One day I got a call from my friend Golova in Mexico and he said that he just invented something new and he wanted me to go down and take a look at it. He said that he would pay my way down, so I said yes. When I got there he showed me his invention. He called it a submarine. It looked like a fish that was 150 feet long. It was made completely of metal. I asked him if it was safe and he told me to quit worrying. We got on and climbed down inside. I asked him where we were going and he said we were going around the world. I told him to let me get off first, but he said we were already on our way to Australia.

On our first day under the sea I was scared. We ate things that he and his men caught from the sea. We had some seaweed and some lobster. After I got used to being under the water he showed me the rest of the submarine. We went to the front and he showed me things I'd never seen before. I asked him how far we were under the sea and he told me that we were farther down than any man had ever gone before. He said that we were 15,000 feet under the sea and that we were at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

When we were starting to get low on supplies we stopped at a little island out in the Pacific and got some food and water. I was happy to get out of the submarine and get some fresh air on the little island. There were some natives on the island and they knew my friend. Golova told the natives that we were alright and that we just needed some fresh water and fruit. The island was really cool. There was sand and palm trees everywhere. There were some really cool animals and some birds too. Golova showed me around the island and when we got back we went to the submarine and started towards Australia again.

It took us about a week to reach Australia from the island. When we got to Australia we stopped about half a mile from the beach and Golova took a boat the rest of the way. They left me behind in the submarine with some guys who were assigined to watch me because Golova was afraid I might tell someone about his invention. They asked me instead if I wanted to go under the sea with them to get more food. I really wanted to know how they did that, so I said yes. They brought me into a hidden room and they helped me put on a special suit that was really heavy. They strapped an air tank to my back and then they let me jump through a hole in the bottom of the sub. It took a while for me to reach the bottom of the ocean floor, and when I got there I waited for the rest of the crew to come down. Then we started to look around for some sharks. They told me to stay between them just in case a shark decided to attack us. The rest of the crew had spears and a type of gun that worked underwater. I was scared for awhile because we saw a couple of sharks, but they were only little ones. After awhile I started to get used to the sharks around us. But when the guys killed a couple of them we went back to the sub. I was wondering how we were going to get back into the submarine, but a guy lowered a cable and pulled me up into it's belly. When we got back inside we ate some seaweed and other food we got from the ocean.

When Golova and his crew came back to the submarine we started towards Africa. On the way we stopped at some little islands to get some water and fruit and other things. But after we got the supplies we broke down and had to spend the night back on the island. Golova said that the island was uninhabited and we were the only ones there. Later that night the engine crew came ashore and told us they had finished working on the engines and that we could continue towards Africa. But Golova and I were tired so we spent the night on the island with some of the other men.

Early in the morning I was the first one up because I thought I heard some voices. I took a walk and saw some smoke coming from the top of the island. I ran and woke the others up, and Golova said maybe there were some savages living on the island. We checked it out and found there were some cannibals on the island. They were just getting up and starting to move around. We ran back down the hill to get our stuff, then quietly took off with the boat. When we got to the submarine we looked back and saw that the savages were coming after us in their dugout canoes. We got our rifles and went up on deck and shot at them. When they turned around we took off.

It wasn't long before we had some more mechanical problems. We thought the propeller was stuck or that maybe a shaft was broken. We started to sink really fast and after a long time we hit the bottom. The depth gauge said that we were 20,000 feet under the sea. Golova said that we were the deepest that any man had ever gone before and that the submarine was almost ready to break. It took the engine crew a couple of hours to fix the broken shaft, then we started up again. We took off very slowly, and we only started to speed up when we got closer to the surface.

It took us about five days to get to Africa. When we got there we only stoped for supplies and took off again. After that we had to cross the Atlantic Ocean and then go around the tip of South America where it was really stormy at the surface of the ocean. Then we went really speedily to Mexico. When we got back to Golova's place, he asked me if I wanted to go on the next trip with him? I said,"No, I'm ready to go back home. I miss my family! "But before I left for Alaska, he told me not to tell anyone about his invention. "Sure, anything you say," I said, "as long as I don't have to ever again go 20,000 feet under the sea!"

By Willie Paul Fitka III