"Tell me the story again, Daddy," my youngest said as I tucked her in.

"Again? But you've heard it a hundred times!"

"But it's my favorite! Please?" She looked up at me with those big blue eyes, and I couldn't resist.

"Okay. Once upon a time, there was a little mermaid. She was all alone in the big, wide ocean, because all the other mermaids were gone. And she was very lonely. She thought, if only I had a friend! She searched high and low, but she couldn't find anyone to be her special friend. Then one day, she surfaced in a place called New Jersey."

"Ooh!" Holly loved this part of the story.

"There were lots of humans there at the Jersey Shore, but the one she liked best was a boy with brown hair and a kind heart.

"When she first saw him, he was helping a younger child build a sand castle. The mermaid sat in the shallow water behind a rock and watched him. Here he was. Here was someone who could be her forever friend."

"What did she do, Daddy?" Holly asked, though she knew every part of this story by heart.

"She had to find out more about him. So she climbed out of the water, took on human form . . ."

"And then?"

"And then, she got a job."

Buzzy's Fish Hut was our favorite place to go after the beach, and the summer I was thirteen-the summer that turned out to be our last in Jersey-they took on a new waitress, a pretty blonde girl named Sylvie.

Sylvie was nice to everyone, but she loved to see us come in every Saturday afternoon. After a while, she even learned our favorite dishes by heart.

"Broiled shrimp," she said, setting the plate down in front of my dad. "Lobster roll," that one was for Mom. "Fried clam plate," for my sister Syndi. "And . . . fish sticks, double fries, and a small root beer."

She'd made a smiley face with my fries, but I wasn't feeling very happy. I'd just gotten what I considered the worst news of my life, and nothing could cheer me up.

"What's wrong?" she asked, leaning down to meet my downcast eyes.

"We're moving," I muttered, barely audible.

"Moving?" She looked around the table with wide eyes. "Oh, no! I don't want to lose my favorite customers!"

"Aren't you going back to school in the fall anyway?" Mom asked her. "Where is it that you come from again?"

She ignored the question. "When do you leave?"

"Tuesday," I told her.

"This Tuesday?"

"It was a very sudden decision," said Dad. "My company first told me about the new position in Indiana a month ago, and I thought we wouldn't be leaving till the fall or maybe even after the first of the year. But two days ago they called me up and told me I start next week. They can't hold it any longer than that."

"I'll never finish all the packing!" Mom lamented. "Not in three days!"

The mention of Indiana had caught Sylvie's attention. "Where in Indiana?" she asked. "I used to have family there. I know certain parts quite well."

"Little town called Eerie," said Dad. "I've never even heard of it, and now we're going to be living there. Can you imagine?"

Sylvie was overjoyed at this news. Eerie-specifically the lake in the center of town-was an old home of her people, considered sacred territory. She had never been there herself, but as long as the underground river that fed the lake ran out to the sea, she would find her way there.

"I hope you have a good trip," she said, "and maybe I will see you there."

She came back to our table three more times, in between serving her other customers, to inquire where exactly we would be living. Dad had the address written down on a piece of paper, but after searching his pockets and not finding it, he said he must have left it on the dresser.

"We'll send you a postcard," I said. "How's that?"

"You can send it here," she said. "I will leave my forwarding address with the management when I leave here. I look forward to hearing from you, Marzhall." She pronounced my name in a funny foreign way that made it sound exotic.

She left the table again, and Syndi said, "Looks like someone's got an international stalker. Where did she say she was from?"

"You know," said Mom, "I don't think she actually told us."

"At the end of the summer, the little mermaid said goodbye to the folks at Buzzy's. She left them the number of a post office box in Eerie where she would be picking up her mail. If anyone noticed anything strange about it, they never said anything.

"So she swam out to sea, until she found the river that connected to the underground river which fed Lake Eerie. There was a passage, but it was barely wide enough for her to fit through. She had to make herself very small to swim through it, and on the other side, she regrew to her usual size.

"Then she reached the surface of the lake, and poked her head up for a look around.

"The lake was deserted, for fall had come, and the air was getting colder. The little mermaid would have to stay in the lake, far under the water, feeding off the fish that lived in the lake and waiting for summer to come again.

"She waited while the leaves turned brown and gold, and fell off the trees. She waited during the bitter cold, and the snow, and the ice which covered the top of the lake so that she couldn't break through.

"But she was patient, and she knew that she had just a few more months of waiting to endure. A few months was nothing compared to the long, lonely years she had spent searching for her special friend.

