Fins Page 5

  “Next year, more like it,” Sabina grumbled. “They’ll never trust three kids our age alone in a boat.”

  * * *

  Over the weekend, Maribel fretted about her sister’s prediction. Captain Hannah had fishing charters. The biologist was busy, or away on a trip, so there would be no shark tagging until Monday at the earliest.

  It gave the girl lots of time to worry. Had she, her sister, and Luke somehow failed to prove themselves worthy? If so, the problem wasn’t Luke. The boy never complained. Although sometimes absentminded, he could see and hear things on the water that even adults could not. And Sabina was incredibly lucky when it came to catching sharks.

  Saturday night, Maribel lay awake while an inner voice nagged and made sleep impossible. It accused her of being the reason they would never be trusted alone in the rental boat. The problem is you, not them, the voice taunted. Why don’t you say more, do more? You should work harder, Maribel. Why aren’t you brave enough to speak out like Sabina?

  On Sunday morning, Maribel’s mother noticed dark circles under the girl’s eyes. “Mi pequeña general,” the woman said in Spanish. “My little general”—it was the nickname she’d given Maribel as a child. “You’ve always carried the weight of the world on your shoulders. What’s wrong, my dear? Didn’t you sleep?”

  Her mother, Marta Estéban, dressed like a housemaid but had the elegant face of an Aztec princess. On the internet, in videos of lost cities in the jungle, there were similar faces carved in stone.

  “I know what’s troubling you,” the woman continued. “You have to deal with paperwork when you should be out having fun.” She indicated a stack of new bills on the kitchen counter. “Don’t let them upset you, my darling. Compared to the bad things we survived in Cuba, they are nothing. We’ll manage. We always do.”

  Maribel wasn’t so sure. When her mother was gone, she sat and opened the bills one by one. On the table was a ledger they’d bought at Bailey’s General Store. Since moving into the houseboat, Maribel had done the bookkeeping. She knew, better than her mother did, how tight money was.

  The girl made entries with a pencil, always. It was easier to erase, and pausing to use the electric pencil sharpener provided a nice break. The clean, precise point the machine created, time after time, was calming.

  A pencil, no matter how dull, could be made new again.

  This week’s bills weren’t too bad. The girl added, and subtracted, and tallied the little blocks at the bottom of the ledger. Done, she stood and took pride in the neatness of her work before closing the book.

  Maybe her mother was right. In Cuba, a terrifying series of events had forced them to flee to Florida. There had been a hurricane. Lightning had burned their little thatched house. They’d gone without food, and Sabina had angered a bad man who’d come with soldiers and guns.

  Compared to all this, money meant nothing. In fact, a bundle of new bills was no worse than a shark jumping into the boat, Maribel decided. Don’t panic, stay calm. They would find a way to manage.

  The girl felt better after that. And when her inner voice attempted to ruin this beautiful summer morning, she dealt with it in a new way. She pictured a small shark leaping into the rental boat. Could see the poor thing flopping around until it was covered by a towel, then safely released. The scene that played out in her head was sort of funny. There was no danger. Not really. The danger, like the inner voice that taunted her, was imaginary.

  Maribel smiled, walking to the kitchen. Her sister always slept late on Sundays. Sabina would want breakfast before they had to dress for church. In the fridge was a fresh mango, eggs, a wedge of salty goat cheese. There was also a thick slice of carrot cake from the restaurant where their mother worked as a server.

  Maribel put on music—a soft mambo by Celia Cruz. The girl danced as she often did while she worked. Secretly.

  SEVEN

  SHARKS INCORPORATED!

  On Monday morning, Luke stepped off Captain Hannah’s boat and joined the sisters. They were sitting in the shade beneath the biologist’s house, which they all referred to as “the lab.”

  “My aunt has something she wants to give you,” the boy said. He was more interested in the dog sprinting toward them.

  “What? Another test?” Sabina asked. “I’m sick of tests. They make my brain tired.”

