Turtle Terror Read Online Free Page B

the direction—they seemed to have an internal compass that just told them where to go.
    â€œI’m hungry,” Danny said. And he turned and shot sideways toward a small pulsing cloud that was drifting through the water. Josh knew what it was immediately, but he wondered whether he should tell Danny. His brother had a habit of eating stuff while S.W.I.T.C.H.ed that freaked him out later when he S.W.I.T.C.H.ed back again.
    But Danny was already swimming into the cloud of delicate white parachutes with see-through bodies pulsating through the water. Before Josh could say anything, he opened his mouth and slurped one in. It struggled briefly in his throat but could not escape. Josh knew this was because his brother’s reptilian throat had backward-facing spines to prevent his lunch from swimming back up it again.

    â€œWhat does it taste like?” he asked Danny as the living cloud scattered and swam away fast.
    â€œUm . . . what? The . . . sea jelly?” Danny asked, after a gulp.
    â€œYes . . . the ‘sea jelly,’” Josh said, making air-quote movements with his flippers. “What’s it like?”
    â€œWell . . . quite nice,” Danny said. He started to look a little sick. “I . . . just ate something icky, didn’t I?”
    â€œNot for a turtle,” Josh said. “It’s turtle takeout, that is. You ate a jellyfish.”
    â€œEeeeurgh!” Danny said. “Why did you let me do that?”
    â€œWell . . . you said you were hungry!” Josh shrugged and laughed. “And that’s what leatherback turtles eat. That reminds me,” he added as he and his brother swam on toward the shallows. “There
is
something that can kill you here.”
    â€œWhat?” Danny spun round, making a small vortex of sand and bits of floating seaweed. “A shark? A whale?”
    â€œFar worse than that,” said Josh. “A plastic bag.”
    Danny cuffed his brother’s gray, white, and beige patterned head with one flipper. “You really had me worried there!”
    â€œWell, you
should
be worried if you’re going to swim around scarfing stuff without checking what it is first,” Josh said. “Hundreds of leatherbacks die every year because they’ve mistaken a plastic bag for a jellyfish. Floating in the water they look really similar. The plastic bag blocks up their insides and stops other food from getting through. It makes them starve.”
    Danny grimaced. “Um . . . that
was
actually a jellyfish I ate, wasn’t it?”
    â€œYes—it was,” confirmed Josh.
    â€œPhew!”
    They coasted over some rocks and stumps of old wood. And then Josh stopped. Very abruptly. He had not intended to stop. Something had stopped
him
.
    And that something was not planning to ever let him go . . .

For a few seconds Danny didn’t even notice. He swam on toward the beach, loving the way the sunlight dappled down through the warm waves and made ever-shifting patterns across the seabed. And he still hadn’t even needed to take a breath! This was so amazing! He and Josh should just forget about giving the S.W.I.T.C.H. spray back to Petty and keep it all week. They could swim out in the sea every day—maybe even go offshore for miles and swim down to explore wrecks!
    He started to say this to his brother—and then he noticed that his brother wasn’t next to him. Or behind him. Or anywhere.
    â€œJosh? Josh? Where are you?” He waited, effortlessly treading water as his call traveled through the sea. At first he heard nothing . . .and then . . . a kind of squeak. He flipped round and swam straight for the source of the squeak. He still couldn’t see Josh, though, and now his heart began to skip about, rather fast. What had happened? Had Josh S.W.I.T.C.H.ed back to a boy already? That could mean trouble.
    Josh had not S.W.I.T.C.H.ed back, but he was still in trouble. He was trapped.
    He hadn’t