In the Whale Page 3

  kk … kkk … kkkkk “And now, my little sardines,” said Soggy Bob, “ya get to see me make my biggest catch! Yee-ha!”

  The Crab-Mobile headed toward the baby whale. A lasso shot from one of its claws and looped around the tail of the baby! Soggy Bob pulled a lever in the Crab-Mobile. The lasso tightened. The calf was caught before its mother could get it to the surface! The Crab-Mobile was towing the baby away!

  The mother whale swam after her calf. She tried to push the little whale up with the front of her head. But the Crab-Mobile was dragging it under!

  “Don’t do this, Mr. Sloggins!” yelled Andrew as he followed the calf. “The baby whale needs to breathe!”

  “Ah see your little lips movin’,” said Soggy Bob, “but ah can’t hear a thing ya say. And that’s the way ah like it!”

  Andrew steered the Water Bug closer to the baby whale.

  “Scat, ya little toads!” said Soggy Bob, shaking his fist. “Ya better stay away from my fish if ya know what’s good for ya!”

  Judy frowned. “He doesn’t even know that a whale isn’t a fish!”

  “Maybe he doesn’t know that whales need to breathe,” said Andrew.

  Andrew pressed the Octo-Tool button. The hood of the Water Bug popped open and the Octo-Tool’s eight long tentacles wriggled out.

  “Remove rope from baby whale!” Andrew commanded.

  glurp … “Good idea,” said the Water Bug.

  The tentacles darted toward the rope, grabbed it, and untied it!

  “Grrrr!” growled Soggy Bob. “That little whale critter is mine!”

  Clack! Clack! Clack!

  The claws of the Crab-Mobile snapped at the tentacles of the Octo-Tool. But the Octo-Tool was too quick. It whipped the lasso away from the Crab-Mobile.

  “Rope Crab-Mobile claws!” yelled Andrew.

  The Octo-Tool hurled the lasso around one of the Crab-Mobile’s clunky claws and yanked it closed.

  “Way to go!” cheered Judy.

  “Drat!” yelled Soggy Bob. “Ya little water rats are askin’ for big trouble!”

  The Crab-Mobile’s free claw snapped at the Octo-Tool.

  The Octo-Tool roped that claw, too! Then the tentacles gave the rope a big jerk. The Crab-Mobile started to spin! It began to sink!

  “Gotcha!” shouted Andrew.

  “Double drat!” screamed Soggy Bob.

  Andrew and Judy watched him madly yanking big metal handles inside the Crab-Mobile. Burpp flapped his wings and twisted dials with his beak.

  But the Crab-Mobile kept spinning down and down.

  “Ah’ll be back!” yelled Soggy Bob, slamming his fists on the arms of his huge chair. “Ah’ll be back faster than ya monkeys can eat a peanut butter sandwich!” He pushed his face against the glass dome and smiled a crooked smile. “And ah’ll be servin’ giant squidwiches soon! Heh heh heh!”

  The Crab-Mobile sank out of sight.

  “Good job!” said Andrew.

  “Thank you,” said the Water Bug.

  “Look!” said Judy staring at the baby whale. “It’s struggling.”

  The mother whale was trying to push her calf up, but it kept slipping down into the water!

  “We’ve got to help,” said Judy.

  Andrew drove the Water Bug close to one side of the calf. The mother was on the other side. Together, the mother whale and the Water Bug pushed the baby to the top!

  They could see the spray as the little whale got her first breath of air through her blowhole! Then she dove under the belly of her mother to look for milk.

  meep … “Baby blue whale gain eight pounds every hour,” said Thudd.

  Judy thought for a moment. “That’s almost two hundred pounds a day!” she said. “That’s the size of a big person!”

  The blue whale and her baby pulled ahead of the Water Bug. Soon they were just dark shadows in the distance.

  “They’re so beautiful!” sighed Judy.

  “I’ll bet it will take Soggy Bob a while to untangle the Crab-Mobile,” said Andrew. “The whales will be far away by then. They’ll be safe. We’d better get back to saving the giant squids. If we don’t get those lava boogers out of the Super-Sniffer, we won’t be able to track them.”

  The Super-Sniffer was a gadget that could track anything in the water. Andrew and Judy needed it to find the giant squids. But it had gotten clogged with lava boogers!

