Ziggy and the Plugfish

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PRAISE FOR

ziggy and the plugfish ‘What a day. Father swallowed by jellyfish. Hijacked by nuclear submarine. Sucked into a hole at the bottom of the ocean … Next holidays I’m playing mini-golf.’ Shayla Martin ‘I thought I was going to be an orphan, and have to make my own sandwiches and everything!’ Ziggy Plunkett ‘We must destroy the jellyfish, Squidsworth. Full speed to the bottom of the ocean. What course are we on?’ Admiral Crushmore ‘Main course, sir. Steak and chips.’ Lieutenant Squidsworth ‘My ute! Forty thousand dollars worth of prestige off-road vehicle, gone forever!’ Shane Martin Jonathan Harlen is ‘a master of the off-the-wall, over-the-top, gross-out story.’ Age

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Jonathan Harlen lives on the north coast of New South Wales with his wife and far too many children. He was born in New Zealand and still supports the All Blacks, except when they lose. His research for this book included months studying the Pacific Ocean, which he describes as ‘a big wet mess with lots of fish in it’. He once visited the centre of the Earth, but none of the pubs were open, so he came home.

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jonathan harlen

z iggy and the plugfish

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First published in 2005 Copyright © Jonathan Harlen 2005 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act. Allen & Unwin 83 Alexander St Crows Nest NSW 2065 Australia Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100 Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218 Email: [email protected] Web: www.allenandunwin.com National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry: Harlen, Jonathan, 1963-. Ziggy and the plugfish. For children. ISBN 1 74114 402 7 1. Holidayss – Juvenile fiction. I. Title. A823.3 Cover and text design by Ellie Exarchos Cover illustration by Nathan Jurevicius Original text design by Wayne Harris Set in 12/18 pt Goudy by Midland Typesetters, Maryborough Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

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Contents 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Swallowed Alive

1

Panic Stations Shayla

9

14

The Rescue

24

Curtains for Mr Martin Gelignite

31

36

The Submarine Stowaways

44

51

Admiral Crushmore

58

‘There Are People in There!’ Ostra-Aliens The President

74 79

Ziggy’s Bright Idea The Mini-Sub

86

93

The Jellyfish Again

101

A Heroic Sacrifice

108

The President Intervenes A Mystery Solved The Plugfish

66

129 v

123

116

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1 Swallowed Alive A terrible thing happened to Ziggy Plunkett. His parents were swallowed alive by a jellyfish, right in front of his eyes. This tragic event took place on the very first day of the Plunkett family’s summer holidays. Ziggy and his parents had come to stay in a small wooden shack near the beach. Ziggy woke up very early, bursting with excitement at the thought of his first swim. ‘Hey, Dad, coming to the beach?’ he said, putting his head around the door of his parents’ room. Mr Plunkett was lying in bed with a pillow over his head. ‘Mmmmfrrrgggk!’ he said into the pillow. He sat up. ‘Sigmund, it’s not even six o’clock in the morning. You can’t be serious.’ ‘But Dad—’ 1

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‘If there’s one thing I hate more than driving to the beach, it’s actually getting there,’ Mr Plunkett said grumpily. ‘I hope you’re happy, Sigmund. Thanks to you, we’ve got two weeks of crowds, sunburn, crab-bites, freezing cold water, and sand up our backsides.’ ‘Two weeks!’ Mrs Plunkett groaned, sitting up beside her husband. ‘I can’t stand it! Flies everywhere! Getting bashed to death in those horrible messy waves! Why couldn’t we have come in winter? It would’ve been so much cooler then. We could have huddled together around the fire and sung folk songs.’ Ziggy grinned. He was used to his parents grumbling and complaining like this. They’d been doing it for days. Four thousand one hundred and fifteen days, to be precise, which was exactly the number that had passed since he was born. ‘Oh all right.’ Mr Plunkett threw back his side of the sheet and heaved his large, singlet-covered stomach out of bed. ‘Now that we’re here, we may as well get up and get on with it. But don’t think we’re going down to the beach every morning at this hour. Your mother and I want to have a holiday too.’ Fifteen minutes later they were all dressed and on their way to the beach. Mr and Mrs Plunkett had 2

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traded their normal city clothes for knee-length boardshorts and brightly coloured UV tops, with floppy hats and wrap-around mirror sunglasses. They had both smeared their skin with so much sunscreen that they looked as though they’d fallen in a vat of mayonnaise. ‘Have I covered my ears, Howard?’ Mrs Plunkett asked, as they set off down the track that led through the dunes. ‘Yes, dear,’ her husband replied. ‘Your ears are fine.’ ‘And the back of my neck? I’d hate to get burned there.’ ‘Yes, dear. Your neck is fine too.’ ‘One good thing about going early,’ Mrs Plunkett went on with a sigh, ‘at least there won’t be any crowds. No dogs shaking water all over us. No frisbees. I can almost enjoy the beach at this hour. As long as I don’t have to swim.’ Ziggy shook his head. Sometimes he wondered how he had ended up with two such completely unadventurous parents. Maybe, he thought, he had been swapped in the hospital at birth. If that was true, then somewhere out there were two extremely sporty, outdoorsy parents stuck with a total wimp for a son. 3

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The path wound on through sand dunes for another hundred metres. Ziggy strode on ahead, hearing the sound of the surf grow louder, and feeling his heart beat faster with each step. Finally he emerged between the last two dunes onto the windswept, deserted beach. He gazed south towards the headland. That was when he saw it. The jellyfish – if that’s what it was – was by far the weirdest thing that Ziggy had ever seen. This was not because of its colour, which was a clear pale blue on the outside, shading to deep dark blue in the middle. It was not because of its shape, which was like a half-deflated balloon, and not because of its smell, which was strong and fishy. What made the creature so utterly extraordinary was its size. It was as big as a house. Ziggy stared in amazement. Surely you couldn’t get jellyfish that big, could you? Could it be a hot-air balloon that had just landed? Or some kind of beach ball, left behind after a game between Godzilla and the Big Friendly Giant? But no. Coming closer – so close he could almost reach up and touch its skin – Ziggy could clearly see the jelly, oozing and swirling inside. 4

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It was a jellyfish all right. And Ziggy knew at once that it had come from a very long way away. ‘Sigmund! Sigmu-u-und! What are you doing? Get away from that thing!’ Mr Plunkett shouted. ‘D’you hear me? That’s an order!’ ‘But Dad, it’s just a jellyfish!’ ‘I don’t care what it is!’ his father exclaimed. ‘You just come back here right now! Leave this to me!’ ‘Let’s go home, Howard,’ Mrs Plunkett said. ‘Let’s go home, and I’ll heat up some nice croissants and camembert.’ ‘In a minute, dear,’ Mr Plunkett said. ‘It’s not every day you see something that big washed up on the beach. Sigmund’s right, I think. It must be a jellyfish. But will you look at the size of it! It’s as big as a whale!’ ‘It might be still alive,’ Ziggy said. ‘We should call somebody up, and rescue it.’ ‘Rescue it!’ Mr Plunkett spluttered. ‘That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard! Who are we going to call to rescue it? The jellyfish rescue squad?’ ‘The same people who rescue dolphins and whales, I guess,’ Ziggy said. ‘We can’t rescue it, because it’s dead,’ Mr Plunkett said firmly. ‘It must be. Nothing living could ever smell that bad.’ 5

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‘Actually, jellyfish always smell that bad,’ Ziggy said. ‘It’s only after they’re dead that they stop smelling.’ ‘It’s not moving, is it?’ Mr Plunkett retorted. ‘Look at it. It’s completely motionless. That proves it’s dead.’ ‘Jellyfish can’t move on land,’ Ziggy said. ‘It’s impossible for them. I know it seems like it’s dead, but it could easily still be alive.’ Mr Plunkett’s ears began to go red. He was the sort of man who hated being wrong, even when he was arguing over something he knew absolutely nothing about. He especially hated being wrong when he was arguing with his eleven-year-old son. Ziggy knew a lot about the ocean, as it happened, because he had studied it. He wanted to be a marine biologist when he grew up. ‘Look Mr Smarty-pants Jellyfish Expert,’ Mr Plunkett snapped. ‘It’s dead, all right? It’s carked it. It’s dropped off the twig. If it was a goldfish, right now it would be floating upside down in the bowl. I’m going to show you that it’s dead, and end this annoying little discussion once and for all.’ Mr Plunkett stomped back up into the dunes. He searched for a while until he found a strong-looking stick, and picked it up. 6

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‘Howard?’ Mrs Plunkett said. ‘Howard, what are you doing?’ ‘I’m proving that this jellyfish is dead, my dear,’ Mr Plunkett said. He strode off down the beach, stick in hand, and stopped about a metre away from the jellyfish. ‘You watch!’ he called back to Ziggy and Mrs Plunkett. ‘If it reacts when I poke it with this stick, then it’s alive. If it doesn’t, then it’s dead. Okay?’ ‘What are you expecting it to do, dear?’ Mrs Plunkett said. ‘Jump?’ ‘It’ll wobble, or change colour, or squeak, or something!’ Mr Plunkett said. ‘Why don’t you ask your son, he’s the jellyfish expert!’ ‘Boy, is he ever in a bad mood,’ Ziggy muttered to his mother. ‘Well, you shouldn’t have got him up at this ungodly hour to come down to the beach,’ Mrs Plunkett said. Then to her husband she went on, ‘It’s not too late to go back, darling! Remember those croissants and camembert!’ ‘I’m not going back until I’ve proved my point!’ Mr Plunkett said. ‘You just stay right where you are, and see if it changes colour, or wobbles!’ So saying, he lifted up his stick and jabbed at the jellyfish’s skin. 7

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What happened next happened so fast that Ziggy and his mother hardly saw it. As soon as Mr Plunkett’s stick touched the skin, a great glistening blob of blue jelly shot out. It swamped Mr Plunkett like a tidal wave. It smothered him like a candy bar dipped in chocolate. Then, before he even had time to cry out, it sucked him in through the jellyfish’s skin. He was gone.

8

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2 Panic Stations

‘Howa-a-a-ard!’ Mrs Plunkett screamed. ‘It’s got him! It’s swallowed him up! Help! Help!’ She began dancing around hysterically, waving her arms in the air and letting out little mewling yelps of panic. Then all at once she took off across the sand towards the jellyfish. Ziggy ran after her and grabbed her just before she hurled herself at the giant blue blob. ‘Mum, what are you doing?’ he shouted. ‘It’ll swallow you too!’ ‘But it’s got your father!’ she shrieked. ‘He’s been eaten! That thing swallowed him whole!’ ‘Well, at least we can see him. Look!’ Peering in through the jellyfish’s transparent outer layer, Ziggy 9

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could just make out the dim, distorted figure of his father floating deep inside. ‘Is he dead?’ Mrs Plunkett asked. ‘Oh please, don’t let him be dead!’ She stared at him for a few seconds, then gave a sudden loud gasp. ‘There! He moved! I definitely saw him move!’ Ziggy watched carefully. Sure enough, Mr Plunkett had begun slowly moving his arms and legs. It looked as though he was trying to swim toward them, but he wasn’t getting very far. ‘Howard!’ Mrs Plunkett shrieked. ‘Howard, can you hear me? Are you all right?’ Mr Plunkett stopped swimming. He glanced up and gave them a slow-motion wave. ‘Hello out there!’ he called, speaking in a tiny, muffled voice, like a mouse with a mouthful of custard. ‘Yes, don’t worry about me! I’m okay!’ ‘What are you talking about?’ Mrs Plunkett sobbed. ‘Of course you’re not okay! You’ve been digested by a gigantic transparent blob!’ ‘I haven’t been digested yet,’ Mr Plunkett said. ‘At least, I don’t think I have.’

‘But you’ll die!’ Mrs Plunkett wailed. ‘You’ll run out of air, any second now!’ ‘Actually, I can breathe quite well,’ Mr Plunkett replied. ‘There must be some oxygen in the jelly. I can’t move very well,

10

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though. Every time I try to swim forward, I get pushed back to where I started.’

‘My darling!’ Mrs Plunkett sobbed. ‘Tell me what you see! Is there a tunnel? With a white light at the end? And angels?’ ‘No dear,’

Mr Plunkett said.

‘Just a whacking great lump

of jelly.’

‘He’s losing it!’ Mrs Plunkett gasped. ‘I can’t let it end like this! Hold on, Howard! Stay where you are! I’ll save you!’ Before Ziggy could stop her, she made a mad dash towards the jellyfish. She hit the side of it with a resounding splat. Ziggy just had time to drop onto the sand and roll away before another lightning-fast blob of blue jelly shot out and smothered his mother from head to foot. A split second later she was deep inside the jellyfish, rotating slowly next to her husband. ‘Oh!’ she gasped. ‘Oh, it’s awful in here! It stinks! This jelly is choking me! Howa-a-ard!’

Mr Plunkett said. He struggled a couple of metres sideways, and grabbed her by the arm. ‘Don’t fight against it. Just relax, and let yourself ‘Calm down, Denise,’

breathe.’ ‘I can’t believe we’re still alive,’ possible? We’ve both been swallowed!’

11

she said.

‘How is that

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‘I don’t know,’

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Mr Plunkett said.

‘It doesn’t make any

sense to me either.’ ‘It’s almost like floating on air,’

Mrs Plunkett went on.

‘This jelly is like a thick, swirling mist. I feel as though I’m lying on a waterbed, although usually with waterbeds you lie on top of them, not inside them.’

‘The jellyfish must be trying to keep you there,’ Ziggy said. ‘If it hasn’t eaten you straight away, that means it’s probably saving you up for later, when it gets hungry.’ ‘Oh terrific,’ Mr Plunkett said. ‘That’s very comforting. Thanks.’ ‘But how’s it going to eat us?’

Mrs Plunkett asked. ‘What

with? I don’t see any sign of a mouth.’

‘It’ll probably squirt you with stomach acid, and then dissolve you,’ Ziggy explained. A stunned silence followed this remark. ‘Squirt us with stomach acid?’ Mr Plunkett echoed. ‘Did you say dissolve us?’ ‘It’ll ruin my complexion!’

Mrs Plunkett cried. ‘Not to

mention my hair and my nails! Howa-a-a-ard!’

For the second time in as many minutes, the Plunketts did their best to fight their way to the edge of the jellyfish. It was no use. No matter how much they flapped their arms and kicked their legs they stayed exactly where they were. 12

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‘There’s no way out!’

Mrs Plunkett wailed. ‘It’s hopeless!

We’re doomed!’ ‘Go and get somebody!’

Mr Plunkett called out to

Ziggy. ‘The police! The fire brigade! The Jellyfish Rescue Squad! Anybody!’

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3 Shayla

Ziggy turned and sprinted to the edge of the dunes. He had just reached the beginning of the path when he collided with a girl. She was running full pelt towards the ocean. Ziggy was running full pelt the other way. Ziggy charged smack into the girl’s boogie board, with a crack like the sound of a bone breaking, followed by several loud thumps. They both ended up flat on their backs, arms and legs tangled, covered in sand. ‘Hey!’ the girl shouted, her blue eyes flashing with anger. ‘Watch where you’re going, dumb-head!’ She untangled herself and sat up, shaking out her long blonde hair. ‘Sorry,’ Ziggy mumbled. He sat up a lot more slowly than she had. The loud cracking noise was still 14

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ringing in his ears. He wondered if he’d broken any bones. ‘Sorry,’ he said again. ‘I didn’t see you. You all right?’ ‘You busted my board!’ the girl shouted, picking up a chunk of fibreglass, and waving it at him. ‘It was brand-new!’ she went on. ‘This was only my second go with it! Now look at it!’ That explained the crack, at least. It wasn’t Ziggy’s spine after all. Looking down, he could see that the boogie board had broken into three separate pieces. It looked as though it had been attacked by a shark. ‘It can’t have been a very good board if it broke so easily,’ he said. ‘It probably would’ve snapped under a wave.’ ‘So I’m lucky you broke my board?’ she said. ‘Is that what you’re saying? I’m lucky you came charging around the corner like a wounded rhinoceros and just about knocked my head off?’ Ziggy got to his feet beside her, brushing sand off his shorts. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘I don’t have time for this. I’m sorry I broke your board. It was an accident. That’s life. Now I’ve really got to get going.’ He headed up the path again until the girl grabbed his foot. ‘No you don’t,’ she said. They struggled, 15

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pulling each other this way and that. Ziggy managed to get away and scramble up the side of a sand dune, before the girl grabbed him again from behind. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘You owe me. That board was a present from Santa. It cost him at least twenty-five bucks.’ ‘I’m busy,’ Ziggy said. ‘Leave me alone.’ ‘You want to fight me?’ the girl said coolly. ‘Bring it on. You don’t know who you’re messing with. I’m a green belt, brown tip.’ ‘I’m a Taurus,’ Ziggy said, and jerked his arm free. ‘Hee-yaa!’ Before he could take another step, the girl had spun around and karate-kicked him in the stomach. He doubled over, winded from the blow. Next thing he knew the girl had him in a headlock, and was pushing his face hard into the top of the dune. ‘Right,’ the girl said. ‘Where was I? Oh yeah. You broke my boogie board, which was a present from Santa. It cost him at least thirty bucks. So –’ ‘You said – pffffff! – twenty-five!’ Ziggy protested, spitting out a big gob of sand. ‘At least thirty bucks –’ the girl went on. ‘And that was on sale. Which means you either need to buy me a new board yourself, or give me the money so I can—’ 16

