Whales on Stilts! Read Online Free PDF Page B

the land!”
    â€œExactly!” said Lily.
    â€œDastardly!” cried Jasper.
    â€œWhoaaaaaaaa!” exclaimed Katie.
    They stared into space, uncertain of what to do with this terrifying news. The string quartet whizzed past, leaping between the limestone outcroppings.
    â€œWhy couldn’t we have had one of
those
cars for our escape?” complained Katie.
    â€œWhy would we need a string quartet?” asked Jasper.
    â€œI mean, those cars go over twenty miles per hour.”
    â€œBut... they’re not rocket powered,” said Jasper, hurt.
    â€œJasper,” said Katie, putting her hand on his wavy, heroic blond hair, “it’s so sweet how you risk our lives for gadgets.”
    â€œI have a few things I want to ask my dad,” said Lily, tapping her index finger on her teeth.
    They all nodded solemnly. They looked out over the gorge and the trees strung with Chinese lanterns.
    There is nothing better than friends working together against incredible odds. It is a great feeling. Some friends of mine and I, for example, once had to stop this jerk we knew from middle school who was trying to carve his face next tothe presidents’ on Mount Rushmore. He was the richest kid in school, and he had won a bunch of Italian stonemasons in a game of Go Fish. He and the stonemasons were headed down to Mount Rushmore in a bus.
    I won’t go into the whole thing, because I’m just trying to make a point that when you work on a project together with friends, and you’re rushing around with climbing gear and scissors, and your friend Dana is explaining how to go up mountainsides, and your friend Bubs is showing everyone how to disable a helicopter, and though you don’t have quite as many useful skills as your friends, you’re doing your part by writing personalized haiku for each of them, you get this intense feeling of love for your friends, and you come to admire them even more than you did before.
    You start to think,
I would really hate it if they were injured or destroyed in an invasion of whales on stilts.
    This is what Lily, Jasper, and Katie were all thinking.
    Funny that they should be thinking that, though. Because later that very night...

While the three kids met at the Aero-Bistro, Larry, hidden away in his secret laboratory, was lowering himself into a salt bath. He pulled off his mask, muttering, “And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn’t been for those meddling kids and their mule.”
    He leaned back in the bath. His skin was thick, slippery, and blue. His mouth was in a big scowl, and in the water his baleen glistened. He spoke to two of his head guards, who stood nearby. “We must find those children before they spread word of my plan. The one girl looked familiar—the one with the hair in her eyes and the handlebar mustache—but I can’t quite place the face. It was quite an unmemorable face.Somehow the mustache throws me off. But that other girl—I know I’ve seen her face somewhere ...”
    He absently plucked at his baleen as if playing the harp.
    â€œSo they saw my face. My face!” He slapped the water angrily with his blue hands. Then, more quietly, he muttered, “My mother was a razorback whale. My father was a very lonely sailor. They were married in Barbados and lived a happy life together until... But I won’t talk about that. Then they bred me... Me!...A monster! Laughed at by all! Even by my cousin, my jerky cousin who now writes for the dictionary! The dictionary, do you hear?
I am a monster! Yes indeed!
But a monster who shall one day soon rule the Earth!”
    His voice echoed in the chamber.
    The two guards stood against a wall.
    Finally one of them said, “Do you, uh, want us to say anything? Or just listen?”
    â€œJust listen. That will be fine.” Larry strokedhis chin. “Aha! Yes! Eureka! That’s it. I have got it. I know exactly who that meddlesome girl