THE GREAT WHITE RED ALERT

"Are we taking the Nous Venons?” Tyler asked his sister.

Nous venons is French for “we’re coming,” and was the name of their small, sleek, and very fast personal submarine, currently stowed below, in the large hold of the hydroplane.

“No. Just the scuba tanks,” Alena replied. “I just need to get some kelp and bottom samples.”

“Great,” Tyler said. “I’ll shoot some video to update the website.”

In case you’re wondering why two high school kids have a hydroplane, a personal submarine, and other very special equipment, it’s easy enough to explain: it was all supplied by the Save Our Seas Foundation. The twins are two of the three members of the S.O.S. Foundation’s Aquatic Intervention (A.I.) Team. It was their job to stop terrible things from happening in the world’s oceans.

The team’s third member was currently yipping, yapping, barking along with the seals, and acting just about as excited as a Jack Russell terrier can act. Brutus was his name. He’d been with the team since he was a puppy and figured he was half-fish, so he was anxious to get in the water with the twins. “Sorry, Brutus,” Alena said. “Not this time.”

Alena made dive decisions for the team because she was older than Tyler—by nearly six minutes—a fact she rarely let her brother forget. She also had more diving hours than the others. Brutus, of course, had the fewest, and most of his were inside the Nous Venons where they didn’t need breathing units. He had growled and bared his teeth the only time Tyler had tried to fit him with scuba gear. The little fins were okay, but the tiny mask pinched his ears and slanted his eyes until he looked like a crazy Siamese cat (of course, what Siamese cat doesn’t look crazy?). After some serious jumping and face licking, Brutus got Tyler to promise to fix it. A few hours in the A.I. lab, and Tyler had fabricated a fully-enclosed diving setup that was comfortable for the dog.

“You think we’ll find any problems down there?” Tyler asked.

“Well, those things are still here.” Alena said, pointing to a couple of oil platforms several kilometers away. “I want to see if the tanker traffic has affected the pinnipeds.” An important part of the A.I. Team’s job was checking for environmental damage in the Channel Islands National Park. When there were problems, the oil platforms were number one on their list of suspects. As the twins finished dressing for the dive, Brutus whined some more about having to stay behind.

Tyler knelt, scratching the dog’s neck. “You’re just about snack-size for those sea lions. Besides, someone has to stay here in case of an emergency.” Brutus wasn’t buying it, but seemed to resign himself to surface duty.