  “Don’t be so negative,” Maribel said gently. She was no longer troubled by thoughts of failure. But she was hungry, so she added, “Maybe she brought us something good to eat.”

  Hannah made excellent jelly from wild sea grapes that grew on the islands. Sometimes she brought fragrant smoked mullet—an odd-looking type of fish. Or a pot of pinto beans, or a stalk of sweet bananas. The woman had even surprised them with ice cream flavored with wild oranges and a coconut she had milked and grated herself.

  “That would be nice,” Sabina agreed. “Those tests make me hungry, too. I don’t suppose your aunt knows where a wild chocolate tree grows? I like chocolate better than coconut. In Cuba, I drank so much coconut water I got sick once.”

  Luke ignored her.

  He said to the dog, “Pete … heel,” and they trotted off together toward the steps that led up to the laboratory. “She wants Dr. Ford to be here when you open the package,” he informed the sisters with a backward glance. “But he wants to talk to me about something first.”

  “A package,” Sabina said. She was intrigued.

  Captain Hannah appeared on the path to the lab. She wore a long-sleeved khaki shirt as protection from the sun and was carrying baby Izaak in a sling. In her free hand was a large sack.

  “Don’t spoil the surprise by asking what she brought us,” Maribel whispered.

  Her sister nodded. But when the woman was closer, Sabina asked, “Want me to carry that sack? It looks heavy. What’s in it?”

  Hannah touched a finger to her lips in a secretive way. “Be right back,” she said. “Get ready for a quick pop quiz on you-know-what.”

  “I don’t want to know what,” Sabina complained after the door to the lab had banged shut. But sat up straight when the woman returned ten minutes later, carrying only the sack—and the flash cards, of course. This meant another test.

  “Pretend you’re the skipper of a boat,” Captain Hannah instructed. “Don’t bother to raise your hand to answer. On the water, bad things happen fast, and you don’t have time to be polite. You have to act immediately. And to follow orders, no matter who’s in charge. Ready?”

  “Where’s Luke?” Sabina asked.

  “With Marion,” Hannah said. She sometimes called the biologist by his first name. More often, she referred to him as “Doc.”

  Sabina wasn’t satisfied. “If we have to take a test, why doesn’t Luke?”

  “He passed the test on the boat ride here,” the woman responded patiently. “Ready? Okay, here we go.”

  The questioning began, rapid-fire.

  When is the only time you don’t have to wear your PFDs?

  PFD stood for “personal flotation device,” or life vest. She was referring to the inflatable suspenders they had learned how to adjust and use.

  Answer: Only on calm days, when the boat was at anchor, were they allowed to take off their PFDs.

  “When you’re driving a boat,” Hannah continued, “what’s the first thing you should do if your engine quits unexpectedly?”

  The answer was: Wait until the boat slows, then drop the anchor to keep the boat from drifting into a dangerous situation.

  What do you do if your boat hits a sandbar?

  Answer: Shut off the engine immediately. Tilt the propeller out of the water and get the anchor ready in case the boat drifts free.

  When there are storm clouds in the area, what does it mean when the wind suddenly shifts and the air feels cooler?

  Answer: Return to the marina immediately. A storm is coming your way.

  Captain Hannah became serious when discussing bad weather. In Florida, thunderheads brought rain almost every summ
er afternoon. Lightning was a killer, the woman said, as she had many times before.

  The quiz about safety went on for a while: What do you do if a passenger falls overboard? Loses a hat? What if the boat starts leaking water? If the engine catches fire? What is the emergency code word if a boater needs immediate help?—MAYDAY!

  Then there was a trick question. “Let’s say you’re off Woodring’s Point in the Gulf of Mexico. Your anchor line breaks in a heavy wind, and you begin to drift out of sight of land. What do you do?”

  Sabina replied, “I would teach Luke more Spanish. That farm boy will need it if we all don’t drown before we reach Mexico.”

  “Not a bad answer,” Hannah said, smiling, “but it’s not what I was hoping to hear.”

