Ocean of Fear Read online

  Finn shook his head as he realised that he wasn’t waking up from a nightmare.This bad dream was reality. He was on the ocean floor once again – the scariest place on Earth.

  Finn found a bright spot in the darkness, however, he looked over and saw Jake lying in the seaweed next to him.

  Finn rolled over and tugged on his friend’s diving suit, attempting to bring him back to consciousness, too.

  Finn yelled.

  ‘Ugh!’ Jake groaned.

  ‘You okay, dude?’ Finn asked.

  ‘Yeah, man,’ Jake said.

  Then Jake had a sudden realisation. Finn was standing on the ocean floor, talking to him like they were hanging out in the treehouse.

  ‘Wait, Finn!’ he said excitedly. ‘You did it. You conquered your fear!’

  ‘What?’ Finn asked.

  ‘You’re at the bottom of the ocean!’ Jake explained.

  Finn did what any normal boy would do if he realised that he had forgotten about his greatest fear. He farted. And when he did, his diving suit was filled with the most foul-smelling gasses imaginable.

  Finn immediately screamed and tried to re-inflate his suit with fresh air.

  ‘Maybe we should celebrate on land,’ Jake suggested.

  Jake pulled the emergency tab on his own suit and inflated it. He grabbed his hyperventilating friend and floated up to the surface of the ocean.

  Finn and Jake raced up the beach together before collapsing side-by-side along the shore.

  ‘I’m proud of you, man,’ Jake said. ‘You did it.’

  ‘Thanks, dude,’ said Finn.

  Suddenly, a voice emerged from Finn’s belly button. Fear Feaster wasn’t going to let Finn get off the hook that easily.

  ‘You’ve nothing to be proud of, boy,’ Fear Feaster jeered. ‘You will never get over your fear of the ocean.’

  ‘What the flip, man?’ Finn said angrily.

  ‘I just swam to the bottom!’

  ‘No you didn’t, cheater,’ Fear Feaster replied. ‘You just sank to the bottom.You will never be a great hero.’

  ‘He’s right,’ Finn admitted. ‘I’ll never be a hero.’

  Finn’s tummy started rumbling again, and a squeaky poot escaped from his diving suit. A new cloud of smoke appeared and transformed into a ghostly black limousine. Three gaseous ghouls hovered in the windows. They looked like Fear Feaster, but they were much, much wiser.

  ‘Finn, you are wrong,’ said the ghouls’ leader, Rickabaugh. ‘The mark of a great hero is his flaw.’

  ‘You know nothing, wise men,’ Fear Feaster countered.

  Rickabaugh commanded in a booming voice.

  ‘Wait, why did you wait so long to tell me?’ Finn asked.

  ‘Because the limo driver’s flaw is being late,’ Rickabaugh explained, embarrassed.

  ‘Sorry,’ the driver apologised.

  ‘Farewell, Finn,’ Rickabaugh said before the limo drove off. ‘You truly are the greatest hero of Ooo.’

  Finn ordered.

  ‘What? Am I supposed to live in your tummy for the rest of my life?’ asked Fear Feaster.

  ‘Everybody has a flaw,’ Finn reminded him. ‘And it looks like yours is smelling like my nasty guts.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ Fear Feaster snarled as he drifted back into Finn’s belly button, never to be seen – or smelled – again.

  Ocean of Fear

  published in 2015

  by Chirpy Bird, an imprint of Hardie Grant Egmont

  Ground Floor, Building 1, 658 Church Street,

  Richmond, VIC 3121, Australia

  www.hardiegrantegmont.com.au

  CARTOON NETWORK, ADVENTURE TIME, the logo and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and © Cartoon Network

  A TimeWarner Company.

  All rights reserved. (s15)

  CartoonNetwork.com.au

  AS SEEN ON CARTOON NETWORK

  This ebook is also available as a print edition in all good bookstores.

  A CiP record for this title is available from the National Library of Australia.

  eISBN 9781743583319

  Text and design copyright © 2015 Hardie Grant Egmont

  Design by Ash Oswald @ Hey There’s Me

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