Akiko on the Planet Smoo by Mark Crilley

Author:Mark Crilley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780440418627
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2008-12-13T05:00:00+00:00

There was nothing we could do at first but cough and spit water out of our mouths as the seaweedy net pulled us up into the air. Our ship was now like a big bathtub, with all of us up to our shoulders in water. Fortunately it was tipped a little, allowing the water to slowly drain out over one side. Gax was bobbing up and down in the front seat like an old tire, and Spuckler was trying his best to aid the draining process by splashing water out with his hands.

I was so relieved just to be breathing again that I kind of forgot to be scared for a minute or two. There was plenty to be scared of, though. The net we were caught in belonged to the Sky Pirates, and we were all slowly but surely being hauled up to their ship as prisoners. The net was so thick with seaweed and other muck that it was hard to get a good view through it, but I could see enough of the sky above and the sea below to realize that we were already hundreds of feet above the water’s surface.

Spuckler brushed his thick, wet hair away from his eyes and looked at me with an expression of extreme embarrassment. He had obviously lost a little of his confidence during the fall.

“I’m sorry, Akiko,” he said as he leaned over and started emptying the water out of Gax’s many compartments. “I guess I didn’t know as much about these Sky Pirate fellers as I thought I did.”

“Don’t worry, Spuckler. We’ll be all right,” I told him, “so long as they don’t make us walk the plank or anything.”

“Walk the plank?” Spuckler said with a chuckle. “Akiko, you’ve been readin’ too many children’s stories.”

I turned my attention to Mr. Beeba. He was slumped over next to me in the backseat with pieces of seaweed all over his head. I think he’d kind of fainted right around the time we went into the water.

“Mr. Beeba,” I said, giving him a shake, “are you okay?”

“Better not wake him up, Akiko,” Spuckler cautioned me. “He’s gonna be plenty angry when he comes to.”

But it was already too late.

“Don’t worry, Spuckler,” Mr. Beeba said, suddenly very alert. “You’ll get the throttling you deserve for this fiasco. But I’m going to save that little treat for a more suitable occasion.”

“Now, come on, Beeba,” Spuckler responded, regaining a bit of his confidence, “you gotta give these Sky Pirates a little credit. They coulda blown us all to smithereens, but instead they just shot us down into the water. Heck, they even made it so as we’d land in one of their nets.”

“Oh yes, they’ve been true gentlemen,” Mr. Beeba said in a very sarcastic voice. “Shall we thank them first or just give them a good handshake?”

I already knew enough about Spuckler and Mr. Beeba to realize that they could go on like this for hours. Judging from what I could see of

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