by Tony Abbott
Then Mr. Emerson, the other half of the famous husband-and-wife exploring team, stuck his head down. “Noodle! Zeek! Come on. We’ve got a job to do!”
We were up the ladder in a flash.
“We saw you boys a little while ago,” Mrs. Emerson said. “But we had to dive before the big wave came.”
“Yeah, the Golden Crest almost sank our surfboard,” Zeek said. I nodded.
When we got to the small control room, we were amazed at all the computer screens, dials, switches, and other underwater equipment.
“This is incredible!” I said. “How long have you had this cool sub?”
“We’ve been looking for the wreck of Captain May’s ship for a long time,” Mr. Emerson said. “We finally located it on sonar.”
“And we’ve just finished mapping it with laser photography,” Mrs. Emerson said, pointing to one of the built-in computer screens. “This shows a complete picture of the wreck.”
“Wow!” Zeek said. “Tech stuff! I love it.”
I cracked a smile.
But Mrs. Emerson frowned. “Then these looters came along and started blasting for treasure. Now this rock ledge is weak. Look at this!”
She showed us another screen with lots of squiggly lines on it. “If we don’t raise this ship soon, the whole ledge will crash down and destroy it.”
“Raise it?” Zeek said, his eyes going wide. “How are you going to raise that old wreck?”
“By placing balloons in the hull and inflating them,” Mr. Emerson said. “This control here …”
“But, listen,” I cried. “There isn’t going to be any wreck, any us, or any Mayville unless we stop these maniacs! Look!”
One of the screens flickered in front of us.
“There they are!” I shouted.
The picture was hazy, but we could see the Boss, Baldy, and Silver-Hair dropping bundles of dynamite into a small hatchway in the wreck.
Mr. Emerson looked at Mrs. Emerson. “Noodle’s right. We’ve got to stop that blast.” He pulled on a pair of oxygen tanks.
“Sorry, Mr. E.,” I said. “We’ve been through that wreck. The passages are so tight only a kid could get through in the time we’ve got. Zeek will place the balloons. I’ll go after the dynamite.”
“No, boys,” Mr. Emerson said. “You can’t do this. We can’t let you. It’s much too—”
Suddenly Zeek jumped.
“That’s it! That’s the word! Finally, someone’s going to say it! Sure, it’s been different. And fun. And exciting. But it just got officially—dangerous!”
Zeek snapped his fingers and punched his thumb in the air. He grinned a big grin at me.
“Noodle, this is incredible. I place the balloons, you do the dynamite. What could be better? Holy cow, I can’t believe it took all day to get dangerous!”
TEN
“Listen carefully, Noodle.” Mr. Emerson frowned and looked right at me. I gulped.
“The dynamite will be connected to a detonator box by four colored wires. Usually red, green, yellow, and blue.”
“Simple,” Zeek said, nodding at me. He was feeling great.
“You must disconnect all the wires carefully,” Mr. Emerson continued.
“Yeah. Or, like, Boom!” Zeek added, laughing.
I didn’t laugh back at him.
I couldn’t believe I had said I would do the dynamite.
“Don’t worry,” said Zeek. “It’s a cinch placing these balloons.” He held a bunch of flat rubber sausages. “As soon as I finish, I’ll be there for the big moment!”
“Yeah?” But I was starting to hate my plan. “And, Noodle.” Mrs. Emerson said. “If that ledge starts to break apart, you get out of there!”
Great, I thought. Can you make it any more dangerous?
We climbed down into the water chamber.
Fwump! The hatch closed.
Water jetted in and the bottom slid open. We dropped out into the water. Blub. Blub.
Zeek swam off to the front of the wreck with a pack of those party balloons. He waved at me.
Me, the bomb expert.
I waved back.
I took a closer look at the ledge. It was like a giant stone shelf. It’s going to collapse any second, Mrs. Emerson said. Yeah, just my luck.…
Rrrrrrr! I looked up. The motorboat roared away. Okay. There was no time to spare.
I squeezed through the little hatchway. It was a tight fit, all right. No way could Mr. or Mrs. E. have done this.
