CHAPTER 2

I heard a rush of water behind me!

The hammerheads breathing down our butts had just thrown open their jaws. I could smell their stinky fish breath. I believe they had recently enjoyed the all-you-can-gobble shrimp buffet at the nearest coral-reef diner.

“So long, Beck!” I shouted, thrashing against the waves. “You’re the best twin I ever had!”

“I’m the only twin you ever had!” she shouted back.

“This is no time to get all technical, Rebecca. We’re both about to die!” As the storyteller of the family, I decided to wax poetic with my dying words. “I guess it’s only fitting that since we came into this world together, we should leave it together, too!”

“Oh, no, you’re not!” cried the heroic voice of our (you won’t believe this) big sister, Storm!

She zoomed between us and the hammerheads on a Jet Ski!

“Where’d you find a Jet Ski?” I hollered.

“Tommy had it stowed in a secret compartment in the bow of our ship!” Storm shouted back. “He might’ve forgotten that he told me about it, but I never did!”

The thing to remember about our big sister, Storm, is that she remembers everything. She’s also the smartest Kidd kid. So why was she doing something as dumb as attempting to herd sharks on a Jet Ski? Because that’s what we Kidds do. We look out for one another—even if we look ridiculous doing it.

“Whatever you do, Bick,” Storm shouted, “don’t pee! Sharks can smell human urine in the ocean.”

Great, I thought. Now she tells me.

Storm circled the sharks, churning up a white, foamy wake to fence them in. More or less.

“Swim to shore, you two,” she told us. “I’ll keep these bad boys busy. I brought along one of Dad’s golf clubs!”

As I frantically swam for the beach, I chanced a glance over my shoulder to see what Storm was doing with Dad’s driver, the biggest club from his bag.

She jabbed at all of the sharks who dared snap at her as she zipped around and around them in dizzying circles. That’s Shark-Attack Defense 101: Poke ’em in their gills.

Or their eyes!

“What are you looking at, M. C. Hammerhead?” Storm yelled at the lead shark.

One-handing the Jet Ski throttle, she used her free arm to line up the golf club’s head with the shark’s big, bulging eyeball as if it were sitting on a tee!

Storm faked like she was going to rear back with the driver. The alpha shark, who seemed dead set on eating us a moment earlier, turned tail and headed out to sea. Guess he didn’t want to see one of his eyeballs ending up on the seventeenth green. It would make for a messy putt. The other sharks took off with him.

A couple minutes later, Beck and I dragged ourselves ashore. We were exhausted but alive, barely able to catch our breath.

Yay, Storm!

When she landed her Jet Ski on the beach and hauled it up on the sand, Beck and I raced down to give her a huge hug. We were both sooooo lucky to be part of the most incredibly awesome family in the world!

“Thank you, Storm!” said Beck.

“You’re the best big sister we could ever have!” I added.

Storm didn’t seem to be quite as happy as Beck and me.

I could see her eyes darken as she narrowed them at us.

Yep. That’s why we call her Storm.

Like a thundercloud billowing up in the tropics, she can get very, very angry very, very quickly.