"Finally, the ice melted, the air grew warmer, and then one day . . ."

Holly was on the edge of her bed. "What? What?"

"They opened the beach."

"Boys!" Mom called up the stairs. "We have to leave now if we want to get a good spot at the beach!"

It was Memorial Day, the start of summer and the first day the beach at Lake Eerie would be open. My best buddy Simon and I were looking forward to sun, sand, and swimming. And maybe seeing if we could find anything like the weird shell I'd found on our hike around the lake in the fall.

"I looked it up," I told him, while we packed our towels and swimsuits into our backpacks. "That shell belongs to a creature that lived in the oceans millions of years ago. What are the odds of us finding it purely by chance?"

"You think there could be more?"

"I think it's possible. We should bring a pail and shovel."

"I don't think I have one."

"Can you go check? It's kind of important."

"Okay, I'll be right back."

"Are you boys ready to go?" Mom had her swimsuit on under a striped coverup. She looked really nice. "Where's Simon?"

"He went to get something. He'll be right back."

"Well, let's hope he doesn't take too long. We want to get a good parking spot."

"It's only nine o'clock in the morning! Who goes to the beach this early?"

"You'd be surprised," said Dad. "Let's go out to the car and wait for him there."

"Isn't your other friend coming?" Mom asked.

"He said he'd meet us there," I told her. "Stuff to do." Stuff that I didn't want to know about, in case it wasn't strictly legal.

"I hope he makes it before the beach gets too crowded."

"How bad can it be? It's not the Jersey Shore."

"No," said Dad, "but it is a holiday. Lots of people have the day off. Just about everyone in town. If we don't get going soon-"

Just then Simon came running up, pail and shovel in hand. "Found it!" he exclaimed. "It was under the snow boots."

"Good. Can we go now?"

"Hey, where's Syndi?"

"She's already there," I explained. "She's working as a lifeguard this summer for the experience. Although I think it's because she's got a crush on the head lifeguard."

"Yes, all right, get in the car." Dad wasted no time getting all our stuff loaded and making sure everyone was buckled up, though we'd be traveling less than a mile. Then we were off.

Dad was right about one thing: once we were on Main Street, the traffic started piling up. The line to enter the beach parking lot stretched all the way back to the fire station.

"Wow," I said. "Guess this really is a popular place."

Eventually we made it through the gates (after paying a $5 parking fee which Dad proclaimed highway robbery) and found a spot not too far from the beach itself. At least, it wouldn't have been far if we hadn't been lugging four chairs, three beach bags, and a cooler.

The beach looked a lot smaller with all those people fighting for space. We were just barely able to find a place to lay down our blanket without stepping on someone else's. After all that hard work, I was ready for a swim. Simon and I stripped off our T-shirts and ran for the water.

"Hold it!" Mom cried out.

We stopped in our tracks and looked back. She was holding up a giant bottle of sunscreen.

"Aw, Mom! That stuff takes twenty minutes to start working! I want to swim now!"

"You're not going near the water without sunscreen on," she insisted.

"It's okay, Mars," said Simon. "We can look for shells instead."

"I guess so." We went back and got all gooped up, and then we spent the next twenty minutes scoping out the water line, looking for anything unusual. There was nothing, or at least nothing like the shell I'd found in the fall.

I was starting to wonder where Dash was. Once I thought I heard a siren and I got ready to run. It turned out to be the ice cream man.

"He's coming, isn't he?" Simon asked me.

"He said he was. Maybe whatever he's doing is taking longer than he thought."

"And he didn't tell you what?"

"I told him not to. If it was illegal, and we knew, then we'd be accessories after the fact. Or before the fact. Something like that."

"Good thing I never do anything illegal, then."

Startled, I looked up. Dash was standing there wearing an Eerie High Eagles T-shirt and a pair of cutoff denim shorts. "You made it!"

"Miss the first day this year of girls in bikinis? Not on your life! Speaking of which, where's your sister?"

"Over there." I pointed towards the lifeguard tower, where Syndi sat and watched the water. I couldn't really tell from this distance, but she looked kinda bored.

"Wish she'd take off her coverup."

"Too bad. Hey, do you have sunscreen on?"

"Don't need it."

"Are you kidding? With your fair skin? Go see my mom, she's got plenty."

"Nope. I never burn. Ever."

"You don't usually have this much skin showing. Go put some sunscreen on. You'll thank me tomorrow."

"Nah, I'll be fine."

