Danger Guys Hit the Beach (5 page)

Zeek did a little touchdown wiggle. I tried to jump, but underwater it's hard.

Bam!
Another rock smashed down on the hull.

Okay, so all our troubles weren't over.

“Hurry!” I bubbled.

Zeek popped his head out of the hatch and waved at the sub. The Emersons answered with a quick flash of the searchlights.

Suddenly, we could hear hissing from below. Clouds of bubbles rose up through the water. Zeek's balloons were filling up!

We squeezed out of the hatch and onto the deck.

Then, right before our eyes, the wrecked ship, the ship of Captain John May, founder of Mayville, started to move. For the first time in more than two hundred years!

Whoosh!
The hull cleared the ledge. It tilted upright in the water and started to rise. We grabbed on to the old ship's rigging and held on for the ride.

It was amazing. We stared at each other.

We were going to the surface. And we were going in style!

Sploosh!
The ship broke the surface. Water sloshed over the deck and down the sides of the hull. The old wooden planks gleamed in the sun. We tore off our masks.

“Zeekie!” I shouted.

“Noodle!” he yelled.

“WE DID IT!”

The huge ship rocked gently in the water.

But we still had one more big job to do.

“The motorboat!” I yelled. “They're getting away!”

Zeek smiled big. “Attaaack!”

We grabbed a couple of rigging ropes and jumped.

Fwing!
Through a hail of stun darts, we swooped down on the enemy ship. We both yelled out the same thing—

“DAAANNGGGERR GUUUYS!”

It was incredible!

We landed hard and acted fast.

Splash!
I knocked Silver-Hair straight into the water. Mustache went all pale when he saw Zeek. He toppled over in a dead faint.

Then Baldy rushed Zeek, and the Boss turned on me. Her face got red. Boy, was she mad!

“If I can't have the treasure, nobody can!” she yelled. She hit the radio detonator button hard.

Click.
She hit it again and again.
Click, click.

“Is this what you're looking for?” I held up the black box with the colored wires. I smiled at her.

“Why, you little …” She picked up a dart gun, and my smile faded. She aimed it right at me.

Suddenly, that strange shadow passed over the boat. The Boss looked up.

I threw the box at her just as she pulled the trigger.

Pwing!
The dart went wild. It hit the motor, knocked it dead, bounced off the windshield, and hit Baldy right in the behind. He stiffened and plopped on his face.

Zeek and I leaped for the Boss. But she dove before we got to her.

“She's getting away!” I shouted.

Just then, a giant iron arm burst from the water. It grabbed her and hoisted her into the air.

“Hooray!” we yelled.

The mini-sub surfaced, and Mr. and Mrs. Emerson poked out their heads. “Well done, boys. The Coast Guard is on its way. We'll take over from here.”

“Well, Noodle,” Zeek said, looking around. “I guess that about wraps it up. All we have to do now is figure out how to get back to shore.”

But I saw something flash above us, and I started to smile. “Zeek, I think our ride is here.”

We looked up. That strange shadow was passing over us again.

“You mean …?”

“That's right, Zeek, old pal. The tree house roof! It's been circling the island on the hot air currents. All we have to do is reach up, and—!”

It was late in the afternoon. The sun was orange in the sky. The wind was ruffling our hair. We were soaring a hundred feet up.

Zeek turned to me, smiling. “Hey, Noodle, I thought you didn't like heights, and I didn't like water. What happened?”

“Simple, Zeek. We don't like them because we're afraid of the danger, right?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“But the more dangerous it is, the more we like it. Because we're, well, you know …”

“Yeah.” Then Zeek said, “Noodle? Is there anything we can't do?”

I thought about that. I looked back at the island. The old ship was riding high on the waves.

“No,” I said. “I can't think of anything.”

I smiled a wide smile and punched my thumb in the air. Zeek did the same.

Wrong move. Double clutzy wrong move.

We both lost our grip on the glider.

We dropped!
Umph!

Luckily it was only a ten-foot drop.

Even more luckily, we dropped on soft sand.

Even incredibly more luckily, we dropped on our own beach blanket, right next to my mom and dad!

We landed in a heap.

My mom turned away from her magazine and smiled. My dad woke up.

“Oh,” he said. “It must be time to leave. Sorry you kids are having such a boring weekend.”

Zeek slapped my arm and grinned at me.

“It's okay, Mr. N.,” Zeek said. “We found something to do.”

“Something different,” I said.

“Yeah, something fun.”

“Exciting,” I said.

“Yeah, and even a little …”

Turn the page to continue reading from the Danger Guys series

ONE

It all happened in a flash.

It was my best friend Zeek's birthday. I was standing on his doorstep, trying to ring the doorbell.

Under one arm was some of my skiing gear. Skis, poles, and boots. Under the other arm was the rest of my skiing gear. Gloves, goggles, and ski hat.

In my teeth was a half-eaten Gold Bar Waffle Deluxe ice cream bar. The kind wrapped in gold foil.

I love waffles in any form. From plain waffles to waffle sandwiches to waffle cookies to waffle chips, waffles are my absolute favorite food.

Anyway, I was just working loose some fingers to press the doorbell.

Then it happened.

KA-FLOOOM!

The door blasted open, and I was suddenly on my back. Some bug-faced thing all dressed in ski gear flew right across my legs, out the door, and onto the front lawn. Snow sprayed up behind it.

