“Yes, there are fish!” He became greatly excited as three big blue fellows came cruising in. One of them made a dive for the bait, but changed his mind and shot away.
Ted lifted the line a yard, causing the white spot to shoot upward. A second fish made a dive for it, but before he made contact the first one circled back like a plane aiming at a target, and grabbed the lure.
“Got you!” Ted breathed, giving the line a quick jerk.
He had hooked him, but the fish was game. He shot this way, then that, then circled round and round.
I don’t want him any more than a little, Ted thought. I’m not hungry enough to eat raw fish, and in this sun he wouldn’t keep. He began playing the fish, trying him out.
Then, all of a sudden, a large blue shadow appeared in the water, a darting shadow. No, it wasn’t a shadow—it was a ten-foot shark. Streaking through the water, sleek and ugly, the shark hypnotized the boy. This lasted only ten seconds, but long enough. Too late Ted realized that he was about to exchange his blue fish for a shark.
The shark swallowed the fish, hook and all. At once Ted felt the line shoot through his fingers. Gripping desperately, he checked the line. He felt his raft being towed rapidly through the water.
The shark went down. The raft tilted at a dangerous angle. A hundred thoughts sped through the boy’s mind. He might be lost for days, perhaps weeks. Without food he must perish. No line, no fish, no food. But if the raft went over? What then? Soaked to the skin, he would in the end be obliged to yield his line. Then a happy thought struck him. In his emergency kit were other hooks, and in his parachute many lines. He opened his hands, the line slid through his fingers. The raft settled back. He was safe. The shark was gone.
“Whew!” he exclaimed, rubbing his burned fingers. “This life on a raft is not all it’s cracked up to be. You—”
His thoughts were interrupted by the rumble of thunder off in the distance. Or was it thunder?