1 Trapped!

Chapter 1 TEAPPED Now I know what it feels like to be a fish! thought Andrew Dubble. That was because Andrew's underwater vehicle, the Water Bug, was tangled in a huge net at the bottom of the ocean. On the other side of the net were craggy mountains of coral and fish that looked like slices of a rainbow. "Cheese Louise!" said Andrew's thirteen-year- old cousin, Judy. She was sitting next to Andrew in the passenger seat. "Maybe Soggy Bob set a

trap to keep us from getting to the giant squids first!" Soggy Bob Sloggins wanted to capture a giant squid and turn it into giant squidwiches. Andrew and Judy were trying to stop him. "Maybe the Water Bug can rip through the net," said Andrew. He pushed the gas pedal to the floor. VROOOOOOOM! The Water Bug used to be a Volkswagen Beetle. It had a glass floor, a sharky fin on its roof, and a bathroom in the backseat! The Water Bug whammed into the net, bounced off, and thumped into the ocean floor. Now the Water Bug's paddle wheels were caught in the net! A herd of tiny yellow box-shaped fish fluttered up to the windshield. Their big blue eyes peered in curiously at Andrew and Judy. meep… "Try Octo-Tool," came a squeaky voice. It was Andrew's little silver robot and best friend, Thudd. He was sitting in a pocket of Andrew's underwater suit. "Good idea, Thudd," said Andrew.

He pressed a black button on the dashboard. "Untangle Water Bug," said Andrew into a microphone near the steering wheel. glurp… "Will try," came the voice of the Water Bug. The hood of the Water Bug popped open and the gray tentacles of the Octo-Tool slithered out. They snatched at the net and tugged. But the Water Bug wasn't coming free. Instead, the Octo-Tool's tentacles got tangled in the net, too! glurp… "Alert! Alert!" said the Water Bug. "Octo-Tool trouble. Tentacles trapped!" "Uh-oh," said Andrew. "Looks like we'll have to get out and do it ourselves." Judy groaned. "Cheese Louise! The last time we left the Water Bug, we got swallowed by a whale!" Andrew wasn't listening to her. "While we're out there," he said, "we can get the lava boogers out of the Super-Sniffer."

On the hood of the Water Bug was a nose-like invention called the Super-Sniffer. It tracked things in the water the way a dog tracks things on land, by smell. Andrew and Judy needed the Super-Sniffer to find the giant squids. They had to get to them before Soggy Bob! But the Super-Sniffer was clogged up with lava boogers from an underwater volcano. "Look!" said Andrew. He pointed to a part of the net ahead of them. It was squirming. "Something else is caught in the net." meep… "Lotsa animals get caught in old fishing net," said Thudd. "Seals. Turtles. Dolphins." Judy's eyes got wide. "You mean a dolphin could be trapped in there?" she said. "Yoop! Yoop! Yoop!" said Thudd. Judy sighed. "We've got to get out there right away and see what it is." Judy and Andrew pulled their Bubble Duds helmets over their heads. Their Bubble Duds were bumpy green suits that let Andrew and Judy

breathe underwater. There were headphones inside the helmets that let them talk to each other, too. Andrew made sure Thudd's Bubble Bag was tightly closed. Thudd was never supposed to get wet! Then Andrew sealed Thudd inside a front pocket of his Bubble Duds. Andrew and Judy pressed buttons on the sides of their seats. FLAMP!

Their seats flipped over, and they popped outside the Water Bug. Peering through the green water, Andrew saw that the net was drooping from strange tall shapes. They reminded him of the ribs of a dinosaur. Andrew and Judy swam over to the squirming bundle in the tangled net. Suddenly Judy stopped. "Wait a minute," she said. "What if it's a shark?"