We Give a Squid a Wedgie (8 page)

“See you later.” Dr. Navel smiled, running to catch up with the twins, who were almost racing each other now.

As the Navel family ran along, wrapped up in their personal dramas, a young woman followed them at a discreet distance, making notes in a small notebook. If they had paid any attention to her, they might have noticed that she looked a lot like a young Vivian St. Claire, a classic actress from the 1950s who had played sassy reporters and fast-talking society dames. They would have also noticed that the young woman had a light layer of prickly beard stubble on her face.

It wasn’t his favorite disguise, but Ernest the celebrity impersonator had to make due with what he had. He couldn’t very well be the Rajasthani
fire dancer again and his Corey Brandt getup was no good anymore. He’d sworn never to wear it again anyway, out of spite for the teen star.

Sir Edmund and his Council wanted to know everything the Navels were up to, and Ernest took diligent notes. He didn’t know what the Council’s plan was, but they had promised him the perfect reward for his efforts: revenge.

THE
GET IT OVER WITH
sliced across the waves heading from Hawaii toward Indonesia. ­Corey’s boat was a forty-eight-foot ketch, which meant that it had two masts—a mainmast and mizzenmast—and another sail at the front called a jib.

There was enough cabin space for six private bunks, a small lounge, and a galley, which is what sailors call the kitchen. In the galley, there was a couch and, much to Oliver and Celia’s relief, a working television set.

Corey had allowed the twins to name the boat when they set off, and they had chosen
Get It Over With.
Corey liked the name because he thought the twins were being ironic.

They weren’t.

They really did want to get this whole adventure over with. They set sail early on the morning after their training day, as soon as the deckhands arrived.

There were three deckhands, and they had applied for the job through Corey Brandt’s fan website. That struck both the twins as pretty odd, because none of them looked much like Corey Brandt fans.

There was a twitchy little guy named Bart. He spent most of his time climbing up and down the tall mainmast, adjusting lines, and looking out to the horizon.

“Watching for pirate ships,” he said. “They come up on you fast.”

There was the cook, also named Bart, who was the size of two normal grown-ups combined. They called the cook Big Bart and the other one Twitchy Bart.

Big Bart had tattoos of all kinds of birds covering both his arms and he’d brought a chicken on board with him.

“Why do you have a chicken?” wondered Oliver.­

“He’s a rooster,” the cook explained. “And don’t
get any ideas. He’s not for eating. This guy’s my friend. His name’s Dennis, but don’t bother calling him that. He doesn’t know he has a name. He’s just a rooster after all.”

“Does he do anything? Like tricks?” Oliver asked.

“Nope,” he said. “That’s why I like him. He doesn’t fly, he doesn’t talk, he doesn’t do anything at all.”

Oliver had to admit he kind of liked Dennis too. That was his idea of the perfect life.

The last deckhand was a young woman. She didn’t say much, except that her name was Bonnie and that she came from a long line of sailors and she’d seen everything Corey had ever done, even the Tooth Blaster cereal commercial he’d made when he was little.

“What’d you think of the
Sunset High
­reunion?” Celia asked.

“It was okay,” said Bonnie. She went back to coiling ropes without another word.

“How about
The Celebrity Adventurist
last season?” Celia tried.

“Uh-uh,” said Bonnie without looking up.

Celia wondered what good it was to have Corey Brandt fans on the crew if none of them would talk about it. Normally she would have talked to her brother about Corey Brandt, but he was still being grumpy with her.

“This must be what they call smooth sailing,” their father said with a contented sigh.

They had fair weather their first day at sea, with plenty of sunshine and even-tempered winds. A pod of dolphins danced in the water, jumping and splashing and diving below the surface again. Even Oliver and Celia, who had never been fans of live entertainment, were impressed. But the dolphins left them as they got farther out to sea, and they quickly found themselves alone on the rolling swells of the Pacific Ocean.

“You turning green, Oliver?” Dr. Navel asked his son.