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She stopped all of a sudden, and let Ziggy go. Ziggy knew straight away that she had spotted the jellyfish. ‘What on earth—?’ she said. ‘Is that a jellyfish? No, it can’t be! It can’t be!’ ‘It is,’ Ziggy said quickly. ‘It swallowed my parents. That’s why I knocked you over. I was running to get help.’ ‘That’s a jellyfish?’ the girl repeated. ‘’Fraid so. We thought it was dead, or at least my father did, but it wasn’t. When he touched it, it shot out this big blob of jelly and swallowed him. Then it swallowed my mother when she tried to rescue him. They’re both still alive, and floating in the middle of it. I’ve got to go and get help.’ The girl looked from Ziggy to the jellyfish, then back to Ziggy again. ‘That thing . . . swallowed somebody?’ she said. ‘Yes,’ Ziggy repeated patiently. ‘My parents. Look, I’d love to stay here and talk about it, but they’re in trouble. I’ve really got to go.’ ‘Wait!’ the girl said suddenly. ‘I might be able to help. My father’s an officer in the rescue squad. We’ve got a holiday house just up the beach.’ Ziggy hesitated. He had promised his parents that he would call someone on the phone. But wasn’t it 17

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better if he spoke to someone from the rescue squad in person? ‘Come on,’ the girl said impatiently. She took off at full speed along the path. Ziggy hesitated another second, then followed her. He didn’t doubt that her father really was an officer in the rescue squad. That explained everything. The karate chops. The green belt, brown tip. The bossy way she talked, as if she was in charge of the whole world. She could run fast, too. Ziggy was wheezing like a sick walrus when he finally caught up to her. She was waiting at a fork in the path. One way led north, through the casuarina trees to Ziggy’s parents’ holiday house. The other way led south. She went south. ‘My name’s Shayla, by the way,’ she called back as she ran. ‘Shayla Martin. Sorry if I hurt you back there. I didn’t mean to. I was just really steamed that you broke my board.’ ‘No worries,’ Ziggy panted. ‘I’m Ziggy Plunkett. I’ll buy you another board as soon as I can.’ They soon reached Shayla’s holiday house. It was a small white weatherboard cottage, similar to Ziggy’s parents’ place. There were glass sliding doors at the back, leading onto the lawn. Ziggy could see a man 18

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dressed in a dressing gown in the living room, sitting reading a newspaper. ‘Dad, Dad, get dressed!’ Shayla shouted, as she sprinted across the lawn towards the sliding doors. ‘Hurry! There’s some people on the beach getting eaten!’ She yanked open the sliding doors and ran inside. Her father leapt to his feet. He was a tall, fit-looking, barrel-chested man with a receding hairline and a thick black moustache. ‘Eaten!’ he boomed. ‘Crikey! By what?’ ‘By a jellyfish!’ Shayla said. ‘It’s incredible, Dad! Probably as big as this house! It’s swallowed up Ziggy’s parents, and they’re still inside!’ Mr Martin opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He picked up a floppy white cricket hat from the chair next to his, and plonked it on his head. ‘Right then!’ he said in the same booming voice. ‘We’d better get going, eh? A jellyfish, you reckon?’ He turned to look at Ziggy uncertainly. ‘So where is it now then? What’s it doing?’ ‘It’s lying on the beach,’ Ziggy said. ‘It got washed up during the night.’ ‘And where are your parents again?’ Mr Martin asked. ‘Are they being eaten, or have they been eaten? 19

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What’s the state of play?’ ‘They’ve been eaten, but they’re still alive,’ Ziggy explained. ‘They’re inside the jellyfish, floating around.’ ‘Floating around.’ Mr Martin nodded. ‘Okeydokey. Inside the jellyfish. And they’re not dead?’ ‘No,’ Ziggy said. ‘I talked to them just before I left.’ Mr Martin shot Ziggy a suspicious look. His decisive, purposeful expression disappeared, and was replaced by a puzzled frown. ‘Now then, sonny,’ he said. ‘You’re not having me on, are you?’ ‘No!’ Ziggy protested. ‘Honest! That’s exactly what happened!’ Mr Martin nodded. He strode into the kitchen and swept up his car keys from the bench. ‘Sounds tricky,’ he said. ‘Still, it can’t be half as bad as that giraffe that got stuck in the carwash, can it, Shaz? We’ll have your parents out in two shakes of a duck’s tail.’ ‘You’re still in your dressing gown, Dad,’ Shayla reminded him. ‘Eh?’ Mr Martin looked down in surprise at his red dressing gown and yellow-and-blue striped pyjamas. He was also wearing fluffy white lambskin slippers. 20

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‘Crikey,’ he said. ‘Ah well. No time to get changed now. Human life is at stake. Every second we delay could be vital.’ ‘Do you want me to call an ambulance before we leave?’ Shayla asked. ‘Yeah, good idea,’ her father replied. ‘Tell ’em it’s a shark attack, though. Don’t mention the jellyfish. They get a lot of prank calls. And call the police as well.’ Shayla hurried to the telephone. Mr Martin strode off purposefully towards the sliding doors. ‘I’ll check that all the stuff’s in the ute,’ he said. ‘As soon as you two have finished, come out.’ He disappeared through the doors and around the side of the house. Shayla quickly made her calls. Then she and Ziggy followed. Around the front of the house, squeezed into a narrow carport, was a new and very flash-looking dual-cab Holden ute. It had everything. Mag wheels. Bull-bars. CB radio antennae. Sheepskin seatcovers. Its windows were tinted so dark they were almost black. An air-cooled turbo inductor jutted up like a periscope from the front bonnet. ‘That’s Dad’s new ute,’ Shayla said proudly. ‘It’s top of the range. All the extras. It’s even got a winch. If anyone can get your parents out from 21

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inside that jellyfish, my dad can.’ Mr Martin was already behind the wheel of the ute. He had started the engine, and was gunning it fit to bust. Shayla swung herself up onto the tray at the back and sat down. ‘You coming?’ she asked Ziggy. ‘In the back?’ Ziggy said. ‘Sure, why not?’ Shayla said. ‘It’s great in here. Much more fun.’ Ziggy was not a coward, but he had never before ridden in the back of a hotted-up Holden ute. Shayla’s father didn’t strike him as the Sunday driver type, either. He struck Ziggy more as the type to award himself ten points every time he ran over a little old lady. ‘You sure you don’t want to go in the front?’ he said. ‘What?’ Shayla yelled, shouting above the roar of the engine as her father gunned it still louder. ‘What did you say?’ ‘What’s the hold-up back there?’ Shayla’s father honked his horn. ‘Come on, you two! We’re wasting time!’ ‘You’d better get in,’ Shayla said to Ziggy. ‘He’ll go without you. He’ll stop at nothing when human life is at stake.’ 22

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Ziggy took a deep breath and climbed up into the tray of the ute next to Shayla. It’s perfectly all right, he told himself. This man’s an officer in the rescue squad. He’s highly trained. He’s probably driven in hundreds of high-speed car chases. I’m in absolutely no danger at all. Shayla’s father revved the engine again. The whole car shook as if they were about to blast off on a mission to Mars. ‘Hang on tight back there!’ Mr Martin shouted. ‘It’s rescue time! We’re gonna shake, rattle and roll!’

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4 The Rescue

Ziggy had once been to Dreamworld. He had been up the Tower of Terror. He had been down the Big Drop. He had ridden the Corkscrew and the Wipe Out and the Gravitron, laughing all the way. None of these compared with sitting in the back of that ute with Shayla, while Mr Martin drove through the dunes. No matter how big and steep the dune in front of Mr Martin was, he went over it. He changed down a gear, planted his foot on the accelerator, and charged. Sand sprayed everywhere. Branches whipped back and forth across the cab. Ziggy and Shayla bucked and jerked and slid in every possible direction. Ziggy hung on for dear life, gripping the metal bar behind the cab until his arms ached. 24

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‘Does your dad always drive like this?’ he shouted to Shayla, as they plunged headlong up yet another dune. ‘No, he usually goes faster,’ Shayla replied. ‘He’s taking it easy because we’re in the back.’ Just then, above the unceasing roar of the engine, Ziggy heard Mr Martin calling out to them. ‘You know the plan when we get there, Shaz?’ he said. ‘I think so,’ Shayla called back. ‘The harness?’ ‘Spot on,’ her father said. ‘We’ll clip it to the winch-rope, and get the jellyfish to swallow it. Then, with a bit of luck, we’ll be able to winch everyone out.’ ‘No worries, Dad,’ Shayla shouted. Then to Ziggy she explained, ‘He means the rescue harness. You know the ones. They use them in helicopter rescues. You put them on like a lifejacket, then clip them to the end of a rope so you can be hauled out of the water.’ Ziggy nodded. He’d seen a harness like that on the TV news, rescuing a sailor from a stranded yacht. He had never seen one being used to rescue two people from a jellyfish, but it sounded promising. ‘What if it doesn’t work?’ he said. ‘Have you got any other ideas?’ 25

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‘Oh sure,’ Shayla said. ‘Dad’ll use the shotty, probably.’ ‘A shotgun?’ Ziggy stared at her. ‘Your dad has a shotgun?’ ‘Of course,’ Shayla said. ‘He always brings it. He keeps it strapped to the underside of the seat. Next to the explosives.’ All at once the ute plunged over the last of the dunes. It dropped almost vertically down onto the beach. Ziggy hung on for one last bone-jarring jolt, then gave a groan of relief as the ute sped smoothly along the sand. Shayla nodded in sympathy. ‘I know, it’s a shame, eh?’ she said. ‘We’d only just got going. But don’t worry. Dad can take us for another ride when we’ve finished.’ The jellyfish was exactly where they had left it. Deep inside it, Ziggy could see the small, distorted, dark-blue outlines of his parents, moving their arms and legs slowly as they rotated near the centre. A wave of relief washed over him. They hadn’t suffocated, or been dissolved in stomach acid. So far so good. Mr Martin stopped the ute twenty metres from the jellyfish. He got out. Shayla and Ziggy climbed down from the back of the ute to join him. 26

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‘Holy Toledo,’ Mr Martin said, squinting up at the morning sun as he inspected the massive creature. ‘You weren’t kidding. That thing’s a monster.’ ‘Do you know what it is, Mr Martin?’ Ziggy asked. ‘Have you seen one before?’ ‘Never,’ Mr Martin said. ‘Mind you, I’m not exactly the world’s greatest authority on jellyfish.’ ‘I can see your parents!’ Shayla called suddenly to Ziggy. She had gone on ahead, and was standing close to the jellyfish’s skin, peering inside. ‘There they are, right in the middle!’ Ziggy joined her. He had no idea if his parents could see him, but he gave them a wave anyway. ‘Mum, Dad, it’s me, Ziggy!’ he shouted. ‘I’m back! I’ve brought some people to rescue you!’ ‘About time,’ Mr Plunkett grumbled. ‘It’s getting very warm in here. The sun’s starting to make the jelly heat up.’ ‘My hair is going all slimy and stringy,’

Mrs Plunkett said.

‘I can’t do a thing with it. How soon can you get us out?’

‘I think I’d better answer that, madam.’ Mr Martin stepped forward importantly, forgetting that he was still dressed in his dressing gown, striped pyjamas, fluffy white slippers and cricket hat. ‘My name is Shane Martin,’ he said. ‘I’m from the rescue squad. My daughter Shayla and I have got the situation entirely under control. I would ask 27

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you to stay calm at this time, and not make any sudden movements. We’ll have you back on dry land very shortly.’ Mr Martin explained the plan. Both Mr and Mrs Plunkett thought it was a wonderful idea. While Mr Martin was talking, Shayla got the harness out of the ute and clipped it to the winch on the front bumper. Then Mr Martin got back behind the wheel of the ute and turned on the engine, so the winchrope could unwind. The winch-rope was made of thick, plaited steel. It looked tremendously strong. Ziggy wasn’t sure yet whether it would be strong enough to pull his parents out from the middle of the jellyfish. He also didn’t know how they were going to get the jellyfish to swallow the harness, without he and Shayla being swallowed as well. ‘If either of us are touching it when it touches the jellyfish, we’re history,’ he explained to Shayla. ‘That’s exactly what happened to my father, when he used his stick. We’ll have to throw the harness, and hope it gets swallowed that way.’ ‘Are you volunteering?’ Shayla said with a grin. Ziggy nodded. ‘They’re my parents,’ he said. ‘I guess I should be the one to rescue them.’ He picked up the harness and began walking 28

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with it towards the jellyfish. Behind him, Mr Martin kept the engine of the ute running. Spools of the plaited winch-rope were unwinding slowly onto the sand. ‘I’m going to throw this against the jellyfish’s skin and let it get swallowed!’ he explained to his parents, once he was close enough. ‘It should end up in the centre, somewhere near the two of you! When that happens, one of you needs to grab it!’ He raised the harness and swung it back, holding several coils of winch-rope loose in his hand. Then he tossed it, exactly as he would have tossed a lasso. It soared through the air and hit the side of the jellyfish halfway up. WHOOSH!!! The jellyfish gobbled up the harness like an elephant gobbling up a peanut. Yes! Ziggy raised a fist in triumph. The harness was now in the middle of the jelly, exactly where he’d thought it would be. His mother was struggling towards it. The rope clipped to the end of it was now pulled tight, poking out the side of the jellyfish like the stick of a lollipop, and running above the sand all the way back to the ute. ‘I’m nearly there! I’m nearly there!’ Mrs Plunkett called to Ziggy. 29

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‘She’s nearly there! She’s nearly there!’ Ziggy called to Shayla and Mr Martin. ‘Get ready to haul it in!’ Shayla called to her father. ‘She’s got the harness! She’s putting it on! She’s got an arm in! She’s got her other arm in! We’re just about ready to go!’ But then, just as Mrs Plunkett went to fasten the harness in front of her, disaster struck. A second blob of jelly – much larger than the first – came shooting out from the jellyfish. It latched onto the rope leading back to the ute, and zoomed along it like a rocket, heading straight for Shayla’s father.

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5 Curtains for Mr Martin Ziggy watched in horror as the great glistening blob of jelly hit Mr Martin’s ute. There was nothing he could do to stop it. The whole thing happened much too fast. Within seconds the ute was smothered in jelly. Slowly but surely the jellyfish began reeling it in. The ute began moving across the sand. Its brakes were locked on. Its wheels weren’t turning. But it was moving all the same. It was being dragged steadily down the beach towards the jellyfish, and certain doom. ‘Dad!’ Shayla screamed. ‘Dad, get out of there quick! It’s sucking you in!’ Mr Martin took his foot off the brake. He jammed the ute into reverse. Then he planted his 31

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foot down hard on the accelerator, giving the powerful V-8 engine maximum revs. The engine roared into life. All four of the ute’s wheels began spinning backwards at incredible speed. Sand began shooting forward from under each wheel, like water spraying from a fire hose. It was no use. The ute might have been top of the range, with mag wheels, sheepskin seatcovers and all the extras, but it was no match for the power of the jellyfish. The jellyfish kept steadily reeling it in. ‘Dad, you’re losing!’ Shayla wailed. ‘You’re getting closer! Get out of there, before it’s too late!’ Mr Martin gave up trying to go in reverse. He let go of the wheel and took his foot off the accelerator. He grabbed the driver’s side door with both hands and tried to wrench it open, so he could escape. The jellyfish wouldn’t let him. It held the door tightly closed. With all hope gone, Mr Martin leapt into the back seat and began pounding his fists on the rear window. ‘Shaz! Help! It’s got me!’ he bellowed. ‘It’s swallowing me alive!’ Shayla began sprinting down the beach towards her father. Ziggy saw what she was doing and chased after her. He had to catch her. He simply had to. 32

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He ran faster than he had ever run in his life, and rugby-tackled her onto the sand. ‘You can’t! You can’t touch it!’ he yelled. ‘It’ll get you too!’ Ziggy and Shayla could only watch in despair as the jellyfish finished reeling in the ute. With a disgusting, shimmering wobble, the skin at the side of the giant creature opened up. It poured over the ute and sucked it inside the jelly. The bull-bars disappeared first. Then the bonnet and the front tyres. The windscreen went next. Then the front half of the cab. Finally the thick tide of jelly oozed over the tray of the ute and the two back wheels. As Mr Martin disappeared inside the jelly, he went completely berserk. He bashed his fists against the back window, yelling for all he was worth. ‘Shaz! Don’t let it take me! Save me, Shaz! Ahh-h-h-h-h!’

Shayla shut her eyes and put her hands over her ears. She stayed like that until everything went quiet. Then she and Ziggy sat staring at the jellyfish thoughtfully. ‘This is so weird,’ Shayla said with a sigh. ‘It even beats the giraffe trapped in the carwash. I hope that thing gets bad indigestion. That’s all I can say.’ ‘To swallow a person, I can understand that,’ 33

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Ziggy said. ‘But to swallow a ute? What sort of idiot sea-monster is this?’ They got to their feet and walked slowly towards the jellyfish. The ute was now deep inside it, hovering right-side-up, three or four metres off the sand. Mr and Mrs Plunkett were hovering close beside it, while Mr Martin was still trapped inside. Mr Martin had returned to the front seat. He was trying to call for help on his CB radio. ‘Mayday! Mayday!’ he was shouting. ‘Z-6501 to base! I’ve been eaten by a jellyfish! I repeat, I’ve been eaten by a jellyfish! I need immediate assistance! Do you copy?’

‘Dad, it’s no use!’ Shayla said. ‘Your radio won’t work! Your antenna has been snapped clean off!’ ‘What about the shotgun?’ Ziggy called out to Mr Martin. ‘You’ve still got that, haven’t you? Couldn’t you use that to blast your way out?’ Mr Martin shook his head. ‘There’s not enough room in here,’ he said. ‘The noise of the gun going off would be deafening. And once I take it out into the jelly, it won’t work at all.’

‘If only we had the explosives,’ Shayla sighed. ‘They’d do the job all right. But they’re still inside the ute, next to the shotgun. I put them there yesterday morning, when—’ She stopped. ‘Wait on!’ she said. ‘I took them out again when I got the harness! Just a few minutes ago! 34

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That means—’ She whirled around to look back up the beach. Ziggy did the same. The bag of explosives was exactly where Shayla had left it, lying on the sand. ‘Dad, I’ve got the explosives!’ Shayla said. ‘They’re right here! We can blow the jellyfish up from the outside!’ ‘Great!’ Mr Martin said. ‘That’s my girl! Go and get them, straight away! Bring the detonators, too! There’s not a moment to lose!’

