19: Deep Trouble
“That’s when I saw it…a gray-white triangle sticking straight up in the water. The fin of a hammerhead shark.”
“Deep Trouble” opens with Billy Deep snorkelling in the Caribbean Sea and fantasizing about his alter ego, William Deep, Jr., a famed undersea explorer. Every summer, Billy and his younger sister, Sheena, visit their uncle George on his boat. Uncle George — Dr. D, as most people call him — is a marine biologist, and this summer, he’s anchored his boat, the Cassandra, off the coast of a fictional island named Ilandra.
Billy’s an adventurous kid, a refreshing departure from most of Stine’s insecure, introverted protagonists. Despite his uncle’s warnings, though, he frequently swims out to the lagoon looking for the notorious mermaid everyone’s talking about — the mermaid Dr. D has been hired to find and deliver to the Marina Zoo—but all he gets is a burn from some coral reef. Oh, and a shark bite.
That’s right. Billy gets attacked by a hammerhead shark, but, low and behold, the mermaid saves him. Then, as Dr. D and his lab assistant, Alexander, net the mermaid and bring her aboard, Billy’s sense of adventure swiftly gets swept out to sea (ha!). In its place, sympathy washes over him; watching the mermaid cry at the bottom of her tank, Billy feels horrible and pledges to set her free.
Soon, burglars from another boat steal the mermaid in the middle of the night and throw Billy, Sheena, and Dr. Dr overboard. Fortunately, a horde (gaggle, group?) of mermaids saves them, rescues the captured mermaid, and tips over the burglars’ boat.
In the end, Dr. D tells the Marina Zoo that he searched far and wide but, unfortunately, mermaids just don’t exist. In other words, he comes around to the exploitative nature of zoos (SeaWorlds and the like), which is subtext I can get behind.
“Deep Trouble” feels like the outlier of the series. Not just because it’s the first Goosebumps book set at sea, but because, plot-wise, it’s more focused on moral courage than spooks and frights. It’s a tale of adventure, not terror. Even its cover is misleading: the shark scene exists only briefly to establish Billy’s sympathy and motive (the mermaid saved him, so he’s got to save her).
But that doesn’t mean it’s a bad story. While the spooks are subtle, the substance is still there, packed with action from start to finish (no slow build, no fluff, none of that).
I’d be remiss, though, if I didn’t call out Stine’s bizarre anecdote about Dr. D being married to the sea. Billy mentions how, one Christmas, Dr. D stayed at his family’s place but was irritable the whole time because he wasn’t on his boat. So, he spent hours in the bathtub playing with Billy’s boat toys to calm himself down. I’m all about injecting eccentric details when it comes to character building, but, come on, what kind of grown man takes a bath at his brother’s place and plays with his nephew’s bath toys?
Also, if you read my last review, you’ll know how peeved I am by Stine’s persistent use of the phrase “sparkling like diamonds” to describe water or bugs hovering over water. Well, guess what?
Water diamonds aside, “Deep Trouble” is an enjoyable book filled with goodwill. And, as mentioned, the scary stuff is still there (aren’t bodies of water inherently terrifying?); it’s just not front and centre. In short, Stine made the right choice venturing off-land for this one. Hopefully he’ll anchor here again—and dive even deeper.
4/5 drops of Monster Blood.
