AAAARGH!!! (3 page)

“
I
could?” Hesper asked. She was already liking the plan. (Well, not so much the plan as the
star
of the plan.) “But where would
I
find a detective to do that for
me
?”

Elizabeth’s hand shot up in the air. “I could do it! I could do it!”

Hesper scowled.

Immediately, Elizabeth realized her error. “That is, for
you
. I could do it for
you
so
you
could tell everybody what
you
learned.”

“Hmm . . .” A smile slowly crept around the corners of Hesper’s all-too-perfect lips. “I like that . . . what’s-your-name. Yes, I like that a lot.”

TIME TRAVEL LOG:

Malibu, California, October 20

Begin Transmission:

Subject’s gratitude has not improved. After receiving outloopish gift, she appears more gur-roid than ever. Cause unknown. Maybe she’s allergic to parrots.

End Transmission

The sun was just rising as Chad Steel sat on his surfboard, waiting for the next set of waves to roll in. School wouldn’t start for another hour. But that was okay. He never minded getting up early to surf. There were three things he loved about it:

1.
The beauty and silence of being alone on the water.

2.
Leaving his phone on the beach so he couldn’t receive Hesper’s calls.

3.
The thrill of catching the right wave and working its power.

4.
Leaving his phone on the beach so he couldn’t receive Hesper’s text messages.

Actually, that was four things, but Chad was a surfer, not a math geek. He’d leave the math (and the geekiness) to such brainiacs as

“How’s my ten-four, Chad? Do you
(sniff-sniff)
copy? Repeat, do you
(snort-snort)
copy
?”

Doug Claudlooper, who was currently speaking through Chad’s earpiece. And if you couldn’t tell it was Doug by all the
sniff-sniff
-ing and
snort-snort
ing (Doug had a permanent case of hay fever), you could tell by the way he was waving at Chad from the beach like a madman (or in Doug’s case, a mad scientist).

The reason was simple: he’d learned Chad was going to compete in the big surfing event this weekend and had convinced him to try out his newest invention:

The Lifter-Upper-a-Few-Inches-from-the-Water Surfboard

(All right, so he’d work on the name later.)

The point is, Doug had created a surfboard that had little jet engines built into the bottom. So whenever he pressed a button, the board would fire up and rise a few inches off the water. Without the extra friction, Chad would be able to do a lot more stunts and maneuvers during the championship.

But Chad had been skeptical. . . .

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think it’s legal.”

“It’s only illegal if you
(sniff-sniff)
get caught,” Doug said.

Chad still didn’t like the idea, but since he was a nice guy (some said the nicest guy in school) and since Doug was a nobody nerd (some said the nerdiest nobody in school), he’d offered to help Doug and give the board a test run.

So here they were at sunrise, getting ready to try it out.

Chad looked ahead and saw the water starting to swell. He spoke into the headpiece. “Looks like we got a good set coming in.”

“Roger that.”

“It’s coming in fast.”

“Ready when you are.”

Chad turned his board and started paddling toward shore. He felt the water lift the board. This was good. He paddled harder, making sure he would be on the breaking side. He glanced over his shoulder. The wave was just about to curl. Quickly, he scrambled to his feet.

“Okay,” he shouted, “I’m up!”

“Commencing countdown
(sniff)
. On my mark
(snort)
. Five . . . Four . . . Three . . .”

The tube of water was building nicely. Chad cut the board to the right, picking up speed, making sure he stayed inside the pipe.

“Two . . . One . . .”

He snapped the board to the left. Now he was in the perfect position, racing down the wall. “Let’s do it!” he shouted.

“Beginning ignition sequence.”

“Hurry!”

There was no answer.

“Doug, anytime you feel like—”

Chad felt the board vibrate under his feet as the jets fired and pushed it up, one inch . . . two inches.

Perfect. Now there was no friction on the water and Chad could begin all kinds of maneuvers. There was only one problem. The

grew louder.

The board rose three inches . . . four inches . . .

“Okay,” Chad shouted, “that’s enough!”

Ten inches . . . twenty inches . . . then twenty
feet
!

Chad yelled, “Shut it down! Doug, shut it down!”

“I’m . . .
(crackle-crackle)
. . . unsure . . .
(crinkle-crinkle)
. . .”

Chad pressed the receiver to his ear. “You’re breaking up! Doug, can you hear me?”

Chad heard only one word. That is if you count

as a word.

Suddenly he shot straight up into the sky

in a space shuttle kinda way.

Now, to call the experiment a failure really wasn’t fair. . . .

Granted, the police did receive a lot of UFO sightings—actually, UFS (Unidentified Flying Surfboard) sightings:

“Officer, it was like this giant surfboard was shooting across the horizon!”

“Step out of the car, sir. We need to check your breath for alcohol.”

And the United States Air Force did have to scramble a couple of fighter jets to shoot down an enemy missile:

“General, you won’t believe it. There’s nothing up here but . . . but . . .”

“But what, pilot?”

“A kid on a surfboard!”

“Return to base immediately for mental evaluation!”

(All right, I might have exaggerated a little, but when you’re flying 100 miles into the air . . . well, okay, 30 miles . . . well, all right, 30 feet—things can feel a lot more dramatic.)

The good news was the board finally stopped flying.

The bad news was what goes up must come

down.

But at least Chad was alive. He wasn’t crazy about landing in the ocean halfway to Hawaii. (Okay, that’s another exaggeration; so sue me.)

But he was alive.

“All right, guys!” TJ stood in the hallway, wearing her backpack and calling up to the attic door. “Guys, who wrote this?
Guys
?”

The
this
was a typed, 20-page book report she held in her hands.

The
guys
were, of course, Tuna and Herby.

“I’m not leaving for school ’til someone answers me!”

Finally the attic door creaked open an inch and a pair of eyes appeared.

“Come down here,” TJ demanded.

The door opened another inch and another pair of eyes appeared.

“Now!”

Reluctantly, the boys opened the door the rest of the way and floated down, cross-legged, to greet her. It always weirded her out to see them floating like that. But that weirdness was nothing compared to the weirder weirdness she was about to be weirded out by.