Gordon Korman: The Discovery

His dive knife was in a scabbard on his right thigh. He could just reach it with his left hand. As his glove closed over the hilt, the big grouper abruptly changed direction. Kaz was yanked after it like a puppy on a leash. In agony, he felt the knife slip through his fingers. His last hope, swallowed by the churning sea.

No, he reminded himself. There’s still one chance. Something has to stop that grouper.

And something did. At first, Kaz thought it was a submarine — it had to be, something so big. But then the huge torpedo-like shape opened a gaping mouth. And when it snapped shut, half the grouper was gone.

The Mylar line went slack, but Kaz made no attempt to shrug himself loose. He was paralyzed with a fear that dated back to his very early childhood. For he knew, as surely as if the big fish had been wearing a neon name tag, that this was the eighteen-foot monster tiger shark the locals called Clarence.

Still sinking slowly, he watched the enormous jaws savage the grouper in a cloud of blood and tattered flesh. The blood looked green at this depth. The color red is filtered out by seawater…. His scuba instructor’s voice echoed in his head, repeating the words in an endless loop. Kaz was powerless to stop the lecture. His mind had shut down. Terror was in charge.

He had left home, family, hockey, everything that was familiar, to travel two thousand miles to the Caribbean — to die.

He barely noticed the moment that he bumped into the seabed. It was almost a comfort. A place to hide while the big shark circled overhead, snapping violently at the bloody scraps around it. To Clarence, blood in the water meant food. The predator already had no memory of the grouper it had just devoured. It never gave a thought to its last meal; its next one was the main concern.

Kaz huddled on the sandy bottom, trembling with dread. No plan was taking shape in his mind, no strategy for survival. Even the inescapable fact that his air supply wouldn’t last forever could not penetrate his overpowering compulsion to hide from nature’s perfect killing machine.

Dante broke the surface and spit out his regulator, gasping in the fresh air.

“Shark!” he tried to yell. It came out a high-pitched wheeze.

He looked around desperately. He was closer to the Ponce de León than the Cortés , but he instinctively began thrashing toward Vanover’s boat. When it was a matter of life and death, you went with the people you trusted.

Something bubbled up out of the water directly in his path, and he screamed in shock and fear.

Star pushed her mask aside. “Not so loud,” she warned. “Listen, we found out what Cutter’s—”

“ Clarence! ” Dante bellowed right in her face.

“Who?”

“The shark!”

Adriana hit the surface, and this time both Dante and Star recoiled.

“Where’s Kaz?” Star asked.

“He’s on the bottom and he’s not moving!” Dante wailed. “I couldn’t get to him! The shark—”

Star was already kicking for the Cortés , shouting, “ Captain! ”

Both Vanover and English were on the dive platform to pull the three out of the water.

“What’s going on?” the captain demanded. “Where’s Kaz?”

Chest heaving, Dante sobbed out a breathless explanation. “The shark didn’t bite him,” he babbled on, “but I think he’s too scared to come up!”

English was already strapping on a scuba tank.

“It sounds like old Clarence,” Vanover decided. “You’d better take the shark cage.”

The dive guide scowled. “I am not a canary, me.”

“The kid could be injured, even bleeding,” Vanover argued. “You’ll need the cage because of him.”

English grunted his agreement.

They spent precious minutes unfolding the titanium cage and attaching it to the Cortés ’s electric winch. English climbed inside and pulled the door shut. The clang sounded like the closing of a prison cell.

Vanover swung the cage over the gunwale. “One tug for down, two for up, three for stop.” He hit the winch, and the guide disappeared into the sea.

Menasce Gérard was as much at home in the ocean as on land. In his commercial work with the oil rigs, he often descended to depths of a thousand feet or more — thirty atmospheres of pressure. He feared nothing down here and viewed the cage as an inconvenience, almost an embarrassment. Why was he surprised that those American teenagers had brought him to this?

The poor visibility was unexpected. But, alors , this made perfect sense. No single shark could disturb so much silt. But whatever had done it might very well attract a large predator like Clarence.

He peered through the bars, looking for the shark and the young diver, but there was no sign of either. When the cage hit bottom, he gave a triple yank on the signal rope, the sign for stop. Then he opened the steel door and ventured out.

He had no weight belt, so maintaining depth was a struggle. He could do it, but not forever, and the effort would surely deplete his air supply quickly. He had to find Kaz right now.

The cloudy water made the search difficult. The minutes fell away. How many? Even a veteran diver couldn’t judge. Too many.

He passed directly over the boy and almost missed him in the gloom. Kaz lay flat against the sand as if attempting to bury himself in it. At first, English mistook the blackness of the boy’s wet suit for a large sea fan that had fallen over.

Kaz nearly jumped out of his skin when the dive guide grabbed him under the arms and pulled him upright.

Menasce Gérard did not waste words anywhere, especially underwater. “Come,” he said into his regulator.

Kaz grabbed the big man’s arm and did not let go. Now connected to a weighted diver, English was able to lead the way efficiently along the bottom toward the cage.

It might have been underwater radar, or even a sixth sense, but English knew instantly when the shark began pursuing them. A quick glance over his shoulder revealed nothing. But the predator was coming, concealed by the swirling silt. English could picture the eighteen-foot monster with the cold black eyes.

He spit out another word: “Faster.” He still couldn’t see Clarence, but he was aware of a dark shape behind them, and it was grow-ing larger. They kicked like machines, propelling themselves toward the cage and safety.

Kaz did not risk a look back, but there was horror behind his mask, and the desperation of the hunted.

The shadows ahead began to resolve themselves into the straight lines and right angles of the cage. But the shark was visible too now, and gaining. Its sweeping tail powered the attack as it closed the gap, mouth slightly open, lethal arsenal at the ready.

With a burst of speed and strength that surprised even him, English finned for the cage and thrust Kaz inside. He scrambled in himself, and grabbed the door to swing it shut.

And then the great mouth exploded out of the shadowy deep with appalling violence.

Jaws the size of a small desk clamped down on the bars of the still-open door in a shriek of bone on metal. The powerful head began to shake relentlessly. The cage tossed, its occupants rattling around like backgammon dice in a cup.

The tugging from the struggle must have reached the surface, because the cage began to rise. The shark remained clamped on the gate, stubbornly trying to bite through the two-inch titanium. English braced himself against the rear slats, kicking frantically with his flippers at the flat blunt snout.

Hanging on to the bars to avoid being catapulted out the opening, Kaz knew a panic he would not have imagined possible. He saw that the only thing keeping them alive at this point was the tiger shark’s own stupidity. For if the beast had the sense to let go of the door, it would have been able to poke its head inside the cage and reach them.