Dolphin Rescue Read online

  It wasn’t fun at all.

  Well, not for Jordan.

  But Harry seemed pretty happy. He was pretending to be Captain Amazing, a superhero he made up when he was five. Captain Amazing wasn’t scared of anything. He was also a good mountain climber. But he had to keep stopping to wait for Jordan.

  By the time the Mission Fox agents got down to the beach, ten minutes had passed.

  In ten minutes the sharks had become braver. They were still swimming in circles around Tilly and Pip, but their circles were smaller.

  They were getting smarter, too. Instead of darting into the circle one at a time to attack the dolphins, the sharks were going for it in teams of two or three. Tilly kept chasing them off, but she was starting to look tired.

  It wouldn’t be long before one of the sharks got past her.

  The twins could see everything from the beach. They were less than fifty metres from the action, and the sea was as smooth and clear as glass. It was scary to watch.

  ‘Did you bring the knife?’ Harry asked, kicking off one of his thongs.

  Jordan tipped the FoxPack upside down and gave it a shake. Everything fell out onto the sand. He picked up their Do-Anything pocket knife. It had blades and tools for just about any situation, but nothing for fighting sharks.

  ‘We should have gone for help,’ he said.

  Harry pulled off his T-shirt. ‘There wasn’t time. Anyway, we’re help!’

  Jordan didn’t know how much help he and Harry were going to be. Fighting sharks was hard core!

  ‘What if the sharks attack us?’ he asked, sitting down to untie his shoelaces.

  ‘They won’t,’ Harry said in his super-confident Captain Amazing voice. ‘They’re only reef sharks. Now give me the knife, Agent J.’

  Wearing just his shorts, Harry strode to the water with the little knife in one hand. He looked a bit like Tarzan going to fight a crocodile.

  He was so brave!

  ‘Ouch!’ he wailed suddenly, and sat down on the sand.

  ‘What happened?’ asked Jordan, running to see what was the matter.

  Harry was holding his foot. He no longer looked like Tarzan, or sounded like Captain Amazing. ‘I stood on a broken shell,’ he yelped. ‘It just about cut off my toe!’

  It wasn’t that bad, but there was a lot of blood.

  ‘I’ll get the FoxAid Kit,’ Jordan said, and ran back up the beach.

  They never went on rescue missions without the FoxAid Kit. It was supposed to be for injured animals, but mostly it was the twins who got hurt.

  Jordan couldn’t get any of the dog paw plasters or bandicoot-aids to stick to his brother’s toe. There was too much blood.

  ‘You’ll have to do it, Agent J,’ said Harry.

  ‘Do what, Agent H?’

  ‘Save Pip’.

  ‘Me?’ cried Jordan.

  ‘Well, I can’t go in the water like this,’ Harry said, pressing a ball of cotton wool against his toe to stop the bleeding. ‘If the sharks smell blood in the water, they’ll go crazy!’

  ‘They’re only reef sharks,’ Jordan said.

  Harry passed him the Do-Anything knife. ‘So what are you afraid of then, Agent J?’

  Splints for broken bird wings

  Puncture repair kit (for run-over snakes)

  Bandage

  Baby’s bottle for baby animals

  Old sock to keep newborn joeys warm

  Tweezers

  Scissors

  Antiseptic cream

  Dog paw plasters (large), bandicoot bandaids (small), mouse bandaids (tiny)

  Magnifying glass

  Cotton wool

  Superglue for cracked tortoise shells

  10

  GO MUMMA!

  Of all the things Agent J was afraid of, right now reef sharks were at the very top of the list.

  ‘I’m not going out there!’ he said, crossing his arms.

  ‘What about the Mission Fox oath?’ asked Harry.

  ‘It doesn’t say we have to risk our lives.’

  ‘You won’t be risking your life,’ Harry said. ‘They’re only reef sharks.’

  Jordan sighed. It was no use arguing with his twin brother. He was as stubborn as he was brave.

  ‘Anyway, you’re a better swimmer than I am,’ Harry added.

  It was the first time he had admitted it. Harry was better at just about everything else – sporty things, that is. Jordan was better at computer stuff, and working things out.

