Secret sea; (28 page)

"What good is it? There isn't a bicycle for sale. Think I'll throw it out the window."

"Go ahead," Pete said.

Mike grinned and put the money back in his pocket. "How're your hands?"

"Coming along."

"Mine are about well. But I didn't have what Weber called the ^treatment' as long as you did. . . . Boy, those museum people! I thought they were going to get in a fight right on the dock."

"Did you see the one with the beard when he looked at the Wheel? I thought he was going over backwards in a dead faint."

"I thought his eyes were going to jump out and roll on the deck. . .. How far we got to go?"

"Not far."

SECRET SEA

"They got anything to eat in this hospital?"

"Crackers and milk."

"Crackers and milk, he says. Well, you talk to your kid brother, and I bet I can rustle up a steak."

"You get tough and they'll throw you out."

"Who, me? Listen, Mac, they get tough with me and . . . I'll buy the joint."

Pete grinned and looked past Mike at the green orchards. Mike turned also. For a while they both watched the fields and trees sweeping past.

"Nice day to be running around," Mike said at last. "Wonder if Johnny can do any better than wiggle his right thumb? We've been gone a long time."

"It takes a long time," Pete said.

"It's a funny thing," Mike said slowly. "We got all the money in the world, and it doesn't do a bit of good. I can't get a red bicycle, and Johnny can't ride one."

The bus sighed to a stop outside the high walls with the ivy growing on them. As Mike walked beside Pete to the gates, he said, "I still haven't got my shore legs yet. The ground keeps going up and down. Last night that hotel bed nearly tossed me out on the deck."

"Me, too," Pete said.

Pete was glad the place didn't smell like a hospital. There were some cape jasmine bushes

NO BRIGHT RED BICYCLE

around the front, and everything smelled faintly of jasmine.

The man said Johnny was around back, and Pete and Mike walked along a gravel path. Behind the hospital there was a broad lawn with trees growing in it and at the edge a little crooked stream. Out in the middle of the lawn was a wheel chair and a nurse in a white dress was sitting on the grass beside it.

Mike whispered, "Is that him, Cap'n?"

Pete nodded.

*'I think I'll just wait around here," Mike said, still whispering. "I'll mess around here a while."

"Okay."

Pete walked slowly across the clipped, thick grass. The nurse saw him coming and got up. As he got closer, she turned the chair around.

Johnny saw him and began to grin. Then the nurse slipped two crutches under his arms and, very slowly, Johnny raised himself. The nurse helped him when he swayed, but at last he stood straight up on the crutches. Then he began to grin again.

Pete's throat was so tight he was afraid he wouldn't be able to talk.

He stopped walking a few feet from Johnny. " 'Lo," he said.

" 'Lo, Pete."

"How are you, Jawn?"

"Good. Say, you look a little wrung out."

SECRET SEA

"rm okay, Jawn . . ."

The nurse went away, her dress rustHng a Httle. She walked over to where Mike was leaning against a tree, his back to Pete and Johnny.

"Good morning," the nurse said.

"How you do?" Mike said.

"That's Johnny's brother, isn't it?"

"Yeh. His name's Pete. Pete Martin. My name's Martin, too. Mike Martin."

"Oh, are you kin to Johnny?"

Mike looked at her and then looked up into the sky. "In a way," he said.

"Johnny's a grand boy."

"So's Pete."

"I never saw anyone with so much courage," the nurse said.

"Me neither."

"Who?"

"Pete."

"No, I meant Johnny."

"Well, lady," Mike said, "I meant Pete."

The nurse smiled. "You think a lot of Pete, don't you?"

"Why not? Listen, lady, if Johnny is half the man Pete is, then he's okay, see?"

"I see," the nurse said. "Well, he is. Why don't you go over and talk to him?"

"Oh . . . well. Naw, I can't. I told Pete I'd get us something to eat."

NO BRIGHT RED BICYCLE

"No. You go talk to Johnny, and Til get something to eat. What would you like?"

"Oh, just a little something."

"Steak . . . French fries . . . onions?"

Mike grinned. "I bet you do all right as a nurse."

"Maybe. You go talk to Johnny."

Pete was calling him, and Mike went slowly over. He looked at Johnny for a while and then said, "You're doing all right. We thought you were lying up in a sack."

Johnny grinned. "I can even walk ... a little."

"Take it easy, kid," Mike said, "We're going to get you out of here in a little while. Aren't we, Pete?"

Pete grinned and nodded.