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6 Gelignite

Shayla quickly retrieved the bag containing the explosives. Inside it, as she showed Ziggy, was a stack of grey tubes that looked vaguely like rolls of clingwrap. Next to these were a bulky 12-volt battery, a roll of thin copper wire, and some small black electronic devices that Ziggy didn’t recognise. ‘Those are detonators,’ Shayla said. ‘We’ve got everything. This is excellent. We can blast that big tub of fish flubber to kingdom come.’ They hurried back to the jellyfish. By that time Mr and Mrs Plunkett had hauled themselves up the side of the ute. Mr Plunkett reached the driver’s side window first, and knocked on it. ‘Excuse me,’ he said to Mr Martin. ‘It’s Shane, isn’t it? I’m Howard, by the way. Howard Plunkett. Pleased to meet you.’

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Mr Martin said. ‘Look, I don’t want to stick my nose in,’ Mr Plunkett said. ‘Pleased to meet you too,’

‘But I could have sworn you said something about explosives. Is that right?’ ‘Yes,’

Mr Martin said.

‘Talk about lucky, eh? We had ten

sticks of gelignite stored here in the ute, but Shayla took them out when she pulled out the harness.’ ‘I see,’

Mr Plunkett said. ‘So you’re planning to use these

ten sticks of gelignite? On us?’ ‘That’s right,’

Mr Martin said.

‘We’ve got enough stuff

there to blow this baby wide open. We’ll have you home in no time.’ ‘Now listen here, you horrible brute of a man!’

Plunkett burst out suddenly.

Mrs

‘First you come charging in

here in your ute, and nearly run us over! And now you want to blow us up with gelignite! You’re not blowing anything up while I’m here, I can assure you of that!’ ‘Quite right, dear,’

Mr Plunkett said.

‘Me neither. Over

my dead body.’ ‘Actually, darling, it’ll be under your dead body,’

Plunkett corrected him.

Mrs

‘Under both of our dead bodies,

I should think.’ ‘Look,’ Mr Martin said. ‘There’s no need to get stressed. It’s a perfectly normal emergency procedure. Shayla’s done it dozens of times. She’s an expert at blowing up tree stumps back home.’ ‘I am not a tree stump!’

Mr Plunkett roared.

have any part of me blown up! It’s out of the question!’

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‘I refuse to

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‘Wait a minute, Dad,’ Ziggy interrupted. ‘I know it’s risky, but it’s our only chance. Or would you rather wait till the sun starts to heat up the jelly, and boils you alive?’ At this, both Mr and Mrs Plunkett fell quiet. With the sun now rising steadily in the sky, and the temperature rising even faster, it wouldn’t be long before the jelly started to get very uncomfortable indeed. Shayla, meanwhile, had unpacked three sticks of gelignite, some detonators and the roll of copper wire. She handed one of the sticks of gelignite to Ziggy. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘You lay this. Remember, they’ve got to be equally spaced all around.’ The gelignite felt soft and gummy in Ziggy’s hands, like candle-wax. ‘Are you sure three’s the right amount?’ he said. ‘How do you know it’s not too much?’ ‘I just know,’ Shayla shrugged. ‘I’ve done this plenty of times. It’s sort of a hobby of mine. I once blew up an old gum tree in our back yard that had a magpie’s nest in it. I didn’t crack a single egg.’ Ziggy nodded. He trusted Shayla by now. He felt sure she wouldn’t do anything that might endanger her own father. He had a feeling, however, that his 38

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parents weren’t going to be too happy when they realised what he was about to do. ‘Don’t even think about it!’ Mr Plunkett said, waving his arms furiously as Ziggy approached. ‘Take that thing away! I’m warning you!’ ‘Sigmund Plunkett, if you come one step closer with that stick of gelignite, I’m cancelling your allowance!’ Mrs Plunkett said.

Shayla, who was busy laying charges on the other side of the jellyfish, looked up. ‘Sigmund Plunkett?’ she said. ‘Who’s that?’ ‘It’s not going to hurt you, I promise,’ Ziggy said to his parents. ‘Isn’t that right, Mr Martin? Nobody’s going to get hurt, are they?’ ‘Well . . .’ Mr Martin said thoughtfully. ‘Not badly hurt, no. There might be a few broken arms, cracked ribs, that sort of thing. But chances are we’ll be knocked out by the force of the blast, so we won’t feel it.’

Mrs Plunkett fainted. She had been hanging onto the side of the ute next to her husband, but now she keeled over and floated face-down in the jelly. ‘You’ll hear from my lawyer about this!’ Mr Plunkett thundered to Mr Martin. ‘And as for you, young man,’ he added, turning to look daggers at Ziggy, ‘you stop this nonsense at once! You cannot blow up your own parents!’

Ziggy’s stick of gelignite was now in position. Shayla had fixed detonators to all three sticks and 39

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was busy unrolling the detonator wire back up the beach. ‘Are you absolutely, totally sure about this?’ Ziggy said as he joined her. ‘I mean, I’ve only got one father and one mother. I’d hate to be an orphan. I’d have to make my own sandwiches and everything.’ ‘Sigmund, I’m disappointed in you,’ Shayla said. ‘Have a little faith.’ ‘Don’t call me Sigmund,’ Ziggy said. ‘Why not?’ Shayla said. ‘It’s your name isn’t it?’ ‘Just don’t,’ Ziggy said. ‘I hate it. How’d you like it if I started calling you Shaz?’ ‘Fine by me, Sigmund,’ Shayla said. A short while later, everything was ready. All Shayla had to do was connect the two ends of the wire to the battery terminals and the charges would explode. Mrs Plunkett had woken up again, and had climbed inside the ute with her husband and Mr Martin. The three of them were huddled together miserably. ‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ Mrs Plunkett sniffed. ‘Blown up by our own son. After all we’ve done for him. Where did we go wrong?’

‘I’m about to start the countdown!’ Shayla announced. ‘Please assume the emergency crash position! You may feel a bit of a bump when the charges go off!’ 40

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Ziggy held the battery. Shayla brought the two ends of the wire close to the terminals. ‘Ten,’ she said. ‘Nine. Eight—’ ‘This is your last chance, Sigmund!’ Mr Plunkett called. ‘Stop now or I’m cancelling your allowance!’

‘Two,’ Shayla said. ‘One. Zero. Here goes nothing.’ A bone-jarring, stomach-churning explosion rocked the beach. It was like something out of a war movie. Sand and pebbles and bits of shell sprayed everywhere, stinging Ziggy’s arms and legs. He dived onto the sand and shut his eyes. When he opened them again a few seconds later, he was astounded to discover that the jellyfish had disappeared. ‘It’s gone!’ he shouted at Shayla. ‘I told you three sticks was too much! You’ve blown it to bits!’ He fell to his knees in despair. All that remained of the huge creature was a great, gaping hole in the sand. No ute. No Mr and Mrs Plunkett. No Mr Martin. All vanished, vaporised by the force of the blast . . . ‘Watch out, it’s right above you!’ Shayla yelled. ‘It’s coming down!’ Ziggy looked up. No, he thought to himself. This isn’t true. The jellyfish was plummeting out of the sky. Shayla was already running. Ziggy scrambled to his feet and raced after her. The shadow of the jelly41

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fish was growing larger and larger around him. Hundreds of tonnes of glistening blue jelly were about to land on top of him, and squash him flat. He put on one last despairing sprint, and leapt through the air in a spectacular sideways dive. The jellyfish landed on the sand beside him with a loud WHUMP. Then it shot back up into the air. Up, up it went, fifty metres high. The three people inside it bounced off the inside of the ute like pinballs. ‘Oh my gosh,’ Ziggy muttered. ‘This is not good. This is not good at all.’ The jellyfish hit the ground a second time. Muffled shrieks and wails of protest came from inside. Ziggy felt sure that it was going to split open like a ripe watermelon, but it didn’t. It shot back up into the air, hovered, and came hurtling down once again. ‘It’s going to land on you!’ Shayla shouted. ‘Dive!’ Ziggy dived. The jellyfish missed him by centimetres. As it fell it hit the side of a dune, then rolled a hundred metres southward along the beach, before finally coming to rest just above the tide. For a long time there was silence. Gradually Ziggy got to his feet. He and Shayla tottered down the beach towards the jellyfish. 42

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‘Look at it,’ Shayla muttered as they approached. ‘It isn’t even scratched. I knew three sticks wasn’t enough. I should have used six.’ ‘Six would have blown it to the moon,’ Ziggy said. ‘But I still don’t think it would have split open. It’s indestructible.’ The three people inside the ute were lying motionless in a crumpled heap. They looked in bad shape. But then, as Ziggy anxiously peered forward, he saw his father slowly raise his head. ‘Dad!’ he called out. ‘Say something! Tell me you’re all right!’ ‘Please don’t blow me up again,’ Mr Plunkett croaked. ‘I couldn’t take it.’ ‘I’ve lost my earrings,’

Mrs Plunkett complained.

‘I can’t find my earrings! Howa-a-a-ard!’

By a miracle, no one was badly hurt. A few bumps and bruises, some scratches and a squashed toenail were the worst injuries. Mr Martin agreed with Ziggy that there was no point trying to blow up the jellyfish a second time, with more sticks. They just had to admit that their plan had failed. ‘If the police don’t come soon, we’re goners,’ he said in a wavering voice. ‘It’s getting really hot in here now. Almost too hot to breathe.’

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7 The Submarine

Just then, from a patch of deep water beyond the breaking surf, Ziggy and Shayla heard a very strange sound. It was a rumbling, churning, broiling sort of sound, similar to the noise made by a boat’s engine when you first start it up and the propellers begin to turn. But there was no boat anywhere. There was nothing out there. Just the sea, the sky, and the seagulls wheeling slowly overhead. Then, as Ziggy and Shayla stared in confusion, a submarine rose up. It was a large, jet-black, ocean-going submarine, complete with conning tower and periscope. It emerged from the water with white spray cascading 44

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majestically off its sides. ‘Is that what I think it is?’ Ziggy whispered hoarsely to Shayla. ‘Yes,’ Shayla whispered back. ‘It’s exactly what you think it is. But what’s it doing here?’ ‘You didn’t call it?’ Ziggy asked. ‘When you made your phone call, back at the house?’ ‘No, dumb-head!’ Shayla spluttered. ‘I called an ambulance, then the police. I don’t know how to call a submarine!’ ‘Maybe you called it by mistake,’ Ziggy said. ‘Or you got a wrong number.’ ‘You can’t call a submarine by getting a wrong number,’ Shayla said. ‘Not on a regular phone line, anyway.’ Something at the back of the submarine began to move. A section of the hull slid open, just above the waterline. A gleaming black harpoon rose up slowly. With a whirr and a click, it swivelled around automatically towards them. ‘Uh-oh,’ Shayla muttered. ‘I don’t like the look of that. It’s for shooting things, isn’t it?’ ‘I don’t think it’s for taking our picture,’ Ziggy said. ‘It’s for shooting us!’ Shayla said. ‘It’s aiming straight at us! Duck!’ 45

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They threw themselves to the sand as the harpoon fired. A strange knotted black ball came flying out the tip of it. Behind this ball, tied to the end, came a long white rope connecting it back to the submarine. The ball was not aimed at the two children. It was aimed at the jellyfish. Whoever was firing it was an excellent shot. The ball scored a direct hit, right on the top of the jellyfish. As soon as it landed, it opened out suddenly into an enormous black parachute-shaped net. The net dropped down, covering the helpless creature from top to bottom. The rope pulled tight. The net closed around the jellyfish like a fist. It was well and truly caught. It fought back immediately, of course. As soon as it felt the net begin to close, it shot out the most enormous blob of blue jelly Ziggy and Shayla had seen. The jelly squeezed like toothpaste out through the holes in the net. It raced back along the rope towards the submarine. As soon as it hit the submarine’s hull, it exploded outwards in all directions, trying desperately to surround it and swallow it up, the way it had done with Mr Martin’s ute. 46

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The submarine, however, was a hundred times bigger than Mr Martin’s ute. The blob of jelly wasn’t nearly large enough to fit all the way around it. It slimed this way and that, stretching upwards and downwards and sideways along the hull, as if searching desperately for an answer to a problem it could not solve. All of a sudden it gave up. It shot back along the white rope to the jellyfish, and disappeared. ‘Wow,’ Shayla said. ‘I think it’s finally met its match.’ ‘Yes, but who’s attacking it?’ Ziggy said. ‘Could it be the police, d’you think? Do they have submarines like this?’ ‘No.’ Shayla shook her head. ‘Choppers, yes, but not subs. This has to be the navy.’ ‘But whose navy?’ Ziggy persisted. ‘I can’t see any markings anywhere.’ Now that the submarine had safely captured the jellyfish, it began to turn. Its bow swung quickly around so that the front of it was facing away from the beach, towards the horizon. The sub’s engines surged. The white rope connecting the net to the harpoon pulled tight as a guitar string. For a few moments nothing happened. Then, to Shayla’s and Ziggy’s horror, they saw 47

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the jellyfish begin to move. ‘They’re towing it out to sea!’ Shayla gasped. ‘They’re taking it away! Quick!’ They ran. At this stage the jellyfish was moving slowly, so they caught up to it without too much trouble. It had just reached the water’s edge and was lumbering out gradually into the surf. ‘What’s happening?’ Mr Martin yelled from inside the jelly. ‘Why are we moving? What’s going on?’ ‘You’re being towed out to sea by a submarine!’ Shayla shouted. ‘Hang on!’ That was when Shayla did the bravest thing Ziggy had ever seen. She didn’t wait to think about what could go wrong. She didn’t wait for anything. She raced out into the surf, and struggled through the breaking waves towards the net. ‘Are you crazy?’ Ziggy called after her. ‘It’s heading out to sea!’ ‘I know, that’s why we’ve got to go with it!’ Shayla called back. ‘But you don’t know where it’s going!’ ‘I don’t care! My dad’s inside! And so are your parents!’ She managed to grab hold of the net just below where it joined on to the white rope. The net wasn’t 48

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touching the jellyfish at that point, so she didn’t get hit by a blob of jelly. She hauled her legs up above her head and got a foothold. Then she swung the rest of her body up, stretched out her arms, and began climbing out onto the rope. ‘Come on!’ she shouted at Ziggy. ‘We’ve got to go with it! It’s our only chance!’ Ziggy hesitated. Immediately his head was filled with a thousand reasons why he shouldn’t follow her. The net was being dragged out to sea. There was no telling where it might end up. The submarine would almost certainly dive, and drag the net down deep underwater, and then where would they be? They’d be stranded out in the middle of the ocean. They’d almost certainly drown. He didn’t want to move. But his heart told him that he had to. If he did nothing – if he stood on the beach and let his parents die – he would never forgive himself. He started to run. He hit the surf and struggled out through the deepening waves after Shayla. ‘That’s it! Come on!’ Shayla swung down from the rope and reached out a hand. ‘Grab hold and I’ll haul you up!’ The jellyfish was in deeper water now. It was 49

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beginning to lift off the sand. That meant it was being dragged out to sea much faster than before. Ziggy fought his way out through the surf like a wild man. Every muscle in his body was straining fit to burst. He was gaining on it. He was nearly there. He touched Shayla’s hand with his fingers. She swung down a little lower and grabbed hold of his wrist. ‘Gotcha!’ she said. Then she tried to pull him up. ‘Woah! Man, you weigh a tonne!’ ‘You’re not exactly a celery stick yourself,’ Ziggy retorted as he hauled himself up to where the net joined the rope and rested there. ‘I didn’t say you were fat,’ Shayla said. ‘Just heavy. You must have concrete bones.’ ‘Better than having a concrete head,’ Ziggy said, as a wave broke over him, covering him with spray. ‘This is a mad idea. What are we going to do now?’

