Turtle Terror (7 page)

“PIDDLE!!! PIDDLE!!! HERE, BOY! HERE! COME TO ME! COME TO DANNY!”

To his amazement, Piddle looked up, cocked his black and white head to one side, and then came trotting down the beach. In a few seconds, Danny was getting his face licked by an excitable terrier, who was wondering why one of his masters' voices was coming out of this big weird squashed ball thing with legs and a face. But he was getting used to this kind of thing ever since Josh and
Danny started hanging out with that odd lady from next door.

Now what? Far away along the beach, Danny could make out an orange shape. Could that be Petty Potts in her raincoat? “PIDDLE! GO AND GET PETTY POTTS!” Danny yelled at the dog. Piddle stepped back, cocked his head again, and then looked around the beach, wagging his tail.

“YOU KNOW—PETTY POTTS FROM NEXT DOOR!” Danny yelled, waving a flipper in the direction of Petty. “GET HER OVER HERE! JOSH IS IN DANGER!”

Piddle ran round in a circle and peered at Danny's waving flipper. Then—in a weird pulse of telepathy—these words came back: “Fat lady smells funny?”

“YES! YES! FAT LADY SMELLS FUNNY!” Danny agreed. He knew that Piddle had gotten it right. “She's here on the beach! FIND HER!”

Piddle turned and ran. And all Danny could hope was that he knew where he was going—and he'd get there soon.

Petty Potts was ready for some tea. So were Hector and Percy. They'd been S.W.I.T.C.H.ed into turtles three times today, and they'd had enough. Percy was so annoyed that he had tried to bite Petty's bum several times through the pocket he'd been put into, but so far he hadn't managed to gnaw through far enough to get a decent nip in.

“Okey-doke, my brave little helpers,” Petty said, glancing up at the steep cliff path. “Scones and cream and jam, I think. Maybe some for you too. What I admire about you both is that, unlike Josh and Danny, you never complain.”

Percy paused in mid-gnaw and squeaked, “If you only knew, old woman!” in Mouse.

“I think I have a special empathy for animals, you know,” went on Petty.

Across in the other pocket, Hector sat shivering and planning to wee on Petty's scone if he ever got the chance.

“Animals are so much more compliant,” Petty said, crouching down and gathering up her bag of scientific bits and pieces, including several spray bottles of S.W.I.T.C.H. and S.W.I.T.C.H. antidote. “No whining and complaining. It's much more restful being around creatures that don't viciously pester me!”

At this point a creature jumped on Petty's head and started to viciously pester her. Piddle yapped furiously in Fat Lady Smells Funny's ear.

“Get OFF me!” Petty shoved the furry missile away and got to her feet, clutching her bag. Piddle kept yapping and began running back and forth, casting urgent glances down to the water.

“What is it, you incontinent animated rug?” Piddle ran toward the water—and then paused, looked back at Petty, and jerked his head in the direction of the Danny-squashed-ball-with-legs-thingy.

Petty stared after him, her genius brain clicking slowly. Far in the distance she could see a turtle. Perhaps the dog was just excited by this—a genuine leatherback up on the beach.

She squinted and shoved her spectacles up her nose. Hang on . . . genuine leatherbacks didn't usually wave at you, did they?

“OH HO!” she chortled. “Someone's been very naughty, hasn't he?”

She followed Piddle and got ready to give the leatherback a severe talking-to. It would serve
Josh or Danny (whichever one it was) right if that little glitch in the turtle formula
did
happen this time!

She stood over the turtle and put her hands on her hips. “Oh dear, Danny! Or Josh! Got in a bit of a flap, have we?” She smirked.

The turtle made a rather rude gesture at her. And then it pointed out to sea and and waggled its head in an anxious way.

“What are you trying to tell me?” she asked, kneeling down on the sand.

Piddle started yapping again. “Oh, do be quiet, you weak-bladdered ball of fluff!” she snapped. “I don't speak Dog any better than I speak Turtle!” She grabbed her bag. “But this should help us out!” And she pulled out a small bottle of antidote
spray and fired it at the turtle. Three seconds later Danny stood in front of her, still flapping his arms about in a frenzy.

“Ah,” Petty said, eyeing him with concern. “I thought so. Well—it can't be helped. If you
will
steal my REPTOSWITCH and help yourselves when I have expressly forbidden it, this is what happens!”

“JOSH! JOSH IS OUT THERE!” Danny yelled, ignoring the funny look Petty was giving him. “He's TRAPPED! He's stuck in some fishing net! And he's going to S.W.I.T.C.H. back at ANY time!”

Now Petty did look alarmed. But she rifled through her bag again, extracted a large pair of scissors, and said, “
Where
?”

Danny began to run back into the water, but now he was freaking out over a whole new problem. He could find Josh—the top part of the rocks he was snagged to just showed though the fast incoming tide—and it wasn't that far away. But he was quite deep in the water now—the tide had come in even more! And how would he be able to get down and hold his breath and see
what he was doing while he scissored Josh out of danger?

“WAIT!” Petty yelled, running into the shallows behind him. “You'll need this too!” She was holding . . .
a snorkel
!

“PETTY! You are AMAZING!” Danny yelled. He grabbed the snorkel, snapped the plastic face mask over his eyes and nose and shoved the breathing bit into his mouth (trying hard not to think about Petty using it herself during that day's rock pool research). Then he ran into the water, Piddle at his heels. As soon as he was deep enough, he dived under, heading back to Josh, swimming harder and better than he ever had in his life, even with his shorts and T-shirt slowing him down.

He desperately hoped he wasn't too late . . .

As if being trapped in a fishing net along with several other sea-life corpses wasn't bad enough, Josh was now fearing for his shell. The incoming waves were getting more and more lively and kept cracking him against the rocks, first dragging him away as far as the firmly anchored net would allow and then smacking him back again.

If he'd been another kind of turtle, this might not have been such a problem, but Josh knew quite a lot about leatherbacks. As the name suggested, their shells were softer than those of other kinds of turtle. Other kinds had shells with horny scales which acted like armour plating, but the leatherback was designed for speed and top hydrodynamics. It was the fastest turtle on the planet—a kind
of sea-going reptilian Ferrari. Its bodywork was beautiful—but not so strong. He knew that eventually his shell would split if he kept being thrown against these jagged rocks.

And if he didn't drown first. He was beginning to feel the need to get some more air. It wasn't desperate yet, but his panicky heart was thrumming away inside his pale flat chest and surely using up more oxygen because of it.

“Bad luck, mate.” A spidery figure climbed elegantly and sure-footedly across the rocks beside him. “Nearly got me, that did. I had to use these!” And he raised his fabulous claws.