  ‘Even an Olympic gold medal swimmer couldn’t get away from a shark,’ Jordan said.

  ‘They’ll leave you alone,’ said Harry. ‘They just want the baby dolphin’.

  Splash!

  Both boys looked out to sea. Pip’s mum had flipped one of the sharks completely out of the water. It did a big cartwheel in the air, then landed on its back with an even bigger splash.

  ‘Go Mumma!’ cried Harry.

  But while Tilly was busy flipping the first shark, another one came within centimetres of getting her baby. Tilly chased it away just in time.

  ‘You’d better hurry, Agent J!’ Harry said.

  Jordan sighed and pulled off his shirt. He opened the biggest blade of the Do-Anything knife. It wasn’t even as long as his finger. He closed it again, and slipped the knife into his shorts pocket. Then he waded out into the water.

  He didn’t look anything like Tarzan going to fight a crocodile.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Harry called from the beach. ‘I’ll be backup.’

  11

  GOOD ONE, SAM!

  Jordan swam slowly. He kept his head out of the water so he could see what was in front of him. It wasn’t a nice view.

  A black-tipped fin went gliding past about thirty metres away. Then another one went gliding past, less than thirty metres away. The next one was even closer.

  This was madness!

  But Jordan kept swimming. He knew Harry was watching. Harry wouldn’t be scared.

  But sometimes it was good to be scared, Jordan thought. Like when you’re swimming towards a school of hungry sharks. Fear was like a warning that you were in danger.

  Get out of here right now! Jordan’s brain was telling him.

  But he kept on swimming.

  Pip was in worse danger than Jordan. He was caught in a fishing net and couldn’t get away. He would be totally helpless if the sharks got past his mum.

  Jordan had to get to the baby dolphin before the sharks did.

  But first he had to get inside a circle of sharks. And he knew just how to do it.

  The twins’ big brother Sam had told them how to deal with sharks when you were swimming. If one comes at you, Sam said, pull your feet up so you don’t look like food, and stay still until it goes away.

  And if one attacks you, Sam reckoned, punch it on the nose!

  No way was Jordan going to punch a shark’s nose, but he could do the other stuff. He could pull his feet up and stay still. It was scary, but they were only reef sharks. Jordan had never heard of one attacking someone.

  ‘AGENT J!’ Harry’s voice came echoing across the water. ‘LOOK OUT BEHIND YOU!’

  Jordan glanced over his shoulder. Shishkebab! One of the sharks had looped around between him and the beach. Now it was coming back to join the others, and Jordan was in the way. It was coming straight for him!

  Jordan almost panicked. He almost forgot Sam’s advice. But he made himself stay calm. Pulling his knees up out of the shark’s way, he put his arms out like wings and floated face-down in the water. He kept his eyes open so he could see what was going on.

  It worked! The shark swam right underneath him and kept going.

  ‘GOOD ONE, AGENT J!’ Harry yelled from the beach.

  Good one, Sam! thought Jordan.

  Harry gave him a wave, but Jordan didn’t wave back. He wished he was backup. He wished he was the one who’d cut his foot and had to stay out of the water. But he had a job to do. Turning away from the beach, Jordan started swimming again, tow
ards the dolphins.

  And towards the circle of hungry sharks closing in on them.

  12

  WHAM!

  Jordan was getting closer and closer to the sharks. Twenty metres. Fifteen metres. Ten metres.

  Every time a shark came towards him, Jordan froze. It worked. The sharks just swam past.

  It was the dolphin calf that they were after.

  Three sharks went gliding across in front of Jordan like they were playing follow-the-leader. Jordan could see their small silver-and-black eyes, their rippling gills, their razor-sharp teeth.

  They were so scary!

  Another one swam past. It was so close that Jordan felt a wash of water from its long, wiggling tail.

  He was right at the edge of their circle. If he went any further, he’d be right in among them.

  He kept swimming.

  A grey shape came gliding towards him. Jordan pulled his legs up and didn’t move. With a wiggle of its tail, the shark went shooting underneath him. Before he could start forward again, another shark appeared. Holding his breath, Jordan watched it swim underneath him, too.