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8 Stowaways

Ziggy and Shayla hauled themselves further along the rope on their stomachs until they were well clear of the jellyfish. They lay for a while getting their breath back, watching the shoreline as it receded further and further into the distance. ‘You can still swim back if you want to,’ Shayla said. Ziggy shook his head. Having come this far, there was no way he was giving up now. He turned his attention instead to the jellyfish inside the net. Three-quarters of the jellyfish was now under water. Ziggy couldn’t see his parents or Mr Martin at all. But just then, as he watched and listened intently, he caught the faint echo of his mother’s voice, drifting up from somewhere below. 51

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‘Help! We’re going under!’ Mrs Plunkett wailed. ‘Sigmund! Do something!’ ‘Yeah, Sigmund.’ Shayla grinned at him. ‘Do something.’ ‘Are they going to be all right down there?’ Ziggy asked. ‘I don’t know,’ Shayla said. ‘At least they’ll be cooler. And they’re still floating in the jelly, aren’t they? If they could breathe in it before, they should be able to now.’ ‘We’ve got to get to the submarine,’ Ziggy said, gritting his teeth and turning to face the sleek black vessel with renewed determination. ‘Maybe we can get inside it and tell them there are people out here.’ ‘You reckon?’ Shayla frowned. ‘The submarine? That’s a really long way.’ ‘Better than staying here,’ Ziggy said. ‘If we stay here we’re dead. So let’s move.’ The rope leading back to the submarine was as thick as a man’s arm, and very wet. The main problem Ziggy and Shayla faced was getting handholds. They had to take a tight grip on the rope to haul themselves forwards on their stomachs. They soon found that their fingers and wrists were aching terribly. Looking back after another few minutes, Ziggy 52

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was alarmed to discover that the jellyfish had disappeared completely. ‘Don’t worry,’ Shayla reassured him. ‘I’m sure they’re still breathing. Keep going.’ After that they didn’t talk much. Ziggy tried not to think about what would happen inside the jellyfish if the oxygen ran out. He also tried not to think about what would happen if the jellyfish got hungry, or if the submarine dived, both of which could happen at any moment. While he was busy not thinking about these three things, he also did his best not to think about what he was going to do once he got to the submarine, because right now he didn’t have a clue. The distance from the net to the submarine was no more than a hundred metres, but it was the longest hundred metres of Ziggy’s life. After a while his aching fingers began to blister. The insides of his legs grew red and sore from rubbing against the rope. His arm muscles began to burn. His eyes were stinging. But still, handhold by handhold, he and Shayla crawled along the rope until at last they made it up the final steepening stretch which led to the harpoon. They dropped like swatted flies into the small compartment in the side of the submarine. There they lay groaning, soaked to the skin. 53

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‘That’s it. I’m stuffed. I can’t move,’ Shayla said. ‘Whose whacko idea was this, anyway?’ ‘It was your idea to climb onto the rope,’ Ziggy reminded her. ‘Yeah, well, here we are,’ Shayla said. ‘Hitching a ride on a submarine. So what do we do now? Knock on the hatch?’ For some reason Ziggy found this very funny. He started to laugh. The sound of him snickering to himself soon set Shayla off as well. For the next couple of minutes they were both consumed by fits of the giggles. ‘You know the really weird thing,’ Ziggy said, wiping the tears from his eyes, ‘I’ve always wanted to be a marine biologist. Ever since I was five years old. I’ve always dreamed of travelling the world, discovering strange creatures, exploring the oceans.’ ‘Well, now’s your chance,’ Shayla said, and dissolved into giggles again. After a while Ziggy stood up. He scanned the length of the submarine’s hull, searching for a hatch. Ahead of him, rising up out of the middle of the hull, was the conning tower. Ziggy had read enough about submarines to know that this housed the periscope. Surely, he thought, there would be a hatch somewhere nearby, for the crew to get in and out of. Right 54

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now, though, he couldn’t see one anywhere. ‘Wait a minute,’ Shayla said. She had got down on all fours and was inspecting a small, square metal door set into the side of the harpoon compartment. ‘We’re looking for hatches, aren’t we?’ she said. ‘I think this might be one here.’ She was right. It was. In the middle of it was a handle in the shape of a wheel. Shayla and Ziggy grabbed this wheel and turned it together. It opened easily. Stooping down very low, they passed through a dark and stuffy airlock to a second hatch, which led out into a long, narrow room. They closed both hatches behind them and looked around. They were in a large, gloomy room at the rear of the sub. The smell of oil and grease was overpowering. So were the heat and the noise. Ahead of them they could see an enormous silver propeller shaft, spinning furiously in the gloom. A turbine generator and several other large pieces of equipment were fixed to the centre of the grated metal floor. ‘The engine room,’ Ziggy shouted to Shayla above the din. ‘No kidding,’ Shayla shouted back. ‘I would never have guessed.’ No one else was in sight. They hurried along a catwalk and went through a door to a narrow 55

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corridor. This ran down the side of the hull to a ladder, ten metres ahead. They could hear voices now. Through an open door to their left came the sound of frypans sizzling, and the clinking of pots and pans. ‘The kitchen,’ Shayla said to Ziggy. ‘No kidding,’ Ziggy shot back. ‘I would never have guessed.’ ‘Should we go in?’ Shayla said. ‘Can we trust these people, do you think?’ ‘We can’t wait too long,’ Ziggy said. ‘The sub will be diving soon.’ ‘They could be anybody,’ Shayla said. ‘They could be Nazis, for all we know. I don’t think we can risk it till we know more about them.’ As they stood wondering what to do, they heard footsteps clumping down the metal ladder at the end of the corridor. They froze. There was nowhere to go except into the kitchen, where there were more people. Then Shayla spotted another door in the wall to their right, and flung it open. ‘Quick!’ she said. ‘In here!’ They tumbled into a small, dark storage cupboard, crammed with cleaning equipment. The air was filled with a sharp lemony fragrance, so strong it 56

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made their eyes water. Once the door was closed again there was just enough space among the trolleys and mops and buckets and shelves for both of them to stand inside. ‘Are you sure this is the right thing to do?’ Ziggy whispered, as the clumping on the ladder outside grew louder. ‘Shouldn’t we tell them who we are? We need to get help, fast.’ ‘Shhh!’ Shayla whispered back. ‘They could be Nazis.’ ‘Nazis?’ Ziggy said. ‘They can’t be Nazis, Shayla. The war against the Nazis ended ages ago!’ They stopped talking. A few seconds later the footsteps passed directly outside the cupboard. They kept going, towards the engine room. There was the sound of another door opening and closing. Their footsteps faded away. ‘We need to tell them about our—’ Ziggy began, but he was interrupted by a commanding voice booming out over a public address system, echoing all around.

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9 Admiral Crushmore

‘Attention,’ the booming voice said. ‘This is Admiral Crushmore speaking. Would all crew report to the control room immediately. I repeat, all crew are to report to the control room immediately for a special briefing. Thank you.’ ‘An admiral,’ Shayla said when the voice had died away. ‘Wow. Something really big must be going on.’ ‘At least we know they’re not Nazis,’ Ziggy said. ‘How do we know that?’ Shayla replied. ‘Because of the accent,’ Ziggy said patiently. ‘It was American. The Nazis were Germans.’ ‘So?’ Shayla said. ‘That doesn’t mean anything. It could be a Nazi disguised as an American.’ She opened the cupboard door, and peered into the empty corridor. 58

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‘I wonder what these Nazis want with our jellyfish,’ she said. ‘Maybe they want to use it as a weapon. You know, like they did in Raiders of the Lost Ark.’ ‘Shayla, they are not Nazis!’ Ziggy hissed. ‘The war’s over! We defeated them sixty years ago!’ More footsteps were coming. More voices were talking out in the corridor. All the staff from the galley were leaving the kitchen and heading upstairs for the admiral’s special briefing. The exodus continued for several minutes. Just as the noise died down, two more sets of footsteps approached, this time coming from the opposite direction. The footsteps stopped outside the cupboard door. ‘You sure we’ve got time for this?’ a man’s voice said. ‘The boss is waiting.’ ‘Sure we’ve got time,’ a second man answered. ‘He won’t start for another five minutes. I’m busting for a smoke.’ ‘Me too,’ the first man said. ‘Give us one, quick. Got a match? Cheers.’ He went on, ‘All I want now is some shut-eye. I haven’t slept a wink in forty-eight hours.’ ‘Me neither,’ the other man said. ‘But at least things are happening now, eh? At least now maybe the boss might tell us what’s going on.’ 59

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‘Fat chance,’ the first man scoffed. ‘That stuck-up old buzzard never tells us a thing. He just orders us around like he owns the place.’ ‘I’d love to know what we’ve caught in that net, though,’ the second man said. ‘I’d just love to.’ ‘I’ll tell you what we’ve caught in that net,’ the first man said. ‘It’s the same thing we’ve been chasing non-stop for the last two days. Ever since it attacked us at the bottom of the ocean. And we let it get away.’ ‘It’s some kind of squid, that’s what I heard,’ the second man said. ‘But you know what I don’t understand? Why it’s so damned important. Why should we quit our battle manoeuvres and go racing off halfway around the Pacific to catch a goddam squid? It don’t make no sense.’ ‘The rumour I heard,’ the first man said, ‘is that it’s not a squid at all. What I heard is,’ he continued, lowering his voice to a whisper, ‘sss wsss. Spss. Tssss.’ ‘What?’ Shayla whispered. ‘What’s he saying? Can you hear?’ ‘No,’ Ziggy replied. Both of them pressed their ears firmly against the door. ‘That’s what the boys in the sonar room told me,’ the first man said, using a louder voice again. ‘Whether or not you believe it is another story.’ 60

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‘Well, I guess we’ll find out soon enough,’ the second man said. ‘Come on, we’d better get moving. The boss’ll bite our heads off if we’re late.’ The two men clumped off along the corridor to the ladder. Shayla and Ziggy waited until they had gone, then opened the door of the storage cupboard and sneaked out. ‘The admiral said for everyone to go to the control room,’ Shayla whispered, as they reached the bottom of the ladder, and peered up. ‘We need to find it, quick. But it could be anywhere.’ ‘It’ll be in the middle, up the top, underneath the conning tower,’ Ziggy replied. ‘I’d say two or three floors directly above us.’ ‘Yeah?’ Shayla blinked at him. ‘How do you know that?’ ‘Because of the periscope,’ Ziggy said. ‘The periscope is always in the control room. That’s how the captain sees where he’s going when the sub’s at the surface like this. And the periscope comes up out of the conning tower. I’ve seen pictures of it, in books.’ Shayla gazed at him admiringly. ‘That’s great,’ she said. ‘I never would have figured that out. How come you know so much about Nazi submarines, Sigmund?’ ‘Don’t call me Sigmund,’ Ziggy said. ‘And it’s not 61

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a Nazi submarine. It’s American. Nazis don’t even speak English.’ ‘They did in Raiders of the Lost Ark,’ Shayla said. ‘That was a movie!’ Ziggy exclaimed. ‘They made them speak English so we could understand them! It wouldn’t be much good if half the movie was in German, would it?’ Shayla paused, then peered up the ladder again. ‘If we can listen in on the Admiral’s briefing we might be able to find out what’s going on,’ she said. ‘Until then, I reckon we should stay out of sight.’ They climbed up to the next level, and found themselves in another narrow corridor, lined with small, cramped-looking bunkrooms. ‘Crew’s quarters,’ Shayla whispered as they passed through. ‘No kidding,’ Ziggy whispered back. ‘I would never have guessed.’ Another nearby ladder took them up to the officers’ quarters. Nobody was around. It looked as though the entire crew was already at the briefing. To their left, beyond the last of the officers’ rooms, was a floor-to-ceiling window leading into a darkened room. This room was filled with flashing lights, display panels and glowing computers. Beyond that, through a corridor filled with more electric wires 62

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and flashing lights, was the control room. Shayla and Ziggy sneaked up as close as they dared, and poked their heads around the door. The room was jammed full of submariners. It could probably have fitted thirty of them comfortably, but Ziggy guessed there were seventy or eighty inside. The room was also full of computers, sonar screens, satellite navigation equipment, a weapons control centre, and all kinds of other hi-tech gear. ‘Wow,’ Shayla said. ‘You don’t see any of this stuff in the toy department at K-Mart.’ Inside the door they were peering through, just off to the right, was a row of wetsuits, hanging on hooks. When they were sure no one was looking, they ducked in through the door behind these wetsuits and hid themselves. They soon spotted Admiral Crushmore standing in front of the sailors. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man with a flat nose and a huge square chin. He wore a gleaming white-and-gold officer’s uniform, and a matching white-and-gold peaked cap. His puffed-out chest was covered in medals and ribbons. His eyes were almost completely hidden under two enormous beetling black eyebrows, but the rest of his hair (what little they could see of it, sticking out from under his cap) was a distinguished silvery grey. 63

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Behind him was a large screen. On this screen was a photo of the jellyfish. The picture had been taken somewhere deep under the ocean. It showed the jellyfish in blurry close-up, caught in a blinding flash of white light, with inky black water all around. Most of the crew were staring at the picture. They were murmuring and whispering to each other nervously. As the two children waited and watched, the murmuring grew louder. The men pressed in closer, eager for a better look. Finally Admiral Crushmore raised a hand for silence. ‘Men of the USS Clam Chowder,’ he said, in the same deep, gravelly voice that Ziggy had heard over the intercom. ‘We stand here today at a crossroads. Our destiny is in our hands. Now is the hour we must grasp the nettle of danger and turn the tide of history, once and for all.’ A hush settled over the room. At the very back of the crowd, not far from where Ziggy and Shayla were hiding, two men groaned. ‘Not this again,’ the first man muttered. ‘Not the “turn the tide of history” speech. I can’t stand it.’ ‘If he says the word “nettle” one more time I’m gonna strangle him,’ the second man promised. ‘With my bare hands.’ 64

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Admiral Crushmore pointed at the creature on the screen. ‘My friends,’ he said. ‘Mankind is faced with a terrible choice. Work, or daytime television. But I can’t talk about that, because I have to tell you about this thing we’ve caught in our net, this giant jellyfish. This is the very same creature that attacked us, without warning, at the bottom of the ocean, forty-eight hours ago. New information has come to light that demonstrates exactly how dangerous this creature is. Indeed, I am not exaggerating when I say that it could well be the greatest threat the human race has faced since the dawn of the last Ice Age.’

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10 ‘There Are People in There!’ ‘The attack against us occurred while we were on patrol at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean,’ the Admiral continued. ‘This jellyfish came up out of a hole in the ocean floor and took us by surprise. We managed to fight it off, but it escaped before we could destroy it. It raced away into the darkness, heading for the surface, and we’ve been chasing it ever since.’ The Admiral paused, staring out from underneath his bushy eyebrows. ‘What we have learned since then,’ he went on, ‘is that the hole this animal came out of is extremely deep. According to the boys in the sonar room, it goes down thousands of miles. In fact, it goes down all the way to the centre of the Earth. That’s right 66

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men. This amazing and highly advanced creature comes from the Earth’s core. The very heart of our planet.’ A low murmuring filled the room. The men looked at each other uneasily. ‘A jellyfish from the centre of the Earth!’ Shayla whispered. ‘Wow!’ ‘At least we know that it’s not a Nazi,’ Ziggy replied. Next to the Admiral, a handsome, smart-looking young man, also in officer’s uniform, put up his hand. ‘Permission to speak, sir,’ he said. ‘Go ahead, Lieutenant,’ the Admiral said. ‘I’m just wondering how this jellyfish can live at the centre of the Earth, sir,’ the young man said. ‘It’s full of molten lava down there. It’s almost as hot as the sun.’ The Admiral nodded as if he had been expecting this question. ‘That’s what they want you to think, sailor,’ he said. ‘It’s what they taught you back in high school, wasn’t it? In Geometry?’ ‘Geography, sir,’ the lieutenant said. ‘Geography, that’s right.’ The Admiral jutted out his chin. ‘Well, let me ask you this. If we all lived on top of a huge ball of boiling hot molten lava, 67

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as you suggest, do you honestly think we’d be standing here today? Imagine it for a moment. The heat would be unbearable. Our blood would boil in our veins. Our eyes would melt in our sockets. Our tongues would come dripping out our mouths. We can’t live on top of a giant ball of boiling hot molten lava, Lieutenant! The whole idea is insane!’ ‘I see sir,’ the young man replied. ‘I’ve never thought of it that way before. So what is at the centre of the Earth, if it’s not full of molten lava?’ ‘I’ll tell you what’s at the centre of the Earth!’ Admiral Crushmore roared. ‘Nothing! The centre of the Earth is hollow! It’s as empty as an Easter egg! That’s what makes the Earth light enough to float through space, and keep an exact orbit around the sun! Otherwise it would drop like a stone! Don’t you know anything about astronomy, Lieutenant? Don’t you know anything about physics? Or is your head still buried in those outdated high-school textbooks of yours?’ ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ the young Lieutenant mumbled, hanging his head. ‘I didn’t mean to question your judgement, sir. You obviously know much more than me.’ ‘Damn right I do.’ Another hand had gone up in the crowd, but Admiral Crushmore waved it away. 68

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‘No more questions,’ he said. ‘I haven’t got time for questions. I was briefing you all on the enemy jellyfish. Now where was I?’ ‘Standing at a crossroads, sir,’ Lieutenant Squidsworth said. ‘With our destiny in your hands. Grasping the nettle of danger.’ ‘That’s right. That’s exactly where I was.’ Admiral Crushmore cleared his throat. ‘The hour is late, men,’ he continued. ‘The enemy is at the gates. But we are not beaten yet. Half an hour ago I spoke with the White House on the satellite phone. The White House didn’t answer, because it’s a house. But then I spoke with the President. I explained to him about the jellyfish. I explained that it is entirely possible we could be facing an invasion of hundreds if not thousands of these creatures, hell-bent on destroying the human race.’ The murmuring among the men grew louder than ever. Admiral Crushmore raised his hand for silence once more. ‘The President has ordered two of our most powerful nuclear submarines, the Calamari and the Fishfinger, to the bottom of the Marianas Trench,’ he said. ‘This, as you know, is the very deepest part of the Pacific Ocean. It is the very same place where the jellyfish attacked us two days ago. 69

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‘We will link up with the Calamari and the Fishfinger at the bottom of the Marianas Trench at oh-sixteen-hundred hours,’ he said. ‘Then, in a bold and decisive counter-attack, we will destroy the enemy jellyfish, together with the hole it came out of, with a combined strike of three of our most powerful nuclear bombs.’ This was too much for Ziggy. Without waiting for Shayla he burst out from behind the wetsuits and ran across the floor. ‘You can’t do that!’ he shouted. ‘There are people in there!’ The crew acted quickly. In two seconds flat, they had tackled Ziggy and brought him to the ground. A moment later he was hauled roughly to his feet. His arms were twisted behind his back and a gun was pointed at his head. ‘It’s a terrorist!’ someone shouted. ‘It’s a suicide bomber!’ ‘It’s a madman!’ Admiral Crushmore strode towards Ziggy. His face was purple with fury. He scowled so fiercely that it seemed his beetling black eyebrows were going to leap off his forehead. ‘What are you doing here, boy?’ he demanded. ‘Who are you?’ 70

