Tom Swift and His Diving Seacopter by Victor Appleton II Read Free Book Online Page B

do. In an effort to help, she inquired, "Have you men ever been down on a submarine dive? It must be a terrific thrill!"
    Kelt Price gave a shrill chuckle. "Maybe so, but I prefer diving in a swimming pool. Always seems a lot safer—that is, if you don’t crack your head on the bottom!" He guffawed loudly at his own remark.
    Acton exhaled another plume of exhaust in Sandy’s direction. Suddenly he exclaimed, "Oh, pardon me!" Sandy smiled weakly, and he continued: "Where are my manners? May I offer you a cigarette?"
    "I don’t smoke," said Sandy.
    Acton turned toward Bashalli. "You?"
    "Thank you, but I prefer cigars exclusively," Bashalli responded tartly. "Sandra, allow me to help you in preparing the ice cream."
    Sandy excused herself and went to the kitchen to fix plates of ice cream and cake for her guests. Bash followed to help serve. "What an evening!" whispered Sandy.
    Bashalli nodded gloomily. "I thought it might be fun to tease Tom and Bud by having blind dates. But I guess the laugh has fallen on us."
    When the girls returned to the living room with the dessert, Sandy asked Acton if he had any plans to go back to Europe on vacation.
    "No," he replied, "but Kelt and I may be taking a trip together soon."
    "To a land of romance and adventure!" Kelt added. "Not that I’m the type who goes in for this sun-helmet sort of thing," he added, laughing. "It’s business, mostly."
    He did not offer to explain what the business might be. He did mention that a river at the spot he was going to was as big as twenty Mississippis and wound through miles of steaming jungles.
    "Wait’ll you hear some of the more gory details," Price wheezed. "Tell her about the piranhas, Ferd."
    "Ah, yes—the piranhas." Acton grinned at the girls slyly. "Most amazing little devils!"
    "What are they?" asked Bashalli.
    "Fish—cannibal fish—with bulldog snouts and razor-sharp teeth. Less than a foot long, but they’re probably the most vicious and deadly of all living creatures. They’ll slash at anything that moves. And the scent of blood drives them into a frenzy!"
    Bash smiled. "I respond in much the same way."
    Ignoring the comment, Acton went on. "Listen to this. An American scientist had a little too much of the bubbly, you know? So he passed out in a canoe and let his hand trail in the water. When he pulled it out, all he had left below the wrist were bones!"
    "His own bones," added Price helpfully.
    Acton smirked. "Maybe you’d like to hear about some of the twenty-foot snakes that squeeze—"
    "Ah, the time, the time," said Bashalli. "How fast it passes. Sandy, what time is it?"
    "Oh, it’s—" She turned in her chair to get a view of the large grandfather clock out in the foyer. A look of surprise crossed her brow. "What in the world—?"
    Rising to her feet, she led the others into the foyer. Though the old clock was always kept well-wound, it had stopped. But what was uncanny, even frightening, was the sight of the heavy cut-glass pendulum. Rather than hanging down vertically, it was suspended off to one side at the high-point of its arc!
    "What makes it do that?" inquired Acton.
    "It’s shaking," murmured Sandy in wonderment.
    "So is this punch glass," said Bashalli. "Something is pulling on it!"
    Suddenly there came a loud crash. The ornate glass punchbowl had shattered against the ceiling! Punch dribbled down to the carpet below, but the pieces of glass remained pressed against the ceiling as if held in place by glue.
    "My glasses!" shouted Ferd Acton. His glasses had leapt from their perch on his ample nose and flown upward, landing like a housefly on the foyer ceiling. "What is this, some kind of scientific—"
    His words were cut short as a shrill, distant whine split the air, insistently rising and falling.
    "It’s the emergency siren at Swift Enterprises!" Sandy gasped. "Something must be wrong!"
    The family’s watchdogs, Caesar and Brutus, began baying in their kennel. Accompanied by Acton and Price, the girls rushed