The Island of Dr. Libris Read Online Free PDF Page A

“Make Popsicle-stick pot holders?”
    “No, Weedpole. We’re gonna come back out here, hop on my Jet Ski, and annihilate
you.
”
    “We’re gonna sink your dinky little boat,” added his buddy.
    “Yeah,” said the other one. “Your boat is dinky.”
    Oh-kay
, Billy thought.
Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.
    Then, on the island, he heard Hercules shout, “By Zeus, I know not how to slay this monster!”
    Farkas and his friends were already heading up to the glass house, laughing and slugging each other the whole way. If they heard the yelling, they sure didn’t act like it.
    Billy took a deep, steadying breath.
    He had to do this thing.
    He untied the docking rope from a piling and stepped down. He had one foot up on the pier and one down in the wobbly boat. He pushed his foot off the dock, shot out his arms for balance, and stood frozen like a terrified tightrope walker.
    Then he moved half an inch.
    And the boat nearly flipped over.
    Billy dropped to his hands and knees and scrabbled around on the bottom of the boat until he was finally able to twist himself sideways and slide his butt up onto the slat of wood he was supposed to sit on to row.
    Before he could slide the oars into their brackets, the boat started drifting.
    Fortunately, the current carried him to the left,
away
from Nick Farkas’s dock. Billy slapped at the water with one of the paddles. Unfortunately, he was turning in circles.
    But then he felt something correct his course.
    Something under his hull.
    Something big.
    Billy looked down at the lake.
    Through the glassy surface of the water, he saw a huge face staring up at him.
    “Aaaaah!” Billy nearly jumped out of the boat.
    The man glaring up at him had long, flowing white hair and a wavy Santa Claus beard. He wore a golden starfish crown on his head and carried a humongous three-pronged spear.
    He was also the size of a whale.
    Billy gulped.
    Because the underwater titan was Poseidon.
    And he looked just like he did in the book!
    Billy was frantically hanging on as Poseidon used the middle tip of his trident to nudge him toward the island. The Greek god was helping Billy exactly the way he’d helped Hercules
in the book
!
    Awesome
, thought Billy.
    But how did Dr. Libris get the fake Greek god’s spear to actually push the real rowboat?
    Did the professor hire engineers from an amusement park to set this all up?
    Why?
    Powered by Poseidon propulsion, Billy reached the island’s rocky coast in less than five minutes.
    “Thanks for the assist,” he said to the water.
    But, of course, nobody was there.
    Clenching the nylon docking line in his teeth, Billy crawled out of the rowboat. Luckily, someone had bolted a metal tie-off cleat to one of the boulders dotting the edge of the shallow lagoon.
    Very convenient
, Billy thought.
Probably where the ferryboat docks in the morning when it drops off all the actors and special effects technicians.
    Billy stood on the rocky shore and took in the towering row of shaggy evergreen trees ringing the island. Even though it was the middle of a hot summer day, the place seemed dark and mysterious.
    He was tempted to row back to the mainland.
    But he didn’t.
    Instead, he walked up a narrow path into the lush and sort of steamy forest. The fragrant evergreens gave way to leafier trees and thick, tangled underbrush.
    Billy had hiked maybe thirty feet when he came to a wall of wire netting. Tugging at it, he realized that amassive mesh dome—like the net over the hawk cages at a zoo—covered the
entire island.
    That was why the island looked so hazy from a distance. It was under a gigantic screen lid.
    Probably so they can rig ropes and pulleys off the dome
, Billy thought.
To work the Rock Person puppet and stuff.
    Billy raised a loose flap cut into the netting—a doorway as wide as the path. He stepped through it and was under the dome. The narrow trail continued to wind its way into the shadowy green world. Billy followed it.
    “Okay, guys,”