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‘I’m Ziggy, sir,’ Ziggy mumbled. ‘Ziggy Plunkett. I was on the beach with the jellyfish. It swallowed my parents and another man before you caught it in your net. They’re still in there, sir. Three innocent people. If you blow it up you’ll blow them up as well.’ The Admiral’s scowl deepened. ‘Are you trying to tell me,’ he said, ‘that there are people inside that thing?’ ‘Yes!’ Shayla cried. She darted across the floor of the control room to join Ziggy. ‘There are three of them! Get your cameras to take a picture, if you don’t believe us! You’ll see for yourself!’ If Admiral Crushmore had been surprised when Ziggy appeared, he was now utterly dumbfounded. ‘What the hell is going on here?’ he roared. ‘This is an attack submarine, not a beach resort! How did these two kids get on board?’ ‘We climbed along the rope from the net to the submarine,’ Shayla explained. ‘Then we came in through the harpoon hatch.’ ‘It wasn’t locked?’ Admiral Crushmore’s eyes flashed around the room. ‘You left it open?’ he boomed at his men. ‘You’re useless! The whole lot of you! I’ve a good mind to flush you all down the garbage chute and run this submarine by myself!’ ‘Excuse me, sir.’ The young lieutenant spoke up 71

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again. ‘If there are people in the jellyfish, our cameras should spot them. We can sort out this little problem straight away.’ Admiral Crushmore nodded. ‘Good thinking, Squidsworth,’ he said. ‘Get those cameras rolling. And be quick about it.’ Lieutenant Squidsworth busied himself at a control panel behind the periscope stand. After a few seconds of flicking switches and fiddling with knobs, a crystal-clear moving picture appeared up on the screen. It showed the jellyfish trailing a long way behind the submarine, still caught in the net and floating at the end of the long white rope. Ziggy felt his knees go weak when he saw it. He felt a lump gather in his throat. The jellyfish was now completely underwater. It was twenty or thirty metres below the ocean’s surface. There was no sign of any people inside. ‘Get me a close-up,’ Admiral Crushmore ordered. ‘As much detail as you can.’ ‘Yessir.’ Lieutenant Squidsworth bent over the control panel again. The picture of the jellyfish that now appeared was so large it took up the whole screen. It reminded Ziggy of a blurry picture of a distant blue planet, 72

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taken through a telescope. A dark, shadowy shape was floating up near the very top on the right-hand side. ‘There!’ he said, pointing. ‘See?’ Admiral Crushmore peered forward doubtfully. ‘I can see something floating around up there,’ he said. ‘What is it, Squidsworth? Is it human?’ ‘I think I can see arms and legs, sir,’ Lieutenant Squidsworth said. ‘And a head. Hang on, I’ll enlarge it one more time.’ A third picture appeared. This time only the top right-hand corner of the jellyfish was shown. Ziggy stared at it eagerly – but then his heart sank. The figure on screen was so dark it was almost black. Its arms and legs were far too long. Its head was impossibly tiny. Ziggy realised at once that this was because of the jelly. Looking through it, this far underwater, was like looking through a trick mirror. It distorted everything. What he was looking at did not resemble a human at all. Admiral Crushmore’s face had gone white. He was standing very still, with his back straight, and his arms fixed at his sides. ‘Men,’ he said hoarsely. ‘It’s worse than I thought. The enemy jellyfish contains aliens.’ 73

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11 Ostra-Aliens

‘They’re not aliens!’ Ziggy burst out. ‘Those are my parents, and Shayla’s father! You’ve got to believe us!’ The Admiral took no notice. ‘Here’s the proof, men,’ he said grimly. ‘Right there in front of us. A race of alien super-beings, invading from the centre of the Earth. How foolish we were to think the jellyfish was attacking us! The jellyfish is simply the transport vehicle! It’s the creatures inside the jellyfish that are the real threat! Squidsworth, get me the President on the satellite phone, straight away.’ Lieutenant Squidsworth hurried to the control panel next to the periscope stand. On it was a satellite telephone receiver. He picked it up and began dialling. ‘Wait! Shayla cried. ‘Don’t call yet! Call my father instead! He’ll tell you who they really are!’ 74

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Admiral Crushmore turned slowly towards her. ‘You know how to contact these aliens?’ he said. ‘They’re not aliens,’ Shayla repeated. ‘My father is a rescue officer. He’s got a police-issue mobile phone that picks up a signal just about anywhere. Can you try it? Please?’ Admiral Crushmore hesitated. ‘Shall I dial it, sir?’ Lieutenant Squidsworth asked. ‘All right,’ the Admiral said. ‘I’m prepared to give this ridiculous theory of yours a chance. Give Lieutenant Squidsworth the number.’ Lieutenant Squidsworth dialled. There was silence for a few seconds, then, to Ziggy and Shayla’s enormous relief, Mr Martin’s mobile phone began to ring. ‘I’m broadcasting it out over the PA, sir,’ the Lieutenant said. ‘So we can all hear it.’ Mr Martin answered the phone. There was a clunk and a short burst of static. In a voice so thin and far away it sounded as if it was coming from Mars, he said, ‘Hello? Shane Martin speaking. Who is this?’ Shayla was so happy to hear her father’s voice that she burst into tears. Admiral Crushmore stepped forward at once and took the receiver from Lieutenant Squidsworth. ‘This is Admiral Oliver D. Crushmore speaking,’ 75

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he said. ‘Captain of the USS Clam Chowder, and Supreme Commander of all naval forces in the Pacific. We currently have you caught in a net, and we are towing you due north towards the Marianas Trench. Please identify yourself immediately.’ ‘Hello?’ Mr Martin said again. ‘Sorry, I didn’t catch much of that. I’m in a bit of a black spot right now. And I’ve got jelly in my ear.’

‘I am Admiral Oliver D. Crushmore,’ the Admiral repeated. ‘Captain of the USS Clam Chowder, and Supreme Commander of all naval forces in the Pacific. We currently—’ ‘The Navy, thank God,’ Mr Martin interrupted. ‘You’ve got to get us out of here. The pressure’s getting worse every minute, and the temperature’s dropping. It’s getting hard to breathe. I don’t think we can last much longer.’

‘Silence, alien!’ Admiral Crushmore thundered. ‘Your cowardly tricks don’t fool me! I was there when you attacked us at the bottom of the ocean! I was there when you came shooting up from the centre of the Earth! My entire crew has seen your horrible, deformed body floating inside your jellyfish! Unless you give us exact details of your invasion plan, and abandon your transport vehicle immediately, we will have no choice but to attack!’ ‘Attack?’ Mr Martin said. ‘Aliens? Transport vehicle? 76

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What are you talking about?’

‘You have thirty seconds to abandon your craft and surrender!’ Admiral Crushmore said. ‘If you do not, we will take that as a sign of your hostile intentions, and we will respond!’ A loud clunking noise came over the PA. It sounded as though the phone inside the jellyfish had been dropped, or knocked against something. Ziggy’s father came on the line. ‘Now listen here, you dopey old goat!’ Mr Plunkett exploded. ‘We’ve already spent two hours stuck inside this stinking ball of sea-slime, and we’ve had enough! Tow us up to the surface and let us out!’

‘It’s another alien, sir,’ Lieutenant Squidsworth said. ‘That jellyfish must be swarming with them.’ ‘This one is aggressive too,’ Admiral Crushmore muttered. Turning to Mr Plunkett, he said ‘We know you are aliens from the centre of the Earth—’ ‘I’m not from the centre of the Earth, you nincompoop!’

Mr Plunkett snapped.

‘I’m from the bottom of the Earth!

I’m an Australian!’

‘Write that down, Squidsworth,’ the Admiral said. ‘He says he is an Ostra-Alien from the Bottom of the Earth. Send that to the President, straight away.’ ‘Aye-aye sir,’ Lieutenant Squidsworth said. ‘I will ask you one last time, Ostra-Alien,’ 77

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Admiral Crushmore went on. ‘In the name of the President, and the entire human race, are you willing to abandon your jellyfish and surrender?’ ‘What?’ Mr Plunkett shouted, losing his temper at exactly the wrong moment. ‘Are you mad? How can I surrender when I’m stuck inside fifty tonnes of jelly, being dragged behind a submarine? It’s you who should be surrendering, not me!’

Admiral Crushmore flicked a switch next to the satellite phone. The line went dead. He turned and stared mournfully at his crew. ‘You heard it here first, men,’ he said. ‘There will be no surrender. These murderous Ostra-Aliens will stop at nothing to destroy us. We have no choice but to follow the President’s orders and proceed to our rendezvous.’ ‘What about the children, sir?’ Lieutenant Squidsworth asked. ‘They’re not to be trusted,’ Admiral Crushmore replied. ‘They’ve been in contact with these aliens. They may know details of the invasion. I think we need to keep them here, in the control room, with us.’ He turned to address the crew. ‘This briefing is now over,’ he said. ‘We’re headed for our rendezvous at the bottom of the Marianas Trench. Get back to your stations, and prepare to dive immediately.’

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12 The President

‘Now then,’ Admiral Crushmore said, as soon as the rest of the crew had left the room. ‘I was doing something. What was it again, Squidsworth?’ ‘Standing at a crossroads, sir,’ Lieutenant Squidsworth said. ‘With our destiny in your hands. Grasping the nettle of danger.’ ‘No, no, after that.’ The Admiral scratched the back of his neck. ‘Before I gave the order to dive, I said I would do something—’ ‘You were going to phone the President, sir,’ the Lieutenant said. ‘To tell him about the aliens.’ ‘The President!’ Admiral Crushmore jumped up as if hit by a shower of sparks. ‘That’s it! Get him on the satellite phone at once, Squidsworth. And give me the video link-up. I want to talk to him face to face.’ 79

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‘Yessir. Face to face. Right away.’ Lieutenant Squidsworth picked up the phone and started dialling. ‘I’ve got him for you, sir,’ he said a minute or so later. ‘He’s in the Oval Office. He should be coming up on screen.’ After a few blips and bleeps, a picture appeared on screen. But it wasn’t the President. It was the Queen of England. She was sitting at a desk in her dressing gown and slippers, sipping a cup of tea. ‘That’s not him, you idiot!’ the Admiral hissed. Lieutenant Squidsworth’s face went bright red. ‘I’m so sorry, sir,’ he gasped. ‘I don’t know what happened. I must’ve dialled the wrong number.’ ‘Are we on air?’ Admiral Crushmore asked. ‘Can she see us?’ ‘I’m afraid so, sir. It’s a real-time connection. This is terrible, I’m so embarrassed—’ ‘Your Majesty!’ Admiral Crushmore straightened up and adjusted his cap. He flashed the Queen a toowide smile. ‘Long time no see! I’m sorry to bother you like this. I hope we’re not intruding.’ The Queen looked as though she was just about to go to bed. She nevertheless managed a gracious smile. ‘Good evening, Admiral,’ she said. ‘Is something wrong?’ ‘No, no, nothing at all.’ The Admiral gave a 80

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forced laugh. ‘I just called for a bit of a chin-wag. You know how it is, Your Majesty, down here under the sea. It gets lonely sometimes. Only fish to look at, instead of a beautiful woman such as yourself. How’s Prince Philip getting along?’ ‘Everyone is fine, thank you, Admiral,’ the Queen said, looking more and more puzzled. ‘And the guinea pigs?’ Admiral Crushmore continued. ‘Eating plenty of carrots, are they?’ ‘You must be mistaken, Admiral,’ the Queen said. ‘I don’t have any guinea pigs.’ ‘Sure you do!’ the Admiral said. ‘Remember? Those fat little brown things you keep on a leash?’ ‘Those are corgis,’ the Queen exclaimed in a frosty tone. ‘Really?’ Admiral Crushmore looked astonished. ‘You mean those things are dogs? Oh well, never mind. How are Charles and Di?’ ‘My son is no longer married to Princess Diana, Admiral,’ the Queen said, in a frostier tone still. ‘She was killed in a car accident several years ago.’ ‘You’re kidding me!’ Admiral Crushmore’s jaw dropped. ‘Sheesh! I never hear about these things. I must get up to the surface more. Anyway, Your Highness, it’s been terrific talking to you, but I have to go now. We’re being attacked by sperm whales. 81

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So long, and keep polishing those jewels.’ The screen went blank. Admiral Crushmore stood perfectly still for a moment, his smile fixed to his face. Then he let out a tremendous groan and slumped forward across the controls. ‘Tell me that didn’t happen, Squidsworth,’ he moaned. ‘Tell me it was all a dream.’ ‘It was my fault, sir. Please don’t blame yourself.’ Lieutenant Squidsworth said. ‘I can’t tell you how sorry I am, sir. I’m devastated. I’m humiliated. I’m—’ ‘Get a grip on yourself, Squidsworth.’ The Admiral sat up again, dusted off his medals and adjusted his cap. ‘These things happen in war. Now get me the President, and make it snappy!’ Lieutenant Squidsworth busied himself with more dialling. ‘I’ve really got him for you now, sir,’ he said confidently, a minute or so later. ‘I guarantee it. He’s coming through.’ Fortunately for Lieutenant Squidsworth, it really was the President this time. He was sitting straightbacked in a padded leather armchair, behind a large, polished wooden desk. An enormous American flag hung on either side of the chair, while a pile of important-looking papers was stacked neatly in front of him. ‘Mr President!’ Admiral Crushmore said, and 82

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saluted smartly. ‘Admiral,’ the President replied. ‘Good to talk to you again. How’s the Clam Chowder?’ ‘It’s excellent, sir. Very tasty.’ ‘I meant your submarine, Admiral.’ ‘My submarine? Oh yes.’ Admiral Crushmore cleared his throat. ‘That’s fine too, sir. But I have some amazing news. An update on the enemy jellyfish.’ The President nodded. ‘I’m listening.’ ‘We’ve made contact with it, sir. We can now confirm that it does contain intelligent life. We’ve spoken to two extra-terrestrials on the telephone, sir. They call themselves Ostra-Aliens. They’ve got long, thin arms and legs, and tiny blue heads.’ ‘Ostra-Aliens, eh?’ the President said. ‘They sound dangerous.’ ‘They are, sir,’ Admiral Crushmore agreed. ‘The most murderous bunch of villains I’ve ever set eyes on. They’ve already tried to capture us and drag us down to the centre of the Earth. I believe they also tried to kidnap these two children.’ The President looked at Shayla and Ziggy. Neither of them knew whether they were allowed to speak. They decided to anyway, at the same time. ‘That’s not true, Mr President!’ ‘They’re not aliens! They’re people!’ 83

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‘My parents are in there!’ ‘And my father! You’ve got to save them!’ Unfortunately, what the President heard was nothing more than an excited babble. He leaned forward in his chair, as if trying to make sense of it. ‘Did you say there are people inside this jellyfish?’ he said, frowning. ‘Don’t listen to them, sir,’ Admiral Crushmore said. ‘It’s ridiculous. No human being could possibly survive in there. Besides, we’ve got video evidence of what the aliens look like, and they look nothing like people. I’ll fax the photos by email to you, over the satellite phone.’ ‘Well, Crushmore, it looks as though you were right about this creature,’ the President said. ‘We’ll have to destroy it. How soon can you reach the bottom of the Marianas Trench?’ ‘In about two hours, sir,’ the Admiral said. ‘We’ve just begun to dive, and we’re headed straight down. The Fishfinger and the Calamari will meet us there.’ ‘And what about the Garlic Prawn?’ the President said. ‘And the Smoked Salmon?’ ‘They’re coming as fast as they can.’ ‘Good.’ The President nodded. ‘So what’s your plan of action once you arrive?’ ‘Well, sir, we plan to release the jellyfish back 84

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into the hole in the sea bed,’ the Admiral said. ‘This hole is surrounded by a force-field, which was activated as soon as the jellyfish escaped. It’s some kind of protection device, sir. Very high-tech. We’ve not seen anything like it before. But we believe the forcefield will suck the jellyfish back down into the hole. Then, as soon as it goes inside, we will hit it with three nuclear bombs.’ ‘Excellent,’ the President said. ‘And have you got a Plan B? What if the creature doesn’t get sucked back down into the hole?’ ‘We’ll have it surrounded before we release it from the net,’ Admiral Crushmore said. ‘As soon as it comes out, we’ll fire our missiles. No matter where it goes, they’ll stay locked onto their target. They will destroy it, sir. It won’t get away from us this time.’ The President looked pleased. ‘Well done, Admiral,’ he said. ‘It sounds as though you’ve got everything under control. I’ll keep the rest of the Navy and Air Force standing by. I won’t be releasing details to the media just yet. We don’t want mass global panic. I’m trusting you to get the job done before news of the invasion leaks out.’ ‘Yes sir.’ Admiral Crushmore saluted again. ‘Thank you, Admiral. That will be all.’