The deckhands snickered.

“I’m fine, Dad.” Oliver blushed, even though he was feeling a little queasy. His father handed him a steaming mug of bitter tea.

“Is this made out of something gross?” Oliver asked, sniffing it suspiciously.

“It’s neem tea.” Dr. Navel smiled. “For your stomach.”

“Oh,” said Oliver, who didn’t know what neem tea was.

“Tea made from the leaves of the neem tree is considered very effective in treating upset ­stomachs, agitated nerves, and malaria,” Dr. Navel explained. “It’s also quite effective for killing termites.”­

Oliver poured it over the side of the boat when his father wasn’t looking.

“Isn’t this great?” Corey strolled over to Celia, watching the deckhands work. “I never knew my fans could be such good sailors.”

“Aren’t you a little suspicious of them?” Celia asked.

“No. Why should I be?” He turned away from Celia and shouted down the length of the boat. “Hey, guys! I almost forgot! I brought a pair of Corey Brandt’s Pocketed Pants for everyone!”

He rushed along the deck handing out colorful pocketed pants.

Celia went to the front of the boat, where Oliver was dangling his legs over the side, and sat quietly
next to him. She didn’t say anything. They just watched the ocean together in silence, like it was a really boring TV show on a really big screen. It felt almost normal.

“Don’t look so glum, guys,” Dr. Navel told the twins. “With a good wind, we’ll reach the Malacca Strait in about a week and then we’ll find the Orang Laut!”

“A week?” Oliver muttered.

“A week?” Celia groaned.

The small crew shared all the responsibilities on the
Get It Over With
, but it became obvious almost immediately that Oliver and Celia couldn’t be left alone for the overnight watch.

On the first night, they both fell asleep and sent the boat wildly off course, right into an international shipping lane.

The whole crew woke to the sirens of a massive ship’s collision alarm.

Corey rushed onto the deck wearing Corey Brandt’s Pocketed Pink Pajamas and spun the wheel hard to port—which is what sailors call left. The boat turned very slowly and the tanker ship moved toward them very fast.

It towered over them, blotting out the sky.

Corey flailed his arms in the air at the crew of the tanker on deck, making the universal sign for panic.

The crew on the deck of the tanker waved their arms back at him, making the universal sign for “we’re your biggest fans.”

If they didn’t turn faster, their boat would be crushed and they would surely be swallowed by the unforgiving sea. Oliver had always thought it would be a lizard bite that did him in. Celia was still looking forward to dying of a broken heart at 102 years old, like Elaine Deveaux on her favorite soap opera,
Love at 30,000 Feet
.

The sailboat kept turning and the tanker honked its horn as their small vessel brushed right past the giant steel hull. They missed it by just a few feet, rising high on its wake in the water and settling back down as the ship passed. Within minutes, the tanker had vanished over the horizon. Dr. Navel offered to stay awake with his children for the rest of the night watch, and the twins quickly fell asleep against his chest.

It became obvious the next day that Corey Brandt could not be given responsibility for an early morning shift, because, being a teenager, he
was completely incapable of waking up before noon.

The deckhands refused to take any of the shifts on watch, as they claimed they were not officers on this expedition and it wouldn’t be right.

“I thought you came from a long line of sailors,” Celia said to Bonnie.

“Uh-huh,” said Bonnie, and went back to cleaning the deck.

After the drama of the first night, however, sailing across the Pacific Ocean didn’t seem particularly dangerous or particularly hard.

It was, like a lot of exploring, quite a bit more boring than an outsider would imagine.

As the first days went by on their way toward the Malacca Strait, Oliver and Celia found themselves without much to do. The TV on board could only play the shows that Corey had brought with him, and they were all Corey’s shows. They rewatched every episode of
Sunset High
and
Agent Zero
that he had, but that only lasted the first few days. They saw Corey as a sad-eyed vampire who broke the heart of his best friend and they saw him as a high-school superspy who broke the arm of a terrorist posing as a math teacher.

