The Fantastic Secret of Owen Jester (10 page)

How they needed to understand how a submarine works.

How safety was the most important thing.

And how if they didn’t agree to have a submarine lesson, she might just have to remove herself from the project and let somebody with a brain (like maybe Earlene) know what was going on.

So the boys had agreed.

With one last glance over his shoulder at the Water Wonder 4000 floating in Graham Pond, Owen followed the others up the path to the barn.

Ahem.
Viola cleared her throat, adjusted her glasses, and began to read from the operator’s manual. “The basic principle of the ambient-pressure submersible is the same as a diving bell,” she read. “It’s like taking a giant drinking cup and turning it upside down and pushing it underwater. The air trapped inside stays there as long as you don’t tip it too far sideways. The bottom is open to the water, so the internal pressure and external pressure are always equal.”

She paused and looked at the boys over the top of the manual. “Get it?” she said.

Owen looked at Travis and Travis looked at Stumpy and Stumpy looked at Owen.

“That’s why there’s no hatch for an opening,” Viola said. “You have to go under the water and crawl up into it. There will be air trapped inside so you can breathe.”

“So all you have to do to get out is just
swim
out, right?” Stumpy said.

“Right.”

Viola went on and on with the submarine lesson, pausing every now and then to sniff and sneeze. She explained how the scuba tanks would provide fresh air inside the sub. She explained how the dials and switches on the control panel kept the sub steady. She read to them the information about how there were tanks in the sub that would be flooded with water so the sub could go down.

“That’s called ballast,” she said.

Then she explained how the ballast tanks would be filled with air, pushing the water out so the sub could rise back up to the surface.

But the boys just looked at her.

Finally she showed them a picture of the joystick, pointing out how it was used to make the sub go up and down and forward and back.

Owen’s insides danced with excitement.

“Let’s go!” he hollered, hurrying to the ladder of the hayloft.

But before he had reached the floor of the barn, someone appeared in the doorway, casting a long, dark shadow over the wheelbarrow and tools and tractor parts.

Earlene.

“What are y’all doing in here?” she snapped.

Owen stepped down off the ladder and looked up at the others in the hayloft.

“Nothing,” he said.

Then they all stood still as statues while Earlene ranted and raved about rotten floorboards and rats and sharp tools and all the other life-threatening dangers in the barn.

“Now get on out of here,” she said, pointing toward the barn door. “And Owen Jester,” she added, “you need to get in the house and visit your grandfather.”

“And so I let him go,” Owen told his grandfather. “Travis and Stumpy got real mad at me, but I didn’t even care.”

His grandfather nodded.

“Besides,” Owen said, “that Frog Town idea was dumb.”

Owen thought his grandfather looked better today. His face wasn’t as pale and his eyes weren’t as dull. He sat propped up against the pillows, studying Owen’s face while Owen told him about letting Tooley go.

“I bet he’s happy as anything now,” Owen said. “I
bet he’s swimming all around the pond, eating bugs and playing with the other frogs.”

Owen looked out the window. Dark clouds had begun to roll in.

Good, he thought. It was going to rain.

Travis, Stumpy, and Viola had promised they wouldn’t get in the submarine without him, but Owen still worried that they just might do it anyway. Travis, especially, could be sneaky like that. But if it rained, they probably wouldn’t. They would have to wait until tomorrow, like they had promised.

Owen sat by the bed, waiting for tomorrow and listening to the sounds in the room.

His grandfather’s raspy breathing.

The
tick, tick, tick
of the clock on the dresser.

The soft patter of rain on the roof.

And the
r-u-u-u-m-m-m
of a bullfrog down in the pond.

“No way!” Owen yelled.

There was no way he was going to agree to play Rock, Paper, Scissors to see who got to go in the submarine first.

He
had been the one who had heard the thud.

The crack of wood.

The tumble, tumble, tumble sound.

He
had been the one who had found the submarine.

So
he
was going to be the first one to drive the Water Wonder 4000.