I looked around. There it was, in the shimmering blue water. A pile of long ugly sticks.
There were the four wires running from the sticks to a humming black box. That was the detonator, the thing that actually triggered the blast.
Simple, Zeek had said.
Yeah, right! I’d seen enough movies to know that if I pulled the wires out the wrong way the whole thing would blow.
Something rumbled overhead. I poked my head up through the hatch.
Crrraaacckkk! A rock rolled off the ledge and crashed onto the hull. Another fell. Then another.
The ledge was cracking!
I dove back in the hatch. I looked at the wires. This was it. Do or die. I had to start.
Pick a color, any color. Eenie-meenie-meinie—Something in my head said—green! Yes, I’ll pull the green wire first!
But just as I reached for the green wire, the cabin door burst open and bubbles filled the tiny room.
It was Zeekie! He raced over to help.
But he swam in too fast and slammed into my oxygen tank.
I couldn’t believe it! Clutzy thing number three!
I fell forward. I grabbed for something to catch my balance.
Riiip!
I stared at my hand.
I was holding the black box.
And all the wires were dangling from it!
ELEVEN
KA-BOOM! (I thought).
But I was wrong.
Nothing happened.
Well, not really nothing. The black box stopped humming. That was good. And bubbles fizzled out of it. That was good too.
Then bubbles started to fizzle out of Zeek’s mouth.
Blub. Blub. Was he saying something?
No. I think he was laughing.
And he gave me the okay sign.
Suddenly, I had to laugh too. I couldn’t believe I had done the dynamite. And we were all still alive!
Zeek did a little touchdown wiggle. I tried to jump, but underwater it’s hard.
Bam! Another rock smashed down on the hull.
Okay, so all our troubles weren’t over.
“Hurry!” I bubbled.
Zeek popped his head out of the hatch and waved at the sub. The Emersons answered with a quick flash of the searchlights.
Suddenly, we could hear hissing from below. Clouds of bubbles rose up through the water. Zeek’s balloons were filling up!
We squeezed out of the hatch and onto the deck.
Then, right before our eyes, the wrecked ship, the ship of Captain John May, founder of Mayville, started to move. For the first time in more than two hundred years!
Whoosh! The hull cleared the ledge. It tilted upright in the water and started to rise. We grabbed on to the old ship’s rigging and held on for the ride.
It was amazing. We stared at each other.
We were going to the surface. And we were going in style!
Sploosh! The ship broke the surface. Water sloshed over the deck and down the sides of the hull. The old wooden planks gleamed in the sun. We tore off our masks.
“Zeekie!” I shouted.
“Noodle!” he yelled.
“WE DID IT!”
The huge ship rocked gently in the water.
But we still had one more big job to do.
“The motorboat!” I yelled. “They’re getting away!”
Zeek smiled big. “Attaaack!”
We grabbed a couple of rigging ropes and jumped.
Fwing! Through a hail of stun darts, we swoop
ed down on the enemy ship. We both yelled out the same thing—
“DAAANNGGGERR GUUUYS!”
It was incredible!
We landed hard and acted fast.
Splash! I knocked Silver-Hair straight into the water. Mustache went all pale when he saw Zeek. He toppled over in a dead faint.
Then Baldy rushed Zeek, and the Boss turned on me. Her face got red. Boy, was she mad!
“If I can’t have the treasure, nobody can!” she yelled. She hit the radio detonator button hard.
Click. She hit it again and again. Click, click.
“Is this what you’re looking for?” I held up the black box with the colored wires. I smiled at her.
“Why, you little …” She picked up a dart gun, and my smile faded. She aimed it right at me.
Suddenly, that strange shadow passed over the boat. The Boss looked up.
I threw the box at her just as she pulled the trigger.
Pwing! The dart went wild. It hit the motor, knocked it dead, bounced off the windshield, and hit Baldy right in the behind. He stiffened and plopped on his face.
Zeek and I leaped for the Boss. But she dove before we got to her.
“She’s getting away!” I shouted.
