Danger Guys Hit the Beach

Danger Guys
Hit the Beach

Tony Abbott

illustrated by Joanne Scribner

With love for Lucy,

my littlest pal,

who keeps me young

ONE

“Did I say this was boring?”

That was my best friend, Zeek Pilinsky. He was leaning back on his elbows, staring out across the hot beach.

“Yeah,” I said. “Twice.” I was lying next to him on a beach blanket.

I had just flipped another page of
Adventure
magazine. But I wasn't really reading it anymore. I had started to doze off.

“Well, I take it back,” Zeek said. “This isn't boring. This is deadly!”

I had to agree. Nothing was happening. It was all just kids with buckets, and parents talking.

“Come on, Noodle! You're the guy with all the bright ideas. You've got to think of something!”

I usually
do
think of something. I
am
the guy with all the bright ideas. That's why everybody calls me Noodle. And Zeek, he's the guy with all the muscles. That's why they call him … well … anyway, we're pretty much a team.

“Noodle, we need something
different.
Something
fun.
You know, something
exciting
!”

“Zeek,” I said. “What you really mean is …”

“Yeah. Something DANGEROUS!”

I know how he feels. In the past couple of months, we've brushed with death no less than thirteen times. We're Danger Guys. We live the life of danger.

Well, we did. Until now.

“How about something like this?” I cracked open the magazine to a picture of two people in underwater diving suits.

“The Emersons!”

Yeah, it was Mr. and Mrs. Emerson. They were the famous husband-and-wife exploring team we had met fighting treasure thieves.

“Now
that
adventure was different, fun, exciting,
and
dangerous!” I said.

“Right. But this?” Zeek said, looking out at the water. “If this keeps up, we won't be Danger Guys anymore. We'll have to call ourselves …”

“Cheeseburgers?”

My dad said that. He and my mom had just come back from the snack stand with a pile of burgers, some sodas, and a few bags of chips.

“All right, Mr. Newton.” Zeek laughed. “You can call us cheeseburgers, just don't call us late for lunch!” Zeek grabbed a burger right off the top and stuffed it in his mouth.

“Listen, boys,” my mom said. “If you're looking for something to do, you might watch those surfers over there.” She pointed down the beach to a bunch of guys with ponytails.

“I just heard them talking about something called the Golden Crest. You might ask them …”

Zeek grabbed my hand just as I was about to chomp my burger.

“
Golden …?
” he gasped.

“
… Crest?
” I whispered.

“Do you think it's a ship? A
sunken
ship?”

“If there's a ship, there must be treasure!
Sunken
treasure!”

Zeek and I shot up from the sand like rockets.

“Noodle, we've got to check this out!”

“Yeah, and we've got to go under cover.”

“Good call, Nood!”

We wrapped a couple of my mom's scarves around our heads like bandanas. Then we each slid on a pair of mirrored sunglasses.

“Are we cool, or are we cool!” said Zeek.

We were cool. And we were ready.

A minute later we were at the surfer camp. One of the guys was strumming a guitar. Another was playing bongos. A third was carrying a surfboard to a motorboat sitting in the water.

Zeek nudged me. “I'm the muscle man, remember?” He flexed his arms. “Just let me do all the talking.”

I nodded. Sometimes Zeek knows best. Sometimes he really surprises me. Like just now, when he walked up to the surfer with the board and started talking to him.

“Hail, surfer dude!” shouted Zeek. “Slide any choice channels lately?”

My mouth fell open. That's Zeekie—a guy of many talents.

The surfer dropped his board and hugged us. “Fellow wave dogs! People call me Boomer.”

“Boomer?” I said.

“Funny, huh? Like,
boom
, suddenly they call me that.” Then he laughed. It sounded like a small explosion.

Zeek couldn't wait anymore. “So, dig that
Golden Crest
, huh?”

“Yeah! We were just going to motor out to it.”

“Like, what is it?” Zeek said, nodding his head. “Spanish galleon? Dutch schooner?”