Travis put up a good fight, arguing and cussing and hurling rocks into the pond, but finally he agreed.

“Then we’ll do Rock, Paper, Scissors to see who goes with you,” he said.

But Owen shook his head. “No way,” he said again.

Travis glared at him. “Who made you boss of the world?” he said.

“Yeah,” Stumpy said. “Who made you boss of the world?”

Viola sneezed.

Owen hesitated. He knew that what he was about to say was risky. He was setting himself up to be teased for the rest of his life.

But he took a deep breath and said it.

“Viola should be the one to go.”

Travis’s mouth dropped open. Stumpy’s eyes widened.

Viola grinned.

Now that he had said it, Owen was ready to throw caution to the wind and just get it all out.

“Look,” he said. “
She’s
the one who figured out how to get that sub down here to the pond.”

Viola blushed.

“And
she’s
the one who figured out that stuff about ambient pressure and ballast and all,” Owen continued. “Viola should be the one to go with me.”

“Okay then,” Travis said. “Let’s see Miss Know-It-All get in that water.” He whirled around and jabbed a
finger at Viola. “I hope a water moccasin don’t bite you,” he said.

Viola’s face grew instantly pale. She looked at the pond, her red-rimmed, watery eyes wide with worry. Then she tossed her hair back, lifted her chin, and said, “Shut up, Travis.”

So Owen and Viola waded into the pond. The water was warm. The bottom squishy with mud.

Owen swam out to the submarine tied to the end of the dock. Then he took a deep breath, ducked under the water, and crawled into the opening in the bottom of the sub. When he came up out of the water, he was inside the little compartment, looking out of the bubble-shaped window at Travis and Stumpy standing on the dock. Just as he settled into one of the little seats, Viola appeared beside him, sputtering and gasping and pushing at her glasses. She brushed a soggy leaf off her blue-striped bathing suit and climbed up into the seat next to Owen.

Owen beamed at Viola.

Viola beamed at Owen.

There they were beaming at each other again and Owen didn’t even care if Travis and Stumpy saw them.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s do it.” He looked out the window and gave Travis and Stumpy the signal to untie the rope from the dock.

Viola took the operator’s manual out of the plastic sandwich bag she had tucked into the strap of her bathing suit. She flipped to the page with the heading

READY, SET, GO:

Starting Your Water Wonder 4000

As Viola read, Owen flipped the switches.

“Now open the forward and aft flood valves,” Viola read.

“Here goes,” Owen said. He turned the valves and heard the
whoosh
of water inside the tanks and the
blurb, blurb, blurb
of bubbles outside the window.

“Now push down on the thumb switch on top of the joystick,” Viola said.

Owen’s heart raced and his hands trembled.

He counted to three.

One.

Two.

Three.

The little propellers on the stubby wings began to spin . . .

. . . and the Water Wonder 4000 went down . . .

. . . down . . .

. . . down . . .

. . . under the water in Graham Pond.

Owen had to admit that when they first sank below the surface of the pond, his stomach did a major somersault and he considered for a blip of a millisecond scrambling through the opening in the bottom of the sub and getting the heck out of there.

But once that blip of a millisecond passed, his somersaulting stomach settled down and he was able to take in the magnificent awesomeness of what he was doing.

He was riding in a submarine under the water in Graham Pond.

Viola pointed to the drawing in the manual to show Owen how the joystick worked to make the submarine go up and down, back and forth, left and right.

“Okay,” he said. “Here goes.”

He pushed the joystick forward, and the little submarine began to move.

Slowly, slowly, slowly away from the dock and out into the middle of the pond.

All Owen could see out of the windows was the murky water. But gradually, his eyes began to adjust and he could see more clearly. He saw little silver minnows darting through the water.

He saw turtles. The same shiny black turtles that he used to see sunning on logs on hot afternoons.

He saw a rotten tree stump and a rusty soda can.

A fishing lure, an old shoe, a broken bottle.

And then . . .

. . . he saw a frog!

A bullfrog.

A big, green bullfrog.

