This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  New York, NY

  Copyright © 2023 by Little Bee Books

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  Manufactured in China RRD 0123

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 978-1-4998-1171-1 (paperback)

  First Edition 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  ISBN 978-1-4998-1402-6 (hardcover)

  First Edition 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  ISBN 978-1-4998-1403-3 (ebook)

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  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE ED MITCHELL

  CHAPTER TWO MIKE ANDERS

  CHAPTER THREE ED MITCHELL

  CHAPTER FOUR MIKE ANDERS

  CHAPTER FIVE ED MITCHELL

  CHAPTER SIX MIKE ANDERS

  CHAPTER SEVEN ED MITCHELL

  CHAPTER EIGHT MIKE ANDERS

  CHAPTER NINE ED MITCHELL

  CHAPTER TEN MIKE ANDERS

  CHAPTER ELEVEN ED MITCHELL

  CHAPTER TWELVE MIKE ANDERS

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN ED MITCHELL

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN MIKE ANDERS

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN ED MITCHELL

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN MIKE ANDERS

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN ED MITCHELL

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN MIKE ANDERS

  TIMELINE

  FIND OUT MORE

  SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

  PROLOGUE

  July 1, 1916—Beach Haven, New Jersey

  “Dinner is served in an hour, Charles,” says an elegantly dressed woman. Her skirt nearly reaches the carpeted floor of the fancy hotel room. “Please be on time.”

  “I will, Mother,” says Charles. The young man wears stretchy, tight-fitting shorts and a tank top. “I’m just going for a quick swim.” Charles longs to be in the cool ocean water. What a hot train ride from Philadelphia! When will this heat wave break? Thank goodness we’ve come to the beach, he thinks.

  “Be careful, dear,” says Mrs. Vansant. “It’s beyond me how you can swim out into the sea like that.”

  “There’s nothing to worry about,” says Charles. “I’m a strong swimmer.” He gives his mother a kiss on the cheek, leaves the room, and makes his way through a lobby filled with polished wood, stately furniture, and sparkling chandeliers. The Engleside Hotel is an upper-class resort that serves Philadelphia’s wealthiest families.

  Charles jogs past kids playing in the sand and walks into the shallow, salty water. Knee-deep, he looks out to the endless horizon of blue. Ah, the Atlantic Ocean! Sudden, loud splashing causes Charles to whip around. What’s that moving in the water?

  A large, friendly dog the color of gingerbread splashes toward him. “Hey, pretty pup!” says Charles, patting the dog’s broad head. “Want to go for a swim with me?” Seeming to understand completely, the dog plows into deeper water and starts paddling its paws. Charles follows, and soon, both are past the breaking waves, swimming in the open ocean, nothing but water and sky ahead.

  Sunbathers and boardwalk strollers watch the young man swim. Onlookers comment, “What strength! . . . How does he keep from sinking?” Many Americans don’t know how to swim in 1916, so people take notice of ocean swimmers. They’re like pro athletes or daredevils.

  “Look out!” someone yells from the beach. “There’s something in the water!” People gather and point toward the sea. And there it is. A large, triangular-shaped fin cuts through the surface of the water. It’s moving toward the swimmer!

  Charles is about fifty yards from shore when he hears the shouts. He stops swimming and treads water. Looking toward the beach, Charles sees the dog, now with its paws on the sand, shaking the salty sea from its fur. When did the dog swim to shore? he wonders. People are waving arms and motioning for him to get out of the water. Among them are his father and sister. Am I late for dinner? What’s going on?

  Suddenly, Charles feels the water surge behind him—like a small, underwater wave hitting his legs. He turns and sees a huge, dark beast beneath the surface. His breath catches in his throat. It’s a giant fish—a shark! Charles starts swimming for shore, frantically pinwheeling his arms and kicking his legs.

  Charles quickly reaches water shallow enough to stand in. But with a few swooshes of its powerful tail, the shark catches up. It opens its wide jaws and sinks dozens of triangular, sawtooth-edged teeth into Charles’s left calf.