  There was a gap in the circle. Jordan slowly swam forward but then two more sharks came up from nowhere. Jordan stopped swimming and hung in the water like a rag doll.

  The sharks swam past. Behind him! Jordan was inside the circle!

  ‘I TOLD YOU THEY WOULDN’T HURT YOU!’ Harry yelled from the beach.

  It was easy for Harry to sound brave. He wasn’t the one in the water. He wasn’t surrounded by sharks.

  It wasn’t a nice feeling.

  Then Jordan had an even worse feeling. It was like being hit by an underwater bus.

  WHAM!

  13

  GET OUT OF THE WATER!

  Jordan went head-over-heels. His breath whooshed out of him, then he swallowed about a litre of salty sea water.

  By the time he came up for air, choking and gasping, the thing that had attacked him was zooming back towards Pip.

  It was Tilly. She’d attacked Jordan!

  ‘Hey, that wasn’t friendly!’ Jordan cried.

  Tilly must have thought he was after her calf, too.

  Jordan stopped swimming and trod water. He was only a few metres from the two dolphins. Tilly was swimming round and round Pip, watching the sharks and watching Jordan, too. She was big – about twice the size of the sharks. A lot bigger than Jordan. And she had a very hard nose! His ribs ached where she’d rammed him.

  He didn’t know what to do. Pip was in a bad way. He looked scared and tired. Jordan could see the net clearly now. It was part of an old fishing net that must have washed in from the open sea. One end was stuck on a massive lump of brain coral at the bottom of the bay. The other end was wrapped around one of the calf’s side fins in a big, tight knot.

  No matter how much he struggled, Pip couldn’t get free. And his mother couldn’t free him, either.

  Jordan had to help.

  But how could he help Pip if Tilly wouldn’t let him get close?

  Suddenly two sharks came shooting into the circle from the other side. With a flick of her tail, Tilly went zooming off after them.

  Now was Jordan’s chance! He kicked his feet and started swimming. In four or five strokes, he reached the baby dolphin. Pip was a metre long, only a week or two old. His eyes rolled in fear as Jordan fumbled to undo the knotted rope.

  Jordan was trembling, too. His hands shook so badly he couldn’t undo the knot.

  Hurry! he told himself.

  But it was too late.

  WHAM!

  This time Tilly got him on the hip. Jordan’s head went under in a big cloud of bubbles. She pushed him ahead of her like she was an underwater bulldozer. When they were about three metres from her calf, Tilly left him and raced off to chase another shark.

  Jordan spat out a mouthful of water and blinked the salt from his eyes.

  ‘WHAT’S GOING ON?’ Harry called.

  He sounded closer than before. Jordan turned to see. Harry was limping up a sloping rock ledge at the end of the beach. His foot was wrapped in bandages and he had a stick to help him walk. He was only thirty metres away.

  ‘Tilly’s attacking me,’ Jordan gasped. ‘She thinks I’m trying to hurt her baby.’

  A shark swam right past Jordan. Yikes! Forgetting his big brother’s advice, Jordan swam flat-out away from it. But he went in the wrong direction – towards Pip.

  BUMP!

  This time Tilly didn’t hit Jordan so hard. His head didn’t go underwater as she pushed him away from her baby.

  ‘I’m trying to help you!’ Jordan cried, as she zoomed off after another shark.

  ‘TRY YOUR WHISPERING THING!’ yelled Harry.

  Just like Harry used to pretend he was Captain Amazing, when he was little Jordan had pretended to be the Pet Whisperer. The Pet Whisperer could talk to animals using thoughts. It was only a game, but sometimes the animals seemed to play, too. Especially their dog, Myrtle. She acted like she really could hear Jordan. Maybe Tilly would hear him, too.

  Jordan needed to concentrate.

  Treading water, he tried to clear his mind of everything that was going on around him. He imagined he was a dolphin.

  ‘I’m a friend,’ he mind-whispered. ‘I’ve come to help your …’

  ‘LOOK OUT AGENT J!’ Harry’s loud voice interrupted Jordan’s dolphin thoughts.