  “We’re not allowed to fish outside this bay,” Maribel reminded Sabina, which earned a glare from her sister. “We’ll never be in the Gulf.”

  The fishing guide nodded her approval. “Never out of sight of the lab or the marina. Those are the rules. And if you need help, what do you do?”

  In the rental boat was a set of oars, a flare gun, a red towel, and a small handheld marine radio.

  “First try calling on the radio,” Maribel answered. “If that doesn’t work, tie the towel to an oar and wave it to get someone’s attention. If that doesn’t work, fire the flare gun—it’s dangerous, but we’ve all learned to use it.”

  “Good,” Hannah said. She pointed to the lab’s upper deck. “And if someone raises a red flag on that pole?”

  “Return to the marina immediately,” Maribel responded. “It probably has to do with a lightning storm, but it could be something else important.”

  After a glance at the youngest sister, the fishing guide asked a final question. “If one of your crew refuses to wear a life vest or argues about their job, what have you been instructed to do?”

  Sabina replied, “I know, I know. Order me to sit down and take me straight back to the marina. Don’t worry. If anyone breaks the rules, it’ll be Luke or Maribel. Not me.”

  The woman applauded and said “Excellent” before checking her watch. “Let’s give Luke and Doc another few minutes. I’ve got a surprise for you.”

  After a while, though, the fishing guide changed her mind. “What the heck. I want to see the look on Luke’s face when he comes down those steps. Put these on if you like them.”

  From the sack, she removed three long-billed fishing caps. Next came three good-looking, navy blue T-shirts.

  “Hold one up,” Hannah said, “and see what’s written on the front. I had them made just for you.”

  On the front of the shirts, bold gold letters read:

  SHARKS INCORPORATED

  Research Team Member

  * * *

  Luke was unaware of what was going on outside. He was studying the aquariums that lined the wall of the laboratory. They housed many types of local fish and crabs, even seahorses. In the last couple of weeks, he’d learned how to care for these glass tanks that bubbled with life. He was also trying to memorize the names of the less obvious creatures that lived on the bottom of the tanks. Dr. Ford said it was part of his job.

  It wasn’t easy.

  Some were animals that looked like plants yet were not. They lacked bones or eyes and sat motionless in the sand. There were colorful corals that resembled rocks but were not rocks. There were oysters and barnacles and other animals that had brains and were just as alive as the fish that swam above. The biologist had collected them all from the shallows near the island.

  “Genus Clav-e-lina,” Luke said, touching a finger to the glass.

  It was the Latin name for a rubbery-looking glob known as a sea squirt, or tunicate. The purple glob lay on the bottom of a tank. Knowing the Latin names of various creatures, the biologist had said, was important. It avoided the confusion of “local names.” The same animal or plant might be known by dozens of different local names, which varied from country to country and language to language. But an animal or plant’s Latin, or scientific, name remained the same worldwide.

  “Sea squirts don’t look like they can swim, but they can,” Luke recited. “I’m not sure how. When they’re really tiny, I guess. Anyway, at a certain age, sea squirts latch on to a solid object and stay there. They filter dirty water and make it clean. The same with scallop shells, sponges, and oysters. All kinds of plain-looking little animals that filter water. The ocean would be a dirty mess without them.”

  Dr. Ford, sitting at a desk computer, said, “Good job. Impressive.” He was content to listen, not ask questions. There were people, children and adults, as the biologist knew, who did well in life but not on tests.

  Nearby, in a portable crib, baby Izaak slept and dreamed, unconcerned.

  Luke named several more creatures by their Latin names. Sometimes he had memorized them with a single glance at a book. More often he’d had to write the name over and over before it was anchored in his brain.

  Something he had yet to master was how to pronounce complicated words.

  “Sea a-nem-o-nees,” he struggled to say. “Anemones resemble a stalk of flowers, but they’re not plants. They’re animals. The difference, I guess, is that plants live off air and sunlight. Animals—no matter what they look like—feed on plants and other animals. How am I doing?”

  A week ago, Dr. Ford had suggested the boy learn all he could about taking care of the lab.