I shrugged. "Don't say I didn't warn you. Wanna go get snow cones?"

"Bring me back a cherry. No, root beer. No, blue raspberry. That's it, blue raspberry. And hurry before they melt!"

"You're not coming?" Simon asked.

In response, Dash settled down on the beach blanket, snow-white face raised to the sun above. "I'm good."

We went and got our snow cones. When we came back, Dash was holding a brightly-colored piece of paper in his hand.

"It's a voucher," he said. "There's some kind of ferry boat out to the island. This is for thirty percent off items in the gift shop."

"I heard about that!" Simon said excitedly. "It's the hundredth anniversary of the old ice house! There's tours and everything!" He read something off the paper. "And the first one leaves in ten minutes! Come on, let's go!"

"Uh uh. I'm staying right here, short stack. Admiring the view."

"C'mon, it'll be fun," I coaxed him.

"Sorry, I don't do boats."

"It's a short ride! You'll barely notice."

"Oh, I'll notice. Me and boats, we don't exactly get along too well."

"You're not scared, are you?" I couldn't resist teasing him just a bit.

"Course not! I just don't do well on boats."

"Well, we can't swim across," said Simon. He pointed way across the lake. "Right by the island is the deepest part of the lake. See where the water's really dark there?"

We both nodded.

"Anyone who goes swimming over there . . . never comes back. They get sucked right down to the bottom of the lake. And you know the scariest part?"

We shook our heads.

He leaned in close and whispered, "Nobody knows exactly how deep the lake is there."

"They must do surveys and stuff," I pointed out.

"Yeah, but every time they try in that part of the lake, they get a different result. They think the bottom shifts, from eighty to a hundred feet, depending on what time of year it is. I think. Something like that. So just don't fall in on that side of the lake, okay?"

"Doesn't matter," said Dash, "cause I'm not going on the boat. No way, no how. You are never, ever, getting me on that boat! Ever!"

"I hate you," Dash said, ten minutes later.

We just barely made it to the ferry landing before the boat cast off. Most of that ten minutes had been spent begging Mom and Dad to let us go. Finally, with just seconds to spare, Dad agreed to chaperone us (I played up the educational aspect of it to pique his interest), and we ran as if our lives depended on it.

"It's not so bad," I told him. "It's a calm day, and we're going about five miles an hour. It's like we're hardly moving at all."

"Oh, we're moving," he said, his eyes closed tightly. "I can feel us moving. Let me off, now."

"In the middle of the lake?"

"We're almost there," said Simon. "Just relax and try not to think about the plesiosaurs."

"Right, right-what?" Dash stared at him in utter terror.

"That's why they never find anyone who swims in the deep end. The plesiosaur eats them!"

"Now, Simon," my dad said calmly. "Everyone knows that plesiosaurs died out with the rest of the dinosaurs millions of years ago. There's no plesiosaur living in the lake."

"There's something," I said. "The old Minnehaqua legends about the lake mention a Beast of the Waters, to whom they would make regular sacrifices."

"Human sacrifices?" Dash had gone even paler than usual.

"No," I said quickly. "Deer, mostly. Sometimes a percentage of the harvest. No humans. Anyway, they thought the Beast protected them."

"See?" said Dad. "Even if this Beast were real, you have nothing to worry about. It's on our side."

"Great." Dash closed his eyes, looking like he was trying not to be sick.

"We're almost there," I told him. "Just hang on another couple of minutes."

Just before we docked at the island, a man in an old-fashioned suit and a straw hat stepped up to the front of the boat. "Good morning," he said. "My name is Michael Horne, and I'm vice-president of the Eerie Historical Society. I welcome you to the maiden voyage of the Island Queen, and invite you to step back in time with me to the days when Eerie was known for the purest, clearest ice in the tri-county area. The ice house and everything connected with it have been painstakingly recreated to show you what life was like a hundred years ago. We'll be putting in shortly. Please form a single line, and be careful disembarking. Wouldn't want to fall in and get eaten by the plesiosaur!"

People laughed at that. Except Dash wasn't laughing. He was sitting there with his eyes closed tightly, taking shallow breaths in and out.

"Poor guy," said Simon. "He looks awful."

"I never would have asked him to come if I knew he'd be . . . like this," I said. "Next time, we'll let him stay behind."

"There won't be a next time," Dash said between clenched teeth. "After this I'm staying firmly on dry land. No boats for me."

"Ladies and gentlemen," Mr. Horne announced, "we're pulling up to the dock now. Please keep a single line, and watch your step."

