AAAARGH!!! by Bill Myers Page A

finals.
    “It’s gonna be incredible!” Doug said, gulping down a soda. “You’re going to (sniff-sniff) shut them all down and become regional champ.” (BURP! —Doug never passed up the opportunity to try out new bodily sound effects.)
    Chad grinned. “You think so?”
    “We know so,” Naomi said. “And after that (click, clack) we’re off to the national (crunch) championships!”
    Chad nodded as he looked out over the water. He still felt bad about cheating, but not nearly as bad since he was winning. Suddenly something caught his attention. “Hey, isn’t that the new kid’s sister?”
    “Who?” Doug sniff- ed.
    “Where?” Naomi click- ed.
    “Out there, wading in the surf. She’s pretty young. Somebody should be with her.”
    Doug spotted her and shrugged. “She’ll be fine. I’m sure TJ’s around to—”
    He was interrupted by the PA announcement:

    “Let’s go,” Doug said.
    Chad continued looking after the little sister. “Yeah, but—”
    “Don’t worry,” Naomi said. “She’ll be fine. You need to focus all your concentration on winning this meet.”
    Reluctantly, Chad nodded. He picked up his board and, with Doug’s help, limped toward the water.

    That same morning, TJ decided not to go to church with her family. She had two reasons:
    1. She was lost in an avalanche of crumpled papers.
    2. She figured God might work something into the pastor’s sermon to remind her she shouldn’t be doing what she was doing. (He can be tricky that way.)
    But as she was about to discover, God has plenty of other ways to make a point.
    It all started with Dad dropping Dorie off after church and going out to lunch with Violet. Part of his quality family time routine was having a date with each of his daughters once a week. That was cool.
    What was not cool was TJ’s turning on the local TV station and seeing Chad in the competition. She’d hoped he would be more honest than that. Then again, how could she blame him? Wasn’t she being just as dishonest?
    (See what I mean about God being tricky? And if you think that’s something, hang on. He was just warming up.)
    Truth be told, it was kinda fun to see Chad on TV.
    More truth be told, it was not kinda fun seeing Hesper Breakahart and all her wannabes posing for the cameras in their super-expensive, super-sheer, super-are-those-really-swimsuits-or-are-they-wearing-dental-floss? swimwear. It was even less than not kinda fun when TJ caught a glimpse of a child splashing and playing at the water’s edge. A child who looked exactly like . . .
    “Dorie!” TJ cried. Obviously, her sister had sneaked off and gone to the beach on her own. “Tuna! Herby!”
    Immediately the boys

    into her room from their place in the attic.
    “We gotta save Dorie!” TJ shouted. “She’s at the beach by herself and she can’t swim!”
    “Say no more,” Herby said. He reached for the trusty Swiss Army Knife, pulled out a blade, and they

    right to the

    . . . well, it was supposed to be the beach. But by the looks of things, they were at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean! (Either that or the whales drifting by had just learned to fly.)
    “HERB-BLUB-BLUB-BLUB-Y!” TJ shouted.
    Herb-blub-y reached back to his knife and

    The good news was they landed on the beach.
    The bad news was Long John Silver and his noisy
    “Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!”
    parrot had appeared, too.
    The badder news (don’t try that word on Miss Grumpaton) was he was pointing his pistol at a volleyball player who was about to serve.
    “Hand over that cannonball, matey, before I blow ye to kingdom come.”
    “Cannonball?” the player laughed nervously. “It’s a volleyball!”
    The pirate cocked his pistol and growled, “I don’t care what ye naked natives call it. I need more ammo fer me ship.”
    “But—”
    Suddenly TJ spotted Dorie. “There she is!” She pointed at the little girl, who was already in the surf, being pulled out into the ocean. TJ took off for her,