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13 Ziggy’s Bright Idea

While the President and Admiral Crushmore were talking, Ziggy began to feel very strange. His stomach felt as though it had been pumped full of air and was about to float out through his mouth. His feet were unsteady. His knees were weak. Whenever he moved, he almost lost his balance. ‘This is weird!’ he whispered to Shayla, who was lurching and staggering next to him, and obviously felt exactly the same way. ‘What’s going on?’ ‘I think we’re diving,’ Shayla said. Of course. That’s what was happening. Ziggy remembered feeling exactly the same sensation the last time he had travelled in a lift. The submarine was dropping like a stone. 86

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‘That means the jellyfish is sinking too,’ Ziggy said. ‘The pressure will be getting worse. They’ll be running out of air. We’d better do something soon.’ Meanwhile, Admiral Crushmore and Lieutenant Squidsworth were busying themselves at the controls. ‘What’s our course, Squidsworth?’ Admiral Crushmore asked. ‘Main course, sir. Steak and chips.’ ‘And what’s our sonar reading?’ ‘I believe it’s reading The Hobbit, sir.’ ‘Excellent. Take her down at point five, Lieutenant. Steady as she goes.’ Ziggy looked desperately around the control room for something that might help. He had no idea what he was looking for, and most of the controls had no labels on them, so he couldn’t tell what they were for. A short while later, however, he noticed one switch that was labelled quite clearly. It said, MINI-SUB HATCH RELEASE. Ziggy stared at it. Slowly the germ of an idea began to form in his mind. The idea was risky. The chances of it succeeding were slim. But the more he thought it over, the more he understood that it was the only thing left for him to do. ‘Otherwise we’ll never see any of them again,’ he muttered to himself, just as Shayla came up behind him. 87

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‘Talking to yourself, the first sign of madness,’ she said. ‘I think I’ve got a plan,’ Ziggy replied. ‘Second sign of madness,’ Shayla said. ‘Believing that you’ve got a plan.’ ‘No, I really do have a plan. Don’t you want to hear it?’ Shayla gave a heavy sigh. ‘All right. But I already know what kind of plan it is,’ she said. ‘It’s a long shot. A million-to-one chance. But it just might work.’ Ziggy grinned at her. ‘How did you know?’ ‘Why does it always have to be a million-to-one chance?’ Shayla grumbled. ‘Just once, in these situations, I’d love to hear someone say, “I think I’ve got a plan. It’s a hundred per cent dead-set foolproof, and it’s so easy Blind Freddie could do it with both hands tied behind his back.”’ Just then, Admiral Crushmore appeared beside them. He slapped them both on the shoulder, making them jump. ‘Hey there, kids!’ he said brightly. ‘Had a good look around?’ Ziggy and Shayla nodded. ‘Got any questions you’d like to ask?’ the Admiral went on. ‘Of course I can’t answer any of them, 88

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because all the equipment here is top secret. But feel free to ask just the same.’ ‘I’ve got a question, sir,’ Ziggy said. ‘It’s about the jellyfish. Is it true that this is the first time one of these creatures has ever been found?’ ‘Certainly,’ the Admiral said. ‘This creature is completely new to us. None of our scientists have ever heard of it before. Why?’ ‘Well, I was just thinking,’ Ziggy said. ‘It would be a shame to blow it up without getting some kind of sample of it. Just a small piece, to take back home, so your scientists could study it in their laboratories. If it’s as rare as you say, it would have to be worth millions.’ Admiral Crushmore raised one of his black eyebrows. ‘Millions?’ he said. ‘D’you think so?’ ‘It would have to be,’ Ziggy said. ‘It’s the first evidence of extra-terrestrial life we’ve ever found.’ Admiral Crushmore raised his other eyebrow. He glanced at Lieutenant Squidsworth, who nodded. ‘The kid’s got a point there, sir,’ he said. ‘But how are we going to get this sample?’ Admiral Crushmore said. ‘Last time we went anywhere near that thing, it almost destroyed us. I can’t risk that happening again.’ ‘You’ve got it caught in a net now,’ Ziggy said. 89

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‘It can’t fight back. Look, I’m not suggesting you swim out to it, or do anything dangerous like that. But if you had a mini-sub—’ ‘A mini-sub,’ Admiral Crushmore repeated. ‘Yes, you’re right. Why don’t we have a mini-sub, Squidsworth? What kind of second-rate navy is this? Make a note to the President. Tell him we want a . . . wait a minute. We do have a mini-sub! I’m sure we do! It’s that thing in my room with all those expensive drinks!’ ‘That’s the mini-bar, sir,’ Lieutenant Squidsworth said. ‘The mini-sub is the miniature two-man submarine we use for exploration and research.’ ‘Of course it is! I knew that!’ Admiral Crushmore began pacing around the room excitedly. ‘It’s that miniature two-man submarine we use for exploration and research! It’s got those long mechanical arms at the front, with those two big grabby things!’ ‘Claws, sir, yes.’ ‘But they’d be perfect! We could get a sample from this jellyfish with them, no trouble at all!’ The Admiral stopped pacing. He stared straight ahead, as if in a trance. ‘I say we go on a mission, Squidsworth,’ he said. ‘To explore and research the invading jellyfish. For the good of humankind.’ ‘You mean you’re not going to sell your sample, 90

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sir?’ Lieutenant Squidsworth asked. ‘Of course I’m going to sell it!’ Admiral Crushmore said. ‘I’m going to flog it off for millions to the biggest sucker I can find! It’ll still be for the good of humankind! It’ll just make me filthy rich along the way!’ He turned to ruffle Ziggy’s hair affectionately. ‘Young man,’ he said, ‘this is a terrific idea. I love it. How can I ever thank you?’ ‘Well,’ Ziggy said. ‘I’d like to go with you, if I can, sir. To collect a sample for myself.’ ‘Of course, of course,’ the Admiral said. ‘No harm in that.’ ‘And one other thing,’ Ziggy went on. ‘Shayla needs to come with us. We can’t leave her here on her own.’ ‘We can’t?’ The Admiral frowned, peering at Shayla suspiciously. ‘Why not?’ ‘Because . . . because . . .’ Ziggy desperately thought for a reason. ‘Because we’re in love, sir,’ he blurted out finally. ‘Deeply in love. We can’t bear to be parted from each other. We always do everything together.’ Ziggy took Shayla’s hand, then turned and gazed adoringly into her eyes. Shayla froze. Her mouth dropped open slowly. She made a small, strangled noise in the back of her throat, like a sick frog. 91

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A dreamy look came into Admiral Crushmore’s eyes. They began to mist over. ‘Ah,’ he sighed. ‘Young love. First love. It’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it Squidsworth?’ ‘Touching, sir,’ Lieutenant Squidsworth said. ‘Very touching.’ Shayla made her sick frog noise again. But at least she was making an effort. She was trying to smile. And she hadn’t let go of Ziggy’s hand. Ziggy leaned across and kissed her on the cheek. ‘There there, sweetie-pie,’ he said. ‘It’s all right. I’ll stay with you. I promise.’ Admiral Crushmore sniffed. A tear squeezed out of the corner of his eye. He reached up to wipe it away. ‘Who am I to separate what love’s true passion has joined?’ he said. ‘So she can come?’ Ziggy asked. ‘Certainly. But remember, it’s only a two-man submarine. One of you will have to sit on the other’s knee.’

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14 The Mini-Sub

Before Shayla could protest, the Admiral was off, striding out the door of the control room and down the corridor. ‘Come on!’ he called back, as he hurried past the sonar room. ‘Get a move on back there, you two lovebirds!’ ‘Boy, are you ever in for a hiding,’ Shayla hissed to Ziggy as they set off after him. ‘You wait till I get my brown belt. I’m going to kick your kidneys right out your ears.’ ‘I had to say something!’ Ziggy protested. ‘What did you expect me to do! It was for the good of the mission!’ ‘For the good of the mission,’ Shayla repeated disgustedly. ‘Oh, that is so lame. That is lamer than 93

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a dead dog, you know that? You could have said I was your sister! Or an expert deep-sea diver! You didn’t have to say we were in love! You might think you’re hot stuff, Sigmund, but I wouldn’t fall in love with you if you were the last person on Earth.’ They had reached the top of the ladder down to the next level. The Admiral was already at the bottom of it, striding away along another corridor towards the front of the submarine. ‘And don’t think I’m going to sit on your knee,’ Shayla said. ‘Fine,’ Ziggy shot back. ‘Sit on your own knee. See if I care.’ ‘Fine. I will.’ ‘Good.’ ‘Have you two finished canoodling back there?’ called the Admiral from the end of the next corridor, waiting for them. ‘We’ve got work to do.’ He opened a door and disappeared into a darkened room. Ziggy and Shayla glared at each other furiously. ‘At least I came up with a plan,’ Ziggy said. ‘Which is more than you came up with.’ ‘Yeah,’ Shayla said. ‘A plan to kiss me on the cheek.’ ‘I had to do that!’ Ziggy said. ‘I had to make it look convincing!’ 94

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‘You were hitting on me, Sigmund,’ Shayla said. ‘Admit it.’ They continued on, through a room containing rows of torpedoes and missiles, to another much smaller room at the front. As they entered, Ziggy and Shayla caught sight of the mini-sub, suspended from the ceiling inside a metal frame. It looked like a huge black mechanical lobster, mostly because of the two chunky metal arms near the front. They climbed the steps, ducked their heads, and entered the sub through a small hatch. The Admiral went in first. Ziggy would have gone in second, except that Shayla elbowed in before him. By the time he climbed aboard she was already strapping herself into the last seat. Ziggy looked around. There was nowhere else to sit. The cockpit was very cramped, and all the space to the rear of the sub was taken up with oxygen tanks, wetsuits, diving gear, scientific instruments, and other pieces of expensive-looking equipment. ‘Can’t you move over?’ Ziggy whispered. ‘No, I can’t,’ Shayla said. ‘Sit on the floor.’ ‘There’s no room on the floor,’ Ziggy said. ‘I have to sit on your lap.’ ‘Don’t you touch my lap!’ Shayla bristled. ‘You touch my lap and you die!’ 95

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Ziggy noticed a strap hanging from the ceiling. Taking hold of it, he swung himself over and sat on Shayla’s knee. She shoved at him, trying to push him off, and he pushed back as hard as he could. ‘Hey! You two! Cut that out!’ The Admiral glared at them. ‘This is a United States Navy minisub! It’s built for exploration and research! You want to try any funny business, go book yourselves a room!’ With a last withering glance at Shayla, Ziggy slid off her lap. Shayla shifted her legs so he could perch on a corner of the seat beside her. The Admiral, meanwhile, busied himself with preparations for the launch. When everything was ready he flicked an intercom switch on the dashboard, and spoke to Lieutenant Squidsworth in the control room. ‘Everything’s looking good, Squidsworth,’ he said. ‘How’s the pressure?’ ‘I’m coping with it, sir,’ Lieutenant Squidsworth said. ‘I had a bit of a headache after you left, but it’s gone now.’ ‘I meant the air pressure, stupid,’ the Admiral said. ‘How are the oxygen levels? Are they stable?’ ‘Yes sir,’ Lieutenant Squidsworth said. ‘You’ve got enough oxygen in the main chamber for six hours.’ ‘Tanks?’ the Admiral said. 96

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‘You’re welcome, sir.’ ‘I said tanks, not thanks, you cross-eyed son of a prairie dog! Is there any oxygen in the diving tanks? In case we have to abandon ship?’ ‘Yes sir. The diving tanks are full as well, sir. But if you do have to abandon ship, make sure you’re wearing the pressure-proof suits. We’re already down much too deep for normal wetsuits. The water pressure outside will squash you like a bug.’ ‘The pressure-proof suits.’ Admiral Crushmore glanced over his shoulder. ‘Are they the ones I can see in the back here?’ ‘Yessir. There should be ten of them. They’re the very latest thing. If you’re wearing one of those you can scuba-dive at any depth. Even at the bottom of the Marianas Trench.’ ‘Understood, Squidsworth. Thanks.’ ‘They should be right there next to the wetsuits, sir.’ ‘I said thanks, not tanks, you blubbering dribblewit! Admiral Crushmore rolled his eyes towards the ceiling. ‘Why is it always so lonely at the top?’ he asked. Then, to Lieutenant Squidsworth, he went on, ‘We’re ready to roll down here, Squidsworth. All systems go. Open the hatch.’ ‘Aye-aye sir. Hatch opening. Good luck.’ 97

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With a whirr and a clunk, the wall at the far end of the room slid open. At once, a torrent of black ocean water rushed in. It swooshed and swirled around the mini-sub like an enraged sea-monster. In the blink of an eye it had filled the storage bay from top to bottom. A few seconds later Admiral Crushmore hit the throttle, and the mini-sub shot forward out of its frame. Ziggy hung onto the ceiling strap as they sped out into the sea. His heart was hammering. He had to pinch himself to make sure this was real. For the moment he had quite forgotten his parents, and Shayla’s father. He had forgotten about Shayla sitting jammed up next to him as well. Suddenly, Admiral Crushmore switched on the lights. Ziggy gasped. Right there in front of him, rising no more than a hundred metres away out of the gloom, was the most awesome sight he had ever seen. The mini-sub was sinking slowly down into the middle of a deep, wide ravine. The bottom of this ravine was lost in blackness, but the near side – the side directly in front of Ziggy – was clearly lit up. What he saw reminded him of a city. In a way it was a city. It was a towering skyscraper of rock, looming majestically out of the depths, and swarming with 98

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thousands of different species of marine life. Schools of silver fish flitted across in front of him. Enormous sharks prowled slowly above and below. Eels and octopuses darted out of holes in the cliffface. Giant sea-anemones waved back and forth in the current, while schools of tiny fish zigzagged expertly among the fronds. Ziggy had seen pictures in magazines of scenes like this. He had loved them so much he had cut some of them out and pinned them up on his bedroom wall. For years he had dreamed of being a famous marine biologist, exploring the world’s oceans. But nothing could have prepared him for the experience of seeing the real thing. ‘This is unbelievable,’ he breathed. ‘You mean the fish?’ Admiral Crushmore waved a hand dismissively. ‘They’re just the boring ones. You wait till you see the weirdos further down.’ ‘They’re not boring,’ Ziggy said. ‘They’re beautiful.’ ‘Look!’ Shayla yelled suddenly, startling Ziggy so much he almost fell off his seat. ‘It’s a manta ray! I’ve wanted to see one of those all my life!’ Ziggy craned his neck forward. By hanging on to the strap and leaning down he could just see the manta ray passing above the top of the cockpit window. ‘You mean that big floating doormat thing?’ 99

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Admiral Crushmore said. ‘Can you eat those?’ ‘I don’t want to eat it!’ Shayla exclaimed. ‘I just want to look at it! Look how huge it is!’ Admiral Crushmore, however, had had enough. He moved the joystick sideways, and the mini-sub quickly began to turn. The vast, sprawling cliff-face disappeared behind them. In its place, caught in the sweep of the searchlights, the Clam Chowder appeared, trailing the jellyfish high up behind it, like a balloon. ‘I hope they’re all right in there,’ Shayla murmured. ‘Dad hates being trapped in things. He likes wide open spaces.’ Ziggy thought about his own parents. He felt a lump in his throat. They weren’t used to suffering hardship like this. Their idea of a really dangerous adventure was when the air-conditioning didn’t work in their Landcruiser. Or when they woke up on Sunday morning to find that their croissants had gone stale. They would surely be starting to despair by now. He peered forward anxiously, searching for any sign of movement inside the jellyfish. There was nothing.

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15 The Jellyfish Again

The mini-sub was dropping steadily down towards the jellyfish, which was itself sinking, along with the Clam Chowder, into the blackness at the bottom of the ravine. Admiral Crushmore was fiddling with the controls, trying to get the sub’s two mechanical arms to work. Suddenly the claw nearest Ziggy reared up sharply. It crashed into the front window with a crack! ‘Woops!’ Admiral Crushmore said. ‘I haven’t used these things before. They’re a bit tricky.’ He kept fiddling. A few seconds later the second claw reared up and crashed into the other side of the front window. Then both mechanical arms went into a frenzy, twisting and turning and slashing this way 101

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and that, clattering into the mini-sub and into each other. ‘Whoa, there! Steady on, girl! Don’t get jumpy on me!’ The Admiral was flicking switches and pulling levers at random. ‘Easy now! Easy! Hmm, I wonder what this button does?’ He pushed a red button on the dashboard. At once, both mechanical arms stopped moving. They dropped below the window, almost out of sight, then began jerking up and down and backwards and forwards, one after the other, almost as if they were digging a hole. ‘Well, what do you know?’ The Admiral cackled gleefully. ‘Dogpaddle! This thing can really swim!’ He pushed a yellow button next to the red one. The two arms stopped dogpaddling. They rose up high on either side of the cockpit, then came swooping down together, leaving a trail of bubbles in their wake. Before Ziggy and Shayla knew what was happening they had risen up and come swooping down a second time, churning a wide circle in the water. ‘Butterfly!’ Admiral Crushmore shouted, as the mini-sub lurched forward. ‘Fantastic! Look at this baby go!’ He pushed a green button next to the yellow one. The mini-sub froze. A burst of sad classical music 102

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filled the cockpit. The mini-sub rose up on its rear end until it was standing vertical in the water, with its nose pointing directly towards the surface. Its arms lifted to form an arc above the window, and the tips of its claws touched together lightly. ‘The Dying Swan,’ Admiral Crushmore said, in a choked-up voice. ‘My favourite ballet.’ The mini-sub gave a twirl, then a hop, then another twirl. One of its arms swept down gracefully and hovered at its side. Still standing on its end, it ploughed forward through the water, then gave a tremendous leap, before turning over and sinking down to rest, bottom-side-up. ‘Gets me every time,’ the Admiral said. ‘I’ll bet they’ve got nothing like this at the centre of the Earth.’ The mini-sub turned right-side-up again. The classical music switched off. Admiral Crushmore was just about to continue on towards the jellyfish when Lieutenant Squidsworth’s voice came bursting through the intercom. ‘Are you all right, sir? I’ve got you on camera, and you look as though you’re out of control.’ ‘Out of control? Of course not, Squidsworth!’ Admiral Crushmore scoffed. ‘We’re just showing the enemy aliens some of our superior human culture! 103

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What else can this mini-sub do?’ ‘It can do disco, sir,’ Lieutenant Squidsworth said. ‘Second button on the right, on the panel above the joystick.’ ‘Disco, eh?’ The Admiral hit the button. All of a sudden the mini-sub flipped upside down and began spinning around at a truly frightening speed. At the same time a deafening drum-and-bass beat began booming out inside the cockpit. Ziggy and Shayla held on as best they could while the mini-sub flipped up the right way again, spun around furiously a second time, then stood on its end and began jerking from side to side in time to the music. ‘No sir!’ Lieutenant Squidsworth shouted above the music. ‘That’s the breakdancing button! Push it again to turn it off!’ ‘A breakdancing submarine,’ Admiral Crushmore said proudly, after he had pushed the button and the mini-sub had returned to normal. ‘What a marvel. What a pearl of twenty-first-century technology. I’ll bet there’s nothing else like it in the entire Universe.’ The mini-sub now began its final descent towards the jellyfish. The two mechanical arms were soon stretched out directly in front of the window, getting ready for the claws to take hold of the jelly. Ziggy glanced across at Shayla. She looked grim. He realised 104