“Killer question!” said Boomer.

“I don't know, though,” Zeek went on. “
Golden Crest
sounds English. A warship, maybe?”

“No, mini-dude. It's a wave!”

“Whaaa …?” Zeek looked like he does when Mr. Strunk gives us homework on the weekend. His mouth hung open, and his eyes went hazy.

I tried to help him out. “You mean the Golden Crest is not a sunken treasure ship?”

“No, mini-dude! It's a wave. But what a wave! Like—
boom
—it comes from nowhere. And you ride it for miles!”

“Yeah, well, no thanks,” Zeek finally said. Then he bent over to look at Boomer's surfboard.

“Where is this wave?” I asked.

“Out by the island. There.” Boomer pointed out across the water to a tiny dot of land. “But you've gotta watch out for the Ugly Dude.”

“Is that another wave?” Zeek snorted.

“Unh-uh! A sea monster that lives near the island. Ugly. Huge bug eyes. Big snapping claws!”

“But there aren't any sea monsters,” I said.

That's when Zeek did this really dumb thing. For a guy who is so good at sports, he did something incredibly clutzy.

“Noodle,” he said. “Check it out!”

I turned to see Zeek holding up Boomer's huge green surfboard. It was about ten feet tall.

“You can call me …”
Wham!
The board slid in the sand and slammed down on Zeek.

And on me. We both fell facedown into the motorboat with the board on top of us.

But that wasn't the worst part.

When Zeek fell on me, his foot hit this little switch on the motor.

Vrrrooom!
The motor burst into life.

The propeller hit the water.

And we took off like a jet-powered racing boat.

TWO

“Hey, mini-dudes! My boat! My board! Come back!”

Sure. If we could. But we couldn't.

When Zeek hit that switch on the motor, he jammed it. There was no way to stop the boat.

“Noodle! Can't you stop this boat?”

He also jammed the rudder so there was no way to steer it either.

“Can't you at least steer it?”

I was about to make a face when—
wham!
—the boat's nose bounced high off a wave.

“Whoa!” shouted Zeek. “This is like sledding on rocks!”

“Well,” I snapped back. “You wanted something
different
!”

“Yeah, but … Noodle, watch out!”

I whirled around.

Through the spray I could see a lady on water skis. She was crossing right in front of us.

She had a really big smile until she saw us. Then her smile kind of went away. Her mouth dropped open. And she screamed.

That's when I saw the towrope.

“Duck!” I shouted to Zeek.

Vooom!
Our boat shot under the towrope just in front of the lady's skis.

I looked back. The lady was still screaming.

I turned to Zeek and gave him the thumbs-up.

He usually smiles when I do that. Not this time. He had a really strange look on his face.

“NOOOOODLE!”

I turned around. A huge iron buoy bobbled in the water just ahead. I jammed my eyes shut.

Wump!
We hit a wave at incredibly the right time and incredibly the wrong way. We shot into the air and cleared the buoy by three feet.

Bam!
Then we landed and really took off. Spray shot straight up on both sides of the boat. I could barely hold on. If I had eaten my cheeseburger, I sure would have lost it then.

“Okay,” I yelled. “You wanted different, you got it. But it's not fun. So let's stop now, okay?”

Zeek made a face, braced himself against the side, and kicked the motor with all his strength.

Sputt!
The motor died. Everything went quiet.

“Hey, I said stop it, not kill it.”

Zeek shrugged and smiled. “Don't know my own strength, I guess.”

“Yeah, well, great. Now how are we going to get back?” I looked all around.

It had been a short ride, but a fast one. I couldn't even see the beach. We were drifting out to sea. The only thing anywhere near us was a small patch of land.

“Hey, what's that?” Zeek asked. “Japan?”

“Yeah, right,” I said. “That must be the island Boomer was talking about. Let's swim for it.”

“No thanks. I hate getting all wet, remember?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot.”