Just then, a giant iron arm burst from the water. It grabbed her and hoisted her into the air.
“Hooray!” we yelled.
The mini-sub surfaced, and Mr. and Mrs. Emerson poked out their heads. “Well done, boys. The Coast Guard is on its way. We’ll take over from here.”
“Well, Noodle,” Zeek said, looking around. “I guess that about wraps it up. All we have to do now is figure out how to get back to shore.”
But I saw something flash above us, and I started to smile. “Zeek, I think our ride is here.”
We looked up. That strange shadow was passing over us again.
“You mean …?”
“That’s right, Zeek, old pal. The tree house roof! It’s been circling the island on the hot air currents. All we have to do is reach up, and—!”
It was late in the afternoon. The sun was orange in the sky. The wind was ruffling our hair. We were soaring a hundred feet up.
Zeek turned to me, smiling. “Hey, Noodle, I thought you didn’t like heights, and I didn’t like water. What happened?”
“Simple, Zeek. We don’t like them because we’re afraid of the danger, right?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“But the more dangerous it is, the more we like it. Because we’re, well, you know …”
“Yeah.” Then Zeek said, “Noodle? Is there anything we can’t do?”
I thought about that. I looked back at the island. The old ship was riding high on the waves.
“No,” I said. “I can’t think of anything.”
I smiled a wide smile and punched my thumb in the air. Zeek did the same.
Wrong move. Double clutzy wrong move.
We both lost our grip on the glider.
We dropped! Umph!
Luckily it was only a ten-foot drop.
Even more luckily, we dropped on soft sand.
Even incredibly more luckily, we dropped on our own beach blanket, right next to my mom and dad!
We landed in a heap.
My mom turned away from her magazine and smiled. My dad woke up.
“Oh,” he said. “It must be time to leave. Sorry you kids are having such a boring weekend.”
Zeek slapped my arm and grinned at me.
“It’s okay, Mr. N.,” Zeek said. “We found something to do.”
“Something different,” I said.
“Yeah, something fun.”
“Exciting,” I said.
“Yeah, and even a little …”
Turn the page to continue reading from the Danger Guys series
ONE
It all happened in a flash.
It was my best friend Zeek’s birthday. I was standing on his doorstep, trying to ring the doorbell.
Under one arm was some of my skiing gear. Skis, poles, and boots. Under the other arm was the rest of my skiing gear. Gloves, goggles, and ski hat.
In my teeth was a half-eaten Gold Bar Waffle Deluxe ice cream bar. The kind wrapped in gold foil.
I love waffles in any form. From plain waffles to waffle sandwiches to waffle cookies to waffle chips, waffles are my absolute favorite food.
Anyway, I was just working loose some fingers to press the doorbell.
Then it happened.
KA-FLOOOM!
The door blasted open, and I was suddenly on my back. Some bug-faced thing all dressed in ski gear flew right across my legs, out the door, and onto the front lawn. Snow sprayed up behind it.
“Mom!” called Zeek’s sister, Emily, from the living room. “Zeek’s being dangerous again!”
Ah, so it was Zeek! Yeah, he’s dangerous. Well, I am, too. We have this danger thing. It just takes over, and we start doing incredible action stuff. It’s the way we are.
“He almost killed Noodle!” she added.
Well, yeah, that’s true, too. I looked down at the black ski marks across my jeans and the ice cream smear on my jacket.
But when you love danger as much as Zeek and I do, nearly getting killed is all part of it—part of being an official Danger Guy.
“Zeek-eek-eek! Pilinsky-insky!” he yelled across the lawn. “Gold-old medal-edal-edal!”
That’s Zeekie. Amazing sports guy.
I scraped myself off the doorstep, picked up my stuff, and limped over to him.
He pulled up his bug-face ski mask. “Yaaaah!” he shouted, like a crowd cheering.
I finished what was left of my ice cream bar and folded the foil wrapper into a circle. I gave it to him. “Gold medal,” I said. “Happy birthday.”
“Thanks, Nood.” He smiled big and popped it into the pocket of his Danger Guy jacket.
