Fish Finelli (Book 2) Read online

  Seconds later, we had caught up. Our two boats raced neck and neck across the bay, our bows lined up, neither one a fraction of an inch ahead of the other. Eli had done a great job with the Seagull. The horsepower was definitely pushing ten if we were able to keep up with Bryce’s 9.9 horsepower Mercury.

  “Get us on plane, Fish!” said Roger over the engine noise.

  We had to get on plane if we wanted to get ahead of the Viper. I could feel there was a slight drag pulling us down. I pushed back on the throttle so we dropped back slightly.

  HORSEPOWER

  Invented by Scottish engineer James Watt (1736–1819). When he was working on the steam engine, he wanted to show how fast it was compared to a horse. He calculated the power it took a horse to lift 33,000 pounds one foot in one minute. That is one horsepower.

  “Move toward the bow, T. J.!” I shouted. “Roger, lean forward.”

  Then I smoothly but speedily pulled out the throttle again.

  WHOOOOOSSHH!

  The Fireball got up on plane and shot ahead of the Viper. I made sure to pull back on the throttle just enough so we wouldn’t fall off. I looked over my shoulder and saw Trippy move aft. Bryce pulled out the throttle.

  WHOOSH! The Viper got up on plane and zoomed toward us. The next thing I knew, Bryce was steering straight for our bow. Oh, man! He was going to cut us off.

  I swerved out of the way just in time as the Viper flew past.

  PHWOMP! The Fireball hit the water.

  “Cheaters!” shouted Roger.

  “Losers!” Bryce and Trippy’s voices floated back to us.

  “We have to plane!” Roger said.

  I pulled out the throttle and we picked up speed again. The Viper was fifty yards or so away. We could still catch them so long as we got up on plane, but we were dragging again. The wind had picked up behind us, which was good. We needed to lighten the load in the back even more to take advantage of it.

  “Move forward, Rog. Move back, Teej.”

  Roger squashed himself into the space next to me. I pulled the backpack out from under the seat. I threw it to T. J. He caught it and leaned forward. It must have lightened the weight enough so the stern wasn’t pulled down by the force of water rushing under the boat, because the bow rose and we got up on plane. The wind really helped, and so did the current, which was going our way, too.

  “WOO-HOO!” T. J. and Roger high-fived each other.

  I focused on the Viper. We surged forward, gaining on Bryce and Trippy. Up ahead I could see Lyons Island, where we had found the treasure that turned out to be Captain Kidd’s long underwear. Get Lost was about three nautical miles northwest of Lyons Island, but we couldn’t take the direct route. It was too close to where the ocean currents flowed into the bay. Those currents were strong and unpredictable, moving the sand around to form shoals, or sandbars, that were hard to see. We needed to go east and take the long way around Lyons Island through Lyons Bay.

  “Get ’em, Fish!” shouted Roger.

  “Yeah!” shouted T. J., pouring Pop Rocks into his mouth. He must have snuck them, because they were certainly not on his mom’s list of healthy snacks. I don’t know how he could eat so many without his stomach exploding. Then again, he could eat fifteen fireballs at once. We had named the boat the Fireball on account of how all those partly chewed fireballs fell out of T. J.’s mouth onto Captain Kidd’s trunk when we found the buried treasure.

  We were closing the distance. The Viper was now thirty yards ahead of us.

  Then twenty.

  My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears. I leaned forward, excited, urging the Fireball to go faster. We were going to beat Bryce Billings. Finally, he was going to get what he deserved.

  I gripped the steering wheel tighter, keeping my eyes trained straight ahead. Eyes on the prize. Bryce must have felt us gaining on him, because he turned around and looked at me. He made the L sign with his thumb and forefinger.

  Then ten.

  “You’re going to get smoked!” said Roger, waving his fist at the Viper.

  “You mean YOU’RE going to get smoked!” Trippy hollered back.

  Suddenly, Bryce swerved to the left, toward the old buoy. What was he doing? Was he crazy? Didn’t he know about the currents and the sandbars? Sure, it was the shortest way to Get Lost, but if you ran into a sandbar you could wreck your boat.

