Dolphin Rescue Read online

  Tilly had saved Jordan’s life.

  But the bull shark was still hungry. It wasn’t going to give up. Jordan saw it do a quick U-turn. Weaving from side to side, it came swimming towards him with its huge mouth wide open. It was like looking into a cave – a cave with teeth!

  Jordan was going to die!

  WHAM!

  Tilly came from the side. She rammed the shark with her nose, pushing it away. But the huge hungry fish came so close to Jordan that it grazed his leg. Its skin felt like sandpaper.

  Tilly shot round behind the shark and nipped its tail. It twisted around and went after her. She let it nearly catch up, then zipped off, leading the shark away from her baby and Jordan.

  Jordan saw his chance. He was still holding the knife. And the rope holding Pip was cut nearly all the way through. Three more cuts with the saw blade, and the little dolphin was free.

  ‘Get out of here!’ Jordan mind-whispered.

  Who knows if Pip heard him. But he seemed to take Jordan’s advice. With a flick of his tail, the baby dolphin was gone, leaving Jordan alone in the middle of the little bay.

  Well, not quite alone.

  Out towards the open sea, where Tilly and the bull shark had swum, was a big grey fin. It was coming in Jordan’s direction.

  It was the bull shark.

  ‘GET OUT OF THERE!’ yelled Harry. ‘SWIM, JORDAN, SWIM!’

  But Jordan didn’t swim. He was too far from shore. And the shark was too close. He would never make it in time.

  Closing the Do-Anything knife’s little saw blade, Jordan opened its longest blade again. It wasn’t a shark-fighting blade, but it would have to do.

  Then he turned and waited as the bull shark swam closer and closer.

  17

  SHARK’S BREAKFAST

  ‘Help!’ Jordan mind-whispered, as the huge shark came gliding towards him.

  Tilly was his only hope, but would she hear? Was mind-whispering real anyway, or just made up? Jordan wanted it to be real. He wanted more than anything else in the world for the mother dolphin to hear him and come to his rescue.

  But was she even alive? he thought.

  The bull shark might have killed her.

  Gulp!

  The huge shark came closer and closer. It didn’t seem to be in a hurry. It must have known that Jordan couldn’t get away.

  But he did have a knife.

  ‘Bring it on!’ Jordan said through his chattering teeth, even though he didn’t mean it.

  And he remembered the last thing his parents had said to him and Harry: Have fun, boys!

  If only they could see him now. He was about to become a shark’s breakfast.

  That was about as UN-fun as you could get.

  18

  SWIM, AGENT J!

  SPLASH!

  Something landed in the water next to Jordan. It was a stick with a bundle of red rags tied to one end.

  ‘SHOVE IT IN THE SHARK’S MOUTH, AGENT J!’ yelled Agent H.

  It was Harry’s stick. Tied to the end were the blood-stained bandages that had been wrapped around Harry’s foot.

  Jordan dropped the knife and grabbed the stick. He pushed the end with the bandages on it down into the water – just in front of the approaching shark. The bull shark must have smelled the blood, because it changed direction slightly, away from Jordan and towards the stick.

  CHOMP!

  There was a huge swirl of water as the shark spun away from Jordan with Harry’s stick poking out of its mouth like a long, bent cigar.

  ‘SWIM, AGENT J!’ yelled Agent H.

  Agent J swam.

  19

  CATERPILLAR POO

  The twins didn’t tell their parents. Well, not the whole story, anyway.

  Jordan said they had seen a bull shark going after a baby dolphin and its mother.

  Harry showed them his cut toe and said they had thrown the bloody bandages to the shark, and the dolphins had got away.

  They didn’t say that Pip was tangled in a net, or that Jordan had swum out to free him.

  They didn’t say that Jordan had nearly been eaten.

  It was better if their parents didn’t find out stuff like that when they were on holiday. Holidays were for relaxing.

  Unless you were a Mission Fox agent and there were animals in trouble.

