The Discovery
Dive is Gordon's third adventure trilogy for Scholastic, following the highly successful Island and Everest series. After stranding his characters on an island and at the highest point on Earth, what was left, but to take them under the sea.
In The Discovery, we meet Kaz, Dante, Adriana and Star, four teens who have been chosen for an internship with the Poseidon Oceanographic Institute. The question is, why have they been chosen? Three of them have very little skill and experience in diving, and Star, who actually is an accomplished diver, is also handicapped. Not one of the four can figure out why they are here.
But when they stumble onto a strange artifact while diving, they come to realise they have been chosen because of their inexperience. For there are members of the Poseidon team that want to hunt treasure, and they want to be sure there are as few eyes as possible that can figure out what they are doing. Now that the teens are on to them, the excitement has increased ... but so has the danger.
From the Book:
Just
as Dante’s glove closed over the cartridge, the grotesque head of a moray
eel exploded out of the hole, revealing an improbably gaping mouth of inch-long
needles. Shocked, he snapped back his arm, and the jaws bit down on the metal
of the marker buoy, sending broken teeth in all directions.
In
a panic, Dante dropped the cartridge and reached for the valve of his B.C. Star
grabbed him before he could inflate the vest and shoot upward.
She
pushed her mask right up against his, communicating her message with dark eyes:
Calm down. It didn’t happen. You’re okay.
Dante
nodded, gasping into his regulator. He was a pretty crummy diver, Star reflected,
but sometimes luck was more important than skill. The big eel could have taken
a substantial chunk of flesh out of his hand.
Not
far away, Kaz and Adriana were tagging a cave entrance with another one of the
marker buoys. There was a pop followed by a hiss, and the float rocketed to
the surface.
One
down and five hundred to go, Star thought to herself. She still couldn’t
figure out why Tad Cutter needed this. To map every grotto and nook in a reef
system the size of Hidden Shoals would take years, not a couple of months. It
didn’t make sense.
She
was enjoying the chance to dive without the bulky scuba tank. It was a feeling
of freedom, although she was tethered to the Brownie by her air hose and safety
line. Soaring and swooping with the fish, pretending to be one of them –
it was a childish game, but Star never got tired of it.
She
swam with a school of mackerel until they were scattered by a big loggerhead
turtle. The loggerhead’s stony shell felt ancient against her gloved hand
– a piece of prehistory here in the twenty-first century.
She
spotted Kaz hovering over another cave, unclipping a fresh marker buoy from
his belt. He wasn’t much of a diver either, she reflected. But there was
an ease, almost a grace to his movements – something only natural athletes
had.
As
Star watched him work, a large barracuda loomed up behind the boy.
Should
I signal him?
She
remembered the incident with the shark. Kaz was easily spooked, and might do
something stupid. Besides, barracudas never attack humans on purpose.
But
the seven-footer was nosy. Star bit her tongue as the protruding lower jaw probed
right up behind Kaz, the gleaming teeth mere inches from the back of his neck.
All
at once, Kaz turned around, coming face to jaws with the notorious predator.
Shocked, he triggered the marker buoy. The pop startled the barracuda, and it
turned tail and darted away. Star laughed, sending clouds of bubbles rushing
for the surface.
Adriana
was nearby, paralleling the bottom, trying to shoo away an aggressive lobster.
She was a little more comfortable in the water than Kaz – a tourist, rather
than a beginner. The girl was obviously rich and had done some diving on high-priced
vacations in the past.
It
bugged her. Not that Adriana was loaded, but that Poseidon had matched Star
with such unqualified teammates.
Then
again, how could they be sure I was any good? They knew about my cerebral palsy
…
It
was almost as if Poseidon had gone after weak divers on purpose.
“Look!”
came a cry.
Dante
again. If the boy didn’t stop yelling underwater, he was going to drink
enough salt to give himself high blood pressure.
He
was pointing and waving – probably at another rabbit hole he considered
a cave. But when she swam to his side, he was gazing off into the distance,
where the reef fell off into deeper water.
