License to Thrill Read Online Free

It looked like this . . .
    Beautiful summer day. Coke and Pep were floating on inflatable pool rafts in the middle of a lake. There wereno boats in sight. They didn’t have a care in the world.
    Then, suddenly, the peace was disturbed by a faraway noise—the sound of a motor, possibly a small boat. Coke looked up. In the distance, he could see two tiny dots.
    â€œWhat’s going on?” Pep asked.

    â€œSounds like motorboats.”
    But the dots were not motorboats. They were Jet Skis. And they were heading directly toward the twins.
    Pep waved her arms to signal the drivers. But they didn’t seem to notice.
    â€œI don’t have a good feeling about this,” Pep said.
    As the Jet Skis drew closer, the twins could see that two men were driving them. Two men wearing bowler hats.

    â€œBowler dudes at twelve o’clock!” Coke shouted.
    â€œThey’re gonna run us down!” Pep screamed.
    â€œJump!” Coke shouted.
    He could see the bowler dudes’ faces, snickering and giggling like idiots. He took a deep gulp of air and dove off his raft at the last possible instant before the Jet Ski would have rammed him. It passedright over, ripping the raft to shreds. Coke struggled to swim back to the surface.
    â€œOooh, missed him by that much!” cackled the mustachioed bowler dude.
    â€œThis is fun !” shouted his clean-shaven brother. “We should do water sports more often!”
    As Coke’s head bobbed above the surface, he saw Pep, treading water and gasping for breath. Her raft had also been destroyed.
    â€œThey’re trying to kill us!” she shouted.
    The Jet-Skiing bowler dudes were circling around, gunning their engines for another attack.
    â€œThey’re coming back!” Pep screamed.
    â€œGet underwater!” Coke shouted, before filling his lungs with air.
    The bowler dudes came roaring back, aiming their Jet Skis for the two heads bobbing in the water. Once again, the twins dove below the surface at the last second, avoiding certain death.
    â€œIt’s like Whac-A-Mole, but with people!” shouted the clean-shaven bowler dude as he passed by the spot where Pep’s head had been a moment earlier.
    Coke and Pep stayed underwater as long as they could hold their breath. When they surfaced, a large yacht was approaching from the west. It cruised to a stop. There was a woman standing at the rail.
    â€œMrs. Higgins!” Coke shouted.
    Yes, it was Mrs. Audrey Higgins, their germaphobic health teacher. She reached a hand down for Coke and Pep to climb aboard the yacht, and gave each of them a towel.
    â€œYou saved our lives!” Pep marveled. “Why? You hate us. You’ve been trying to kill us ever since you locked us in the detention room and burned the school down.”
    â€œWell, I didn’t want those idiots to kill you,” Mrs. Higgins replied matter-of-factly, “because I wanted to do it myself !”
    It took a moment for Mrs. Higgins’s words to sink in. It also took a moment for the colorless, sweet-smelling liquid she had soaked the towels in to take effect. But very soon, Coke and Pep were feeling lightheaded.
    â€œWhat’s that smell?” Coke asked.
    â€œI think . . . I’m going to . . . pass out,” said Pep.
    â€œIt’s my favorite scent—chloroform,” said Mrs. Higgins. “It increases the movement of potassium ions through the nerve cells, which serves to depress your central nervous system. The result will be cardiac arrhythmia. Don’t worry, in a few minutes you won’t smell a thing. Because you’ll be dead .”
    Clearly, she was insane.
    Unbeknownst to Mrs. Higgins, a helicopter hadlanded at the other side of her yacht. While she was busy poisoning the twins with chloroform, the helicopter pilot—a red-haired teenager—had come running over.
    â€œStep aside, you old hag!” he said, shoving Mrs. Higgins