Читать книгу Danny Dunn on the Ocean Floor - Jay Williams - Страница 7

CHAPTER ONE

The Sounds of Fish

Professor Euclid Bullfinch hummed cheerily to himself as he set a large crucible—a pot made to withstand high heat—in the furnace that filled one corner of his laboratory.

He checked the temperature setting and shut the furnace. Then he seated himself at one of the stone-topped laboratory benches. He opened his notebook and for a moment chewed the end of his fountain pen as he looked thoughtfully out the open window. The sweet scent of honeysuckle came from his garden, along with the murmur of bees, and the Professor drew a deep contented breath.

Then he wrote, “Mixture placed in oven, 10:21, 300°. Why has no one tried this approach to this type of plastic before? Perhaps the results will not justify—”

The laboratory door flew open. A red-headed boy and a pretty girl with a dark pony-tail flying behind her, burst into the room. “Professor!” the boy shouted. “We need your help!”

Professor Bullfinch looked up over the rims of his glasses. Then, in a mild tone, he said, “Shut the door, please, Danny.” When, a little sheepishly, the boy had done so, the Professor put down his pen and went on, “I perceive from the calm way in which you stopped to obey me that there’s no emergency. No one has drowned, or burned up, or been swallowed in an earthquake, I take it?”

“Oh, no, nothing like that,” said Danny Dunn. He rubbed his snub nose and added, “Gee, Professor, I see what you mean. I guess we shouldn’t have come busting in like that. I’m sorry. I just didn’t stop to think.”

The girl, whose name was Irene Miller, said, “Oh, dear, I hope we haven’t interrupted any important work. We’d better come back another time, Dan.”

“No, no,” the Professor protested with a smile. “I merely wished to point out that it’s too warm a day for unnecessary bustling about. Sit down, both of you. I have been experimenting with a new type of plastic.”

“Is it for Dr. Grimes’s project?” Danny asked.

“Yes. He should be here soon, and I hope to have the answer to one of his problems.”

The two young people sat down, and Danny carefully set a small case on one of the benches. It contained a battery-operated tape recorder which he had assembled from a kit with Irene’s help.

Danny was greatly interested in science, and knew much more about its principles than most boys of his age. His father had died when he was very young, and his mother had taken a post as housekeeper for Professor Bullfinch. Danny had grown up under the wing of the famous scientist, who had taught him a great deal, and the Professor felt as much affection for Danny as if the boy were his own son. Irene lived next door. Her father was an astronomer who taught at Midston, the local university, and she, too, had the ambition of becoming a scientist when she grew up.

She said, now, “If you’re sure we’re not interrupting, Professor… Go ahead, Dan. Tell the Professor about your theory.”

“I’ll do more than that,” Danny grinned. “I’ll play it for you.”

The scientist sat back and lit his pipe. “Play it?” he asked. “Is it a theory about music?” Danny shook his head. He pulled the tape recorder out of its case. It had its own tiny amplifier, which he turned on, and then he threw the battery switch. At once, from the miniature machine, came a series of grunts that sounded like a cross between a pig and the plunking of a bass fiddle.

The Professor raised his eyebrows. “It certainly isn’t music,” he said. “But what is it?”

“A fish,” said Danny.

“It’s a toadfish,” Irene added. “Isn’t it lovely?”

“I… don’t… think… so,” said the Professor slowly. “Interesting? Yes. Odd? Yes. Lovely? No.”

Irene giggled. “Well, I was just thinking of that little fish floating in the sea and grunting happily to himself. That’s kind of lovely, isn’t it?”

“I see what you mean.” The Professor nodded.

“We’ve got a whole lot of them,” Danny said.

“What on earth do you plan to do with a whole lot of toadfish?” asked the Professor. “And where do you keep them?”

“No, not toadfish,” said Danny. “A lot of fish sounds. On tape.”

“Really? You don’t look wet.”

“We haven’t been in the water. We got them from your friend, Dr. Brenton, at the University,” Danny said. “He’s been doing experiments in animal behavior. Nobody knew until recently that fish made any sounds, but the Naval Research Laboratory recorded some, and so did Dr. Brenton. He let me tape them from his recordings.”

“Ah, yes, I seem to have heard of those experiments,” said the Professor. “Very interesting. You said you wanted my help. Do you want me to get you some live fish?”

“Nothing like that, Professor.” Danny leaned forward earnestly. “Here’s my theory. I’ve been listening to the different sounds, and I think there’s a definite pattern to them. If we could figure it out, we might be able to understand the language of fish!”

The Professor drew in a mouthful of smoke and let it trickle slowly between his lips. “My dear boy,” he said at last, “mere patterns of sound don’t make a language. We must be sure they go along with specific actions or meanings. For instance, all the songs of birds may or may not be language. But crows do communicate with each other by means of certain cries. They warn each other; they tell when an owl is present—these cries might perhaps be called a language of a sort.”

Danny said, “I see. Well, listen to this.”

Again he turned on his recorder. This time there came a series of short barks.

“That’s a sea catfish,” he explained.

“Sounds as though he’s imitating a sea dogfish,” the Professor remarked.

“He’s being held in someone’s hand,” said Danny. “So that might be a fear sound or a threatening sound.”

“The sounds seem to fall into groups,” Irene put in. “Some are clicks; some are grunts; some are soft whistles or beeps—”

“She can hear tones I can’t make out at all,” Danny said admiringly. “She has a better ear than I have.”

“Let us apply the scientific method,” said the Professor, putting his fingertips together. “To begin with, we ought to classify the sounds. Suppose you play them, Dan. And Irene, you repeat them and tell me what they are. Then we can sort them out.”

He took a sheet of paper and drew several columns on it. At the tops of the columns he wrote CLICKS, BEEPS, CHIRPS, WHISTLES, GRUNTS.

“That’s enough to start with,” he said. “Go on, Danny—begin.”

A short time later, Danny’s mother, Mrs. Dunn, entered the lab with a tray of oatmeal cookies and lemonade. “I thought you might—” she began, and stopped short, with her mouth still open.

Irene, sitting on a laboratory bench, was going, “Quirp? Pleeoop! Quirp!”

Professor Bullfinch, rubbing his chin, said, “Quirp?”

Danny, dancing about excitedly, cried, “No, no. More like this: Wheerp! Wheerp!”

“Professor,” said Mrs. Dunn.

He nodded absently and said, “Perhaps, queerp?”

“Danny!” Mrs. Dunn said.

“Yes, Mom?” said Danny. “Queerp, queerp!”

“Dear me,” said Mrs. Dunn. “If you’re all feverish, you’d better not eat anything. I’ll just take these cookies back to the kitchen.”

Danny ran to her and threw his arms around her. “No!” he shouted. “You couldn’t be so cruel. I’m sorry. We were working on fish sounds.”

“Ah, so that’s what it was,” said Mrs. Dunn, her blue eyes twinkling. “Fish sounds? Well, here’s one for you: Crkl-crkl-crkl!”

“I give up,” said Danny. “What is it, Mom?”

“Frying fish,” laughed his mother.

“Splendid,” said the Professor. “That’s one your friend Joe Pearson would like, Dan. Isn’t he an expert on food?”

“Speaking of food,” said Mrs. Dunn, “don’t I smell something burning? I don’t think I have anything in the oven…”

The Professor sprang to his feet, clapping a hand to his rosy, bald head. “Great heavens!” he cried. “My plastic! I forgot all about it!”