Get Smart 6 - And Loving It! Read Online Free

them.
    “Talk about the nick of time,” Max said. “I just found a capsule of collapsible boat to go with that capsule of paddles.”
    Quickly, Max broke the two capsules. A fully-inflated rubber boat and two paddles popped out. He and 99 leaped aboard, grasping the paddles, just as the wall of water reached them. The boat was swept up by a huge wave, and moments later they found themselves bounding downstream, carried along by the irresistible force of the flood.
    “Max! Do something!” 99 squealed, struggling to stay aboard the boat. “We’re going to be carried out to sea!”
    “99, I am doing something—I’m paddling!”
    “It isn’t helping, Max!”
    “I didn’t say I was doing something constructive, I just said I was doing something.”
    The boat was hit by another huge wave. With Max and 99 still clinging to it, it submerged. When it bobbed to the surface again a few seconds later, both Max and 99 were paddling furiously. Then 99 stopped.
    “Max—the island, where is it?” 99 cried.
    “I’m having trouble enough as it is, 99. Let the island find its own boat.”
    “Max, it’s gone. We were swept out to sea!”
    “Good riddance!” Max said. “It was nothing but trouble, anyway.”
    “But, Max, we’re lost! Lost at sea!”
    The boat had stopped pitching and tossing. Max sat up and looked around. “Well, we’re at sea, 99, I’ll go along with you that far,” he said. “But we’re hardly lost. After all, we’re intelligent beings, we can determine direction. And we know that the mainland lies to the east of us and the island lies to the west of us.”
    99 sat up too. “From here, which direction is which, Max?”
    “Offhand, I don’t know. But we can find out easily enough. We know that the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. So all we—”
    “Max, it’s the other way around.”
    “Oh. All right, then, we know that the sun sets in the east and rises in the west. So—”
    “No, Max, when I said the other way around, I meant to transpose east and west, not rises and sets.”
    “Skip it, 99. It’s the middle of the night and the sun isn’t out, anyway.” He looked up into the sky. “Maybe we can use the stars to guide us.”
    99 peered up too. “Wliat are we looking for, Max?”
    “A group of stars in the shape of an arrow that blink on and off and spell out ‘To the Mainland.’ ”
    “To the mainland, Max? We want to get back to the island, don’t we?”
    “99, we wouldn’t survive an hour on that island. We lost our survival kits. Our only chance is to reach the mainland, get new kits, then have that helicopter pilot fly us to the island again.”
    “All right, Max, if you say so. But if the stars won’t point the way, how are we going to find the mainland?”
    “Instinct, 99. How do the birds find the north after they’ve been down south all winter? Instinct, that’s how.” He pointed. “And my instinct tells me that the mainland is thataway.”
    Max and 99 began paddling, steering in the direction that Max’s instinct told him would take them to the mainland. They paddled throughout the rest of the night, and then at the break of dawn they spied a shape on the horizon.
    “The mainland!” Max said exultantly. “Score another victory for instinct!”
    “Max . . . it looks awfully small to be the west coast of the United States.”
    “That’s because we’re still a long distance away, 99.”
    “Then how come our boat is bumping on the beach?”
    Max looked over the side and saw sand. The boat had beached on an island. “Well, at least I’ve learned something today, 99,” he said. “It isn’t instinct that guides those birds back from the South. I think they must follow the railroad tracks.”
    They got out of the boat and pulled it up on dry land.
    “Do you have any idea where we are, Max?” 99 said.
    “On an island—that’s about as far out on a limb as I’m willing to go at this point. Let’s look around.”
    “But, Max, it looks