  I thought about what Uncle Norman told me when I first got the Fireball about the importance of taking a minute to make a good decision on a boat, especially when there were other people involved. Then I thought about how good it would feel to beat Bryce.

  My fingers itched to turn left and follow Bryce, but I kept to the right. We headed the opposite direction of the Viper.

  “They’re getting way ahead of us!”

  “I know.”

  “This is the long way.”

  “I know.”

  “We’re going to lose.”

  “Not necessarily,” I said as we zoomed around Lyons Island. “Not if Bryce and Trippy get the Viper stuck in a sandbar.”

  Roger gave me the thumbs-up.

  “Why are there sandbars that way and not this way?” asked T. J., pouring more Pop Rocks into his mouth.

  “The currents on that side come right from the ocean. That means those currents are stronger, more like the ocean’s currents, and always shifting, which is what creates sandbars. So, there you are, zooming along in your boat, no problem, until WHAM! You hit a sandbar and get stuck. This is the bay side, so the currents aren’t so strong and there are no shoals or sandbars.”

  “Think Bryce knows that?”

  I shrugged. He was probably halfway to Get Lost already.

  I steered around the end of Lyons Island, past the thick groves of pine and cypress trees. It’s a private island owned by Eugenia Lyons, and ever since we found Captain Kidd’s long underwear and stuff, it’s also a national historic landmark. See, it’s been in the Lyons’ family since the Montaukett Indians gave it to the first Lyonses almost three hundred years ago. It’s also the home of the osprey, or sea hawk, a bird that used to be endangered.

  We could see Get Lost off in the distance. Bryce would probably be there in minutes, and beat us by a mile. Get Lost started growing larger as the seconds passed.

  As we got closer, T. J. asked, “Where are Bryce and Trippy?”

  I was wondering the same thing. They should have been here already.

  Get Lost loomed just ahead. I could see the dead brown branches hanging off the trees and the dried-up dune grass in patches across the sand. Suddenly, it seemed awfully quiet. We looked at each other. Even though I knew that story about the kids who disappeared wasn’t true, my heart beat faster.

  “Holy smokes, dude! We smoked them!” said Roger.

  “Unless they docked on the other side,” I said. “Maybe they want to pop out and scare us or something.”

  “Or maybe they got stuck in a sandbar,” said Roger.

  I slowed the engine as we got closer. There was no one around and we hadn’t passed any other boaters on our way. It was pretty gloomy. It didn’t help that the sun had disappeared behind a bank of gray clouds. The sky was still blue, but only in a few patches. And the clouds weren’t that pale gray that’s almost white; they were that darker gray, like the color of a shark’s fin. They looked kind of like storm clouds. I sure hoped they weren’t planning to act like storm clouds anytime soon.

  “Or maybe Bryce and Trippy disappeared like those kids.” T. J. shoved more Pop Rocks in his mouth, his face a little pale. “I feel sort of funny—”

  “Who wouldn’t feel funny after all those Pop Rocks?”

  BANG!

  “What was that?” asked Roger.

  “It sounded like a gun,” said T. J., eyes wide.

  BANG!

  “Maybe one of those German secret agents is still on Get Lost Island and he’s shooting at us,” whispered T. J., his eyes so wide we could see the whites all around.

 
“We don’t know if it’s really a gun,” I said, staring to the left. “Anyway, the sound is coming from the other way.”

  I strained my eyes looking, but I couldn’t see anything. I didn’t want to tell T. J. it sounded like a gun to me, too. The wind picked up just then, gusting across the water. Waves rocked the Fireball from side to side. Something that sounded like a voice seemed to be calling out on the wind.

  “Help!” I thought I heard the voice say.

  “Did you hear that?” Roger asked.

  “What?” asked T. J.

  “I thought I heard someone say ‘Help.’ ”

  “Me too,” I said, a shiver running up my spine.

  “Oh, jeepo!” said T. J. “Someone got shot!”

  “Help!” The word came more clearly as the wind died down.

