Читать книгу Stingray City - Ellen Prager - Страница 11

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RESCUED

AT THE AQUARIUM THE NEXT NIGHT, THE PRIVATE cocktail party was in full swing. Waiters in neatly creased black pants and starched white shirts roamed about, carrying platters of fancy finger food. Light jazz played over the intercom while the guests ate, drank, and explored the exhibits. A little earlier, when guests first started arriving, Tristan and the other campers had been hustled out a side door.

The teens now sat on a short concrete wall in view of the aquarium entrance. Hugh was showing the others the new mini-pocketknife tool his mother had sent. It had arrived that day at the aquarium. Hugh had told his mother during a recent phone conversation that he’d lost his other pocketknife tool earlier in the summer. He left out the part about how it was lost—taken from him by Marsh’s thugs.

Tristan wasn’t really watching or listening to Hugh. He was more interested in the arriving guests, marveling at the diversity of attendees and their varied attire. Some men had on expensive-looking dark suits. Others were dressed less formally. One guy had on jeans and a Hawaiian shirt. Another man was dressed like he was going on safari or something, clad entirely in khaki. Tristan thought he looked familiar. Many of the women were outfitted in short black dresses. A few had on long, sparkly gowns, and one lady was wrapped in a glittering sarong. A heavily bearded man then approached the entrance. He was encased in dark robes, wore a long matching scarf headdress, and was closely followed by an entourage of at least six men. When he reached the door, the man waited for one of his followers to open it. Just before he went in, the robed man turned. He stared right at Tristan—or at least it seemed that way. Tristan swiftly averted his eyes. When he looked back, the man was gone.

Just then, Pete came running out of the aquarium. He wore a wrinkled tuxedo and was breathing heavily. “There you are. I’ve been looking all over for you—wanted to catch you before you headed back to the house.”

“Who are they?” Tristan asked, nodding to the still-arriving guests.

“Executives from aquariums and parks around the world,” Pete answered. “They’re here for a conference on rescue techniques and breeding for conservation, and to hear about our work to create international standards for the collecting and keeping of animals. We work very hard and spend tons of money to make sure that our animals are well fed, live in clean water, and have enough room to swim around. But that’s not true in many places in the world. Animals are kept in tiny tanks with poor water quality and fed nutritionless junk. Two dolphins were recently rescued from a tiny pool in a theme park in Asia. It was full of murky, brown water, and the dolphins were sick, probably dying. We’re really trying to prevent that sort of thing from happening, along with stopping pirate fishing and collecting.”

“What’s that?” Hugh asked.

“Fishing or collecting of marine life that’s done illegally. It’s a huge global issue, but don’t get me started on that or we’ll be here forever. About tonight—everyone’s tied up at the event. So you’re on your own. Okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” Ryder answered, a little too quickly.

Pete eyed him and the others warily. “There’s a great pizza place just down the road.” He reached into his pocket and handed Sam a credit card. “Grab dinner and then head back to the house. Watch a movie or some television. Just keep a low profile—and whatever you do, stay away from the water.”

“No problem, sir,” Hugh told him.

“Dude, it’s not like we’re little kids,” Ryder added. “We know how to take care of ourselves. You should have seen some of the things we did earlier this summer.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard. That’s what worries me,” Pete responded. “Look, have a good night off and just don’t do anything stupid.” He then jogged back into the aquarium.

“Why do adults always say that?” Tristan said. “We haven’t done anything stupid yet. Well, at least that I can think of.”

The others shook their heads.

Tristan decided it must be a grown-up thing to worry so much. He followed the others as they walked down the road. It was their first night free and their first time without any adult supervision since arriving in Monterey. They found the pizza place and went in. It was among the many restaurants, shops, and hotels lining the road that led away from the aquarium—the famous Cannery Row. The converted sardine processing factories now hosted the trendiest places in town.

After dinner, the group began walking back to the aquarium. From there it was just a few blocks north to Pete’s house. Ryder stopped and stared across the street at a small park and, beyond it, the dark waters of Monterey Bay. He raised an eyebrow mischievously. “Hey, let’s go for a swim.”

The other teens turned to where he was looking.

“Now? Out there? In the dark? Are you crazy?” Hugh said. “Besides, Pete said to go back to the house.”

“Exactly. Like, do you always do what people tell you to?” Ryder jeered. “Are you scared, Hugh?” He turned to Tristan. “How about you? Are you afraid too, shark boy?”

“No, I’m not afraid.”

“C’mon, then. Heard great whites swim around here,” Ryder taunted. “I dare you.”

“We’ve been in the ocean at night before,” Tristan countered. “And it was during a hurricane.”