But it wasn’t Tooley.

He knew it wasn’t Tooley because it didn’t have the heart-shaped red spot between its eyes.

Owen had been so absorbed in the magnificent awesomeness of the submarine ride that he had forgotten all about Viola sitting next to him until she said, “Let’s look for that frog of yours.”

Of course!

That’s what they would do!

They would ride around Graham Pond and look for Tooley.

So that’s what they did.

At first, Owen wasn’t very good at maneuvering the Water Wonder 4000 around the pond. But before long, he got the hang of it. He was able to move the little submarine forward and back. He could turn it right and turn it left.

So he and Viola looked for frogs.

“There’s one!”

“There’s another one!”

But none of them were Tooley.

Until . . .

“There he is!” Owen shouted.

Sure enough, swimming along outside the bubble-shaped window was the biggest, greenest, slimiest, most beautiful bullfrog ever to be seen in Carter, Georgia . . .

. . . with a heart-shaped red spot between its bulging yellow eyes.

Owen guided the submarine along beside Tooley.

He put his hand on the window.

Tooley stopped swimming and bumped his nose against the glass.

Owen looked right into those bulging froggy eyes and he knew . . .

. . . that frog was happy.

“We better head back,” Viola said.

They had read in the operator’s manual that the air supply of the Water Wonder 4000 was only good for about two hours. The air supply gauge on the control panel was almost at the halfway mark. They had better head back so Travis and Stumpy could have a turn.

Owen had some trouble maneuvering the submarine close to the dock without crashing into it, but eventually, he got close enough. Using the joystick, Owen brought the submarine up toward the surface of the water.

“Turn on the forward and aft blow valves,” Viola read from the manual.

Owen turned the valves. There was a hissing sound as air filled the tanks, forcing the water out.

The little submarine began to rise slowly up out of the pond.

They had done it! They had taken the Water Wonder 4000 for a ride in Graham Pond!

But then . . .

. . . Owen looked out the front window and felt a blanket of doom settle over him.

There on the dock was a cluster of frantic-looking grownups, waving and yelling and gesturing, with Travis and Stumpy standing droopy-faced and slump-shouldered beside them.

Owen’s father had been furious.

His mother had been livid.

Earlene had been outraged.

And the three men from the railroad company had been all of those things but mostly relieved to see the Water Wonder 4000 safe and sound and floating in the pond. They had been looking for it for a long time. When they had finally found the splintered wooden crate beside the train tracks and seen the trees and bushes cleared all the way to the pond, they had put two and two together.

Now Owen was sitting in his bedroom, where he was going to have to stay for one whole week.

He hadn’t been allowed to go down to the pond to watch the flatbed tow truck pull the Water Wonder
4000 out of the pond and drive up the side of the tracks to take the submarine away.

Travis and Stumpy and Viola hadn’t been allowed to go either.

He hadn’t been allowed to go down to the dock when his father had dismantled the perfect frog cage and tossed it into the junk heap behind the shed.

Travis and Stumpy and Viola hadn’t been allowed to go either.

Owen stared glumly out of his bedroom window and watched Pete and Leroy romping in the yard below.

He let out a big, heaving sigh.

The telephone rang.

Earlene marched down the hallway, her heavy shoes making a
clomp
,
clomp
noise on the wooden floor that echoed up the stairs.

Owen tiptoed to his bedroom door to listen.

Earlene answered the phone.

“Hello?”

Pause.

“Owen
Jester
?”

Owen opened the door a crack and stood still and quiet.

“Who is this?” Earlene snapped.

Pause.

“Well . . . he . . . yes . . . just a minute.”

Earlene clomped up the stairs, and Owen scurried over to his bed, pretending to read his book of Bible stories.

Earlene pushed the bedroom door open and thrust the phone toward Owen. “Some man is on the phone for you.”

Owen set the book aside. “Who?”

Earlene’s mouth was set in that harsh way of hers. “Some man from that submarine company.”

Water Wonder Technologies?

Owen’s heart raced.