Dark Day in the Deep Sea (5 page)

J
ack plunged down into the sea. The water was freezing cold. He bobbed back up to the surface, choking and coughing. The life vest kept Jack afloat, but the waves kept hammering him.

“Help!” Jack shouted. Thoughts of the twenty-foot tiger shark and the mysterious monster shot through his mind. “Help! Help!” he screamed.

Jack heard someone else screaming, “Help!” It was Annie! She’d been washed off the ship, too!

Jack flailed his arms and kicked his legs, trying to get to Annie. A wave lifted her up and tossed her toward him. But just as Jack reached for her hand, another wave pushed her past him, out of reach.

“The wand, Jack!” Annie shouted. “Use the wand!”

The wand!
Jack thought.
The Wand of Dianthus!
Where was it? In his backpack! He didn’t have his backpack! Where was his backpack?

“Jack! The wand!” Annie yelled.

“I don’t have it!” Jack shouted. His voice was lost in the roar of the storm. Jack kept flailing and kicking, trying to reach Annie again.

Jack felt his cork life vest coming loose. Another wave crashed over him, and one side of the vest slipped off his arm!

Jack clutched the vest, trying to keep it on. But the waters kept pulling and tugging. The sea itself now seemed like a monster!

As Jack desperately fought the water, he saw another life vest floating free on the waves. It was Annie’s!

Where was she?

“Annie!” Jack screamed. As he looked around, he lost his fight with the sea—a wave washed his vest right off him! Then another wave crashed down on his head and pushed him down into the deep.

Jack held his breath as he plunged through the black water. He thrashed his arms and kicked his legs, trying to get back to the surface. His head popped above the waves, and he took one deep gulp of air before another wave washed over him and he went under again.

Jack kept kicking and trying to swim, but the fight to get back to the surface was too great. Just when he was about to run out of air, he felt something curl around his waist. Then he felt himself being lifted toward the surface!

Jack’s head popped above the water again. He
opened his mouth and gasped for air. The waves were swirling and foamy, but Jack kept his head above them. Something around his waist was holding him up.

Jack couldn’t think at first. He was trying too hard to breathe. But then he saw something spreading across the water near him. It looked like a giant gray umbrella with dark spots all over it.

Rising from the center of the umbrella was a huge, rounded head! It had yellow eyes with black pupils. Stretching out from the umbrella were tentacles—
lots
of tentacles, all connected by a thick web, with double rows of suckers on each one.

A giant octopus!
Jack thought with horror. It was much bigger than the octopus they’d seen a long time ago. And this time, a tentacle of the huge creature was curling around his waist!

“Help!” Jack shrieked. He tried to pull himself free from the thick, rubbery arm.

The giant octopus held him tightly. Jack looked around wildly. Where was Annie?

“Jack!” Annie shouted.

Jack saw her. One of the octopus tentacles had lifted Annie above the surface of the water, too.

Jack’s relief at seeing Annie was matched by his terror. “We’re caught!” he cried. “Try to escape!”

Jack kept trying to break free from the huge tentacle. But the more he fought, the tighter the grip of the octopus became.

“Don’t fight him, Jack!” Annie yelled. “He’s rescuing us!”

Jack couldn’t think straight. Was she crazy? “He’ll strangle us and pull us back under!” he shouted. “We
have
to fight him!”

“No!” shouted Annie. “You’re wrong! Can’t you see? He’s saving us from drowning!”

He is?
thought Jack.

Jack tried not to panic. The octopus arm around his middle felt firm, but he could tell that it wasn’t trying to strangle him. It actually felt like it was hugging him, circling him like an inner tube, holding him above the water.

Jack saw the creature’s huge yellow eyes fixed on him. As Jack stared back into his eyes, he knew what Annie was saying was true. The creature wasn’t trying to hurt him. Instead, the octopus looked concerned. He looked curious, too, and even a little shy.

Staring back into the eyes of the octopus, Jack found himself smiling. As he and Annie kept bobbing up and down in the arms of the octopus, all of Jack’s fear vanished. This was the weirdest rescue he’d ever experienced.

“Hi, you,” Annie said to the octopus. “We come in peace.”

Jack felt so dazed he started laughing. Annie laughed, too. Even the octopus looked amused.

Their laughter was interrupted by the blare of a horn. Jack heard men shrieking and shouting. He looked up and saw the HMS
Challenger
heading toward them.

Sailors were on the top deck. They were yelling and pointing.

The giant octopus loosened his hold on Jack and Annie.

“The ship!” Jack gurgled before slipping under the water. His head popped back up. “Swim to the ship!” he shouted to Annie.

Jack and Annie started swimming. The sky was still covered with clouds and the sea was still rough. But arm over arm, they swam until they got close to the ladder on the side of the ship.