“Then it shouldn’t be a problem. Or are you now afraid of the dark?”

The other teens watched Tristan, waiting for his response.

Hugh whispered, “Don’t do it.”

“Wimp!” Ryder exclaimed. “I’m going in.” He jogged across the street.

Tristan hesitated but then chased after him. He could only take so much of Ryder’s bluster. Besides, he didn’t want the others to think he was scared or anything. With the exception of Ryder, they often looked to him for leadership. And if Tristan was going to be a good leader, he needed to be brave. Besides, he could just jump in, swim a little way out, and then get out. It was dark down by the water, so no one would see them, and if a shark came by, he’d just talk to it. He’d gotten pretty good at the swimming-fast-and-talking-to-sharks thing. What could go wrong?

The other teens followed as the two boys ran through the small park to a flight of stairs leading to a sandy beach. It was nestled between rocky outcrops at the base of a waterfront hotel and a restaurant on Cannery Row. The campers stayed in the shadows as much as possible.

As the group gathered at the ocean’s edge, Ryder sat down on a rock and began taking off his sneakers. “So, who’s going in?”

Hugh shook his head and glared disapprovingly at Tristan.

Tristan ignored Hugh and began to undo his laces. “C’mon. We’ll just jump in, swim out, and then come back. No big deal.”

Sam nodded and started to take off her shoes. “I’ll go with you, Tristan.”

Rosina seemed to consider joining them, but then she felt the water. “Nope, no way.”

“Wuss!” Ryder announced.

“You’d better take one of these,” Hugh said, handing Tristan, Ryder, and Sam each a red, rubbery pill from a plastic bag in his backpack.

Tristan and Ryder began pulling off their jeans. Rosina snickered. Sam had gone silent, obviously realizing she, too, was going to have to strip down to her underwear if she was really going in.

Minutes later, Sam, Tristan, and Ryder stood on the beach staring at the dark water, shivering. The air was cool and smelled of seaweed. Small waves lapped the shore. It was a calm night with almost no moon, even darker than usual. And except for a periodic loud laugh or the distant noise of people on Cannery Row, it was quiet.

“Chickening out?” Ryder asked.

Tristan turned to him. “No. Are you?”

“Like, no way.”

Together they raced into the cold, dark water.

“I have a feeling I’m going to regret this,” Sam said, before running to dive in behind them.

Almost immediately, their hands and feet became webbed. Tristan put his hands out in front of him and zoomed ahead. He was still the fastest swimmer. But the water was so dark he could hardly see his outstretched hands. Worried about ramming into something headfirst at high speed, Tristan slowed. He surfaced and stopped to look back. The beach was already a good distance away. Tristan treaded water and waited for the others. It was freezing compared to the water in Florida, and his heart was hammering. Ryder and Sam popped up nearby.

“Okay, we did it,” Sam said, her teeth chattering. “Let’s go back.”

“Nah, let’s go farther out,” Ryder insisted, staring at Tristan in a silent dare.

“You are seriously twisted,” Sam countered, starting to turn back toward shore. She paused. “Hey, what’s that?” She pointed to a dim, blue-green glow some twenty yards farther offshore and a little to the left.

“Let’s go check it out,” Ryder suggested, taking off.

Tristan and Sam looked at one another, shrugged their shoulders, and followed. As he swam, Tristan began to warm up. His eyes also began to adjust to the night’s darkness.

Whatever the glowing thing was, it was about ten feet down and sort of spherical. The three teens dove and hovered close to the shimmering orb. Tristan watched as Sam reached out to gently touch the jellyfish’s bell, staying well away from its hanging strings of sting. The bell sparkled blue-green. As Sam pulled her hand away, Tristan realized that it too gave off a faint, luminous, blue-green glow. He looked at his own hands. They were shimmering too. He swam to the surface.

“What’s going on with our hands?” Sam asked, staring at her glimmering hands. Then they looked at their legs, which had also begun to faintly glow blue-green.

“Whoa!” exclaimed Tristan. “We’re bioluminescent.”

“Awesome,” Ryder added.

“Let’s go back and show the others,” Sam suggested. “Must be another effect of the new pills. Very cool.”

“Nah, let’s stay out here,” Ryder said. “It’s not even that cold.”

“Yeah, actually, that’s kinda strange,” Sam noted. “We should be freezing by now without wetsuits.”

“I’m liking these new pills more and more,” Tristan said, thinking that in addition to now being glow-in-the-dark, the newest pills must also be why he had warmed up so quickly.

Sam ducked underwater. Tristan heard a sort of clicking noise. Seconds later, Sam popped up and pointed seaward. “The kelp is messing with my echolocation, but I think there’s something out there.”

