face above the water.

“Maybe the eel will go away if you just let go!” I screamed at Mark.

But Mark kept hold of the fishing rod. “Are you nuts, moron? If I let go, then the eel can bite him too!”

The eel's head reared out of the water just by Pradeep. Sami clutched my hand.

The creature thrashed back and forth wildly, trying to loosen the hook stuck in its mouth.

Then I saw Frankie leap out of the water, right between Pradeep and the eel. Frankie's eyes were blazing green. For a second the eel seemed stunned by Frankie's zombie stare. Frankie almost seemed to hover in midair—you know, like ninjas do in fight scenes in those old kung fu movies.

The eel's eyes crossed and he looked at the boat with one eye and up Pradeep's left nostril with the other. Frankie had done it—he had hypnotized the eel! It loosened its coils and Pradeep pulled free. Just as he slipped out of its grip, the eel shook its head hard, like it was trying to wake up its brain and shake off Frankie's stare. Then it plunged back into the water with Frankie close behind.

“Swim, Pradeep! Swim!” I urged him. He quickly made it to the boat, and we pulled him inside. Sami clung to the leg of his soggy jeans and wouldn't let go. Pradeep shoved on his glasses and peered over the side, looking for Frankie.

Mark called, “Get out of here, morons! Row back to shore and leave the eel to me!”

“Where swishy fishy?” Sami shouted to Mark.

“That moron fish is eel food!” Mark yelled back. “If the eel hasn't eaten him already, I'll feed him to it myself.”

CHAPTER 9

EEL BE COMING TO GET YOU

Mark got as far as the “Mwha” of his evil laugh when he was cut short by the evil eel leaping across the front of his boat. Then I saw a green glow approaching. Frankie was alive! My zombie goldfish jumped out of the water and managed to bash Mark with his tail fin as he passed. Mark dropped the rod as he tried to swat at Frankie. Frankie splashed back into the water, right into the waiting jaws of the eel! Its powerful mouth tried to clamp down on him, but Frankie pushed back just as hard—holding himself straight as a rod and propping open the evil eel's jaws.

“Naughty eel!” Sami shouted. “Let go, swishy fishy!”

Either the eel didn't care, didn't understand English, or didn't think she was talking to him, so it didn't stop trying to munch Frankie. Frankie's green eyes were bulging even more than normal as he strained to keep the eel's mouth from snapping shut.

“We've got to do something!” Pradeep yelled.

Then I spotted the sick bag still full of water in the bottom of our boat. I crumpled down the top of it so it was sealed up tight. One water bomb, ready to go. Then I pulled back my arm, ready to throw.

Now, I'm not the best pitcher in the world. My baseball career ended badly in third grade after a ball I threw hit the coach somewhere very painful between his knees and his middle. It wouldn't have been so bad, but he was standing over by the garbage cans at the time, nowhere near home plate.

The water bomb flew into the air and headed toward Mark's boat just as he grabbed his floating fishing rod out of the sea. The swishing rod flicked the water bomb back toward us, but luckily, Pradeep was ready with one of the oars. He batted the water bomb back toward the eel and hit it square on its head.

The evil eel dropped Frankie and turned toward us. In less than a second Frankie had leaped in the air and landed on the giant eel's nose. He stared a hard zombie stare right into its eyes. At the same time, Mark yanked hard on the fishing rod, pulling on the hook, which was still stuck in the evil eel's mouth. The eel reared up in the water, trying to shake off both Frankie and Mark, but it was too late—Frankie had done it again! The zombified eel flopped down onto Mark's boat with a thud. As it fell, its gigantic tail flipped out of the water and struck Frankie like a tennis ball being swatted by a whale. He flew over the waves, heading straight toward a group of rocks farther out to sea.

“Frankie!” I shouted. He was going to land on the rocks. What if he couldn't get back into the water? He'd die! “Quick, Mark, dump the eel and take us out there to get Frankie. You can get us there faster in your motorboat!” I yelled.

Mark looked at the giant eel draped across his boat. “And why would I do that? I've got what I came for,” he said as he powered up the engine. “You guys better start rowing
Velma
back. It looks like rain.”

He turned
Daphne's Delight
and headed back to shore—the eel lying over the bow of his boat with its head and tail dangling in the water.

“We'll get Frankie ourselves,” I said.

Pradeep and I each grabbed an oar and rowed toward where we thought Frankie must have landed, but when we got to the rocks, there was no sign of him. Then we rowed around and tried to spot the green glow of his eyes under the waves.