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that he hadn’t yet explained to her what he was trying to do. ‘It’s going to attack us,’ he whispered, making sure his voice was too low for the Admiral to hear. ‘As soon as the mini-sub touches it, it’ll shoot out a blob of jelly and wrap us up.’ ‘I know that,’ Shayla said. ‘It’s what happens after that I’m not so sure about. What’s your plan?’ ‘My plan is to get inside the jellyfish,’ Ziggy whispered. ‘Then we call Lieutenant Squidsworth and tell him the Admiral has been caught too. Don’t you see? That’s got to make them call off the attack. They’re not going to hit us with two nuclear bombs when the Supreme Commander of the Pacific Fleet is with us too.’ A smile spread slowly across Shayla’s face. ‘Very clever,’ she said. ‘Yes, I’m sure that’ll work. But once they’ve called off the attack, we’ll still be stuck inside the jelly. How do they actually get us out?’ ‘That’s the hard part,’ Ziggy said. ‘I haven’t figured that out yet.’ The jellyfish was now close enough for them to see three dark, shadowy figures floating inside, each with long limbs and tiny heads. Admiral Crushmore brought the mini-sub to within a couple of metres of its target, then stopped. 105

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‘We’re on our final approach now,’ he said. ‘I’m going to take her in as fast as I can, then jab the claws through the net, get the samples, and reverse away again. Brace yourselves. We might have to make a quick getaway.’ He reached down and pulled a lever beside him. The two mechanical arms stretched forward as far as they could go. Their claws opened wide, ready to clamp shut as soon as they reached their target. The Admiral pulled another lever. The mini-sub surged forward. Two claws plunged in through the net, and buried themselves deep in the jelly. WHOOOSH!!! Just as Ziggy had expected, an enormous blob of jelly shot out from the jellyfish. It burst through the holes in the net and poured over the mini-sub in the blink of an eye. ‘It’s got us!’ Admiral Crushmore shouted. ‘Hang on, I’ll hit the turbos!’ The engines roared. At that same moment the mini-sub surged towards the jellyfish again. It plunged into the net, and stopped dead. The two mechanical arms snapped off in an instant, and spun away into the blackness. The net strained and stretched like a cobweb in the wind. ‘It’s no good!’ Admiral Crushmore shouted, as 106

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the mini-sub shuddered and shook. ‘The turbos won’t work! It’s sucking us in!’ He wrestled frantically with the joystick. But the power of the mini-sub was no match for the might of the jellyfish. The pressure on the net in front of them was now enormous. It was stretched to the absolute limit. Ziggy could see some of the strong, thick fibres beginning to weaken. They were frayed at the edges. They were unravelling. A strand of the net snapped in half, right in front of his eyes. Another strand snapped. Then another. All at once a great rippling gash opened up in the side of the net. With a rush and a roar the mini-sub lurched forward, in through the hole.

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16 A Heroic Sacrifice With a rush and a roar the jellyfish lurched forward too. It was trying to get out through the hole in the net, into the open sea. ‘It’s trying to escape!’ Shayla shouted. ‘I know, I know!’ Ziggy shouted back. This was terrible. This wasn’t part of the plan at all. If the jellyfish succeeded in getting away, with everyone inside it, there was no telling what might happen. It could very well take them back with it to the centre of the Earth. There was a good chance they might never be rescued at all. Ziggy gripped the sides of his seat and held his breath as the mini-sub plunged forward. It was lurching this way and that like a roller-coaster gone off the rails. All he could see out the cockpit window was a dark, swirling mass of jelly. 108

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A black shape loomed up. It was Mr Martin’s ute. Ziggy barely had time to brace himself before the front of the sub hit the ute with a resounding crash. For a while, Ziggy was too dazed to move. He had a very sore neck, but otherwise he wasn’t hurt. Neither was Shayla, but the Admiral had hit his head on the dashboard and been knocked out cold. The mini-sub wasn’t too badly damaged. All the lights inside the cockpit were still on. Everything else, including all the equipment stowed in the back, was in one piece. Outside the mini-sub, all around them, the jelly was humming. It was vibrating as well as humming. Everything was vibrating. Ziggy could feel the same queasy sensation in his stomach that he’d felt when the submarine first began to dive. ‘I think we’re moving,’ he said. ‘We can’t be moving.’ Shayla shook her head beside him. ‘We’ve just crashed.’ ‘I think the jellyfish is moving,’ Ziggy said. ‘And it’s not going slowly, either. It’s swimming at top speed. It must have got out through that hole.’ Without waiting for Shayla to reply, he got to his feet and pushed up the hatch at the top of the cockpit. Then he hoisted himself out into the jelly. 109

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The feeling of it against his face and in his mouth was very strange. It wasn’t exactly liquid. It wasn’t exactly solid, either. It was more like a thick, wet fog. He should have been able to move through it easily, but when he tried, he found he couldn’t. The harder he pushed against it, the more it seemed to weigh. Shayla came up behind him. At first she held her breath, but when she saw that Ziggy was breathing normally she did the same. The two of them pulled themselves slowly along the top of the mini-sub and began looking around. ‘Mum! Dad!’ Ziggy called out, in a strange, thin voice that he hardly recognised as his own. ‘It’s me, Ziggy! Are you there?’

Shayla called. ‘Hullo!’ ‘Sigmund?’ An exhausted voice floated up from somewhere beneath them. ‘Sigmund, is that really you?’ ‘Mum!’ Ziggy turned towards the voice. ‘Yes, it’s me! ‘Dad, it’s me, Shayla!’

Hang on, I’m coming!’

They scrambled downwards as fast as they could. The jelly was impossible to swim through without holding on to something, so they kept hold of the outside of the mini-sub, and used that to haul themselves along. They soon noticed how little oxygen was left in the jelly. Half a minute’s effort left both of them panting for breath. Finally they spotted the three 110

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adults huddled close together under the bottom of the ute, and swam down to them. ‘Sigmund! I thought I’d never see you again!’ Mrs Plunkett hugged her son as hard as she could. ‘How did you get here?’ ‘We stowed away on the submarine,’ Ziggy

said. ‘After that,

it’s a long story. What’s happened to Dad?’

Mr Plunkett was floating next to his wife with his eyes closed, as if asleep. He hadn’t looked up or spoken since Ziggy arrived. ‘He’s trying not to move,’ Mrs Plunkett said. ‘He’s worried about his blood pressure.’ ‘Is that you, Gaston?’ Mr Plunkett murmured. ‘I’m ready to order now. I’ll have the swordfish on a bed of jasmine rice, with Asian vegetables. And the crème caramel for dessert.’

Mrs Plunkett said, gently stroking his arm. ‘We’ll soon have you out of here.’ Turning to Mr Martin and Shayla, she added, ‘The stress is getting ‘There, there, Howard,’

to him, you know. He’s very highly strung.’

Ziggy suggested to everyone that they should get inside the mini-sub, where they could rest and breathe properly. To do this they needed to empty most of the equipment out of the back. Just after they had all squashed inside and closed the hatch behind them, Admiral Crushmore came to. When he saw the Plunketts and Mr Martin, he gave a loud gasp. 111

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‘Ostra-Aliens!’ he croaked. ‘Oh no! They’ve taken over the sub!’ Mr Martin reached forward between the seats and shook Admiral Crushmore’s hand. ‘G’day mate,’ he said. ‘Shane Martin’s the name. You must be the bloke I spoke to earlier. Pretty niftylooking mini-sub you’ve got here.’ The Admiral looked at Mr Martin and Mr and Mrs Plunkett with confusion. ‘You sound friendly,’ he said. ‘You’re not going to kidnap me? You’re not going to take me to the bottom of the Earth, and subject me to cruel experiments?’ ‘Heck no!’ Mr Martin said. ‘We just want to get out of here and go home!’ ‘We were holidaying on the beach minding our own business when this creature swallowed us up,’ Mrs Plunkett said. ‘Then you came along in your submarine and towed us out to sea. It’s ruined our day.’ The Admiral continued to stare at Ziggy’s and Shayla’s parents like a farmer inspecting a strange herd of cows. ‘This changes everything,’ he muttered to himself finally. ‘I’ve got to get hold of the President and call off the attack. Straight away.’ He flicked a switch on the control panel in front of him, then spoke into a radio handset. ‘Hello, Clam Chowder,’ he said. ‘Do you read me? 112

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This is Admiral Crushmore, on board mini-sub ZX-104. Urgent assistance required. Over and out.’ A burst of static crackled out of the speakers. This was followed by another burst, louder and longer than the first. Just as Admiral Crushmore was getting ready to repeat his call for help, the welcome voice of Lieutenant Squidsworth filled the cockpit. ‘Admiral?’ he said. ‘Is that really you?’ ‘Squidsworth!’ the Admiral yelled. ‘Yes, it’s me, Crushmore! I’m inside the enemy jellyfish! My minisub’s crashed and I’m stuck and I need you to call the President RIGHT NOW and cancel the attack!’ There was a short pause. ‘Are you all right, sir?’ Lieutenant Squidsworth asked. ‘You sound a bit stressed.’ ‘Of course I’m stressed, you feather-brain!’ the Admiral roared. ‘I’ve just crash-landed inside a jellyfish! Not only that, but unless you get hold of the President, in half an hour’s time I’m going to be blown to smithereens!’ ‘Oh that,’ Lieutenant Squidsworth said. ‘You don’t have to worry about that, sir. I’ve called the President already. I did it as soon as the jellyfish escaped from the net. Those plans have changed.’ ‘They have?’ The Admiral let out a huge sigh 113

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of relief. ‘Well, thank Heaven. I’m very glad to hear it.’ ‘Our new orders are to blow you up on sight, sir,’ the Lieutenant said. ‘As soon as we find you on our sonar, which is proving a little difficult right now.’ The Admiral’s eyebrows shot up. ‘The President has ordered you to blow me up on sight?’ he croaked. ‘Yessir,’ Lieutenant Squidsworth said cheerfully. ‘It shouldn’t be long now sir. The Calamari and the Fishfinger have already joined in the search.’ ‘But–but–but—’ the Admiral spluttered. ‘This is me, Squidsworth! I’m in here! Don’t you realise that? I’m inside the jellyfish! When it gets nuked, I’m going to get nuked as well!’ ‘That’s very true, sir,’ Lieutenant Squidsworth said. ‘I can understand your problem. I did mention it to the President, and he was very sympathetic. He asked me to tell you, sir, on behalf of all the people of the world, that we applaud your heroic sacrifice, sir. We think it’s a wonderful thing that you’re doing.’ ‘WHAT?’ Admiral Crushmore almost fell out of his chair. ‘Are you nuts? Have you all gone raving mad? I’m not making a heroic sacrifice! I crashlanded! I had no idea I was going to end up in here!’ ‘Of course not, sir,’ Lieutenant Squidsworth said patiently. ‘But as you so often say, sir, we are standing 114

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at a crossroads. Our destiny is in our hands. We must grasp the nettle of danger and turn the tide of history, even if that means blasting you into millions of ittybitty little pieces.’ The Admiral made a choking noise in his throat. ‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this!’ he gasped. ‘I’ve been like a father to you, Squidsworth! I’ve yelled at you, and clipped you round the ear, and made you spend hours in your room! Don’t you even care?’ ‘I care a very great deal, sir,’ Lieutenant Squidsworth said. ‘And so do the rest of the crew. They wanted me to tell you, sir, that they’re passing round a hat to raise money for a memorial in your honour. They’ve already collected twelve dollars fifty.’ ‘But you can’t blow me up!’ the Admiral spluttered. ‘I’m an important man! I’m Supreme Commander of all naval forces in the Pacific!’ ‘I’m sorry sir, we don’t have a choice,’ Lieutenant Squidsworth replied. ‘Not if we’re going to stop the invasion. It wouldn’t matter if the President himself was in there with you. The jellyfish must be destroyed. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go. I’ve got the captain of the Garlic Prawn on the other line.’ There was a pause, and a click, and the connection went dead.

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17 The President Intervenes ‘We’re doomed,’ Mr Plunkett moaned. ‘I can feel it. Those missiles are closing in on us. We’re all going to die.’ Everyone else ignored him. ‘How many submarines did he say were searching for us?’ Mr Martin asked. ‘Four,’ Ziggy said. ‘The Clam Chowder, plus the Calamari, the Fishfinger, and I’m pretty sure the Garlic Prawn has just joined in as well.’ ‘Four submarines,’ Mrs Plunkett said in a hushed voice. ‘Golly. We’ll never even know what hit us.’ Ziggy tried once more to peer out through the jellyfish’s skin. There was no sign of lights from chasing submarines. That was the good news. The bad news was that there was no sign of anything else, 116

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either. The ocean outside was now completely black. ‘We still don’t know for sure what this creature is, or where it came from,’ Ziggy said to the Admiral. ‘We’re only guessing when we say it came up from the centre of the Earth. You said yourself, Admiral, there are plenty of weird creatures living at the bottom of the sea. Maybe this is one of them.’ ‘Could be,’ the Admiral said. ‘But then how do you explain the hole in the ocean floor? That’s real. I saw it on the sonar screen with my own eyes. And the force-field that was activated when the jellyfish escaped? That’s real as well. It nearly sucked our submarine in, it was so strong.’ They lapsed into a tense and uncomfortable silence. Everyone was lost in their own thoughts, wondering when the missile attack would come, and whether the next second that passed was going to be their last. Every so often Mr Plunkett would give a groan and say something like ‘We’re doomed. Doomed, I tell you.’ Then he would fall quiet again and the silence would go on as before. ‘You don’t suppose the missiles might miss?’ Mrs Plunkett said eventually. ‘They won’t just go speeding past us, and blow up Tonga?’ ‘Our missiles never miss,’ Admiral Crushmore said. ‘They’ve all got heat-tracking devices, and 117

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sonar-tracking devices, and satellite navigation systems. Once one of those things is launched and locked onto us, we’re finished. Our only hope is if the jellyfish somehow stays off their sonar.’ ‘We should probably say our goodbyes, then,’ Mrs Plunkett said, and offered her hand to the Admiral. ‘Goodbye, Admiral. It’s been nice knowing you. Do you have a family back in America?’ ‘I’ve got a wife and two grown-up daughters,’ the Admiral said. ‘I don’t see them much, because I’m away at sea so often. I keep thinking I should retire and spend more time with them, but somehow it never happens.’ ‘And what about you, Shane?’ Mrs Plunkett said to Mr Martin. ‘My wife and I are divorced,’ Mr Martin said. ‘I’ve got a girlfriend. I had a lunch date with her today. She’s going to think I stood her up.’ ‘You have stood her up,’ Shayla said. ‘But I reckon you’ve got a pretty good excuse.’ ‘Could you all stop talking a minute?’ Ziggy said suddenly, in a quiet voice. ‘Stop talking. Look. Look around us. What do you see?’ Everyone looked around, frowning. ‘I don’t see anything much at all,’ Mrs Plunkett said. ‘It’s too dark.’ 118

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‘Exactly,’ Ziggy said. ‘The glow inside the jellyfish is fading. It’s getting darker here all the time. We can hardly see each other any more.’ ‘Good,’ Shayla said. ‘You’re so much handsomer in the dark.’ ‘I think the jellyfish is getting deeper,’ Ziggy went on, ignoring Shayla. ‘The deeper you go, the darker the water gets. Ever since the jellyfish escaped from the net it’s been going down, not up. I think it’s heading back to the bottom of the Marianas Trench.’ ‘I think you’re right,’ Admiral Crushmore said. ‘I can hardly see my hand in front of my face. Which means we are headed down towards the bottom of the trench.’ ‘But that means we’re headed for the hole!’ Shayla blurted out. ‘That means we’re going all the way down to the centre of the Earth! Even if we escape the missiles, we’ll be boiled alive in molten lava! The temperature down there is hotter than the sun!’ ‘Maybe, maybe not,’ Ziggy said firmly. ‘But, if we are going down the hole, then there’s no need for the President to blow us up, is there? We won’t be invading any more. You need to talk to the President again, Admiral. Tell him what we think is happening. This might be our very last chance.’ 119

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Admiral Crushmore nodded. ‘You know, kid, sometimes you almost act smart,’ he said, as he picked up the radio handset and turned it on. ‘I can’t call the President direct, because I don’t have a hotline,’ he added. The only one we’ve got is on the Clam Chowder. So here goes.’ Admiral Crushmore called Lieutenant Squidsworth a second time. He repeated to the Lieutenant exactly what Ziggy had told him, then asked to be put through to the President. There was a long silence as they waited for the connection to go through. ‘Your memorial fund is going well, sir’, Lieutenant Squidsworth said brightly, as if to pass the time. ‘The collection’s up to twelve dollars seventy-five.’ ‘Someone put in twenty-five cents, did they?’ Admiral Crushmore said. ‘Well done. I wonder who that was.’ ‘It was me, sir,’ Lieutenant Squidsworth said. ‘And what are you thinking of honouring me with, Squidsworth?’ the Admiral asked. ‘A park? A fountain? A life-sized bronze statue at the Naval Academy?’ ‘A beer mug, sir. To keep in the canteen. Here’s the President now.’ At the sound of the famous voice, Admiral 120

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Crushmore snapped to attention (as well as he could inside the cockpit of the mini-sub) and saluted smartly. ‘Mr President!’ he said. ‘Good to talk to you again, Admiral,’ the President replied. ‘How’s everything going?’ ‘Not so good, sir. Not since you gave the order to kill me.’ ‘Oh, that.’ The President cleared his throat. ‘Nothing personal, Crushmore. These things happen sometimes. No hard feelings, I hope.’ ‘None at all sir. I would have killed me, too, if I had been in your position. But there have been developments on the jellyfish invasion front. We now believe there is good reason for you to call off the bombing.’ ‘I see,’ the President said. ‘And why is that?’ ‘According to our calculations, we are returning to the bottom of the Marianas Trench,’ the Admiral continued. ‘We’re about to go back down our hole. We’re quitting, sir. We’re running away. We’re retreating with our tail between our legs. Therefore, there is no need to attack us at all.’ ‘Ah, so that’s what you’re doing,’ the President said. ‘That explains why we haven’t found you on sonar yet. We were looking up towards the surface. 121

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We didn’t think you would corner yourself by going back into the trench. Thank you, Admiral. Hold on a few moments. I’ll inform the other submarine commanders straight away.’ There was a silence. Everyone in the mini-sub held their breath. ‘Admiral?’ the President said. ‘I’ve been talking with my chiefs of staff. The Head of the Navy has just informed me that he’s got you on sonar. You are heading for the bottom of the Marianas Trench, exactly as you said. At your current speed of nearly a hundred knots you’ll be there in roughly fifteen minutes.’ ‘Very good sir,’ Admiral Crushmore said. ‘So are you still going to blow us up, sir? Now that you know we’re headed for the hole?’ ‘No, I don’t think that will be necessary,’ the President said. ‘Of course, if you change direction and head for the open ocean, we will target you immediately. But otherwise, I don’t see that you pose any danger. We will track you to the hole and remain on red alert until the danger is over. But the nuclear attack will be called off immediately.’

