Turtle Terror (5 page)

Just as they suspected, inside was a marble. A simple glass orb with a ribbon of green running through it. A brother for the red and blue ones back at home, hidden in Danny's sock drawer. Both of these marbles, under Josh's microscope, had revealed holograms of mammals and a code just like those in the cubes that Petty used to store her secret S.W.I.T.C.H. formula. This one would undoubtedly be the same.

The note with it read,

WELL DONE, BOYS! ONLY THREE MORE TO FIND AND SOON YOU WILL MEET YOUR DESTINY! SOON ALL WILL MEET DESTINY! BWAHA! BWAHA-HAHAAAAAHAHAAAA!

And under that, in pencil,

SORRY ABOUT THE CHOCOLATE ON THE LAST CLUE. WAS EATING A KIT KAT.

“It's weird. It seems a lot like Petty Potts, just messing with our minds,” Danny said. “But she just made out she had no idea what we were talking about when I asked her about the parachute. But look at the evil cackle! She loves an evil cackle!”

“Hmmm,” Josh said. “And Kit Kats.” He screwed up his eyes and shook his head. “But . . . why? Why would she mess around with marbles instead of cubes? And if she's got some new code, why not just tell us about it?”

“Let's get back to the beach and find her,” Danny said. “We've got to get to the bottom of this.”

“Yes! Let's go!” agreed Josh, stuffing the bag with the new marble in it deep into his shorts pocket. They carefully climbed back down the uneven rocky steps. The ground floor of the fort seemed different. Noisier, somehow.

Danny stood still and frowned. When they'd arrived it was quite quiet—just a muffled sea noise and a few gulls, but now . . . there was a booming noise going on too. As if . . . as if . . .

“THE SEA IS BACK!” Danny yelled, running outside. “JOSH! THE TIDE HAS COME IN!”

Josh ran out too and saw what Danny meant. When they had arrived twenty minutes ago, the land between the island and the beach had been a flat stretch of softly rippled sand and scattered rocky mounds. Now . . . it was gone. The tide was
rushing inland at breathtaking speed.

“Oh no . . .” murmured Josh. “In the high . . . lie low. But we can't lie low here! The tide won't turn again until the middle of the night. Mom and Dad will be freaking out, wondering where we are!”

They scanned the distant beach and the sea all around them, but saw nobody.

“Look!” Danny pointed. “You can still see the rocks poking up through it. I don't reckon it's that deep yet. If we run, I think we can make it back.”

Josh looked doubtful.

“Look—do you want to stay the night here?” Danny pointed at the dark looming ruin behind them, and Josh shuddered. He did not.

“OK, then—let's go!” he said.

They started running, slithering down across the seaweed-y rocks, and by the time they got onto the sandy seabed the water was up to their knees. Josh felt a stab of anxiety, but Danny just ran ahead, splashing sea water high in the air and soaking his shorts. “Come ON!” he called back. “We haven't got much time!”

They were only halfway back when Josh realized their mistake. On a large flat beach like this, they couldn't outrun the sea. One minute he was splashing along up to his knees—the next he was wading up to his waist, and the next, the water was up to his chest. He glanced across to Danny and saw his brother was swimming.

“We can do this!” he shouted, but he sounded as scared as Josh felt.

Although Danny was super sporty, he'd never really gotten into swimming—and Josh wasn't sporty at all and hadn't swum even half as much as Danny. Even so, they probably would have been all right . . . except for the undertow.

The current of water that pulled away from the
shore every time the waves receded was incredibly strong. Danny felt as if the sea had grabbed him by the legs and was tugging him backward. And he wasn't getting any closer to the shore.

“We're not going to make it!” spluttered Danny. “We'll have to go back to the fort!”

But as he turned his head he realized, with horror, that the fort was no longer behind them. In their struggles with the tide, they had been swept along the beach, and the fort was far, far away. They had no more hope of reaching the fort than they had of reaching the beach.

Things were looking bad.

Very bad.