Drops of rain started to fall on our faces as Sami snuffled, “No swimming now, fishy. Come back!” She shivered in her wet clothes and sneezed.

“We have to get Sami back to the lighthouse,” Pradeep said. “She'll get sick if she stays out much longer.”

I nodded. We wrapped my jacket around her shoulders and grabbed the oars again.

None of us said anything all the way back to shore.

CHAPTER 10

LIKE A FISH OUTTA WATER

When we got back to the jetty, there was no sign of Mark or
Daphne's Delight
anywhere. We tied up the rowboat and Pradeep gave Sami a piggyback up to the house.

Of course the dads shouted at us when they saw that Sami was wet and sneezing. Until we reminded them that they thought she was still asleep. Then the parent guilt kicked in. Dads get that a lot when they think they are going to be told off by moms for what the kids got up to while they were with the dads.

We told them that we were playing on the shore with Sami when we all got splashed by a really big wave, but that we didn't bring her back right away because she was having so much fun. Amazingly, they seemed to believe us, even though Sami's face looked like she had never had fun in her life.

“Swishy fishy gone,” she mumbled as her dad carried her upstairs to dry off and warm up.

“Now let's get some lunch for you two,” my dad said to me and Pradeep, wrapping beach towels around our shoulders.

As he put bowls of soup down in front of us, neither of us felt much like eating.

I kept picturing Frankie swimming around in the soup bowl.

I even tried a quick brain shake to get rid of the picture in my head, but it didn't make me any less sad. I decided to concentrate on stopping Mark's evil plan instead. It's what Frankie would have wanted us to do.

I gave Pradeep a look that said, “We have to stop Mark from doing whatever he is going to do with the evil eel, whether we have Frankie to help us or not.”

Pradeep nodded as he pushed his soup away.

“Can we be excused, please? I don't feel hungry,” he said to my dad.

“Of course. You both have a rest and we'll do something nice when Sami gets up from her nap,” he said. Then he gave Pradeep his “Chin up, sport, it's not that bad!” look.

Pradeep looked over at me with his “Did your dad just ask me if I wanted yummy Spam for dinner?” look.

I told you they were really similar!

We both left the table and headed upstairs to change out of our wet clothes and have another look in Mark's room. As our sneakers squelched up the stairs, I thought there had to be a clue to Mark's evil plan somewhere—we just had to find it.

As we finished getting changed, Dad knocked on our bedroom door. He had just come down from Mark's room.

“Have you two seen Mark?” he said. “The lighthouse keeper just mentioned that he saw him take off in the motorboat this morning, but he hasn't come back.”

Pradeep and I looked at each other. It hadn't occurred to us that Mark might still be out there with the eel. What if it woke up on the boat and knocked Mark overboard, or if he ran out of fuel or got lost? He might be evil, but I didn't want anything
that
bad to happen to him.

“We saw him go out on the boat when we were playing with Sami,” I said.

“He was fishing for the eel,” Pradeep added.

Dad got a really worried look on his face. I know looks, and in one second Dad had about six different “Worried about this or that happening to Mark” looks stream across his face.

“I'm sure he's OK,” I said.

“I'm sure he is too,” Dad replied. Which was a lie. “I'm sure Mark's fine” was definitely not one of the looks I saw.

CHAPTER 11

ROWBOAT TO THE RESCUE

“I'm going to go talk to the lighthouse keeper,” Dad said. “Pradeep, get your dad and meet me downstairs.”

Once the dads and the lighthouse keeper were all in the living room, Pradeep and I lurked in the hall and stared through the glass panels in the closed door. Although we couldn't actually hear what they were saying, Pradeep and I had been practicing lip-reading as an emergency measure in case our secret looks, secret calls, or secret flag signals ever all failed at once. This is what we worked out:

 

1) Dad had called the local coast guard, but they were already out looking for another missing boat.

2) A coast guard helicopter was being sent from another county, but they said it might take a while.

3) The dads were planning to take the rowboat out before the rain got any worse. They could look for Mark in the coves that the lighthouse keeper knew along the bay. It would take both the dads to row and the lighthouse keeper to show them the way, which would mean leaving us alone to look after Sami.

 

Pradeep and I stepped forward into the living room.

“You've gotta go look for Mark,” we said at the same time. (We still do that sometimes, but we're working on it.)

“Sami will be OK with us,” Pradeep added. “We'll give her some soup when she wakes up and keep her warm and safe.” He held up his fingers in his Cub Scout salute. “We promise.”