People were starting to get up even before the boat stopped moving, which made it rock back and forth a bit. I didn't mind, but Dash moaned and curled up in his seat, refusing to budge.

"Come on," I said. "We're getting off now."

"Gimme a minute. I don't feel so good."

Dad and Simon had already gone on ahead and were waiting for us on the dock. We were the last ones still in our seats.

"Need a hand?" One of the guys manning the boat had come back to help us. Dash let himself be lifted up out of his seat and walked down the aisle, like a toddler. I followed behind them.

Everything was okay until we got onto the dock. Dash stumbled coming down the last step. His arms went out to balance himself, and one of them struck me and knocked me off the dock and into the deepest part of the lake.

The water pulled me down quickly, and I thought, So this is it. This is how I die. Will it hurt, or will it just be like going to sleep?

Then I blacked out. But before I did, I swear I saw a black shape, as big as an elephant, moving through the dark water towards me. Then I felt something underneath me.

Then everything went black.

"The little mermaid knew she had to act fast if she wanted to save the boy with the brown hair. If he went any deeper, he would be sucked down into the mouth of the underground river and lost forever. She swam underneath him, made herself large enough to support him, and gently lifted him up to the surface. Once his head was above water and he could breathe again, she slipped back down before anyone saw her."

Air! Wonderful, wonderful air, filling my lungs and letting me breathe again. I coughed up water and opened my eyes.

Somehow I had made it up to the surface on my own . . . or had I?

"-can't believe you pushed him in!" Simon was yelling.

"I did not push him!" Dash insisted. "It was an accident!"

"Sure it was! You killed him, you murderer!"

"Now, boys-" Dad began.

I took a deep breath and shouted, "Guys, I'm right here!" Somehow it didn't come out as loud as I'd hoped, but they heard me anyway. I swam over to the dock, and someone lifted me up and laid me out on the rough wooden planks.

A few minutes later I was sitting on a folding chair in front of the gift shop, wrapped in a blanket with the Historical Society's logo and trying to get warm. It was eighty degrees out, but that water had been really cold.

"Marshall, thank God you're all right!" Dad said. "I was so worried when I heard the splash and then didn't see you come up! What happened?"

"We know what happened!" Simon said. He turned to glare at Dash. "You pushed him in!"

"I did not! I already told you it was an accident! I fell, and . . . he happened to be in the way."

"I thought you were gonna get sucked down!"

"I almost did," I said. "But . . . something saved me. I think it was the Beast of the Waters."

All three of them looked at me like I'd lost my mind.

"I'm serious! I saw something swim up to meet me. It was big-like bigger than the boat, I think. It pushed me up to the surface so I could breathe."

"Now, Marshall," said Dad, "I don't doubt that you thought you saw something. You had a near-death experience, and you were hallucinating."

"It wasn't a hallucination! I felt it underneath me! Whatever it was, it saved my life." I looked out at the water, but there wasn't even a ripple. Whatever it was . . . it was gone now.

As soon as I felt better, we took the tour of the ice house and the grounds. Simon and Dash weren't speaking to each other, but every so often I'd catch them giving each other little sideways glares. If Dad noticed, he didn't say anything.

Mr. Horne was very apologetic, promising to set up a fence or a guard rail or something around the dock, so this wouldn't happen again. I think he was worried we'd sue someone. He even gave me some free stuff from the gift shop-a T-shirt and some souvenir pencils and pens. I wanted to ask for a little notebook to go with them, but I was afraid that might be pushing it.

The tour was pretty interesting, actually. There was even an interactive section where visitors could cut their own ice blocks. Too bad we didn't get to keep them; it was hotter than ever when we got back on the boat, and the sun was beating down pretty strongly. I noticed red patches forming on Dash's shoulders and the back of his neck.

"I think you really need sunscreen," I told him, but he just blocked me out. He blocked everything out, curling up in his seat and trying not to be sick all over the place.

Once we got back to the beach, we stuck close to the blanket. I did go swimming a couple of times, despite my close call at the dock-trying to get back on the horse after falling off, so to speak. The water at the beach was a lot warmer and I only went in up to my chest, swimming back and forth close to the shore.

I was forming a plan as I swam. I had to get back over to the island and find out just what it was that had saved me. It couldn't have been a plesiosaur-the lake wasn't big enough for one to swim comfortably. Dinosaurs were huge, after all. But I knew it was something.

Around four o'clock we started packing up our stuff.