She
squinted, trying to zoom in on the object of his interest. Light, and therefore
visibility, diminished with depth. She shot him an expansive shrug. Because
of the need to communicate without words, divers often used exaggerated gestures
like stage actors playing to the back row.
Dante
deflated his B.C., descending into the twilight. Star followed. A tug at her
belt told her that the safety line had become taut, and that they were now pulling
the Brownie along with them. She glanced over her shoulder and saw that the
others had noticed it too. Kaz and Adriana finned after them.
What
does Dante think he sees? There was such a thing as an underwater mirage. His
magnified eyes behind his mask gave him a deranged appearance. It was easy to
believe he was hallucinating.
And
then she spotted it.
In
the middle of this most natural of settings, it was jarring to see something
so artificial, so manmade. The sunken airplane sat in the sand, its fuselage
partially encrusted with coral and sea life. One wing had broken off on impact
with the water. It lay a short distance away, hidden by seaweed.
Star’s
heart began to pound so hard she was afraid it might burst her wetsuit. This
was the ultimate diver’s prize. A wreck! She had read about this experience
in scuba magazines. But the excitement of the real thing went far beyond anything
she could have imagined.
She
approached slowly, reverently, half expecting the plane to vanish just as she
reached out to touch it. Never had she imagined this could happen to her –
and certainly not when she was teamed up with a bunch of landlubbers like this
bunch! The others hung back, watching her uncertainly.
When
she spotted the insignia on the side, a gasp escaped her – a larger bubble
among the many smaller ones. The marking was obscured by anemone growth, but
it was unmistakable. A swastika! This was a German warplane from World War Two!
She
swam over to peer into the cockpit, half expecting to see a skeleton at the
controls. But, no. The big bomber was deserted.
The
windshield was shattered, providing a narrow entryway to the downed plane.
Star
hesitated. Wreck diving could be dangerous.
But
this is the chance of a lifetime!
She
entered the cockpit and squeezed between the pilot’s and co-pilot’s
chairs into the body of the plane. The space was tiny – it was hard to
believe that an entire crew of grown men flew in this cigar box. Just a few
feet into the fuselage and she was in near total darkness. The only light was
from two turrets of bulletproof glass. Out of each pointed a swiveling machine
gun, harmless now, encased in a layer of coral. It was a grim reminder that
this silent metal husk was once an instrument of war, a delivery system for
death.
She
snaked back toward the bomber’s tail. Here, there was absolute blackness,
and the walls closed in until she was in the narrowest of tunnels.
As
she reversed course, her flipper caught on the low ceiling and came off. Alertly,
she was able to trap it between her legs. Putting it on again in the cramped
space was a major operation, and she was surprised at how exhausted it left
her. Her bubbles, trapped below the ceiling of the craft, converged to form
a small pocket of air.
I’d
better get out of here.
But
not without a souvenir – some kind of proof that she’d been there.
Artifacts, the wreck divers called them. Plates and silverware from sunken ships
were especially prized. But what to take from a plane? She couldn’t exactly
snap off a three-hundred-pound propeller.
Once
again, her eyes fell on the machine gun. A full strap of ammunition dangled
from the carbine, waving lightly in the current.
She
crawled rather than swam up to it, grasping holds on the floor of the cabin.
Popping the shells out was easier than she expected – the old strapping
fell apart on contact, and the bullets dropped into her glove. The thrill of
their touch was almost tangible.
World
War Two in the palm of your hand, she reflected. Hey –
Fiddling
with the gun had disturbed the layer of silt that covered the plane. A storm
of swirling brown particles filled the turret. The bullets slipped through her
fingers and disappeared.
Going
after her prize was instinct. Any diver would have done the same thing. She
ducked into the cloud as if bobbing for apples. That was when she felt it –
no flow of compressed gas from the demand regulator between her teeth.
She
was out of air.
© 2002 by Gordon Korman, used with permission