  “Help!” Charles screams. “It’s got my leg!” He thrashes his arms and his free leg, trying to pull away. But he can’t. It feels like he’s stuck in a bear trap. Looking down, all Charles can see is a cloud of red in the water—his own blood. The bite is deep and bleeding badly. He continues to shriek for help until the shark pulls him under the water.

  Air stings Charles’s lungs when his head finally bobs out of the sea. The shark let go! A lifeguard is pulling him toward shore. Charles can feel the sandy bottom of the beach, almost there . . . almost safe. Then the unthinkable happens. A darkness speeds through the red-stained water toward the men. The shark attacks again, chomping onto Charles’s thigh and holding tight.

  The lifeguard doesn’t let go, either. “We need help!” he shouts. “Come pull!” Five men splash into the surf and form a human chain onto the beach. But the shark holds fast onto Charles’s upper leg. Like a gruesome game of tug-of-war, the men pull Charles out of the shallow water with the shark still locked onto his leg. The shark holds on until its belly scrapes sand. Then the huge, fearsome fish lets go, escaping back to deep water.

  Charles Vansant’s leg is horribly injured. The men carry him into the hotel where doctors try to stop the bleeding. None have ever treated a wound quite like this before. Less than an hour after he started his swim, Charles Vansant is dead.

  REALITY CHECK

  DID THIS SHARK ATTACK REALLY HAPPEN?

  Yes, a shark fatally attacked a swimmer off the southern coast of New Jersey at Beach Haven on Long Beach Island. Philadelphian Charles E. Vansant, age 23, died from blood loss due to a shark bite. He’d been swimming in the late afternoon with a local dog about 150 feet from the beach. Eyewitness reports, and those of the lifeguard, former Olympic swimmer Alexander Ott, confirmed that the shark attacked a second time. Vansant would likely have survived his leg wound today. Emergency medicine is much better now than it was in 1916. It was the first-ever recorded fatal shark attack on the northeast coast of the United States.

  CHAPTER ONE

  ED MITCHELL

  July 5, 1916—The American Museum of Natural History, New York City

  I never get tired of looking at these giant fossil shark jaws. They hang from the museum ceiling and are wider than I am tall! The megalodon teeth are bigger than pie slices. What was it like to be a shark as big as a train car? It’s hard to imagine thousands of them swimming in the ancient ocean millions of years ago. . . .

  “Penny for your thoughts, Edgar?” says a thin man wearing a suit with a stiff-collared shirt and necktie.

  “Hello, Father,” I say. “The megalodon jaws look dusty.”

  “Indeed,” Father says, craning his neck to get a better look.

  “I can clean them if we get a ladder,” I offer causally. Father has worked at the American Museum of Natural History in New York my whole life. But he’s never let me touch the giant ancient shark fossil.

  “You know we don’t let eleven-year-olds handle the exhibits, Edgar,” says Father.

  “Not even the son of the famous ichthyologist John Mitchell?” I ask with a smile.

  “There are no famous fish scientists,” says Father. “Maybe someday, when you’re older, you can clean it.”

  Someday when you’re older. How many times a day do I hear that?

  A gray-haired man walks by holding a newspaper. It’s Father’s boss. “Another hot day, isn’t it?” he says to me.

  “Yes sir, Mr. Lucas. Hot as a fire poker,” I answer. It’s not much of an exaggeration. Two horses fell over dead from the heat yesterday in our neighborhood. And Mother says having ice delivered for the icebox is nearly useless. It melts in minutes.

  “I suppose the city pools remain closed because of the disease outbreak?” asks Mr. Lucas.

  “Yes, sir. And we’ve been told to avoid the beaches at Coney Island, too,” I answer. The polio epidemic is making it hard to have any fun this summer. Kids are getting sick all over New York City.

  “Perfect time to leave the city for the Jersey Shore,” says the older man.

  “Yes, sir. We’re going to Spring Lake, New Jersey, tomorrow,” I say. Cool water, sandy beach, and ocean breezes, here we come!

  “Bon voyage to you both,” Mr. Lucas says, handing the newspaper to Father as he walks away. “There’s an article on page eighteen you’ll find amusing, John.”