"You want a ride home?" I asked Dash, who hadn't moved from the blanket in hours.

"What? No. No, I'm okay." When he stood up, I saw that the tops of his legs were bright red, as were his arms and his face. He was going to feel that later on. I'd gotten a bad sunburn once at the beach and hadn't been able to move the next day.

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I don't live far."

I wasn't really sure where Dash was living right now. He'd moved out of the mill around Christmas time, and hadn't told anyone where he'd moved to. He liked his privacy.

"Okay, man," I said. "See you around."

The next day, Simon and I were downtown when we heard something in the alley behind the World of Stuff. It sounded like a moan, but I couldn't be sure.

"Let's go check it out," I said, thinking there might be someone in trouble.

There was, but not what I was expecting. Dash was lying on the pavement, curled up in a patch of shade and looking miserable. He was bright red from head to toe.

"Ouch!" Simon winced just looking at him. "Are you okay?"

"Oh, yeah, I'm just fine, half-pint," Dash drawled. "No, I'm not okay! It freaking hurts!"

"Let me help you." I bent down to help him up, but Dash recoiled.

"Don't touch me!"

"C'mon, man, you can't lie in the street all day. Come inside and I'll call my mom to pick us up."

"Don't bother. Just leave me here, I'll be fine."

"Not in a couple of hours, when the sun shifts around to this side. You need to move inside and put something on that."

"Fine." Slowly, he got to his feet, and shuffled along behind us inside the store.

One short ride later, we were in my room, with the TV on to the station showing cartoons, although none of us were watching it. I had a series of maps spread out on the floor, and Simon and I were examining them while Dash lay in my bed and moaned.

"This is crazy!" I looked from one map to the other, and then folded them up and stuck them back inside the folder. "One says the lake is ninety-six feet deep. Another one says it's a hundred and twelve. The town register lists the lake's maximum depth as ninety-nine feet. Why can't these people get their stories straight?"

"I told you," Simon said. "It's the . . . tides." He suddenly realized just how stupid that sounded. "Well, that's what my dad told me. He said the lake is fed by an underground river that runs out to sea, and when the tides come, it sucks the mud from the bottom, or something."

"He doesn't know either, does he?"

"At this point, I'm starting to wonder if anyone does."

"You know what we should do?" I stood up and went to my closet. "We should see for ourselves. Stand on the boat dock and measure just how deep the lake is where I fell in. Maybe we'll take several readings and average them."

"There's just one problem with that," Simon told me.

Dash just moaned again. I ignored him. "What's that?"

"The boat to the island only runs on weekends until the end of June, when school gets out. So we won't be able to go until Saturday."

"Aw, rats!" I really wanted to make another trip out there as soon as possible. I wanted to find out what the creature was who had saved my life, and . . . find a way to thank it somehow.

"Don't worry," Simon said. "It's only four more days. We'll make it."

"Uh uh," Dash said. We turned to him. "You're not getting me on that boat unless you drug me and tie me up. The Minnie Mouse tribe-"

"Minnehaqua," I corrected him.

"Whatever. They knew what they were doing, staying away from that island. They gave that thing its space. I say we should do the same."

"That's too bad," I said. "That you don't want to come, I mean. Imagine what would happen if we discovered a new species, living in Lake Eerie. There'd be lots of TV and newspaper coverage. We'd be famous."

"Yeah, yeah." He burrowed under the blanket like a mole.

"There'd probably be a lot of money in it too," Simon added. "And you'd miss out. Sorry."

Dash's head shot up. It looked like cotton candy on a crimson stick. "Money, you say?"

"That's right," I said. "Public appearances and endorsement deals and stuff like that. And maybe, just maybe, someone might see your picture in the paper or on TV and know who you are."

That dampened his enthusiasm somewhat. "I told you I don't wanna know," he muttered, and started to slip back down under the blanket.

I went over and yanked it off him. "I know what you said before. You're afraid that whatever happened to you was so bad that your brain just blanked everything out to protect you. But what I think is that there's someone out there missing you-a parent, a brother or sister, an aunt or uncle, somebody. You owe it to them to at least try."

"Look, I can't! Even if I wanted to! I don't like boats-or they don't like me."

"Got that covered," I said, and handed him a small rectangular package.

He looked at it suspiciously. "Dramamine?"

"Yeah. To help, you know?"