“Check out what my mom and dad got me,” he said. “Aren’t these skis cool? And this mask?” He pulled the green mask over his face, flexed his arms, and posed like somebody from a comic book. “I look like a superhero, don’t I?”
“Yeah,” I said, “Bug Boy.” I laughed.
Zeek pushed the mask up to his forehead again, looked straight at me, and made a face.
That’s another thing about Zeek. His faces crack me up. He can do this tiny smile that no one else can see. He does it in class a lot when our teacher, Mr. Strunk, isn’t looking. It’s like a secret code.
He was doing one of those smiles now.
Then he pointed up over the trees at the big purple-and-white mountain in the distance. “Look, Noodle. Snow. Lots of it. That’s where my birthday ski party is going to be. My parents tried to keep it a surprise, but I figured it out.”
“Of course you did,” I said. “You can’t surprise Danger Guys. We’re ready for anything.”
“Yeah,” he said. “We save the surprises for bad guys!”
Zeek nodded at the skis under my arm. “Are you planning to build something, Noodle?”
I looked down at the chipped, brown boards I was holding. “These were my dad’s skis when he was a kid,” I explained.
“Your dad is that old? They look like scrap lumber! And those boots have laces! Wow, are those, like, the first ski boots ever made?”
“Skiing is a very ancient sport,” I said. “Remember what Mr. Vazny used to say?”
Zeek froze. “Mr. Vazny! You mean our old science teacher? Before he sneezed his brain loose and tried to blow up our school?”
I nodded. “He said that people have been skiing since prehistoric times.”
I shivered, remembering how we found our teacher’s secret laboratory under Mayville School and how he made us call him Dr. Morbius. When he tried to blow up the school, Zeek and I had to fly all over the galaxy in a rocket to stop him.
“The Sneezemeister!” Zeek whispered. “I’ll never forget his face.”
Yeah. Wispy hair. Evil grin. Drippy nose. Mr. Vazny’s sneezes were like nuclear explosions!
“He sure did have a sinus problem,” I said. “Now whenever anybody sneezes, I break into a sweat.”
“Me too,” said Zeek. “I even scare myself when I get a runny nose!”
I shivered again. “Good thing the army locked him up.”
“I hope they threw away the key.”
Beep-beep! Zeek’s dad pulled their minivan out of the garage. We ran over and helped to pack up.
Two hours later, we tumbled out of the van in front of a giant log cabin. Zeek’s mom, dad, and sister, Emily, went inside to set up for the party.
I stayed outside with Zeek. There was a plaque on the front of the building. “‘Mine Mountain Lodge,’” I read. “Cool! It says this mountain used to be the site of an old mineral mine. And this lodge was the owner’s house.”
I looked up. Smoke was rising from the chimney. It looked warm inside. It made me hungry.
“Let’s go in,” I said. “Maybe they have food.”
“No way!” said Zeek, pulling me over to the bottom of the slope. A blast of cold air rushed down the mountain and hit me in the face. I could see my breath. It was going to be one freezing-cold day.
Zeek snapped on his skis. “Noodle, the good news is that if we jump on the ski lift now, we’ll have time for one quick run before the party!”
Mine Mountain rose straight up like a giant snowy head. The ski-lift cable dangled like a skinny wire all the way to the top.
“And what’s the bad news?” I mumbled.
Just then a man came running down from the ski lift. He was a little funny-looking. Well, a lot funny-looking. He wore thick pink glasses and had a fluffy black mustache and strange hair. It was bright red and growing straight up.
Bad hair day, I thought.
Besides that, he was squeezing his nose tight as if he had a cold. Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that his nose was big and pink and round.
Zeek nudged me. “Probably a surprise clown my parents hired for my party,” he whispered. “Don’t let on I figured it out.”
“Um, excuse me,” I said. “How’s the skiing today?”
“Dangerous!” the clown muttered under his mustache. He turned away quickly and disappeared behind the lodge.
I turned to Zeek. “If he’s a clown, how come I’m not laughing?” I started back to the lodge. “I’m going to eat some cake.”
