Deep Trouble II by R. L. Stine Read Free Book Online Page B

moaned.
    I stared down at the water—down at the creature beneath the water.
    I saw a hairy back. A brown-purple shell. Enormous pincers.
    And knew I’d been grabbed by a giant crab!
    The crab was as big as a card table. And it squeezed my toe in a pincer the
size of my dad’s lug wrench!
    “Help!” I screeched. “Ohhhh, help!”
    The crab snapped its claws. I managed to slip my toe out of its grip.
    Slipping and stumbling, I scrambled back to shore as fast as I could.
    “A giant crab!” I shouted. “Hey—look out! It’s following me!”
    Sheena let out a gasp and came splashing out of the water.
    The giant crab scrabbled onto the sand, moving sideways, its hairy legs
moving rapidly.
    “I don’t believe it!” Dr. D. cried.
    The crab moved toward us with amazing speed, snapping its claws. Click…
click… CLICK.
    “Into the trees! Quick!” Dr. D. shouted.
    We ran into the palm tree grove. I scrambled up a tree, out of the crab’s
reach. Sheena climbed up behind me. Dr. D. grabbed the branch of another tree
and swung himself up.
    The crab watched us from below. It raised its hairy claws as if reaching for
us. Click… CLICK.
    “If only we could cook it!” Sheena exclaimed hungrily. “That thing could feed
us for a week!”
    “It must have eaten some of Dr. Ritter’s plankton! Its huge size has made
this crab very hungry!”
    The crab clicked its big claws, trying to grab us. Its body heaved in and
out, in and out.
    It stood there for what seemed like hours.
    “How long will it wait before it gives up?” I asked.
    Dr. D. shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
    I heard a crack.
    At first, I thought it was the crab claws snapping.
    Another crack. Too close to be the crab.
    Coming from right beneath Sheena and me.
    The tree branch.
    Crack.
    To my horror, I realized that Sheena and I were too heavy for it. The branch
was breaking off the tree.
    My sister and I were about to drop into the crab’s waiting claws.

 
 
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    With a low cry, I reached up both arms. I tried to grab the branch above us.
    I reached… reached…
    No. My arms were too short.
    “We—we’re falling!” Sheena cried.
    With a loud craaaack, our branch broke off.
    And we tumbled down… down… onto the crab’s hairy back.
    No.
    Onto the hot sand.
    “Huh?” I gasped and spun around.
    The crab had moved away. It was scrabbling rapidly back toward the water.
    Sheena sat up, her expression still startled.
    Our uncle climbed down from his branch. “Are you two okay?”
    We watched the huge creature splash back into the ocean.
    “I’m never going back in that water,” I declared.
    “Who knows what other monsters are waiting in there!”
    “But how will we catch any fish?” Sheena wailed. “We’re going to starve to
death!”
    Dr. D. wasn’t listening to us. He had turned away and was gazing down the
beach. “Oh, no!” he cried. “The tide—it came in! The life raft!”
    All three of us started running to the spot where we’d left our lifeboat. But
it was gone.
    I stared out over the ocean—and I spotted a yellow speck in the distance.
The lifeboat.
    The tide had carried it away.
    “Now we’ll never get off this stupid island!” I cried. “Never.”
    Dr. D. didn’t reply. He didn’t need to say anything. The worried expression
on his face said it all.
     
    We passed the rest of the day keeping in the shade, chewing coconut meat.
    “I’ll never eat coconut again,” Sheena whined. “Not even in candy bars!”
    We didn’t talk much. What was there to say?
    Night fell slowly. We watched the sky fade from blue to purple to black.
    Dr. D. sat up suddenly. “Did you hear that?” he asked.
    I sat up too. And listened hard.
    “What is it?” Sheena asked.
    “It’s coming from the beach,” Dr. D. said.
    We walked quickly down to the beach. Two huge animals splashed and played in
the water.
    “Whales!” Sheena cried.
    “No—not whales,” Dr. D. said. “Dolphins!”
    The dolphins ate the