Uh-uh, Mr. E.” As he stared down at the rushing water inside the anaconda-sized pipe, Noodle was starting to have second thoughts. “I love Tom and all, but a man’s gotta draw the line.”

Without paying much attention to his protests, Tom’s dad stuck one foot through the opening at the top of the aqueduct, then lowered in the rest of his body. Another moment, and he’d disappeared inside the pipe completely.

“Come on. The water’s not even cold.” His voice sounded tinny and hollow.

“This is really happening.” Noodle shook his head in disbelief as he took a hesitant step toward the aqueduct. He couldn’t wimp out now. Tom and Colby would never let him live it down.

Eyes closed, he placed a cautious foot through the opening. Water rushed into his shoes. Its biting cold numbed his whole leg in a matter of seconds.

“Hold your breath and plunge right in,” Tom’s dad instructed from the darkness. Like it was that easy.

“Hawwwwhhhh …” Shin-deep in the foot-high water, Noodle shivered to his core. He swung in his other leg, then plunged himself beneath the opening. Inside the aqueduct, Tom’s dad, now shrugging off his Windbreaker jacket, kept himself anchored as the water rushed past his body.

“Double-knot the end of this around your wrist,” he said, offering one of the jacket sleeves. Noodle grabbed it, gritting his teeth as icy liquid pooled up around his waist and into his shirt.

“Keep your toes up and your body relaxed,” Tom’s dad instructed. “Anchors aweigh!”

Noodle sat back in the slow-moving current and let it carry him into the darkness. Soon their bodies were moving through the water at a leisurely pace.

“Huh. Once you get past the initial hypothermia shock, it actually isn’t so bad,” Noodle remarked. He was even beginning to relax and imagine how fun aqueduct races with his friends might be, when a faint rumble began in the distance.

“What was that?” he asked, averting his face from the slap of steadily higher-rising wavelets.

“Hold your breath!” Tom’s dad shouted. “We’re about to merge onto City Tunnel Number One.” The water’s flow quickly accelerated. At the last second, Noodle gulped in a huge mouthful of air, just as his body whipped down a steep thirty-foot drop, then swooshed around another sharp corner. Water shot up into his nose as he flipped and spun along the pipe’s walls, clutching on to the Windbreaker for dear life.

“Half of New York’s water … travels through … this very pipeline,” he heard Tom’s dad yelling between submersions. “It feeds … over nine … hundred different—”

Noodle’s head was dunked under the water. He frantically tried to resurface but was becoming disoriented, unable to tell up from down.

“Aaaagghhhh!” He scooped some air into his lungs, then was swept into a rapid current.

The aqueduct fed into a massive pipeline over ten feet in diameter. As Noodle’s head broke the surface again, he began to cough. He was dazed, waterlogged, not a very good swimmer, and somehow he had managed to let go of Tom’s dad’s jacket. All around him, rapids roared past like liquid mountains.

“Noodle!” He followed the voice. In front of him, he could just make out the bobbing shape of a head as it disappeared, then reappeared between the foaming swells.

“Mr. E!” He coughed as water filled his mouth.

An undercurrent pulled him beneath the river surface, then hurled him down the pipe. He paddled against the heavy force, losing breath. His hands and feet churning like a blender, he felt like he was going to drown for sure.

“Don’t fight the current,” yelled Tom’s dad. “Just let it pull you.”

His body was telling him to panic, but Noodle went against his instincts and stopped fighting. To his surprise, the water spun his body calmly and dragged it with the current.

Out of nowhere, a hand reached through the frigid water to grab and pull him close. Noodle hacked and choked on the air.

“It’s almost over,” said Tom’s dad, just as the pipe took another hairpin twist, then another bend. “My apologies, bud. I assumed you were a stronger swimmer.”

“The Zuckerbergs are strictly land dwellers.”

Soon, a pinpoint of light appeared in the distance, and the stream rushed them swiftly toward the tunnel’s opening.

As they sailed out of the pipeline’s mouth, Noodle closed his eyes, held his breath, and prepared for the impact. His body slapped against the water like an awkward cannon-ball. His arms and belly stung as if he’d just taken a nose-dive into a nettles patch. Noodle doubled over in pain as he sank into the muddy depths of the water.

“Land!” He whooped the moment his head bobbed to the surface.

Several yards to the right of him was a long pier where a huge luxury yacht sat anchored at the far end. Stunned restaurant patrons at a riverside restaurant laughed and pointed at the boy who’d just surfaced.

Beyond the pier, Noodle could make out the sprawling skyline of midtown Manhattan.

“Where exactly are we?” he asked as he awkwardly treaded water.

“Pier Eighty-one,” said Tom’s dad, seconds before dunking his head into the river and swimming toward the shore. “Just a quick shuttle ride to Grand Central.”

“I hope the MetroCard machine accepts soaking bills,” Noodle called as he dog-paddled after him.

They hoisted themselves up onto the wooden-planked dock, and as Noodle staggered to his feet, he could feel his trembling legs almost give out.

“That was …” He sighed, unable to rouse enough energy to speak.

Tom’s dad stared off into the distance.

“Let’s go get my boy.”