Needle

"I see-I guess." Bob's eyes were narrowed in thought "Does this book have anything about that?"

"No. I can give you something on it, but I warn you it's a little beyond high-school chemistry. Whose job are you after?"

"What? Oh, I see. Not yours, anyway. There was a problem I ran across, and I'd like to solve it myself if I can. If I can't, I'll be back for more help, I expect. Thanks, Doc."

Seever nodded and turned back to his desk as Bob went out; and for several minutes the doctor meditated.

The boy was certainly more serious than he had been. It would be nice to know just what his problem was. Very possibly-even probably-it accounted for the personality change that had worried the school authorities. That, at least, would be a comforting report to give the boy's father; and that, later in the afternoon, was just what the doctor did.

"I don't think you need worry at all, Art, if you were. The kid's gotten himself interested to the hilt in something that appears to have a scientific flavor-young Hay did the same a few months ago-and will simply soak it into his system. You probably acted the same, the last time you learned something big. He's presumably going to change the world, and you'll hear about it in due time."

Bob had no intention of changing the world to any great extent, not even the human portion of it. However, some problems which had arisen in the course of the afternoon's talk might make changes to individuals necessary, and once out of the doctor's office he wasted no time in putting them up to the Hunter.

"Can we use that serum trick of the doc's?"

"I doubt it. I am familiar with the technique, and know that since I have been with you so long your own blood serum might serve if it were not for one fact; but we would still have to decide where to use it If we could do that, I could make the exploration faster by personal contact."

"I suppose that's true. Still, you wouldn't have to leave me-I might be able to make the check myself."

"You have a point there. We will bear the possibility in mind. Have you any idea about getting at young Teroa? When will he be leaving?"

"The tanker comes every eight days, which means it's due back a week from today. I suppose he'll be going then; certainly not any sooner. I don't think the Beam is around."

"The Beam?"

"She's a yacht owned by one of the company bigwigs, who sometimes comes to look things over. I left on her last fall-that's why we were so far from the island when you first looked around. Come to think of it, I know she's not near; she went into drydock in Seattle last fall, to get some sort of diving gear built into her bottom, and is there yet. I suppose you were going to ask who could have left on her while we were gone."

"Correct. Thanks for settling the question so quickly." The Hunter would have smiled had he been able.

Bob had no watch but was pretty sure it was nearly time for school to be dismissed, so he headed in that direction. He was early, and had to wait outside; but presently his friends came pouring out, giving vent to expressions of envy as they saw him.

"Never mind about how lucky I am not to be in school," Bob said. "Let's get to work on that boat. I've got to go back to school myself on Monday, and I'd like to have some fun first."

"You've brought us luck, anyhow," said Hay. "We'd been looking for a plank for weeks and didn't find one until you got here. What say, fellows? Hadn't we better get that thing into the boat while the luck holds?" There was a chorus of agreement and a general movement to collect bicycles. Bob rode on Malmstrom's handle bars-he had walked to the doctor's-as far as his own house, where he picked up his own machine and some tools. They waited at the culvert while Malmstrom and Colby went onto their respective dwellings for equipment; when they returned, the bicycles were left, shoes removed, and trousers rolled up. There was a path from the road down to the place the boat was kept, but it ran through the shallower parts of the creek in spots to avoid the undergrowth, and the boys had never bothered to construct bridges.

Splashing and crashing through water and bushes, they finally dumped their collection of tools at the point where the little watercourse emptied into the lagoon. The boat was there drawn up on the sand, with the plank beside it. The boys were relieved to see the latter; there had been no risk of anyone's borrowing the boat, of course, even had it not been in its present condition, but the wood was another matter. The statement that Colby had stepped through the floor of the boat had been no exaggeration- a strip of planking four inches wide and more than two feet long was missing from the flat bottom.

The boys were not professional carpenters, but they had the boat turned over and the defective plank removed from its full length in record time. They found, however, that replacing the plank from the enormous board they had found was not such an easy matter. The first attempt came out too narrow in several places, because of their inability to saw straight near the line of the grain. The second try was started too wide, and after a good deal of labor with the plane was eventually reduced to a good fit. They had carefully salvaged the screws from the former piece and succeeded in attaching the replacement securely enough to satisfy them.

They immediately dragged the boat down to the water, brought the oars from the bushes, and the entire party piled in. The idea of letting the new plank soak for a while in order to swell, or at least to permit a guess at the seaworthiness of the new joints, occurred to them, but they were all excellent swimmers and much too impatient to hold up for any such consideration. There was some leakage at the seams, but it did not amount to more than the coconut-shell bailers could handle. The two youngest boys wielded these while Bob and Shorty rowed and Rice handled the tiller.

Bob suddenly realized that the figure which usually occupied the bow on these occasions was missing. Thinking back, he realized that this had been the case ever since his return. He spoke to Rice, who was facing him. "What's become of Tip? I haven't seen him since I got back."

"No one knows." The redhead's face clouded over. "He just disappeared quite a long time ago-well before Christmas. We've looked all over the place for him. I'm afraid he must have tried to swim over to the islet where Norm has his tank-we sometimes went there without him- and got picked off by a shark, though it doesn't seem very likely. The swim would be only a few yards, and I've never seen a live shark that close to shore. He just vanished."

"That's queer. Have you looked in the woods?"

"Some. You can't search there very well. Still, if he'd been there alive, he'd have heard us; and I can't think of anything that would hurt him there."

Bob nodded, and spoke half to himself. "That's right, come to think of it; there aren't even any snakes here." More loudly he asked, "What's this about Norm's tank? Is he going into competition with Pacific Fuels?"

"Course not," returned Hay, looking up from his job of bailing. "I cleaned out one of the pools on the reef a little way from the beach and fenced it off, and have been putting things in it to make an aquarium. I did it just for fun at first, but there are some magazines that want pictures of sea life, and I've sent for some color film. Trouble is, nothing seems to live very long in the pool; even the coral dies."

"I suppose you haven't seen it since the boat was out. Let's go over now and have a look."

"I've been swimming over every day or two with Hugh or Shorty. It's still not doing so well. I don't know whether we could get there and back now before supper; we must have been working a long tune on the boat, and the sun's getting down a bit." The other boys looked up, noticing this fact for the first tune; their parents had long since given up trying to keep them from exploring any part of the island inside the reef, but they had some sort of regulation about meeting mealtimes. Without further remark Rice headed the boat back toward the creek, and the rowers began to take longer strokes.