Free Clive Cussler by The Adventures of Hotsy Totsy Page A

numb for a few moments until she regained her poise and confidence. She turned around and saw the Boss shaking his fist at them as he slowly began to fall behind.
    "From now on," she lectured Casey, "you pass on a straight stretch of river. No more overtaking on bends."
    "Hotsy Totsy is in control," Casey said as they rounded the next bend and set off after two boats about a quarter of a mile in front of their bow. "She won't let us down. The Boss will never catch us now. We're faster."
    A short distance ahead a yellow boat and a gray boat were racing side by side, neither giving the other the slightest advantage. As they came closer, Casey could see that their pilots, like others before, were not about to let Hotsy Totsy pass. They were approaching a dock that extended nearly a hundred feet in the river. Small boats were moored along the sides while a crowd of spectators stood on the wooden planks.
    Suddenly and without warning, the yellow boat struck a snag that was lurking just beneath the water. The tree's trunk ripped a long hole in the bottom of the boat's hull, and it began to quickly sink as if it was a diving submarine. The pilot and the copilot jumped into the river just before the boat disappeared under the water. They looked unhurt and floated comfortably in their life jackets while waiting to be rescued.
    Casey was going to stop and pick up the floating boat racers, but Lacey shouted, "Never mind them! Head for the dock! Hurry!"
    Her voice had such a sound of urgency that Casey didn't ask why. He spun the wheel, but Hotsy Totsy sensed something was wrong and had already turned sharply and sped toward the dock. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the Boss and his black phantom boat zoom past.
    Seconds later, Lacey waved her hands and cried, "Stop here!"
    The magical speedboat came to an immediate stop. Then before Casey and Floopy knew what was happening, Lacey unclasped her safety harness and leaped over the side of the boat. She dove under the surface of the water beside the dock and disappeared.
    The people on the dock were stunned. They couldn't understand why a boat speeding downriver would all of a sudden race up to the dock while ignoring the men floating in the river.
    Lacey was a good swimmer and could hold her breath for a long time. Over a minute passed as excitement grew on the dock when she didn't immediately appear. Then a woman began screaming and pointing into the water.
    At first no one knew why she was screaming and acting so crazy. Then Lacey's head appeared, and she lifted her arms out of the water. She was holding a little boy in her hands. Every race spectator had been watching the powerboat sink, and none had noticed the little boy fall off the dock, even his own mother. No one, that is, except Lacey, who just so happened to be looking at the dock when the boy splashed into the river.
    The dock was too high for her to hand him to the people above, so she gave him to Casey, who lifted him into Hotsy Totsy and held him upside down as he coughed out the water he had swallowed. When the boy began crying, everyone knew he was all right and sighed happily. Casey stood on the seat of the speedboat and raised the little boy up to his grateful mother on the dock.
    "Oh, thank you," she said, tears flowing from her eyes. "Thank you for saving my little boy."
    "My sister, Lacey, gets the credit," said Casey honestly as he helped a thoroughly drenched Lacey back into the boat.
    "I'm only happy I was lucky enough to see him fall into the river." Lacey told the mother.
    "Nice going, sis," Casey said, smiling. "I'm proud of you."
    Lacey smiled back and made an attempt to arrange her water-soaked hair.
    "You were the only one," Casey said, his voice turning serious. "If it wasn't for you, the little boy would have surely drowned."
    Lacey pointed over the windshield. "Look," she said as an official race boat moved toward the men in the water.
    One of the yachts used to monitor the race was slowing down to