“Ahoy!” someone shouted from above. Jack looked up and saw Henry and the professor standing at the top of the ladder.

“Climb up!” yelled Henry.

“Hurry, children! Hurry!” cried the professor. “Before it comes back!”

Jack swam as fast as he could to the ladder. He and Annie got there at the same time. They pulled themselves onto the ladder and climbed. When they reached the top, Henry and the professor helped them onto the deck. Henry wrapped wool blankets around them.

“Thank goodness you are saved!” said the professor.

“I thought you were below in the hold!” said Henry. “How did you end up in the water?”

“The storm … the waves …,” gasped Jack, shivering.

“The waves threw us overboard,” said Annie.

“Why were you up on deck?” said Henry.

“I was—I was seasick!” said Jack.

“I followed Jack, and big waves came crashing down and washed us into the water!” said Annie.

“Our life vests saved us at first,” said Jack. “But then they came off!”

“Then the octopus saved us,” said Annie.

“That monster
saved
you?” asked the professor.

“No, no,
not
a monster,” said Jack, “a giant octopus!”

“Yes, the monster of the deep! I do not think it saved you, boy,” said the professor. “It is a miracle it did not eat you and your sister alive!”

“No, no, he’s—he’s
not
a monster. He didn’t try to do any of that—” said Jack.

“He
did
save us!” said Annie. “He held us up above the water.”

“Really!”
said Jack. “He kept us from drowning. Then he got scared away by the ship.”

“We didn’t even thank him, Jack,” said Annie. “We didn’t say good-bye.”

Jack and Annie looked back at the water.
“Hey, what’s going on over there?” said Annie. She pointed to the rear of the ship. Sailors were facing the sea, yelling and shouting.

“What are they yelling at?” Annie asked.

Jack and Annie threw off their blankets and took off across the deck. They saw Joe and Tommy standing at the edge of the crowd.

“What are they doing?” Annie yelled. “What’s going on?”

“They snared it in the net!” shouted Tommy.

“We’ve caught the beast at last!” shouted Joe.

“Caught it?” Annie looked at Jack.

“Come on!” Jack cried. He and Annie pushed their way through the crowd.

“Children, stop!” the professor shouted, hurrying after them. “Don’t get in the way!”

But Jack and Annie squeezed through the crowd of sailors and scientists until they got to the railing of the ship. They looked down.

The giant octopus was tangled in a net. His arms were churning the seawater into foam.

His body had turned bright red. A cloud of dark ink billowed around him.

“You’re hurting him!” yelled Annie. “Leave him alone!”

“Move away!” yelled a sailor.

Some of the sailors were yelling mean things at the octopus. Others seemed terrified. Even the captain was caught up in the panic. “Stand back!” he shouted. “It could be powerful enough to sink the ship!”

“That’s crazy!” yelled Jack. “Leave him alone!”

“Its tentacles are as hard as steel!” shouted one of the sailors.

“No, they’re not!” cried Annie. “They’re soft! They saved us from drowning!”

But everyone kept shouting:

“Hungry for human flesh!”

“Devour a man in one bite!”

“Thirsty for blood!”

“He’s not
any
of those things!” yelled Annie.

“Throw the harpoons!” yelled a sailor.

“Get your axes, swords, and knives!” yelled another.

“Ready the guns!” said the captain.

“No!” screamed Annie.

“No!” roared Jack.

“The children are right!” shouted the professor. He and Henry had squeezed through the crowd, too. They were standing behind Jack and Annie.

Jack felt a rush of relief. “The professor says we’re right!” yelled Annie.

“Do not destroy it, Captain!” roared the professor. “Haul it on board!”

“On board?” said Jack.

“Capture it alive and whole!” said the professor. His eyes gleamed. “So we can study it!”

“No, no, let him go,” said Jack. “Just let him swim away and be free!”

“Please!” screamed Annie. “Let him go!”

But neither the professor nor the captain seemed to hear Jack and Annie. They were too busy arguing over what to do with the giant octopus.

“We must kill it, Professor!” said the captain. “It could grab the hull and drag the ship down to the bottom!”

“But science needs it alive!” said the professor. “At least till we have examined it!”

By now the octopus had gathered his long arms around himself, as if for protection.

Annie burst into tears. “Henry, help him!” she sobbed. “Don’t let them kill him! Or capture him!”

Henry looked upset, too. “Excuse me, sirs!” he shouted. “Excuse me! The girl is right! We should let him go!”

But no one listened to Henry, either.

“Jack!” cried Annie. She grabbed Jack. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. “Save him! We have to save him!”

“What can we do? We’ve tried everything!” said Jack.

Then he remembered. His own words helped him remember. And Jack knew
exactly
what to do.