Tristan squinted, trying to see where she was pointing. “Where and what kind of something?”

“Something kinda big,” Sam answered. “I think it’s tangled up in the kelp.”

Tristan was feeling warm and more confident. “Let’s go check it out.” Without waiting to see what the others would say, he swam toward the forest of kelp that lay offshore. Ryder followed. Sam paused, but soon she too headed farther out into the darkness.

As Tristan got closer to the kelp, he could see that something pretty big was caught up in it, about fifteen feet down. Whatever it was, it was wrapped tight in a tangle of the rubbery seaweed and struggling to get out. Tristan dove, pushed a few pieces of kelp out of the way, and held up his hands. The faint glow from his skin provided just enough light to see what was there. But what was a scuba diver doing alone at night in the kelp—and without a light?

Tristan waved his hands at the diver, trying to get his attention. But the diver was too busy trying to get free of the seaweed to notice. Tristan reached out and grabbed one of the long pieces of kelp encircling the diver. The seaweed was slick and slimy, making it hard to hold onto. Tristan felt the kelp brush against his legs. He kicked at it while trying to pull at the kelp trapping the diver. Seaweed encircled Tristan’s knees. Another piece began to wrap around his neck. Tristan’s pulse quickened. He stopped trying to help the diver and began pushing at the kelp now wrapped around him. But his movements only seemed to make it worse. The more Tristan struggled, the more entangled he became.

Tristan twisted and turned, trying to slip free of the kelp. It wrapped tighter. On the verge of panic, Tristan felt a tap on his shoulder. He jerked around. Sam was beside him, signaling for him to calm down and stay still. Tristan forced himself to stop moving. Sam then began pulling the slick fronds of seaweed off him. Soon the kelp was loose enough for Tristan to wiggle free. He shot gratefully to the surface, where Ryder was waiting.

“Thanks,” Tristan said to Sam. “There’s a scuba diver down there stuck in the kelp. I tried to get him out, but started getting tangled up myself.”

“I noticed,” Sam said with a smirk. “What should we do?”

Ryder shook his head. “If that dude’s air runs out, it’s curtains. Over. He bites the big one.”

“Yeah, he drowns. We get it,” Sam said.

“Maybe together we can pull him up out of the kelp,” Tristan suggested.

“Let’s try it,” Sam said. “But be careful. Don’t kick or move around too much, or you’ll get trapped too.”

“Yeah, no joke,” Tristan added.

The three teens dove down and hovered near the struggling diver. Tristan again tried unsuccessfully to get his attention. He and Ryder each then grabbed an arm. Sam took hold of the top of the diver’s scuba tank. Together, Sam, Tristan, and Ryder kicked hard for the surface. The diver began to rise. They went up about two feet before the kelp sprang back like a giant rubber band, pulling them and the diver back down. The diver stopped struggling. Tristan let go and went to the surface with the others.

“Now what?” Ryder asked.

Tristan shook his head. He was thinking, wishing his brain would come up with a brilliant idea or even a passably decent one. Nothing.

“Hey,” Sam said. “Maybe we can use Hugh’s new pocketknife thing to cut through the kelp.”

“What?” Tristan asked.

“Dude, remember earlier? Hugh was showing us the new tool his mom sent him,” Ryder said.

Since Tristan hadn’t been paying attention to Hugh earlier, he just nodded like he knew what they were talking about.

“You’re the fastest, Tristan,” Sam noted. “Swim back and get it. We’ll stay out here so you can find your way back.”

Without saying another word, Tristan sprinted for shore, kicking hard. About halfway to the beach, he nearly ran face-first into a shark cruising along the coast. Both shark and human stopped short. The startled shark stared at Tristan. Sorry, Tristan muttered before continuing on. He then looked back at the shark, thinking about its pointed snout, big black eyes, and wide body, at least as much of it as he could see. And then he knew—it was a great white! Wow, Tristan thought, I nearly had a head-on collision with a great white shark. No one will ever believe it.

At the beach, Tristan ran from the water to where Hugh and Rosina sat anxiously waiting on some rocks. He hurriedly explained the situation out in the kelp. From his pocket, Hugh removed the mini-pocketknife tool. He handed it to Tristan, who then dove into the water and raced back toward the two specks of faint light bobbing in the kelp bed. As he swam, Tristan kept an eye out for the great white, wishing he could’ve at least talked to it.

Tristan, Sam, and Ryder dove down to again try to free the diver. Staying calm and moving as little as possible, Tristan opened the small knife blade in Hugh’s tool. He then quickly began cutting through the kelp. As he sliced, Sam and Ryder carefully pulled the seaweed off the diver. Several breaths later, the diver was sufficiently de-kelped and rose to the surface. The man spit out his regulator, gasping for air. “Oh man, thanks, whoever you are. That was close.”