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18 A Mystery Solved

‘Well, that’s one good thing I guess,’ Shayla said gloomily. ‘We’re not going to be blown up by nuclear missiles. I wonder why I’m not jumping for joy.’ ‘My girlfriend isn’t going to like this one bit,’ Mr Martin said. ‘With her back in Australia, and me at the centre of the Earth. Neither of us is good at long distance relationships.’ ‘How big is the hole we’re going to hit, Admiral?’ Ziggy asked. ‘I don’t mean how deep it is, I mean how wide. Are we going to fit down easily?’ ‘The boys in the sonar room measured the top of the hole exactly,’ Admiral Crushmore replied. ‘It’s fifteen yards wide.’ Ziggy peered forward out of the mini-sub window. He frowned. 123

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‘Can we switch on the searchlights, please?’ he said. The Admiral switched them on. ‘But that can’t be right,’ Ziggy said, as the searchlights illuminated the jelly all around. ‘This jellyfish is much wider than fifteen yards. Isn’t a yard about the same as a metre? It must be twenty metres, at least.’ ‘I’d say twenty-five metres, more like,’ Mr Martin put in. ‘Judging how far it is from here to the far edge. And how much more jelly there is behind.’ ‘So how is a twenty-five-metre jellyfish going to fit down a fifteen-metre hole?’ Ziggy asked. ‘And how did it come up through the hole to begin with? It doesn’t make sense.’ This new puzzle mystified everybody. Nobody could come up with an answer. The Admiral insisted that the jellyfish really had come up through the hole. He had been there when it happened. He remembered it well. ‘We had just come to rest on the ocean floor, at the bottom of the Marianas Trench,’ he said. ‘Everything was quiet. There was no sign of movement outside. Then as soon as our hull touched the ground, the jellyfish burst out of the hole and attacked us.’ ‘As soon as the hull touched the ground?’ Ziggy 124

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repeated. ‘So the jellyfish was already right up near the top of the hole when you landed?’ ‘I guess so,’ the Admiral said. ‘Yes, that’s right. It must have been on its way up to invade.’ ‘And are you sure it was inside the hole?’ Ziggy said. ‘Not resting on top of it?’ ‘Definitely not,’ Admiral Crushmore said. ‘Our cameras took pictures of the entire area before we descended. There was nothing resting on the sea floor.’ Now Ziggy really was stumped. Surely it was impossible for a jellyfish that size to fit in a hole ten metres too narrow. What could it possibly do in a hole like that? It couldn’t move anywhere without getting stuck. Why would it stay there? He was thinking about these questions so much, his head was hurting. He felt giddy, too, as though he were about to slump sideways off his chair. There was a bump, as though the jellyfish were passing through some turbulence. Everything inside it started to shake. ‘It’s the force-field!’ Admiral Crushmore said. ‘We’ve hit the top of it! We’re in for a bumpy ride!’ He was right. With each second that passed, the shaking got worse. The mini-sub and Mr Martin’s ute were rattling against each other noisily. 125

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The jellyfish was now travelling in a wide, slow circle, speeding up as it went. All at once, Ziggy realised what was happening. They were caught in a whirlpool. A giant underwater spiral. They were spinning around like a toy spinning around a plughole, with the water draining away. A plughole . . . ‘That’s it!’ he shouted. ‘I’ve got it! I know the answer!’ ‘The answer to what?’ Mrs Plunkett cried in alarm. ‘The jellyfish was at the top of the hole all the time!’ he shouted. ‘It never came up from the centre of the Earth! It’s a plug! It was wedged in there tight, to stop the ocean from draining away!’ Everyone looked at him. ‘A plug?’ Admiral Crushmore said in disbelief. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Oceans don’t have plugs.’ ‘This one does!’ Ziggy said breathlessly. ‘It must have been there since the ocean first formed! It must be millions of years old! Maybe even billions! Normally it gets its food by attacking anything that touches it, but when the submarine touched it, it got pulled loose! And the force-field isn’t a force-field at all! It’s a whirlpool caused by the ocean slowly draining away!’ There was a short, hushed silence. It was the kind 126

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of silence that occurs when people realise they might be in the presence of true genius. ‘Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle,’ Mr Martin murmured. ‘So we’re not going down to the centre of the Earth after all. We’re going to get jammed right back in the plughole.’ ‘That’s right!’ Ziggy said. ‘When the jellyfish got pulled out, it expanded to be the size it is now! But when it gets wedged back inside, it’ll shrink again! It’ll become a whole ten metres narrower!’ ‘So what’s going to happen to us?’ Mrs Plunkett asked. ‘We’re going to die, that’s what!’ Mr Plunkett wailed. ‘We’re doomed! We’re going to bounce back off the sea bed like a cricket ball!’ ‘No, I don’t think that’s going to happen. Let me see.’ Ziggy paused a moment, lost in thought. ‘The mini-sub’s in here now. And the ute. The jellyfish will never be able to fit back in its hole with all this junk floating around. It’s got to get rid of us. But how? And why hasn’t it got rid of us before?’ All of a sudden he leapt out of his seat. ‘IT’S GOING TO EXPEL US!’ he shouted. ‘IT’S GOING TO SHOOT US BACK OUT INTO THE OCEAN, WHEN WE HIT THE HOLE! GET YOUR SEATBELTS ON, EVERYBODY! GET IN 127

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THE EMERGENCY CRASH POSITION! QUICK, BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!’ At once Shayla and Admiral Crushmore groped for their seatbelts. In the back, Mr and Mrs Plunkett and Mr Martin did the same. The roar of the whirlpool was now so loud they couldn’t hear anything. They were getting very near the bottom of the ocean, Ziggy could tell. Without his seatbelt the force of the mini-sub spinning would have thrown him against the side of the cockpit. He would have been pinned there, like wallpaper glued to a wall. ‘I can see it!’ Admiral Crushmore shouted suddenly. ‘I can see the hole! It’s straight ahead, at the bottom of the spiral! Ziggy peered forward. He could just see, in the dead centre of the swirling black vortex in front of him, something glowing silver. A splash of dim, silvery light was rushing towards them. It was rippling in the heart of the ocean like a cluster of shooting stars in the sky. ‘Talk about hands-on marine biology,’ Ziggy muttered. ‘That doesn’t look like a hole!’ Shayla shouted. ‘That looks like the end of the world!’ ‘It IS the end of the world!’ Admiral Crushmore shouted back. ‘For us, anyway! Hang o-o-o-on!’ 128

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19 The Plugfish

Ziggy woke up to find himself in a bed. He was in a long, narrow room like a hospital ward, with half a dozen other beds set neatly against the walls. He sat up. Shayla was in the bed opposite. His parents and Mr Martin were also in the room. They were all sleeping soundly. The room had no windows, and there was a strange humming noise coming from outside it, like the sound of an enormous engine. I’m on a ship, Ziggy thought. Or maybe another submarine. We must have been rescued. He tried to recollect what had happened. His mind was a blank. After the mini-sub had hit the hole at the bottom of the ocean, he could remember nothing at all. While he was racking his brains, the door behind 129

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him opened. Lieutenant Squidsworth came in. When the Lieutenant saw that Ziggy was awake, his face burst into a beaming smile. ‘Just in time!’ he said. ‘I was coming in to get you up. The President will be arriving any minute in his helicopter.’ ‘The President?’ Ziggy murmured, in a hoarse voice. ‘How did he get here? Where are we?’ ‘You’re on board the USS Pickled Herring, the pride of the Navy,’ Lieutenant Squidsworth said. ‘It’s an aircraft carrier. Come outside and take a look.’ Ziggy tried to get to his feet. The blood rushed from his head and he almost fainted. He quickly lay down on his bed again. ‘Sorry, I forgot,’ Lieutenant Squidsworth said. ‘You need to take it easy. You’ve been sleeping for nearly two days.’ ‘Two days!’ Ziggy exclaimed. He could see Shayla stirring in the bed opposite him, not yet fully awake. ‘But why? What happened?’ ‘The jellyfish hit the hole at the bottom of the ocean, and spat you out,’ Lieutenant Squidsworth said. ‘Your mini-sub got shot back into the water, exactly as you predicted. The Clam Chowder was the first submarine on the scene, and we rescued you, just in time. You’d run out of oxygen. All six of you were 130

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barely breathing. Another fifteen minutes, and you would have been dead.’ Ziggy shut his eyes. A memory stirred in his mind, like the faintest trace of a bad dream. He was in a hot, airless room, gasping for air. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t see or feel anything. He was sure he was going to die. ‘Is everyone else all right?’ he asked. ‘Where’s the Admiral?’ ‘Admiral Crushmore regained consciousness six hours ago,’ Lieutenant Squidsworth said. ‘He’s up on deck, waiting for the President’s helicopter. He’s given the President a full briefing on what happened in the mini-sub. The whole world knows about your amazing discovery. Right now you are one of the most famous people on the planet.’ Ziggy tried to get up a second time. He managed to stand without feeling too dizzy. ‘My discovery?’ he said. ‘What do you mean?’ ‘The plug, of course!’ Lieutenant Squidsworth said. ‘What else? The plug at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean! Nobody knew it existed! Nobody even dreamed it could have existed! But against all the odds, you figured out exactly what it was.’ Lieutenant Squidsworth opened the door. Ziggy stepped out into the corridor. He followed the 131

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Lieutenant up a flight of narrow steps, and through another door, onto the deck of the aircraft carrier. What a beautiful morning it was. The sea was a calm, sparkling blue. The sky was clear. The deck of the aircraft carrier seemed to stretch for miles in every direction. To Ziggy’s left, the entire crew of the carrier – hundreds and hundreds of men – were standing at attention, facing out to sea, their white caps and spotless uniforms gleaming in the sun. Admiral Crushmore was talking to another man in officer’s uniform. As Ziggy watched, the Admiral raised his arm and pointed. Ziggy could just see a faint black speck hovering above the horizon. At that same moment the distinctive stuttering sound of an approaching helicopter met his ears. ‘Admiral! You made it!’ Ziggy ran forward to shake the Admiral’s hand. ‘We all made it! I can’t believe we’re still alive!’ ‘Ziggy, my boy!’ Admiral Crushmore replied. ‘Good to see you fighting fit! Stay right where you are, my lad. There’s somebody about to arrive who very much wants to meet you.’ They waited as the helicopter came in to land. Soon after, the President stepped down onto the deck, flanked on all sides by bodyguards in smart black suits. He shook hands with the captain of the 132

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aircraft carrier, and with Admiral Crushmore. Then he came up to Ziggy. ‘So you’re the famous Sigmund Plunkett,’ the President said, clasping Ziggy’s hand and shaking it firmly. ‘I’ve heard all about you from the Admiral. He’s been spinning me quite a tale.’ ‘Yes sir,’ Ziggy mumbled, blushing deeply. ‘It was nothing, sir. Just a stroke of luck at the right time.’ ‘Nonsense,’ the President replied. ‘It was nothing to do with luck. It was genius. It was scientific deduction of the highest order. To figure out the true nature of this jellyfish, while you were still trapped inside it, and hurtling towards the bottom of the ocean, is a huge achievement. It ranks with the very greatest discoveries of all time.’ Ziggy blushed again. The President let go his hand, and stepped back. ‘Now tell me in your own words,’ he said. ‘What happened down there?’ Before Ziggy could speak, a voice burst out behind him, ‘Well, Mr President . . .’ He turned to see Shayla striding forward. His parents and Mr Martin were just behind her. ‘We were in this mini-sub, you know, inside this huge jellyfish thing,’ Shayla went on. ‘Which of course Ziggy figured out was actually a plug. We 133

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knew it was going to get stuck at the top of this hole we were heading for, and Ziggy had this insane idea that we were going to get spat back out into the ocean, which turned out to be totally correct. But the thing was, we all got knocked out by the force of the jellyfish hitting the hole, and after that we sort of ran out of oxygen for a while, so none of us really knows what happened. All we really know for sure is – ‘You got picked up by the crew of the Clam Chowder,’ the President said patiently. ‘And here you are.’ Shayla nodded. The President smiled at her warmly. He turned back to face Ziggy once more. ‘I can’t tell you how excited our scientists are at your discovery, Ziggy,’ he said. ‘It changes everything we know about how our planet evolved. Our top marine biologists can’t wait to meet you. They want you to come to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, right away, and give a series of important lectures. They’re very keen to learn what you’re going to call this creature, now that you’ve correctly identified it.’ ‘The Ziggyfish,’ Shayla suggested at once. ‘What about “Plunkett’s Jellyfish?” ’ Admiral Crushmore said. 134

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‘The Plugfish,’ Ziggy said simply. ‘Just the Plugfish, if that’s all right, sir.’ ‘The Plugfish it shall be,’ the President agreed. ‘And now that it’s back in its proper place, after we accidentally set it loose, we’ll make sure nothing disturbs it again. No submarines will ever go near it, except for scientific observation. We will not touch it. We will not change its natural habitat. On this, the leaders of the countries of the world all agree.’ Ziggy nodded. ‘And what about the ocean, sir?’ he said. ‘Did much of it drain away, before the hole was blocked?’ ‘Not really,’ the President said. ‘Not enough to make a difference to sea levels. You must understand that the Pacific Ocean is truly enormous. It contains nearly a billion cubic kilometres of water. It would take a long time for even a small portion of that to drain away.’ Ziggy shook his head in wonder. ‘I’d love to know how old the Plugfish is,’ he said. ‘It must have blocked up that hole millions and millions of years ago, so that the Pacific Ocean could be formed. How did it stay alive for so long? What’s it made of? How does it swim so fast? And how does it shoot out those amazing blobs of jelly?’ ‘Our scientists are asking exactly the same 135

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questions, Ziggy,’ the President said. ‘That’s why they’re so eager to hear you speak.’ ‘But I don’t know the answers!’ Ziggy protested. ‘I don’t know any more than you do!’ ‘You discovered the most important answer, didn’t you?’ the President said. ‘And in the future, I’m sure you’re going to find out a whole lot more. I would like you to come to America, Ziggy. To take up a scholarship at the best marine science institute we have. If you accept, you can keep studying the Plugfish for as long as you want.’ Ziggy blinked slowly. It would be a dream come true to continue studying the Plugfish. He could think of nothing better. But surely his parents would never agree. ‘You would live in a boarding school with all the brightest young marine biologists from around the world,’ the President went on. ‘You would have access to the very latest equipment. You would explore all the oceans of the world, not just the Pacific. You would dive to the bottom of every one. Of course we would expect you to continue researching the Plugfish. But you would be doing other things as well. And we would fly you home for as many visits as you wanted. Every year.’ Ziggy turned to look at his parents. ‘Mum?’ he 136

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said. ‘Dad? What do you think?’ Mr Plunkett shrugged. ‘I don’t see why not,’ he said. ‘I was going to send you off to boarding school anyway.’ ‘It sounds like a wonderful opportunity, dear,’ Mrs Plunkett said. ‘Far too good to miss.’ ‘So I can go?’ Ziggy asked. ‘Yes,’ Mrs Plunkett said. ‘You can go.’ ‘Hey! What about me?’ Shayla interrupted suddenly. ‘Don’t I get to come? You can’t live without me, remember Sigmund? We’re deeply in love.’ Ziggy felt his ears go bright red. ‘Well, I—’ he said, glancing at the Admiral in embarrassment, ‘I mean I . . . I know I said that, but I didn’t actually—’ ‘Just kidding.’ Shayla slapped Ziggy on the back. ‘I don’t want to go to America. I’m happy right where I am. I’ve got to study for my brown belt. And help Dad with his rescues.’ ‘Maybe I could come back for a beach holiday one time,’ Ziggy suggested. ‘Maybe you could,’ Shayla grinned. ‘We could go for another ride in Dad’s ute.’ ‘Please!’ Mr Martin buried his head in his hands. ‘Don’t mention my ute! Forty thousand dollars worth of prestige off-road vehicle! Lost at the bottom of the sea!’ 137

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‘So that’s settled then.’ The President turned to Ziggy once more. ‘You’re coming with us. Excellent. And now we need to leave, right away.’ ‘Leave?’ Ziggy blinked at him. ‘What, now? Leave for where?’ ‘Leave for the Smithsonian, in Washington, of course,’ the President replied. ‘In my private helicopter. All our top scientists are waiting. There are queues a mile long to get into your lectures. The signs are up already, all over the city: SIGMUND PLUNKETT – JELLYFISH EXPERT.’ Ziggy smiled. ‘That’s me.’

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