  “Oh?” says Father, opening the newspaper. Hidden in the middle of a page is two short paragraphs under the very small headline:

  DIES AFTER ATTACK BY FISH

  C.E. Vansant Had Been Bitten While Swimming at Beach Haven.

  “Attack by fish?” I ask. What fish attacks people? It sounde d like a joke. But it wasn’t. The article said people on shore saw a shark’s fin moving toward the swimmer. The attacking fish was a shark!

  “That’s not possible,” says Father with a frown. “Dangerous sharks don’t live in New Jersey—or anywhere in the Northeast. Everyone knows that.”

  “How far is our hotel from the one where the man was bit?” I ask.

  “Spring Lake is about fifty-five miles north of Beach Haven,” says Father. “But there’s no reason for concern, Edgar. You can’t believe everything you read in the newspaper.”

  “You don’t think a shark bit him?” I ask.

  “Absolutely not,” says Father, folding up the newspaper. That’s good enough for me—Father is the expert, after all. “We better head home. Your mother wants to leave for the Jersey Shore as soon as possible.”

  “Me, too!” I say. Next stop, the refreshing Atlantic Ocean!

  REALITY CHECK

  WHY DIDN’T PEOPLE BELIEVE A SHARK ATTACKED CHARLES VANSANT?

  Americans didn’t know much about the ocean in 1916. Sailors’ and fishermen’s tales of sea monsters were more well-known than facts about the real, actual animals living in the sea. There were no TV nature shows or magazines with underwater photographs. Tourists didn’t scuba dive or snorkel, and most didn’t even swim at the beach. Beachgoers simply waded or bathed in the water near the shore. Sharks were rarely encountered and little was known about them. Many scientists of the day believed sharks were shy fish with weak jaws. In April 1916, a scientist from the American Museum of Natural History helped write a paper stating that there was no evidence of a shark attack ever occurring on the Northeast Coast and that shark jaws weren’t powerful enough to bite through a human leg. A fatal shark attack was like saying a big catfish killed a grown man. Ridiculous!

  CHAPTER TWO

  MIKE ANDERS

  July 5, 1916—Matawan, New Jersey

  Quitting time! Working at the basket factory with Pa is a good summer job. It beats sitting in school all day! I can make three dollars a day if I really hustle and nail together twenty baskets. The look on Mom’s proud face when I hand her the money makes the job worth it. But the factory is so hot this week. I feel like I spend more time wiping sweat off my face than hammering nails.

  “You coming to the creek, Mike?” asks my friend Joe, a short boy with dark hair and eyes. Pa shoots me a you-know-better look as I open my mouth to answer.

  “Meet you at the creek later, Joe,” I say. “I have to go to the . . . I got some stuff to do first.”

  “See ya, Mike,” says Joe. He and a group of factory boys head out. “Last one in the water’s a rotten egg!”

  “You’re going to the library today, Michael,” says Pa. “You promised your mother.” He gathers up our lunch pails.

  “I know, Pa,” I say, brushing the wood shavings off my clothes. The boys would make fun of me if they knew.

  “Tell Miss Tarnow thank you,” says Pa. He rolls down his sleeves. “Do your reading and stay out of trouble. The library is a quiet place.”

  “Yes, Pa,” I say. How does he know what goes on in a library? I’ve never seen him in there. Why he thinks I need to go is beyond me. I bet Mom made him agree to it. She says I’m on my way to being the family’s best reader and writer.

  “Hello, Michael. How was the factory today?” asks Miss Tarnow as I enter the library.

  “Hot as blazes, Miss Tarnow!” I answer. She’s a nice lady, even if she spends all day with boring books.

  “Here’s a book you might like,” she says. “It’s called The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.”

  “Aww, Miss Tarnow, that’s a made-up storybook for kids. I’m eleven, going on twelve,” I argue. “Isn’t there something to read about baseball or trains or soldiers?”

  “The newspapers are full of news of the war in Europe, Michael,” says Miss Tarnow. She leads me to a table spread with inky stacks of newsprint and picks up one with a picture of a submarine on the front page. “There are reports of German submarines patrolling our coast.”