“Who are you, and what the heck are you doing out here?” Tristan asked, thinking, This guy is even crazier than us.

It took a few minutes before the man could answer. “Same could be asked of you,” he said, breathing hard. “And how come your skin is glowing like that, and where are your wetsuits? You must be freezing.”

“Uh, yeah, we’re freezing,” Sam said, loudly chattering her teeth. “We, uh, were on the beach and saw you out here in trouble.”

“Uh, yeah, that’s it,” Ryder agreed.

“Saw me? From the beach?” The man looked at them suspiciously. “Well, no matter. Just lucky my air didn’t run out and that you kids swam out when you did. Thanks. Though I’m sure my team would have eventually figured out that something was wrong and come to get me.”

The teens offered to help the man back to shore. He gladly accepted their assistance, especially since he’d lost a fin and was totally exhausted after his near-death-by-seaweed experience.

At the beach, Hugh and Rosina helped the man out of the water. He slumped onto the sand. Sam, Tristan, and Ryder quickly dried off with a couple of towels from their backpacks. They hurriedly put their warm clothes back on. The diver sat there staring as the teens’ webbing began to slowly disappear and the odd blue-green shimmer faded from their skin.

“Who are you?” he asked. “And what are you?”

Tristan tried to change the subject. “What were you doing out there, anyway?”

The man pulled back his wetsuit hood to display a shock of silvery white hair. “I was testing something. But as you saw, I got a little caught up in the kelp.”

“A little, dude?” Ryder said.

“What were you testing?” Hugh asked.

“Why do you want to know?”

Hugh looked taken aback by the man’s response. “Geez, just curious.”

“Yeah, well, I’m curious about those feet of yours. What’s the scoop?”

Silence.

Tristan wondered how they were going to get out of this one.

After several minutes of no one saying anything, the diver introduced himself as Leo Ozdale. He then tried again to get the teens to answer his questions. They weren’t talking.

“Okay, I get it. You’re not going to answer,” Ozdale said. “What really matters is what you did. You may have just saved my life. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Sam said.

“Yeah, no problem,” Ryder added.

“Though a simple ‘thank you’ hardly seems enough,” Ozdale told them. “How about lunch tomorrow on my boat? It’s just north of here.”

The teens exchanged nervous glances and again gave no response.

“Are you from around here?”

Tristan hesitated before saying, “We’re volunteers at the aquarium.”

“Look,” Ozdale said. “I know the director of the aquarium. Just ask Maggie about me and I’m sure it will be okay for you to come out for lunch.”

The teens remained quiet and wary.

“Just come out to the boat for lunch. I won’t tell anyone what I saw, and if you don’t want to tell me anything else, you don’t have to. But come out. It’s the least I can do.”

“I don’t know,” Sam muttered.

Tristan silently agreed. It was hard to know whom to trust these days. But then again, the guy had already seen their webbed hands and feet, and newly bioluminescent skin.

“Just ask. I’m sure Maggie will agree, and she knows how to get in touch with me—Leo Ozdale.”

“Do you need help with your gear or anything?” Tristan asked, again trying to change the subject.

“No, no,” Ozdale told them, pulling a small waterproof radio from a pouch in his vest-like buoyancy compensator. “I’ve got people standing by. I’ll be fine.”

The teens hesitated and then said good-bye before walking away.

“Bye, thanks again,” the man called out. “Talk to Maggie first thing and then have her call me. Lunch on my boat tomorrow!”

On the way back to Pete’s house, Tristan turned to the others. “That was weird. What do you guys think?”

“I think we’d better call Director Davis,” Hugh said. “That guy could tell others about us.”

“Well, this is just great,” Rosina moaned. “Someone else knows about us.”

“Hey,” Ryder countered. “It wasn’t our fault. Like, we saved that guy. He probably would have died or been eaten by sharks or something.”

At the mention of sharks eating someone, Tristan stared at Ryder like the teen had just insulted his mother.

“No offense, shark boy,” Ryder added with a smirk. “But that guy would have been toast if we hadn’t been there.”

“Well,” Rosina said, “wasn’t like it was our fault earlier in the summer either. And look where that got us.”

“Hiding from that creep, Rickerton,” Sam said.

“And getting all the other campers mad at us,” Rosina grumbled.

“C’mon, Director Davis will know what to do,” Tristan told them. “Maybe this time, this Ozdale guy is one of the good guys.”

He tried to say it like he meant it, but Tristan had no idea if the man really was someone they could trust.