  Jordan looked around, expecting to see Tilly coming at him again. But this time he saw something else. Another fin. It was as tall as Tilly’s fin, and it was slowly weaving from side to side as it came into the bay from the open sea.

  But dolphins’ fins don’t weave from side to side.

  Sharks’ fins do.

  The fin was big – bigger than the other sharks’ fins – and it didn’t have a black tip like a reef shark.

  ‘JORDAN, GET OUT OF THE WATER!’ yelled Harry. ‘IT’S A BULL SHARK!’

  Harry was a shark expert. He had about twenty books about them at home, and he was always checking out shark facts on BRAIN. So if Harry said it was a bull shark, he’d be right.

  And Jordan knew enough about sharks to know that bull sharks attack more people than any other sharks in the world.

  He had to get out of the water.

  FAST!

  14

  HELP ME!

  Jordan turned towards shore and started swimming. But he had only gone three or four strokes when he heard something. Or thought he did.

  Jordan stopped swimming.

  ‘KEEP GOING!’ screamed Harry.

  Treading water, Jordan looked up at his brother on the rocks. ‘What about the Mission Fox Oath?’ he gasped.

  He couldn’t believe he was saying it. Harry was the one who liked danger, not Jordan.

  But there was a voice inside Jordan’s head. It sounded like the voice of a little child. And it seemed to be calling out to him.

  ‘Help me!’ it said.

  Jordan twisted around to look at the dolphins. Only Pip was there. His mother had gone. So had the reef sharks. They must have left as soon as the bull shark swam into the bay.

  ‘Help me!’ the voice said again.

  It might have been Jordan’s mind playing tricks on him. But he knew what he had to do. Reaching into his pocket, Jordan found the Do-Anything knife. Opening its longest blade, he clamped the knife’s tough plastic handle between his teeth.

  Then he began swimming back towards the baby dolphin.

  15

  SEA BATTLE

  Something was going on further out in the bay. There were big splashes. White spray flew high into the air. Jordan glimpsed two big fins circling each other. One was a shark’s fin, the other was a dolphin’s.

  It was a sea battle. Mother dolphin against bull shark. Tilly was trying to protect her baby. But this shark was much bigger than the reef sharks. It was bigger than Tilly. It was a huge killing machine.

  Jordan didn’t know how long Tilly could hold it off.

  He reached Pip
. This time he didn’t try undoing the knot. He started hacking at the rope with the Do-Anything knife.

  ‘HURRY!’ Harry screamed from the rocks.

  Jordan was hurrying. But the rope was made of nylon. He couldn’t cut it! The blade just slipped around, like a toy knife.

  Then Pip started to struggle, making Jordan’s job even harder.

  ‘Calm down!’ he mind-whispered, but the little dolphin kept squirming and wriggling and twisting.

  Even if pet whispering was real and Pip could hear Jordan, telling him to calm down was silly. The baby dolphin was too terrified to calm down.

  Jordan was terrified, too.

  Where was the bull shark? He couldn’t hear any more splashes out in the bay, and there wasn’t time to look.

  ‘USE THE SAW BLADE!’ yelled Harry.

  Jordan should have thought of it. But he was so scared that his brain wasn’t working properly.

  Kicking his feet to stay afloat, Jordan closed the long blade he’d been using, then pulled open a short one with little teeth like a saw.

  It worked much better. Strand by strand, the saw blade cut through the thick rope.

  ‘Almost done,’ he mind-whispered, in case Pip really could hear him.

  Then two things happened, almost at the same time:

  1) Harry screamed, ‘SHARK!’

  2) Something slammed into Jordan from behind.

  WHAM!

  16

  A CAVE WITH TEETH

  Jordan went head-over-heels. This time he kept his mouth closed and didn’t swallow any water. And he kept his eyes open, so he saw what hit him.

  It was the mother dolphin again. This time she wasn’t attacking him. She was pushing Jordan and her baby out of the path of a huge grey shadow that shot past like an underwater train, only just missing them.

  CHOMP! went the bull shark’s killer jaws.

  But they only chomped on the cloud of bubbles where Jordan and Pip had been half a second earlier.