Read Online Deep Trouble II by R. L. Stine - Free Book Online

plankton.
    He raised the bottle over his head.
    “Look out, Dr. D.!” Sheena cried.
    Dr. Ritter swung the bottle.
    Dr. D. ducked.
    I snatched the bottle from Dr. Ritter’s hand.
    My uncle leaped at Dr. Ritter. Dr. Ritter dodged him and dashed out of the
lab.
    “He’s going up on deck!” Sheena shouted.
    We raced after him. Dr. D. tackled Dr. Ritter on the deck. Dr. Ritter rolled
away. He jumped on Dr. D.
    They wrestled around. I set the bottle of plankton down.
    “Get off him!” I yelled. I tried to pull Dr. Ritter off my uncle.
    Dr. Ritter elbowed me away. Dr. D. grabbed him. They rolled across the deck.
    “Dr. D.—look out!” I screamed. He was about to roll overboard.
    With a grunt, Dr. D. jumped to his feet. He dove on Dr. Ritter and pinned him
to the deck.
    “Get a rope, Billy! Quick!” he ordered.
    I grabbed the first rope I found on the deck. “Tie him up!” Dr. D. ordered.
“Sheena—help me hold him down.”
    Sheena took a running start and leaped on top of Dr. Ritter.
    Dr. Ritter grunted. “My stomach!”
    Sheena sat on top of him. Dr. D. pinned his arms down. I wrapped the rope
around his wrists.
    Dr. D. had taught me some sailor’s knots the summer before. My mind raced,
trying to remember them.
    How did it go? I thought in a panic. Over, under, around?
    Dr. Ritter squirmed under Sheena. “Hurry, Billy!” she snapped.
    “I’m trying!” I said.
    “It’s over, Ritter,” Dr. D. said. “We’re taking you to the International Sea
Life Patrol.”
    Over, under, over?
    “No, you’re not!” Dr. Ritter cried. He bucked Sheena off.
    She tumbled to the deck.
    He wrenched his hands from the rope and shoved Dr. D. away.
    My crummy knots were useless.
    Dr. D. tried to grab him. But Dr. Ritter dove away and crawled across the
deck. He snatched up a bottle of plankton.
    He stood and waved the bottle at us. “You’ll never turn me in!” he declared.
    Then he pulled the bottle open, tilted it over his mouth, and drank it down.

 
 
32
     
     
    “It works!” Dr. Ritter declared. “I’ll prove it to you!”
    He tossed the bottle aside. The glass smashed on the deck.
    “You can’t fool us, Dr. Ritter,” Sheena said. “We know that stuff doesn’t
work. We saw Billy drink it.”
    But Dr. Ritter’s body began to tremble. Quickly, his skin began to darken to
a slivery, blue-gray.
    “Something’s happening!” Dr. D. exclaimed.
    Dr. Ritter’s skin began to flake. Then it turned scaly. It glittered in the
sunlight.
    His body began to shrink. His clothes slid off the slick scales. His hair
fell away. His head flattened. His whole body shrank and flattened.
    “It’s working!” I gasped. “He’s turning into a fish!”
    Dr. Ritter’s arms shriveled into fins. His legs melted together, melted into
a fish tail.
    He flopped on the deck. One flat eye stared glassily up at us as he flapped
his tail.
    “He’s a fish!” Sheena cried. “I don’t believe it!”
    With one great flip of his tail, the fish plopped over the side of the deck
and into the water.
    We watched him as he dove under the surface.
    “Stop him!” I shouted. “He’s getting away! We can’t let him escape!” I
started for my snorkeling flippers.
    But Dr. D. squeezed my shoulder. “No, Billy. It’s okay. Let him go.”
    “Huh? Why?”
    “You heard what he told us, Billy. Dr. Ritter will be a fish forever,” Dr. D.
explained. “He can’t do anyone any harm now.”
    I stared down at the silvery fish. It splashed its tail in the water and swam
out to sea.
    “Wow,” Sheena gasped, pressing her hands against her cheeks.
    Dr. D. put his arms around us. “I guess that adventure is over,” he sighed.
“I was never so scared in my life.”
    Sheena and I agreed. “I’m scared—and amazed,” I told my uncle. “I’ll never
forget the strange things we saw this week.”
    We followed Dr. D. down to help him prepare breakfast. He stopped in his lab.
    “What a mess,” he sighed. “I guess I’ll clean it up