“Mom!” called Zeek's sister, Emily, from the living room. “Zeek's being dangerous again!”

Ah, so it was Zeek! Yeah, he's dangerous. Well, I am, too. We have this danger thing. It just takes over, and we start doing incredible action stuff. It's the way we are.

“He almost killed Noodle!” she added.

Well, yeah, that's true, too. I looked down at the black ski marks across my jeans and the ice cream smear on my jacket.

But when you love danger as much as Zeek and I do, nearly getting killed is all part of it—part of being an official Danger Guy.

“Zeek-eek-eek! Pilinsky-insky!” he yelled across the lawn. “Gold-old medal-edal-edal!”

That's Zeekie. Amazing sports guy.

I scraped myself off the doorstep, picked up my stuff, and limped over to him.

He pulled up his bug-face ski mask. “Yaaaah!” he shouted, like a crowd cheering.

I finished what was left of my ice cream bar and folded the foil wrapper into a circle. I gave it to him. “Gold medal,” I said. “Happy birthday.”

“Thanks, Nood.” He smiled big and popped it into the pocket of his Danger Guy jacket.

“Check out what my mom and dad got me,” he said. “Aren't these skis cool? And this mask?” He pulled the green mask over his face, flexed his arms, and posed like somebody from a comic book. “I look like a superhero, don't I?”

“Yeah,” I said, “Bug Boy.” I laughed.

Zeek pushed the mask up to his forehead again, looked straight at me, and made a face.

That's another thing about Zeek. His faces crack me up. He can do this tiny smile that no one else can see. He does it in class a lot when our teacher, Mr. Strunk, isn't looking. It's like a secret code.

He was doing one of those smiles now.

Then he pointed up over the trees at the big purple-and-white mountain in the distance. “Look, Noodle. Snow. Lots of it. That's where my birthday ski party is going to be. My parents tried to keep it a surprise, but I figured it out.”

“Of course you did,” I said. “You can't surprise Danger Guys. We're ready for anything.”

“Yeah,” he said. “We save the surprises for bad guys!”

Zeek nodded at the skis under my arm. “Are you planning to build something, Noodle?”

I looked down at the chipped, brown boards I was holding. “These were my dad's skis when he was a kid,” I explained.

“Your dad is that old? They look like scrap lumber! And those boots have
laces
! Wow, are those, like, the first ski boots ever made?”

“Skiing is a very ancient sport,” I said. “Remember what Mr. Vazny used to say?”

Zeek froze. “
Mr. Vazny!
You mean our old science teacher? Before he sneezed his brain loose and tried to blow up our school?”

I nodded. “He said that people have been skiing since prehistoric times.”

I shivered, remembering how we found our teacher's secret laboratory under Mayville School and how he made us call him Dr. Morbius. When he tried to blow up the school, Zeek and I had to fly all over the galaxy in a rocket to stop him.

“The Sneezemeister!” Zeek whispered. “I'll
never
forget his face.”

Yeah. Wispy hair. Evil grin. Drippy nose. Mr. Vazny's sneezes were like nuclear explosions!

“He sure did have a sinus problem,” I said. “Now whenever anybody sneezes, I break into a sweat.”

“Me too,” said Zeek. “I even scare myself when I get a runny nose!”

I shivered again. “Good thing the army locked him up.”

“I hope they threw away the key.”

Beep-beep!
Zeek's dad pulled their minivan out of the garage. We ran over and helped to pack up.

Two hours later, we tumbled out of the van in front of a giant log cabin. Zeek's mom, dad, and sister, Emily, went inside to set up for the party.

I stayed outside with Zeek. There was a plaque on the front of the building. “‘Mine Mountain Lodge,'” I read. “Cool! It says this mountain used to be the site of an old mineral mine. And this lodge was the owner's house.”

I looked up. Smoke was rising from the chimney. It looked warm inside. It made me hungry.

“Let's go in,” I said. “Maybe they have food.”

“No way!” said Zeek, pulling me over to the bottom of the slope. A blast of cold air rushed down the mountain and hit me in the face. I could see my breath. It was going to be one freezing-cold day.

Zeek snapped on his skis. “Noodle, the good news is that if we jump on the ski lift now, we'll have time for one quick run before the party!”

Mine Mountain rose straight up like a giant snowy head. The ski-lift cable dangled like a skinny wire all the way to the top.

“And what's the bad news?” I mumbled.

Just then a man came running down from the ski lift. He was a little funny-looking. Well, a lot funny-looking. He wore thick pink glasses and had a fluffy black mustache and strange hair. It was bright red and growing straight up.

Bad hair day, I thought.

Besides that, he was squeezing his nose tight as if he had a cold. Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that his nose was big and pink and round.

Zeek nudged me. “Probably a surprise clown my parents hired for my party,” he whispered. “Don't let on I figured it out.”

“Um, excuse me,” I said. “How's the skiing today?”

“Dangerous!” the clown muttered under his mustache. He turned away quickly and disappeared behind the lodge.

I turned to Zeek. “If he's a clown, how come I'm not laughing?” I started back to the lodge. “I'm going to eat some cake.”

I didn't move fast enough. Before I knew it, I was sitting next to Zeek in a little chair sailing high above the snow.

Zeek took a deep breath and gazed around. “Ah, what a great day!”

My stomach didn't think so. We were climbing higher and higher in that dinky little lift chair. I tried not to think about how high we were. Or how far away from the lodge we were going. After all, this was Zeek's day, and he was—