  “I think you might be right, Teej,” said Roger, talking fast the way he does when he’s nervous. “I hope you’re wrong. Yes, I hope wrong is right, that is—”

  BANG!

  I turned the boat to the left.

  “What are you doing?” asked Roger.

  “It’s the first law of boating, to help someone in trouble. So if Bryce and Trippy need help, it’s up to us to help them,” I said, trying to sound braver than I felt.

  I steered the Fireball slowly and carefully around Get Lost. It was getting darker out as any patches of blue disappeared under clouds that seemed to get grayer and heavier with each passing second. They covered the sky, making it harder to see.

  I took off Bryce’s sunglasses. I didn’t want to hit a sandbar, especially now that we were on the ocean side of the island. “Teej, you look over the port side. Rog, you look over the starboard side,” I said.

  “What are we looking for?” asked T. J.

  “Sandbars,” I said.

  Roger moved to the right of the boat and T. J. moved to the left, eyes on the water. I maneuvered the Fireball slowly over the waves.

  Once we got past the trees, we spotted the Viper. Bryce was standing in front of the wheel. He had a crazed look on his face. Trippy was slumped beside him.

  “Trippy’s dead,” said T. J.

  Bryce pointed his gun right at us.

  “Don’t shoot!” said Roger.

  “I surrender!” T. J. held up his hands.

  “Help us!” said Bryce.

  Trippy jumped up, yelling, too.

  “It’s a miracle!” said T. J. “Trippy rose from the dead.”

  “He was never dead,” I said.

  “How do you know?”

  “That’s not a real gun.”

  “Looks like a gun,” said Roger. “Sounds like a gun.”

  “It’s a flare gun.”

  “We didn’t see any flares,” said Roger.

  “It must be broken,” I said, steering the Fireball closer. “I don’t know what Bryce is doing with it. They’re illegal for anyone under eighteen to use.”

  “It could be a trick,” said Roger.

  “They are the ones who got tricked by hitting a sandbar.”

  There was a rumbling sound. We all looked up. The sky had gotten even darker. There was a giant cumulonimbus cloud right above us. That was not a good sign. The cumulonimbus cloud is also known as a thunderhead.

  A boat is just about the worst place to be in a thunderstorm. Lightning always strikes the tallest things around, which would be us, since it wasn’t like the Fireball or the Viper had lightning protection systems.

  We reached Bryce and Trippy just as the first few drops of rain started to fall.

  “What’s wrong with your boat? Did you hit a sandbar?” I asked, staring at Bryce, who was standing there, still holding the flare gun. “And put that thing away. It’s dangerous.”

  “I guess. We rammed into something and then the engine just died.” He waved the flare gun around. “This thing doesn’t even work. I should have taken the other one from my dad’s boat.”

  “You stole it?”

  Bryce shrugged. “It’s not like my dad would notice or care.”

  It seemed awfully strange that someone like Mr. Billings, who was on the Boating Safety Commission and a judge for the Classic, wouldn’t keep better track of his flare guns. Uncle Norman always knew exactly where all of his boating equipment was, especially anything incendiary (that means able to cause a fire), like a flare gun.

  “Are you stuck, or did the propeller break?” I asked.

  “The prop broke, I think,” said Bryce.

  “There was this grinding sound,” said Trippy.

  “Then the motor stopped working. I gave it a ton of fuel, but it still wouldn’t go,” said Bryce.

  “You probably flooded the engine on top of breaking your prop,” I said, shaking my head.

  “Whatever,” said Bryce. “You need to tow us.”

  Thunder rumbled again. We had to hurry, because thunder meant lightning wasn’t far behind. The sky had gotten even darker.

  I tied one end of the rope to the Fireball and tossed the other to Bryce. He tied it to the Viper’s gunnel.

  “Come on!” I said. “Jump!”

  Bryce jumped on board, with Trippy right behind him. The rain started to pour.

  BOOM! Lightning streaked across the sky.

  “AAAUGHHH!!!”

  “We have to get out of here!” said Bryce.

  I nodded and turned the Fireball around. There was only one place to go. Get Lost was our only hope. . . .

  SNAP GOES THE VIPER!

