“Jack!” cried Annie. She ran to him. “Are you okay?”

Jack just nodded. He put on his wet glasses. He felt shaky and mad at himself. I never should have tried to stand! he thought.

Kama picked up Jack’s surfboard from the shallow water and brought it over to him.

“I told you not to stand,” she said, laughing. “You fell hard.”

It’s not funny, thought Jack. I nearly drowned!

“The best thing to do is to go right back out,” said Boka.

“You go,” said Jack. His eyes and nose burned from the salt water. “I’ll stay here.” He walked over to his pack, picked it up, and took out the research book.

“Come on, Jack!” said Annie. “Try it again! Stay on your belly this time!”

“No, this time I’m going to read about surfing first,” he said.

“Aw, you should just try it again,” said Annie. “Not read about it!”

She ran to him and pulled the book out of his hands. Jack jerked it away from her. He slipped and fell onto the sand.

Kama and Boka laughed again.

“Why are you laughing?” Jack snapped. “You don’t even know how to read!”

Boka and Kama looked hurt.

“Jack!” said Annie. “That was mean. Say you’re sorry.”

Jack opened his book and pretended to read it. He did feel sorry, but he was too upset to say so.

“Fine, stay here,” said Annie. She went back to Boka and Kama. “Let’s go.”

As Jack sat alone on the beach, he looked up from his book. He watched the other kids paddling through the water.

“I don’t care,” he muttered. “I’m never going back out in those waves.”

Morgan didn’t send us here to surf anyway, he thought. She told us to build a ship. But how the heck are we supposed to do that?

Jack heaved an angry sigh. Now he was cross with Morgan. He turned to the back of the book and searched the index for “ship.”

Suddenly Jack heard a rumbling from under the sand. The ground started to shake. It shook so hard, the book flew out of Jack’s hands!

Jack bounced up and down on the beach. Shells were jumping up and down, too. Rocks tumbled down from the cliff.

It’s an earthquake! thought Jack.

The rumbling stopped.

The shaking stopped.

Jack looked around. Everything was normal again, except some rocks rolled around at the bottom of the cliff.

Jack looked out to sea. Kama, Boka, and Annie were past the breakers. They were sitting on their surfboards, laughing and talking.

Everything seemed okay. But Jack felt sure that something was wrong. He grabbed the Hawaii book from the sand. He looked up “earthquake.” He read:

Earthquakes in Hawaii have been known to cause tsunamis (soo-NAH-meez), which used to be called “tidal waves.” An earthquake can cause water out at sea to be set in motion. The water grows higher and higher as it moves toward land. Just before the tsunami strikes, water may pull away from the shore. Then it returns in a gigantic wave that crashes over the land and washes everything away.

Oh, man! thought Jack. A tsunami might be coming!