  “Germans in America?” I ask. Now, that’s worth reading about! I take the newspaper from Miss Tarnow and get started. The article says that German submarines have been spotted along the East Coast. Wow! The ocean is only a few miles from Matawan. Are underwater boats armed with torpedoes cruising the Jersey Shore right now? “Miss Tarnow, what’s a U-boat?”

  “A U-boat is a German submarine, Michael,” she explains. “The name comes from the German word for undersea boat.”

  Gosh, Miss Tarnow knows a lot. I guess that’s what lots of reading does for you.

  I pick up another newspaper and start to look for U-boat stories. Then I see this headline: BATHERS NEED HAVE NO FEAR OF SHARKS. It says the day before yesterday, a man died in Beach Haven after a shark bit him. A shark bit a swimmer? I’ve never heard of that happening. The man was near the beach and swimming with a dog. The article said the shark was likely trying to bite the dog and bit the man by mistake.

  “Miss Tarnow, where is Beach Haven?” I ask.

  “It’s a Jersey Shore vacation town, Michael,” says the librarian. “About sixty miles down the coast from here, as the crow flies.”

  But what about as the shark swims?

  REALITY CHECK

  DID GERMAN SUBMARINES REALLY PATROL THE U.S. COAST?

  In July of 1916, World War I was entering its third year in Europe. The U.S. was not officially in the war yet. However, Germany and America were already seeing each other as enemies. Americans felt attacked when 128 U.S. citizens on board the British passenger ship Lusitania drowned with more than a thousand others after being struck by a torpedo from a German U-boat in May of 1915. Germany considered the U.S. an enemy because it supplied Britain with weapons. German U-boats patrolled the East Coast during World War I looking for ammunition depots full of military weapons and other signs that America was readying for war.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ED MITCHELL

  July 6, 1916—Spring Lake, New Jersey

  “Put your book away, Eddie,” says Agnes. “We’re pulling into the station!” My seventeen-year-old sister’s smiling face peeks over my book.

  “How nice to see you smile, dear,” says Mother. “Seventeen is too young for such sadness.” Agnes has been unhappy ever since her boyfriend went home to England. Britain needed more soldiers, and Reginald felt guilty staying in America while the war was raging.

  “Crying isn’t going to keep Reginald from joining the fight,” says Agnes. I recognize the look on her face. It’s the same one she wears at the suffragette marches with Mother. They hold up Votes For Women banners. I guess they are fighting their own war.

  “Reginald is tough,” I say. “He’ll be alright.” Whenever we horse around, he pins me to the ground right away.

  “Let’s hope the fighting ends soon,” says Mother, putting a hand on Agnes’s knee.

  “If it doesn’t, we’ll have to declare war on Germany to end it,” says Father from behind his newspaper. That makes everyone quiet. Will American soldiers really have to fight a war in Europe?

  “The train has stopped!” I say, jumping up. “We’re at the shore!” I can almost feel the sand between my toes.

  It’s crowded outside the train station. But I hear the driver for our resort calling louder than all the others. “In-gle-nook . . . In-gle-nook!” sings a loud voice. It’s music to my ears!

  “The Inglenook van is over there!” I point. The driver greets us, loads up our suitcases, and everyone takes a seat for the bumpy ride to the resort.

  “Hold onto your hats, folks!” says the driver. The open-air cab is filled with a cool wind that smells like the sea. We’re almost to the ocean!

  Walking into the surf feels like taking a long drink of cool water. Ahhh! The beach is dotted with people stretched out under big umbrellas. Kids splash and dig in the sand. Lots of bathers are holding onto the lifelines that go from the beach out to poles in the water. Little kids hang from the ropes like monkeys at the zoo. Inglenook is just as I remember it from last year.

  “Hurry up, Eddie!” yells Agnes. She’s way out on the lifeline. Her swimming bloomers have a busy pattern and balloon up around her. She looks like a character out of Alice in Wonderland. Agnes insists it’s the latest fashion.

 

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