"Jack!" cried Annie. She ran to him. "Are youokay?"Jack just nodded. He put on his wet glasses. He feltshaky and mad at himself. I never should have triedto stand! he thought.
Kama picked up Jack's surfboard from the shallowwater and brought it over to him.
"I told you not to stand," she said, laughing. "Youfell hard."It's not funny, thought Jack. I nearly drowned!
"The best thing to do is to go right back out," saidBoka.
"You go," said Jack. His eyes and nose burned fromthe salt water. "I'll stay here ." He walked over to hispack, picked it up, and took out the research book.
"Come on, Jack!" said Annie. "Try it again! Stay onyour 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. "Notread about it!"She ran to him and pulled the book out of hishands. Jack jerked it away from her. He slipped andfell onto the sand.
Kama and Boka laughed again.
"Why are you laughing?" Jack snapped "You don'teven know how to read!"Boka and Kama looked hurt.
"Jack!" said Annie. "That was mean. Say you'resorry."Jack opened his book and pretended to read it. Hedid feel sorry, but he was too upset to say so.
"Fine, stay here," said Annie. She went back toBoka and Kama. "Let's go."As Jack sat alone on the beach, he looked up fromhis book. He watched the other kids paddling throughthe water.
"I don't care," he muttered. "I'm never going backout in those waves."Morgan didn't send us here to surf any-way, hethought. She told us to build a ship. But how the heckare we supposed to do that?
Jack heaved an angry sigh. Now he was cross withMorgan. He turned to the back of the book andsearched the index for "ship."Suddenly Jack heard a rumbling from under thesand. 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. Shellswere jumping up and down, too. Rocks tumbled downfrom 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 thecliff.
Jack looked out to sea. Kama, Boka, and Anniewere past the breakers. They were sitting on theirsurfboards, laughing and talking.
Everything seemed okay. But Jack feltsure that something was wrong. He grabbed theHawaii book from the sand. He looked up"earthquake." He read:
Earthquakes in Hawaii have been known to causetsunamis (soo-NAH-meez), which used to be called"tidal waves." An earthquake can cause water out atsea to be set in motion. The water grows higher andhigher as it moves toward land. Just before thetsunami strikes, water may pull away from the shore.
Then it returns in a gigantic wave that crashes overthe land and washes everything away.
Oh, man! thought Jack. A tsunami might becoming!
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