boat seemed to be perfectly still. We could see water rushing past us. Far off, in Mike's Casino, the band was playing "Did Your Mother Come From Ireland?" I stopped being sad and got sentimental. That song always makes me sentimental.

"It isn't dangerous," Fatty admitted. "But I just remembered that the Portuguese Man-Of-War has batteries of stingers that it uses to catch fish. They can hurt a man sometimes, too. And in anything this big—Of course, we're inside a boat and it can't get at us."

"You hope. Something tells me that I won't be home at eleven tonight. And if that's just supposed to be an air-filled bladder, what are those black things floating in it? Eyes?"

"They sure look like eyes. Feel like eyes." We watched the black dots flickering over the green surface and began to shuffle our feet. We felt as if a crowd of people were watching us undress in Courthouse Square. I know we both did, because we compared notes later. We had plenty of time—later.

"Know what?" Fatty said. "I don't think it's a Portuguese Man-Of-War, after all. It's too big and green, and I don't remember seeing anything like those black dots inside the air bladder in any of those pictures I saw. And it doesn't seem to have any filaments hanging from it. Besides, it moves too fast."

"Then what is it?"

Fatty patted his stomach and looked at it. He opened his mouth.

I forgot to ask him what he was going to say just then, and he never told me. He didn't say it anyway. He just went "Beep?" and sat down hard. I also sat down hard, only I went more like "Foof?"

The sloop had gone straight up in the air for about fifteen feet. As soon as I could, I jumped up and helped Fatty wheeze to a standing position.

We both gulped. The gulps seemed to get stuck going down.

Even though we were fifteen feet above the surface of the cove, the boat was still in the water. A little cup of water, that is, extending twenty feet out on both port and starboard and only about five feet on the bow and stern.

Beyond the water, there was a kind of gray haze that was transparent enough for me to see the lights of Mike's Casino where they were still playing "Did Your Mother Come From Ireland?" This gray haze went all the way around, covering the mast and the gaff tops.

When we 

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