  “Yeah,” said Judy. She thought for a minute. “It’ll be easier to get the boogers out if we’re above the water.”

  Andrew pulled the steering wheel up. The Water Bug popped to the surface. The sun was shining and feathery clouds drifted in the blue sky.

  “Super-duper pooper-scooper!” said Andrew.

  “Let’s open the windows and get some air,” said Judy.

  Andrew pressed a button on the door and the side windows popped open.

  “Yikes!” yelled Judy.

  A thin silvery fish had flown right through her window. It landed in Andrew’s lap.

  ZAP!

  meep … “Flying fish!” said Thudd.

  Andrew gently picked up the flapping fish and slipped it out the window.

  “Look at these weird things,” he said.

  The Water Bug was surrounded by transparent blue lumps the size of basketballs.

  “Looks like a bunch of weird party balloons,” said Judy.

  “Noop! Noop! Noop!” said Thudd. “Jellyfish! Poison jellyfish. Called man-of-war. Got stinging tentacles! Hundred feet long! Big sting! Jellyfish not just one animal. Made up of lotsa little ones. Jellyfish like neighborhood. Some neighbors sting food. Some neighbors eat food. Some neighbors make baby jellyfish!”

  Andrew scratched his head. “We’ll have to go somewhere else to fix the Super-Sniffer,” he said. “But right now I’m starving. Getting swallowed by a whale sure makes you hungry.”

  “Me too!” said Judy.

  “I wonder what there is to eat around here,” said Andrew.

  He unbuckled his seat belt and leaned over his seat. Instead of having rear seats, the back of the Water Bug had a tiny kitchen with a refrigerator, a microwave oven, a sink, and a cabinet.

  Andrew opened the refrigerator. Inside were piles of pizzas wrapped in plastic!

  “Neato mosquito!” said Andrew. “We’ve got Uncle Al’s special pizzas!”

  As Andrew unwrapped a pizza, a white bird flew up from the water in front of the Water Bug. Big red feet slammed down on the hood of the Water Bug and walked up to the windshield.

  “It’s the booby!” yelled Andrew.

  Thwack! Thwack!

  It was pecking at the glass.

  “I think it misses us,” said Judy.

  The booby pecked at the window again, flew off, and dove underwater.

  meep … “Booby hunt for flying-fish eggs!” said Thudd.

  “I’ll stick with pizza,” said Andrew, looking to see what kind it was.

  As always, the crust was bright green. Uncle Al made crusts that glowed in the dark. The pizza was covered with Uncle Al’s super-lumpy tomato sauce, lots of different cheeses, and a pile of onions.

  Uh-oh, thought Andrew. Onions. Yuck.

  He pulled off all the onions and stuck them in a pocket. Then he put the pizza into the microwave oven and set the timer for two minutes.

  By the time Andrew pulled the hot slices from the oven, the sun had disappeared. Puffy white clouds were being chased by black cloud mountains.

  Thudd pointed to the sky.

  meep … “Storm clouds,” he said. “White clouds made of tiny drops of water. Storm clouds made of big drops of water. Big drops make storm clouds look black.”

  Andrew handed Judy a slice of pizza. “We’ll be safe in the Water Bug,” he said.

  As they munched, the sky turned dark as a dirty sock. Fat drops of rain smacked the windshield. They closed the windows.

  A strong wind pushed the Water Bug along the waves, which were as high as a table. In minutes, they were as high as a refrigerato
r, then high as a ceiling, then high as a house! Then higher! Andrew stopped chewing his pizza crust.

  As the Water Bug rode to the tops of the waves, long white fingers of foam poked at the windows. Then the Water Bug zoomed down the insides of the waves like a roller-coaster car.

  Suddenly zigzag fingers of lightning sizzled through the sky and crashed into the water.

  CRRRRAAAACKKKKK! came a bang of thunder.

  meep … “Water make electricity,” said Thudd. “Little water molecules rub against each other. Electricity make lightning. Hotter than sun! Make air explode! Thunder happen! See lightning first cuz light go fast, fast, fast! Sound go slow! Light travel million times faster than sound!”

  “Let’s dive!” yelled Judy. “You’re never supposed to be in a high place when there’s lightning. The Water Bug sticks out above the water.”