Mike shuffled his feet around and then pulled a lump out of his pocket. It was wrapped in brown grocery paper. "I brought you something to fool around with," he said. He held it out, then drew it back. "Say, I forgot. You're about in the same shape as Pete."

Mike tore the wrapping paper off and held out one of the golden birds. "That's what Pete dug up," he said.

Pete started to say something, and Mike scowled at him. "What do I want with a little gold bird?" he demanded. "Can't fly. Can't holler. Can't even lay an egg. Here."

Johnny balanced himself carefully and then

SECRET SEA

held out one hand. Mike put the bird in it and wrapped Johnny's fingers around it. "You can throw it at the nurse if she bothers you," Mike said.

"Thanks, Mike," Johnny said. "Let me sit down and then tell me what happened."

Pete, with Mike supplying any details he left out, was halfway through the story when the nurse came back. Behind her was another girl who was pushing a rubber-wheeled truck with rows of shiny pots lined up on it.

The two nurses began setting plates and opening the pots. The steaks were sizzling on the platters they had been cooked on, and steam came up from the onions.

"Boy!" Mike said. "Now this is my idea of a picnic. No ants."

They finished telling Johnny the story as they ate, and after Mike had wiped his plate clean with a piece of bread, he leaned back on his elbows, a blade of grass between his teeth.

"Wonder what the old Santa Ybel is doing now?" Mike asked.

"Don't know. But Weber blew his sloop up very close to where she was. Might have rattled her," Pete said.

Mike said softly, "I hope not."

But the explosion of the Auf Wiedersehen had

NO BRIGHT RED BICYCLE

done more than that. As the concussion of it packed downward a crab had stopped moving. A purple pecten close beside the Santa Ybel slowly-closed its fluted shells as the shock struck it. Fish near the surface turned belly up and some of them never recovered.

The wave of shock died as it moved away from the blasted sloop but there was still enough power in it to make the Santa Ybel tremble. This trembling loosened grains of sand and they slipped, pushing other grains. A little running cloud of wet dust rose along the southern side of the Santa Ybel. More sand slipped. Things alive scuttled away from the ship as she moved, slowly at first, and then fast, tumbling down and down into the thousand-foot deep.

She struck bottom at last and lay, finally broken, beside the shattered Nazi submarine.

THERE'VE BEEN SOME CHANGES MADE

Probably you already own some COMET BOOKS. Well, we've

decided to change the name of the series to POCKET BOOK,

JRS. because they are new editions of the best books for modern

teen agers, reprinted from the regular $2.00 to $3.00 editions,

just as regular POCKET BOOK editions are reprints of the best

books for adults. You can still buy COMET BOOKS at your

local store—and watch for the new POCKET BOOK, JRS., o

few of which are listed below.

J-35. SKI PATROL by Montgomery Atwater

J-36. LONG LASH by Bertrand Shurtleff

J-37. THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER by Mark Twain

J-38. BALDY OF NOME by Esther Birdsall Darling

J-39. SPONGER'S JINX by Bert Sackett

J-40. MOUNTAIN PONY by Henry Larom

J-41. BLACK STORM by Thomas C. Hinkle

J-42. THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN

by Mark Twain J-43. BLACK BEAUTY by Helen Sewell J-44. POPULARITY PLUS by Sally Simpson J-45. YOUR OWN BOOK OF FUNNY STORIES J-46. YOUR OWN BOOK OF CAMP CRAFT

by Catharine T. Hammett J-47. THE MYSTERY OF BATTY RIDGE by Alan Gregg J-48. BUFFALO BILL by Shannon Garst J-49. BLUE TREASURE by Helen Girvan J-50. TIGER ROAN by Glenn Bolch J-51. THE KINGDOM OF FLYING MEN

by Frederic Nelson Litten J-52. GRIDIRON CHALLENGE by Jackson Schoiz J-53. SUE BARTON, SENIOR NURSE by Helen Dore Boylston J-54. LOGGING CHANCE by M. H. Losher J-55. TOUCHDOWN TWINS by Philip Harkins J-56. C0WD06 by Ned Andrews

J-57. THE BLACK ARROW by Robert Louis Stevenson J-58. MUSTANG by Thomas C. Hinkle J-59. PIVOT MAN by Dick Friendlich J-60. BUCKSKIN BRIGADE by Jim Kjelgaard J-61. BLACK SPANIEL MYSTERY by Betty Cavanna J.62. YELLOWSTONE SCOUT by William Marshall Rush February, 1951

POCKET a

lOCKET BOOK, JRS.

are exciting, gay, worthwhile books for modern teen-agers. To get the best in reading always look for this trademark.

H

%