"Help." He tried to sit up a little, yelped at the pain the sudden movement had brought on, and I rushed to help him. "Yeah, you're so big on helping, aren't you? Me, I help myself first. That way I don't get left out. Right now I'd like to help myself to some more of that strawberry ice cream, if you don't mind. Or even if you do mind. I don't care, I just want some ice cream."

I decided to cut him a little slack since the guy was suffering and not thinking clearly. "Okay," I said. "When I come back, we'll work on a plan."

"You do the planning," he said. "I'll do the eating."

Saturday morning we met at the beach for the first ferry to the island. As usual, Dash was late, but he had a really good excuse this time.

"I stopped at Eerie Boat and Tackle to get this thing," he said, handing me a paper bag which seemed suspiciously heavy. "I figured it would be more accurate than tying a rock to a length of rope and marking off measurements on it. I told the clerk I wanted to catch the really deep fish. This is what he gave me."

I took it out of the bag. "How's it work?"

"How should I know? The directions are on there. You read 'em."

Simon was looking at him with suspicion. "What do you want from us?"

"Who says I want anything?"

"You never do anything unless you want something. So what is it?"

"I can't believe you don't think I can do something nice just for the sake of being nice!"

"You don't do nice," I said. "Thanks for the . . . doohickey. Now what do you want us to do for you?"

"Just sixty percent of the profits."

"Sixty percent!"

"Hey, it's because of me that you ended up in the water in the first place!"

"Ah hah! So you admit you pushed him!" said Simon.

"For the last time, I did not push him! It was an accident! But if I hadn't been there, you wouldn't have fallen in the water and that whatever-it-is wouldn't have saved you! Therefore, you owe me."

"Yeah, but not sixty percent!"

"Marshall!"

"Not now, Simon. What makes you think we owe you anything? I let you come along because I felt sorry for you sitting on the beach all alone! I didn't want to leave you behind, cause that's what friends do!"

"Mars!"

"We ain't friends, Teller! Never were!"

"Hey, guys!" Simon stood between us. "The boat's about to leave without us!"

"Oh, no, not again!" We made a run for it and just managed to get aboard before the ferry cast off.

"Are you good?" I asked Dash, as soon as we'd taken our seats, this time in the middle of the boat.

"Took it an hour before I left. I'm covered."

"What about-?" I pointed to his left shoulder, where about an inch of peeling sunburn was peeking out of his T-shirt sleeve.

"Got that covered, too." He pulled a small bottle of 100 SPF sunblock out of his sock. "Once was bad enough, believe me."

The ride was a lot better this time, now that we were able to sit back and enjoy our surroundings. Once I saw a ripple on the water and bent forward to get a better look, almost falling into the water again. It was Simon who grabbed me before I went over the side. We watched as a fish poked its head up to the surface, no doubt expecting to get thrown a few crumbs. I had nothing. Sorry, fishie.

"Maybe we should get you a life jacket," Dash quipped, "since you seem so determined to go swimming in the deep end."

"Or a diving bell," I said. "Scuba gear would be no good, because we'd just get sucked under."

"We?" Dash raised his eyebrows at me.

"The current's too strong over here. But if we had some kind of vehicle, we could go exploring."

"And what would you do if you found your mysterious Beast of the Waters? Marry it?"

I gave him a sour look. "You have no sense of adventure, do you?"

"Sure I do. It's just overruled by my sense of self-preservation. That's why I don't do anything dangerous."

"No, you just make us do the dangerous stuff. Why don't you earn your sixty percent-which, by the way, I still haven't agreed to-and actually help?"

"All right, fine. I'm the brains of the operation, I shouldn't have to . . ." He grumbled for a while, but he helped us set up the gadget so we could take our readings.

The first one was right at the end of the dock. When we hauled it up, the number read 84. Only eighty-four feet? That didn't sound right.

"Try over on the side here," I suggested, "where I fell in."

"You mean where you were pushed," Simon insisted.

"Would you let it go already?" Dash glared at him. "Gimme that thing."

The reading he took on that side was 116. "Wow," I said. "That's quite a difference. Try the front again."

"Marshall . . ." Simon was staring out over the water.

"Not now, Simon. Try casting out further from the dock. It might be deeper further out-"

"Marshall!"

"What?" I turned and saw him looking towards the water. "Is it the creature? I knew we should have brought some fish for it."

"It's not the creature," he said, and I looked.

A dark shape was rising from the water, but it wasn't my rescuer. It was a submarine.

A hatch opened, and a man in an old-fashioned uniform poked his head out.

"Would you boys," he called to us, "kindly stop throwing things at me?"