  Before Andrew could pull down the steering wheel, his skin began to tingle. His hair stood straight out from his head!

  A flash of dazzling white light surrounded the Water Bug! It was so bright that Andrew had to close his eyes. It was so bright that he could see everything in the Water Bug through his closed eyelids!

  WHO’s HUNTING WHO?

  Lightning had struck the Water Bug!

  CRRRRAAAACKKKKK! came the thunder.

  When Andrew opened his eyes, the Water Bug was sliding down to the bottom of a wave.

  Judy’s face was white as the moon. Her hair was standing out from her head like a frizzy clown wig. Her mouth was open and a piece of mozzarella cheese hung over her lip.

  “Smokey the Bear!” she said. “We were almost toast!”

  meep … “Water Bug protect Drewd and Oody from lightning,” said Thudd. “Electricity go through metal, not through Drewd and Oody!”

  Andrew checked the Water Bug. The paint on the hood had bubbled up in a few places. It looked like the Water Bug had pimples. But everything else seemed okay.

  “Let’s get out of here!” said Judy. “NOW!”

  Andrew pushed the steering wheel down. The Water Bug dipped under the waves.

  “We’ll hang out below until the storm passes,” said Andrew. “Maybe we’ll even find a quiet place on the ocean floor to get the lava boogers out.”

  Down and down they went through the dark green water. Strands of brown seaweed swirled by the windows.

  As Andrew steered the Water Bug deeper and deeper, it got darker and darker. Andrew turned on the headlights.

  “Look at all that weird white stuff in the lights!” said Judy. “It’s like we’re in a snow globe!”

  meep … “Sea snow,” said Thudd. “Tiny animals, pieces of dead stuff, pieces of poop fall to bottom of ocean. Little fish eat sea snow.”

  “Gross!” said Judy.

  At the end of the beam of the headlights, Andrew glimpsed a tall, dark shape.

  “Wowzers!” he said. “Could that be an underwater skyscraper?”

  “There’s no sky to scrape down here, Bug-Brain!” said Judy.

  As the Water Bug got closer, they could see the thing was a big tangle of pipes and pillars. It rose up through the water as far as they could see.

  meep … “Oil rig!” said Thudd. “Bring oil from deep, deep hole under ocean. Oil happen when dead stuff get buried under lotsa rock. Millions, millions of years, dead stuff turn into oil! Burn oil to heat house. Gasoline made from oil.”

  HOW OIL FORMS

  Dead stuff collects on the bottom of the ocean.

  Dead stuff gets covered by layers of rock. Heat and pressure turn dead stuff into oil.

  Oil companies drill through rocks to get the oil.

  “You mean we fill our gas tanks with things that lived millions of years ago?” said Judy.

  “Yoop! Yoop! Yoop!” said Thudd.

  “Weird!” said Judy. “Everything gets recycled!”

  Andrew dove to find where the pipes sank into the ocean floor.

  Judy pointed to a dome tucked close to the pipes. “What’s that?” she asked.

  Andrew slowly drove closer.

  In front of the dome was a sign in big black letters:

  Soggy Bob’s Oil Rig and

  Private Clubhouse

  KEEP OUT!

  “I don’t believe it!” said Judy. “In the whole monster ocean, we keep running into Soggy Bob!”

  Inside the dome, Andrew and Judy could see the Crab-Mobile—and Soggy Bob! He was tugging tangled ropes off the Crab-Mobile’s claws. Burpp pulled at the ropes with his beak.

  Soggy Bob turned when he saw the Water Bug’s lights. He stomped up to the glass door and shook his fist. His thin eyebrows rose high on his bald head and his lips were moving fast. Andrew and Judy couldn’t hear what he was saying, but they could tell it wasn’t nice.

  “Let’s get out of here before he fixes that thing!” said Judy.

  Andrew nodded. He pulled the steering wheel up and slammed the gas pedal to the floor. The Water Bug zoomed into the inky water.

  Suddenly the headlights lit up a gray wall right in front of them.

  Andrew was going too fast to stop. But just as they were about to crash, the wall swam away!

  In the headlights, Andrew saw that the wall was really the side of a whale!

  meep … “Sperm whale!” said Thudd.

