Turtle Terror (2 page)

“JOOO-OOOSH!” Danny yelled. “LOOK! I'm right up at the top now! I'm like . . . Spiderman!”

Josh sighed and looked up at his twin. Danny had been scrabbling up and down the rocky Cornish beach all morning. He didn't try to scale the actual cliffs—Mom and Dad had made him promise not to, especially while they were up in the cottage perched on the clifftop above—but the craggy rocks that rose out of the sand were just right for his Spiderman impressions.

“Yeah—great,” Josh yelled back. “Piddle!” he scolded, as their terrier (named after a certain habit he had when he got excited) flopped his long pink tongue over the orange lump again. “Leave that poor defenseless anemone alone!” Above the tide the sea creature looked like a half-sucked fruit gum, instead of the marigold-like flower it would be underwater, but Josh was pretty sure it didn't taste like one. Piddle started digging in the sand instead.

Josh was about to go back to his rock pool gazing when he felt a twinge of nerves and glanced back up again. Danny was very high up this time. The rocky outcrop he had climbed was tall and jutted away from the beach and out into the sea, like a long stony finger. Danny had clambered all the way to the end, where the sea below was lively and deep, and was trying to climb over an awkward ledge and stand up on the top.

But this wasn't what worried Josh. Danny was an excellent climber, and it would take a lot to make him fall. No . . . it was something else. Something that was making its way along the top of the same ledge that Danny was about to get up onto. Something about the size of a rugby ball. Something . . . with eight legs.

Josh jumped to his feet, his heart thumping. He nervously rubbed his sandy hands through his short blond hair and squinted hard at the eight-legged thing. Yep. Even from this distance he was sure what it was . . . and that it was on a collision course.

“DANNY!” Josh yelled, running across the warm sand toward his brother's outcrop. “DANNY! Come down now! Come down!”

“Why? I'm nearly at the top!” Danny yelled back.

“COME DOWN!” Josh bellowed. The eight-legged thing was just inches away from Danny's scrabbling fingers, as he sought a good handhold for the final pull up. “COME DOWN THE WAY YOU WENT UP! DANNY! NOOOOOW!”

But at that point Danny pulled himself up over the ledge and came face to face with one of the things he feared most.

He saw eight legs and a fearsome brown face grimacing at him.

And he screamed.

And fell backward off the rock.

And hit the sea.

Danny went under like a stone. One second he was scrabbling in the air and the next his world was a blur of roaring, rushing water. Instinct told him to lock up his throat and not try to breathe. At any second a jagged lump of granite could crack open the back of his head or snap his leg. But he was lucky—the area of water he'd fallen into was a churning, whirling cauldron, just deep enough. It broke his fall and stopped him from hitting the rocks at the bottom.

Blue-green water, particles of sand, bits of weed, and his own hair swirled around him. Danny began to struggle back up to the surface, pulling himself free of the strong undertow tugging at his legs. Ten seconds after he'd fallen in, he burst back onto the surface, gasping desperately for air.

The first thing he saw was a long wooden stick—the end of Josh's shrimping net. Josh was lying flat on his chest on the lower shelf of rock where Danny had begun his climb. He was holding the net end and waving the stick at Danny. Piddle was running up and down the rocks, barking furiously. Josh's face was white and his blue eyes round with fear as he shrieked, “GRAB IT! GRAB IT!”

As the next swell of water pushed him toward the shore, Danny grabbed it.

Soon he was back on the rock shelf next to Josh, spluttering and coughing and blowing gooey streams of seawater out of his nose while Piddle happily licked his ear. His knee was bleeding where it must have scraped against some rock, but apart from that, he seemed to be OK.

Eventually he turned to Josh and said, “Sp-sp-spider!”

“
Crab
!” Josh corrected. “Spider
crab
. Not an arachnid—a crustacean. Probably migrating right now, as it's September . . .”

“You—you—you freaky little nature nerd!” Danny squawked. “Can't you just SHUT UP for one minute about your freaky little nature nerdy facts? I nearly DIED just then! That spider . . . crab . . . tried to kill me!”

“Erm . . . no . . .” Josh corrected. “That spider crab was just out for a little walk when these huge flappy hands started whacking at it and a big ugly human face reared up out of nowhere and screamed at it. It's probably having a panic attack of its own now.”

“Oh—that's right! Worry about the spider, why don't you?” Danny muttered. He could never understand how his twin brother could be so different from him. Creepy-crawly stuff just freaked Danny out—but Josh couldn't get enough of it.

“They're nowhere near as scary as spiders,” Josh said. And he got up and started looking for the spider crab, much to Danny's horror. “They're amazing,” he went on, foraging around the beach end of the rocky outcrop Danny had just fallen from. “They look pretty grumpy, but they're all right, really . . . Here you go!”

Danny yelled and ran back up the sand as Josh emerged from a clump of seaweed-covered rocks holding a spider crab. The beast was pale brown and waggling its spindly legs wildly, as well as fiercely snipping its chunky claws in the air. “Look at all these spines on it,” pointed out Josh, grinning lovingly at the crustacean that he was holding carefully on the top and bottom of its rough, rounded body. “They call them spiny crabs too. You should see a Japanese one . . . that's huge. A six-foot leg-span, easily!”

“If you bring that thing anywhere near me, I'm going to throw sand in your face!” Danny warned, picking up a wet handful. Piddle ran round in excited circles, hoping for a game of catch, and then piddled on the sand. Danny dropped his handful and ran after Piddle. “Piddled-on sand!” he warned Josh, pointing to the wet patch.

Josh chuckled and put the spider crab down. It scuttled away noisily across the rocks and plopped into a large seaweed-y pool.

“I wonder it there's such a thing as CRUSTASWITCH,” pondered Josh as he
sat down next to Danny on their beach mats a minute later. Danny was glugging orange juice from a bottle, hoping the sugar in it would help his state of shock, and letting the hot sun dry out his T-shirt and shorts.

“CRUSTASWITCH?” he echoed.

“Yeah—you know,” Josh said, his eyes shining. “BUGSWITCH turned us into insects and spiders, AMPHISWITCH turned us into frogs and newts, and REPTOSWITCH turned us into lizards . . . but imagine being a crustacean! If we were spider crabs we could walk along the seabed. That would be
so
cool. We'll have to ask Petty Potts if she can make a new S.W.I.T.C.H. spray!”

“Josh. Pay attention. I am
never
going to be a spider crab—get that?” Danny said. “It was bad enough being a spider! And anyway—we're not thinking about any S.W.I.T.C.H.ing, are we? We're just having a vacation—hundreds of miles away from Petty Potts and her secret lab and her S.W.I.T.C.H. spray . . .”

“Yeah—I s'pose,” Josh said, lying back on the beach mat and putting his hands behind his head. “We probably do need a break from all that excitement and danger. Getting turned into insects and spiders and frogs and lizards is amazing—but it wears you out.”

“A nice, peaceful holiday,” agreed Danny. Piddle returned to his hole and carried on digging for a while before heading off up the cliff path, obviously hoping to get some lunch from Mom or Dad at the cottage.

“Yup,” Josh said. “With
nothing
getting S.W.I.T.C.H.ed and
no sign
of Petty Potts and her genius experiments anywhere.”

And that was when a parachute landed on the beach next to them.