Free Fish Finelli Book 1: Seagulls Don't Eat Pickles by E.S. Farber Page A

dangerously. “Paddle, T. J.!”
    “But you just said to stop pad—”
    “Just paddle!” I grabbed the other oar.
    That’s when I noticed the water in the bottom. That could only mean one thing. I spotted the leak right away. It was a wide crack in the wood on the starboard side, below the waterline. We would have to plug it up quickly if we didn’t want to sink. But plug it up with what?
    “How come you’re not paddling?” asked T. J. He blew a big purple bubble with his gum.
    “Gum—that’s it!” I said. “T. J., you’re a genius. Give me your gum!”
    “Huh?” T. J. stared at me. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a twelve-pack of Banana Berry Blast bubblegum.
    There were seven pieces left. I unwrapped one and popped it in my mouth, and then another and another and another.
    “Hey! I didn’t say you could have all of it!”
    “Grumph me fyoors,” I chewed, as I shoved the last three pieces in my mouth.
    “I’m not giving you my gum,” said T. J. “It’s ABC gum. Remember what ABC means? Already Been Chewed!”
    “I know!” I pulled the wad of gum from my mouth so I could talk. “Give me your gum. We have a leak, and if we don’t want to sink, we have to plug it up with something. And gum, which happens to be made from rubber, is the perfect sealant.”
    “Oh,” said T. J. He handed me his wad of purple gum. “You know, you’re right about gum being like rubber, because sometimes when I chew gum, I feel like I’m chewing on my eraser.”
    I raised my eyebrows and kept chewing. Roger and I sometimes wondered if there was anything T. J. wouldn’t eat.
    “Hey, I want some gum!” shouted Roger, paddling toward us.
    GUM
    People have been chewing gum for thousands of years. It used to be made from tree sap. Now it’s made from rubber (yep, rubber like an eraser).
    “Can’t,” I said, spitting out my gum. “The kayak’s got first dibs.” I mashed my gum together with T. J.’s and shoved it into the crack.
    “Whatever floats your boat!” Roger started to laugh.
    And it did. Float our boat, that is, since the water stopped gushing in. Of course, I knew it wouldn’t hold forever. Paddling was hard work, and my arms started aching. T. J. did his share of paddling, too, when he wasn’t taking breaks to eat.
    “Incoming!” Roger called to us.
    T. J. and I both looked up. Coming our way was a whaler with a bright green stripe.
    “Think it’s Bryce?” I asked.
    “Yep. Looks like they’re heading our way. Get ready for contact. In ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .”
    Roger didn’t even make it to four before Bryce was close enough for us to hear him shouting, “Yo! Yo-ho-hos! Where do you losers think you’re going in those sorry excuses for boats? Hope you have my money ready, Finelli, ’cause the two weeks is just about up.”
    “Get lost!” I yelled.
    “I can’t hear you!” Bryce turned the whaler so the bow was pointing in our direction. Then he pulled out the throttle. The engine revved and the boat zoomed right toward us.
    “Oh, jeepo! He’s going to run us over!” exclaimed T. J., his mouth full of chocolate-chip cookie.
    “Mayday!” Roger waved his arms. “Mayday!”
    He turned his kayak so the point, not the broadside, was facing the whaler. If you get hit broadside with a surge of wake when you’re in a kayak, that means you’re going for a swim.
    “Paddle, T. J.!” We had to turn our kayak, too.
    “Which way?” He gulped down another bite of cookie.
    “Left! Quit eating and paddle!”
    “Left?”
    “Right! Hurry!”
    T. J. paddled right. The boat spun in a circle.
    “Not right, left!” I shouted.
    “But you said right.”
    “I said left was right.”
    The whaler was getting closer and closer. Our kayak rocked from the waves. I could see Bryce’s mirrored sunglasses glinting as he laughed at us. We had to turn the point into the wake right now, or we would tip for sure.
    “Have a nice swim, losers!” said Bryce.
    “Yeah, losers!”