  “That’s the whale in the Moby-Dick story,” said Andrew. “Look what a huge head it has!”

  meep … “Biggest head of any animal!” said Thudd. “Bigger than minivan! Head filled with tons of oil called spermaceti. Help whale dive deep, deep, deep! Sperm whale hold breath for hour!”

  Judy frowned. “Sperm whales used to get hunted for the oil in their heads,” she said. “People used to make perfume out of it!”

  meep… “Sperm whale hunt giant squid!” said Thudd. “Sperm whale and giant squid have big battle in deep ocean!”

  “Wowzers!” said Andrew. “If we follow that whale, maybe we’ll find the giant squid!”

  The whale sped through the water ahead of the Water Bug. Andrew tried to keep up. Outside, the blackness was turning green. Instead of leading them into the deep, the whale was swimming into shallower water. A strange landscape came into view—craggy hills sprouting blue antlers, gray brains, lacy yellow fans, and tall red feathers.

  Suddenly Andrew and Judy slammed forward in their seats.

  “Oofers!” said Andrew.

  “Yeow!” said Judy.

  “Eek!” said Thudd.

  The Water Bug was flipping over and over!

  When the Water Bug finally came to a stop, they were upside down! When Andrew’s head stopped spinning, he could see they were trapped in a huge web—a giant net!

  Uh-oh, he thought. We’re looking for the giant squid, but I wonder what’s looking for us….”

  TO BE CONTINUED IN ANDREW, JUDY, AND THUDD’S

  NEXT EXCITING ADVENTURE!

  ANDREW LOST

  ON THE REEF!

  In stores April 2004

  TRUE STUFF

  Thudd wanted to tell you more about whales and other ocean creatures, but traveling through three whale stomachs and a lot of intestines tired him out! Here’s what Thudd wanted to say:

  All mammals have hair. Some have a lot and some have just a little. Blue whales have hairs around their mouths. These hairs help them feel when krill are near. That way the whales know when to open their mouths!

  Blue whales make sounds that are very low. That means the vibrations that make up the sound travel very slowly. (You can see vibrations. Stretch an elastic band between your fingers, pull it gently, and let it go.) Humans can’t hear very low sounds without special equipment.

  Even though we can’t hear them, the voices of blue whales are the loudest sounds made by any animal. Blue whales can communicate with each other from a thousand miles away! Only very low sounds could travel so far underwater.

  The ancestors of whales and dolphins are called Mesonychids (mez-ON-ih-kidz). These hairy creatures were about the size of large wolves. Fifty millio
n years ago, they lived on land and hunted in the sea. Over time their bodies changed. Their nostrils moved up to the tops of their heads. Their legs and tails became flipper-shaped. And they lost most of their hair.

  Red-footed boobies can fly more than 3,000 miles over the ocean to hunt for food. The word booby comes from the Spanish word bobo, which means “clown.” Spanish explorers thought the birds looked silly.

  Have you ever walked into a place that smelled really bad or really good? Did you notice that, after a while, the smell seemed much less smelly? Your nose was still sending the same smell messages to your brain, but after a while, your brain just doesn’t pay much attention.

  During a storm, you can tell how far away lightning is. Count the seconds from the time you see lightning to the time you hear thunder. Divide the number of seconds by five to find how many miles away the lightning is. You will always see lightning before you hear the explosion it makes (thunder). That’s because light travels a million times faster than sound.

  Find out more!

  Visit www.AndrewLost.com

  WHERE TO FIND MORE TRUE STUFF

  Want to find out about the amazing and mysterious things that can happen in the underwater world? Read these books!

  Eyewitness: Ocean by Miranda Macquitty (New York: DK Publishing, 2000). Lots of information and great pictures tell the story of the oceans—how they were made, what lives in them, and how we explore them.

  Oceans by Seymour Simon (New York: HarperCollins Children’s Books, 1997). You’ll feel the waves when you see these pictures! Lots of great information, too. For example, there’s 100 billion gallons of water in the ocean for each person on earth!

  Lightning by Seymour Simon (New York: Mulberry Books, 1999) and Storms by Seymour Simon (New York: Mulberry Books, 1992). You’ll know what’s happening the next time the sky turns gray and boomy!