  Like hungry caterpillars.

  ‘See you later, Mum and Dad!’ Harry called, hopping across the veranda after lunch.

  Jordan followed him, carrying the shoe box.

  ‘Where are you going?’ asked their dad.

  ‘To the lighthouse,’ Harry answered.

  ‘What about your foot?’ said their mum.

  The island’s doctor had put two stitches in Harry’s foot, but Harry was used to getting stitches and two was hardly any. His record was eight, when he jumped off their grandparents’ water tank when he was being Captain Amazing. That’s how he got the scar on his cheek.

  ‘I can hop,’ he said.

  ‘You can’t hop all the way to the lighthouse!’ Their dad laughed.

  In the end, they drove. The resort had some little buggies, like golf carts, for getting around the island. Mr Fox borrowed one and drove the twins to the lighthouse. Their mum went, too.

  ‘What a marvellous view!’ she said when they arrived.

  ‘Wonderful!’ said their dad.

  The twins weren’t interested in the view. They had a job to do. Jordan hurried over to the pepper tree while Harry switched on the FoxPhone. They had driven up to the highest point on the island where there might be a phone signal.

  ‘It’s connected!’ Harry said.

  ‘Click on BRAIN X-TRA’, Jordan called from under the tree.

  He was looking at the ground. It was covered with the little black things he’d noticed last time they were here. Now he knew where he’d seen them before – in the bottom of the shoe box.

  It was caterpillar poo!

  ‘Check this out!’ Harry said excitedly. He hopped over and showed Jordan what had come up on BRAIN X-TRA.

  ‘Mission Fox is in business!’ said Jordan, and ran back to the buggy to get the shoe box.

  20

  CODE BRIGHT RED

  BRAIN X-TRA was right. As soon as the twins put the eight skinny emperor gum caterpillars on a low branch, they started eating the little spear-shaped leaves – even though it was daytime and they were meant to be asleep.

  ‘I guess they’ve got a lot of catching up to do,’ Harry said.

  Jordan nodded. ‘Imagine going two days without food. We messed up big time when we brought them here!’

  ‘But they’re happy now,’ said Harry. ‘And if we hadn’t brought them to the island, we wouldn’t have come up here looking for gum trees and spotted Pip and Tilly. And we wouldn’t have done a Code Blue Rescue.’

  Jordan tried to remember the Mission Fox Danger Codes. They were written on a chart back at MF headquarters.

  ‘No way was that just a Code Blue Rescue!’ Jordan said. ‘There was a bull shark! That’s at least a Code Red!’

  ‘But we didn’t rescue the bull shark,’ said Harry. ‘We rescued the baby dolphin. Baby animal rescues are Code Blue.’

  ‘I nearly got eaten!’ said Jordan.

  ‘But you didn’t,’ said Harry. ‘Anyway, the codes are about rescuing animals, not people.’

  Jordan rolled his eyes. They’d had fights like this before. Usually it was Harry who tried to get higher codes for their rescues.

  ‘You’re just jealous because I got to swim with sharks,’ he said.

  Harry’s face went pink. ‘I would have done it if I didn’t cut my foot.’

  Jordan nodded. ‘There should be a bit on the Danger Code that says if one of us gets hurt in a rescue, it’s automatically a Code Red. So really it’s because of you, Agent H, that rescuing Pip was a Code Red Rescue.’

  Harry looked down at his foot and wriggled his sore toe. ‘That’s a good rule, Agent J,’ he said. ‘And there should be a bit ab
out stitches. If one of us gets stitches, it should be a Code Bright Red Rescue.’

  Jordan smiled. ‘Good thinking, Agent H!’

  And they gave each other the secret Mission Fox handshake.

  FOR JORDAN AND ASHLEY

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  First published by Penguin Group (Australia), 2011

  Text copyright © Justin D’Ath, 2011

  Illustrations copyright © Heath McKenzie, 2011

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

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  ISBN: 978-1-74-253363-6