Josh went under. A big slap of salty water engulfed his head, and his ears immediately filled up with sea, all booming and glugging and weird. But even underwater, he had a brilliant idea. When his head next surfaced, he was holding something up out of the water with his right hand: a small white spray bottle. The first thing he did was spray Danny, whose panicky head was bobbing close by.

The next thing he did was go under the water again, with a splutter. Then, as soon as he managed to push back up above the waves, gasping for air, he sprayed the bottle at his own head and quickly shoved it back deep into his shorts pocket. Danny had already vanished, and Josh was praying he'd been S.W.I.T.C.H.ed—not drowned.

Three seconds later he found out.

The hostile world of the rising tide suddenly changed miraculously to a brand new universe. He was underwater, swimming almost effortlessly with four flippers perfectly designed for the job. His nostrils clamped tightly shut and his eyes opened wide. There was no need to swim up and gasp for air—he had plenty stored inside his lungs. He could dive down a mile deep if he needed to.

Thanks, Petty
! he thought.
This time you've definitely saved my life
! But what about Danny? Suddenly he felt panicked. Had he managed to get the S.W.I.T.C.H. spray onto Danny's head? What if the sea breeze had blown it away before it could hit? Where was Danny? Where was he?

“YAAAAAAAAAAAAY!” Suddenly a handsome leatherback turtle shot past him in a plume of bubbles. “WOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!” went on Danny. “How did
that
happen?”

Josh turned easily in the water and took in his brother's sleek reptile form. “Um . . . I kind of . . . stole Petty's S.W.I.T.C.H. spray,” he admitted.

In the shafts of summer sun that broke through the greenish-blue water, Danny could see his brother's guilty grin. “
You
!” he chortled. “
A thief
? Never!”

“Well . . . I more sort of . . . borrowed it,” Josh said. “I was going to give it back to her. She left it behind. In a way.”

Danny swam across to his brother with two easy pushes of his powerful back flippers and high-fived him with a front flipper. “Well, I don't mind your new crime habit—not when it's just saved our lives! And this is
fantastic
! I love being a turtle! I can really swim! And breathe underwater! How cool is
that
?”

“Well, you're not actually breathing underwater,” Josh said. “You're just holding your breath—you haven't got gills or anything.”

“It doesn't feel like I'm holding my breath,” Danny said as they smoothly navigated past a little uprising of rock and wafting seaweed.

“Well—no, it won't for a bit,” Josh said. “Leatherback turtles can hold their breath for half an hour. We've only been under a couple of minutes. You won't notice you need more air for ages yet.”

“And we're talking too—how's that working? Vibrations again?”

“Yep—like when we were frogs. And body language—and maybe a bit of telepathy,” Josh guessed.

“Right—so—let's get down to the nitty-gritty,” Danny said. “Can anything eat me?”

Josh flippered right up and over in a joyful somersault. “Nothing!” he cried. “Not around here! If we were in another part of the world, a crocodile might have a go—and humans, of course. Turtle tastes pretty good. But here we're protected!”

Danny did a twisting roll of delight as they traveled on at high speed, barely troubled by the continual push and pull of the tide. “I love conservationists!”

Josh swam down low to inspect the seabed. The sand between the rocks lay in tiny undulating dunes, forever shifting and sifting with the movement of the water. On the rocks, seaweed waved back and forth in a multitude of colors—much more vivid than when it was slumped and still at low tide. Pink and blue sea anemones thrust out their pointed tentacles and joined in the dance. Delicate, semitransparent shrimps foraged among them. Crabs traveled sideways along the sand, moving like astronauts in zero gravity and busily flicking their little mouth parts. They didn't seem to be scared of the huge leatherback turtles. And Josh
and Danny were huge! About three feet long from snout to tail, Josh reckoned—much bigger than the turtles the mice had S.W.I.T.C.H.ed into. Maybe it was because he and Danny had been bigger to start with . . . or maybe the bottle he had “borrowed” had a slightly different S.W.I.T.C.H. in it. Josh didn't really care. The water felt cool, silky, and comfortable—and it was amazing to be able to power through whenever he felt the urge. “Look at this, Danny!” he called over his leathery shoulder. “Look!” And he shot across the seabed at great speed.