Once those episodes were over, they didn’t know what to do. The real-life Corey Brandt was on deck working. Everyone was on deck working.

“We could use the remote control,” Oliver suggested, reaching into his backpack for their universal remote control. “You know, to see in the catalog of the Lost Library if it says anything about kraken or Plato’s map to Atlantis … anything that could help us find Mom. And, you know,” he added, “Corey would probably be happy if we helped him make this discovery.”

“I guess we could help,” said Celia, happy that Oliver had made a peace offering.

Oliver hit a few buttons on the remote, but nothing happened.

“Let me try,” said Celia.

“I got it,” said Oliver.

“You don’t,” said Celia.

“I do too,” said Oliver, hitting more buttons. Suddenly the image on the screen changed to the symbol of the Mnemones, a key with ancient Greek writing below it. “See?”

The peace didn’t last long.

“Okay, now let me see it,” said Celia.

“This was my idea,” said Oliver.

“Yeah, but you can’t even spell
kraken
,” said Celia, lunging for the remote.

Oliver yanked it away and shoved it into the back of his pants.

“Why do you keep doing that?” Celia demanded.­ “It’s gross.”

“Because you won’t grab it from there,” said Oliver.

“Oh yeah?” Celia moved toward him.

“What are you … what are you doing?” Oliver’s eyes widened. Celia dove at him and grabbed onto the waistband of his Pocketed Pants. She yanked up.

“Ow!” said Oliver. “That’s a wedgie! No fair! Ow!” He reached around to the back of her pants and yanked, giving his sister a wedgie.

“Ow!” said Celia. “You can’t give a girl a wedgie!”­

“You’re not a girl,” said Oliver. “You’re my sister!”­

“What’s going on?” Corey said, coming into the galley.

“Nothing,” said Oliver, letting go of his sister and rushing to turn off the TV before Corey saw the symbol on the screen.

“Nothing,” said Celia.

Oliver pulled the remote out of his pants and set it on the couch. Celia wrinkled her nose at it. She had lost the desire to watch TV, or at least to watch TV using that remote control.

“Looked like a wedgie war,” said Corey.

The twins shrugged.

“Well, it’s no use,” he said. “Corey Brandt’s Pocketed Pants are wedgie proof. Look.”

He reached around to his back, like he was giving himself a wedgie. He made an uncomfortable face and then the waistband of the pants broke away and he was holding it in his hands. “See?”

“It didn’t work for me,” said Oliver, picking at the back of his pants.

“I guess it only works for a really bad wedgie. Like a life-or-death wedgie.”

“I guess so,” said Oliver.

“You know, you guys shouldn’t fight,” Corey told them. “You’re family and you need to work together. We’re all alone out here at sea.”

“That’s not totally true,” said Celia.

“It’s not?” Corey asked.

“Have you seen that sail in the distance?” Celia asked.

Corey looked confused. The twins led him onto the deck and pointed to the horizon, where a tiny sailboat appeared and disappeared as the sea rose and fell. It had been behind them since they’d left almost a week ago.

“Do you think they’re following us?” Corey wondered.

“Of course they are,” said Celia. “Someone’s always following us.”

“I didn’t know you saw them too,” Oliver told Celia.

“Of course I did,” she said. “I didn’t know you saw them.”

“Yeah, I did,” said Oliver. “Who do you think it is? Pirates?”

“Or Sir Edmund and his Council,” said Celia. “Or the Mnemones.”

“Or crazed Corey Brandt fans,” said Oliver.

Corey laughed. So did Celia.

She smirked at her brother and he smirked back. Things were getting back to normal.

All three of them kept their eyes fixed on the sailboat in the distance, wondering who was following them and also wondering why.

On board the tiny sailboat on the horizon, Ernest, dressed like a pirate in an old movie with a sash and a hat and even a plastic parrot on his shoulder, steered. Janice stood at the bow with her binoculars raised.