  Waves rocked the boat. Wind gusted around us. Water splashed over the sides. The coast guard would definitely have a red flag flying. That meant small crafts were not supposed to go out on the water. The Fireball was a small craft.

  “Hurry, Fish!”

  I gripped the wheel so tight my knuckles were white. The chop was really strong, and waves pushed against the boat, making it hard to steer. I squinted through the rain at the green and brown blur that I knew had to be Get Lost.

  Just then a huge wave crashed against the boat. Water sloshed over the sides and filled the bottom.

  “Bail!” I ordered.

  But no one had a bucket to bail with. T. J. took off his hat and used that to toss out some water. The other guys just used their hands. It helped some, but water still sloshed around our ankles.

  The next wave knocked hard into the port side. “AAAHHH!” Roger and T. J. slid to starboard and bumped into Bryce and Trippy.

  “Look out!”

  My hands slipped on the wheel. The boat tipped to the right.

  “AAAAHHHHH!”

  “Move left!”

  I gripped the wheel. Bryce and Roger moved to the left and the boat righted itself. I took a deep breath and made sure we were still going in the correct direction. Get Lost was dead ahead about a hundred yards away. Sea spray stung my eyes, and I had to close them for a second. I had to stay calm and not panic, just like I learned in the marine safety course. I was the OOD. It was up to me to get us all to safety.

  Another wave sloshed over the sides. The boys kept on bailing.

  “Hurry, Fish!”

  The boat floundered. We were moving so slowly it felt like we were a tugboat struggling to pull a steamship. I didn’t have to look behind me to know the Viper had taken on water. That was why it was so heavy.

  LIGHTNING

  It’s an electric current formed in a thundercloud in the sky when frozen raindrops collide. The cloud fills up with electrical charges–positive charges (protons) at the top, negative charges (electrons) at the bottom. The negative charges at the bottom of the cloud attract the positive charges of what is sticking up on the ground. When those charges connect–ZAP!–lightning strikes. (The heat of the lightning bolt causes the air to explode with a BOOM, which is thunder.)

  If we weren’t pulling all that extra weight, we would get to Get Lost a lot faster. At this rate, we would never make it—or worse, we might flip over. Getting trapped under a boat in a storm was how people died.

  I couldn’t let that happen. T
here was only one thing to do. I had to cut the rope. But the Viper might be history.

  Then again, if we didn’t get out of this storm, we might be history, too.

  Lightning flashed, lighting up the sky with a purple glow. Thunder boomed so loud it felt like it was right over our heads. The biggest wave yet hit us hard on the starboard side. T. J., Roger, Bryce, and Trippy all rolled into one another. The boat listed dangerously to the left.

  “AAAHHHH!”

  I stuck one hand in my pocket and left the other on the wheel. I felt around for Grandpa Finelli’s pocket-knife. It didn’t have a knife anymore, but it did have scissors and a spoon.

  “We have to cut the line!” I said, waving the scissors at the guys.

  “What?!” said Bryce, scrambling to his feet.

  “The line! We have to cut the line if we want to get out of here. Grab the wheel.”

  “No way!” Bryce yelled.

  “I have to,” I said. “Otherwise we’ll never make it to Get Lost.”

  Lightning lit up the sky purple-white again. Rain poured down all around us.

  “We can’t just leave my boat,” said Bryce, pushing his wet hair out of his eyes to glare at me. “It’ll get wrecked!”

  Thunder boomed again and waves rocked the boat.

  “Hurry up!” said Roger, huddling on the bench to try and stay dry in the downpour.

  “Somebody grab the wheel!” I said.

  “Don’t cut the rope!” Bryce said, lunging for my left hand, which was holding the scissors. “My dad will kill me if anything happens to my boat.”

  “Something already did happen,” I said, just as another wave rocked the boat.

  Bryce slid backward across the deck, away from me and into T. J. and Roger. I shoved the knife in my pocket and grabbed the wheel with both hands to steady it. Trippy was just behind me. Another streak of lightning forked across the sky. It was so close, I could practically feel the electricity buzzing through me.