The Adventures of Anna Atom. Elizabeth Wasserman

      Suddenly a pair of large, charging bodies scattered the mullet in all directions. They were dolphins, and they were chasing their breakfast. One of them passed so close to the little craft that it bobbed slightly in the dolphin’s wake.

      The mullet and the dolphins soon disappeared and the sub cruised into deeper water. Anna felt a pang of doubt as the pastel colours of the reef began to fade and the world around them deepened into shadowy shades of blue.

      “Maybe we should just go for a short cruise, and then turn back home again,” she said to Mutt.

      The wreck was still some distance away, and she wasn’t quite sure what she was going to do once they’d found it. Then she remembered that she could contact her father in the Space Ark from the Submarine Explorer, and she immediately felt better again.

      “Max!” she called. “Can you call my dad for me?”

      “Sure, Miss Anna. I be activatings the link to him right now.”

      A purple light blinked on the screen in front of Anna. When she touched it, a picture of the admiral’s space laboratory materialised.

      It was empty.

      “He’s not there, Max! Is there no other way to contact him?”

      “He was talkings to your mother from his wrist communicator a while ago,” the computer said. “He musts be somewhere else in the Space Ark. The connection was brokes a while ago, and your mother is also now trying to contacts him.”

      “Let me know as soon as you find him, please!” Anna asked.

      The map that indicated the location of the sunken ship flickered up again, displacing the image of the admiral’s empty lab. Anna had to concentrate in steering the Submarine Explorer in the right direction.

      They were now moving through huge underwater granite boulders, as big as sunken churches, that she had to manoeuvre between. This was tricky as the incoming tide was surging between the boulders, causing currents and eddies that pushed the little craft around. Anna had to accelerate the engines occasionally to steer a steady course against the current. She soon got the hang of this, and wove the little submarine expertly through the underwater maze. Vicious sea urchins clung to the steep walls of the granite cliffs. Their trembling spines were as long as Anna’s forearm, and she knew how their sting could burn.

      They disturbed a giant rock cod that was guarding its cave. The creature opened and closed its ugly upside-down mouth in disgust, as if swearing at them in some inaudible language. He watched them depart with cross yellow eyes.

      On a ledge, a row of lobsters stepped out to watch them pass by. In this weird world the noise of the coral was behind them and they were now gliding in absolute silence. Sunlight filtered from the world above in large wedges of light. The ripples on the surface above made dappled shadows that danced over the sandy sea floor below. Schools of fish swirled gracefully around them like large, shiny clouds. Anna steered around the edge of the last boulder, and suddenly they were out in the open sea.

      The steady hum of the engines and the soft gliding motion of the submarine had lulled Mutt to sleep. He lay curled up on the seat next to Anna, his nose tucked comfortably under his rubber tail.

      At least he had no fleas to bother him, Anna thought.

      “Max, how long till we get there?” she asked her only other companion.

      “About forty minutes, Miss Anna, unless you goes a bit faster.”

      Anna increased the pressure on the button of the steering stick and the submarine kicked its engines into a higher gear.

      Things were going smoothly! Before her mother or Ton missed her, she could be back with video footage of the site of the wreckage. Surely they wouldn’t be angry at her for taking off like this – not when she returned with such an exciting story to tell! Anyway, it served them right, Anna thought, for being so preoccupied with saving the world and her brother’s stupid mumpskins.

      Next time, maybe, they’d listen to her.