Sea Creatures that Attack

In honor of the squid I saw on Sunday, I thought I do a “Strange Fake Sea Creatures that Attack Nancy” edition of Nancy Drews-day Tuesday.

The first one comes early—in Book #4, The Mystery at Lilac Inn. Nancy is paddling down the river when something rams her canoe and capsizes the craft. Later, she goes skin diving in the exact same spot…

All of a sudden Nancy stopped abruptly. Her eyes widened and a chill went up her spine. Protruding from a massive rocky overhang was something that resembled a shark’s head!

“It can’t be!” She gasped inwardly. “Sharks don’t live in fresh water.”

The sinister shape, however, was far too large to be an ordinary fish.

Oh my! Well, surely there’s a logical explanation for this. And there is! Of course, Nancy will have to wait to find out, because at this particular moment, someone fires a spear at her and it lodges in the lens of her camera. But Nancy eventually does find what she’s looking for, when she follows a suspicious character to a shack on the river.

As Nancy crept forward, she looked about her constantly. Suddenly she stifled a scream. A grotesque shape was emerging from the river!

The apparition had stubby back fins and a bulging glassed-in prow. It was about fifteen-feet long and painted a somber blue.

Then recognition struck Nancy full force. “That’s the ‘shark’ I saw underwater—a miniature submarine!”

Whew! So it wasn’t a shark after all. But that’s not the last strange encounter Nancy will have with a sea creature in fresh water. In The Invisible Intruder, a mysterious ghost canoe is scaring everyone away from a campground. When Nancy and Ned go in search of it, their own canoe overturns and Ned does not resurface.

Nancy dived and searched under water. She rose again. This time she spotted her friend. The sight horrified her. Ned, apparently unconscious, was being towed ashore by giant arms that looked like those of a great octopus!

In a panic over Ned’s safety, Nancy raced through the water after him and his captor. Was the creature that was dragging him along a real octopus or a man in disguise?

Really Nancy? Did you really wonder that?

Nancy managed to get Ned onto dry land and began giving him first aid. She knew he had not taken any water into his lungs, because he kept blinking and murmuring, “Get the octopus!”

Well, Burt and Dave do get the octopus. And as it turns out, it was neither a real octopus nor a man in disguise. It was a mechanical, remote-controlled octopus. Who would have thought?