Whales on Stilts! Read Online Free PDF

I’m underage. As such, it is not allowed to go any faster than a tractor until I get a driver’s license. Which will be some years from now.” He sighed. “Dash it all!”
    Katie stretched her arms. “Well, it wasn’t a very successful mission. We didn’t get the microfilms—I mean, the two-hundred-pound wax roll—with the secret stuff on it.”
    â€œNo,” said Jasper unhappily. “More’s the pity.”
    â€œAnd they know we’re spying on them now,” said Katie.
    â€œI feel as if this is somehow my fault,” said Jasper even more unhappily.
    â€œAnd if they figure out that it was Lily, then her dad will probably be in danger.”
    â€œKatie,” said Jasper, “there are times when good friends enjoy a certain kind of silence.”
    â€œIt’s not a loss at all,” said Lily quietly. “Now we know what we’re up against.”
    â€œGoons with guns?” said Jasper. “That we knew before.”
    â€œNo,” said Lily. “We know much more than that. We saw part of Larry’s face. Most of his mouth.”
    â€œIt was really weird looking,” said Katie.
    â€œAnd I think that gives us a hint as to his whole... you know, insane scheme,” said Lily.
    Her two friends turned to her.
    â€œOkay,” said Katie. “Now will you please explain?”
    Lily tapped thoughtfully on the car door. “Let’s go to dinner at the Aero-Bistro, and I’ll tell you what I think.”

That night the Aero-Bistro was floating in the middle of Jebb’s Gorge, just outside of town. The trees on the cliffs were strung with lights. The dinner special was a hearty lobster-and-squash bisque. Music for the evening was supplied by members of a string quartet, who were playing energetic chords while sitting in the backseats of four speedsters that did daredevil jumps off the cliffs, flying past the Aero-Bistro. The music—one note per jump—was very solemn and slow, a little drowned out by the roar of the engines and the cries of the pit crews replacing tires.
    â€œWell,” said Katie, leaning back in her chair as a cello went by playing B-flat at a speed of about 170 miles per hour, “now maybe you’lltell us what that guy’s weird mouth helped you figure out.”
    â€œTo me it looked... It was like he didn’t have teeth,” said Jasper. “It was like thick white hairs instead of teeth.”
    â€œUp close,” said Lily, “I’ll bet they’re wider than hairs. I’ll bet they’re made of the same thing as our fingernails.”
    â€œHmm,” said Jasper. “A whole mouth full of hangnails. No wonder he’s so moody.”
    â€œNo,” said Lily. “It’s not actually fingernails. It’s called
baleen”
    â€œâ€˜Baleen,’ huh?” said Katie.
    Lily nodded.

    ba-leen [bay-leen]
n
strips of hard fiber that occur in the mouths of certain whale species; used to strain out plankton, the microscopic organisms eaten by whales. Example: “It’s so embarrassing going to the movies with my whale cousin and watching him try to eat popcorn through his
baleen.”
    â€œHmm,” said Katie.
    â€œAnd did you notice?” said Lily. “His skin was blue.”
    â€œSo it was,” mused Jasper. “As blue as the woad on a Celtic warrior’s pinkie.”
    â€œJasper,” said Katie, “can you not use words like
woad
right now?”
    Lily forged on. “One other thing about Larry. He pours brine over his head.”
    â€œSo you’re saying ...,” said Katie.
    â€œI’m saying that Larry is a whale-human hybrid. He’s a little of both. Remember when my dad said that he thought the company made stilts for whales? Well, he may not have been kidding. They may actually make stilts for whales ...”
    â€œSo that the whales,” said Jasper, catching on, “can invade