7 A Big Orange Head!

Chapter 7 A BIG ORANGE HEAD! The Water Bug spun down into the blackness. "Yikes!" yelled Judy. "Eek!" squeaked Thudd. Awk! squawked Burpp. "Yergh!" yelled Andrew. KLANK! KLANK! came the sound of the Water Bug banging against the rocky canyon wall. This is like when you're falling in a dream, thought Andrew. It feels like you're never going to stop. "Cheese Louise!" hollered Judy. "There's a head out there!"

A silly-looking orange head about the size of a basketball floated in front of the windshield. It had a frilly collar and flapping elephant ears. meep… "Dumbo octopus!" said Thudd.

"You mean like Dumbo the elephant?" said Andrew. "With big ears that made it fly?" "Yoop!" said Thudd. "But Dumbo octopus not got ears. Dumbo octopus got fins!" "He has such beautiful blue eyes!" said Judy. A creature that looked like a chubby bath toy passed by Andrew's window. The Dumbo octopus flapped toward it. The bath toy began to glow bright red! Suddenly its glowing skin peeled away, and the squishy little creature threw it at the octopus! meep… "Octopus chase sea cucumber animal," said Thudd. "Sea cucumber make skin light up. Throw skin onto octopus. Bright red skin like big sign! Say 'Eat Me!' to predator animals." GRAAACK! Andrew and Judy turned to see that the crack in the back window now zigzagged all the way to the bottom! "The Water Bug is shrinking again!" yelled Judy. "We're going to get squashed by a zillion tons of ocean!"

"Uncle Al is on his way" said Andrew. "He'll probably find us before we get squashed." Judy folded her arms across her chest. "We can't count on that," she said. "We need to fix the Water Bug now. Let's think about the problem. "We know the Water Bug stopped working when Burpp arrived. Maybe something got broken accidentally when we dragged Burpp in." Andrew scratched his head and looked at Burpp. "Maybe you caught a claw on a tube or something," he said. Awk! "Maybe," said Burpp, shrugging his wings. "Burpp broke a claw under there." "I'll look under the hood," said Andrew. "Maybe I can see what's wrong." Andrew pulled up the flap under the steering wheel. Plurp! Plurp! Plurp! There was a drip! But where was it coming from? It was too dark to see.

Andrew reached into one of his front pockets, pulled out his mini-flashlight, and turned it on. Then he saw it. A blue tube was dripping big drops. It was the water tube to the fuel system, and it was broken! "Burpp!" yelled Andrew. "Could you find some tape? Look under the sink." Awk! "Okay," said Burpp. Thunk! He pulled open the cabinet under the sink with his beak. Awk! "I see soap and paper plates. There's a salami and a bag of marshmallows. But I don't see tape." "Check the toolbox," said Andrew. Awk! "No tape there," said Burpp. I need something to fix this leak, thought Andrew. Or we could be stuck in an awfully deep place for, um, a long time. Andrew pulled his head out from under the hood and looked around.

The Dumbo octopus was outside Andrew's window. The glowing sea cucumber skin was stuck to its head. Andrew pressed the Octo-Tool button. "Get the sea cucumber skin from the octopus," he said, "and bring it inside." The Octo-Tool crept out from under the hood and snuck up behind the octopus. The tentacles snatched the glowing skin, hurried back under the hood, and poked the skin through the flap under the steering wheel. Andrew grabbed the sea cucumber skin and ducked back under the hood. He wrapped the skin tightly around the leak and tied a knot. "Wowzers schnauzers!" said Andrew. "I think this will work!" When Andrew pulled himself back into the driver's seat, they were settling gently on the bottom of the Challenger Deep. Outside, the water was dark and empty. Even the little octopus had disappeared. The ground was