  “I travel a lot,” the biologist had explained, which was true. The man owned a large, fast boat and a seaplane that could take off or land on water. “It would be nice to leave someone in charge who has an expert knowledge of how things work here. I think you can do it, and I would pay double.”

  Luke, who had never been an “expert” at anything, was not used to compliments. But he did understand the importance of earning his own keep.

  You’ll never owe anyone anything but kindness, his mother had said before she died.

  “Sure, I could use the money,” he had told the biologist.

  Now, a week later, here they were, back in the lab, having what seemed to be a friendly talk. But it was obvious that Dr. Ford had something serious on his mind.

  The boy feared that he’d screwed up somehow. “There’s something I should’ve told you, I guess,” he stammered. “Last week I managed to break your shark-tagging pole. The big one, not the little fiberglass tagger. Stepped on it, maybe, I don’t know. Sorry. It won’t happen again.”

  “That old broom handle? So what?”

  “Well, I can tell you’re upset about something. I’m making you a new pole. Or maybe it’s because … Sir, I know I’m not good at pronouncing big words. Some of this stuff’s hard to learn. I’ll do better, Dr. Ford. I promise.”

  The man’s attention shifted to the boy.

  “First off, call me Doc. Or Marion. And don’t be so hard on yourself. People who learn fast don’t always understand what they’ve learned. What makes you think I’m mad? Even when I am mad—it doesn’t happen often—but when I am, almost no one can tell.” After a pause, he admitted, “But you’re right. I’m upset about something. How’d you know?”

  The colors in Luke’s head had painted the biologist with a reddish glow. He’d come to associate the color with strong emotion.

  “Just a guess,” the boy lied.

  “I doubt that,” Dr. Ford said gently. “Look, you don’t have to worry about being honest with me. We’re friends. Friends need to trust each other. We should be able to say any darn silly thing that comes into our heads without worrying about the results. Think about that, okay?”

  “Sure … Doc,” Luke said, using the name for the first time to see how it felt. It was sort of like calling an adult “Captain,” only not quite as cool. The man’s first name, though, definitely wouldn’t work. To Luke, the name Marion sounded like a girl’s name.

  Doc got up, checked on the sleeping baby, then went toward the door, carrying his cell phone. “I’ve got to make a call. Last night the police found a bunch
of dead sharks near Woodring’s Point. They want my opinion. Depending on how the sharks died, there’s a chance you and the sisters might be able to help identify them. I’ll explain when I get back—if you’re willing to trust me.”

  Willing to trust …

  That was something else the boy had never been asked to do.

  Luke stepped closer to one of the bubbling aquariums. A secret world existed on the other side of the glass. A few weeks ago, he would have noticed only the slow chaos of swirling fish.

  That had changed. Now, in the boy’s mind, the rubbery purple globs, the strands of sea grasses, the nuggets of coral all came to life. Each creature had a name. Each was set apart in the boy’s head. Yet all were connected to the secret world inside the tank, and the secrets of the bay that lay sparkling and blue through the window.

  Soon Luke was lost in the beauty of something that, a few weeks ago, had seemed too complex for a kid like him to understand.

  EIGHT

  SHARK KILLERS!

  The Estéban sisters and Hannah were still outside when the biologist returned from making a phone call. The man checked on the baby again, took his seat at the computer, and tried to pick up the conversation where he and Luke had left off.

  He didn’t seem to notice that the boy, who’d been staring into an aquarium, was startled as if awakening from a dream.

  Or maybe the biologist did.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah, sure … Doc,” Luke said. It felt okay calling the biologist that.

  Doc, smiling, seemed to appreciate the effort. “Tell you what: I’ll be honest with you, but it’s entirely your call whether to be honest with me. How’s that sound?”

  “Uh, good, I guess,” Luke said. “What do you mean?”

  “It means whatever you say is fine. I’m curious about something. I’ve spent a lot of time on the water. I know you weren’t guessing when you saw that bull shark way before the rest of us did. And you weren’t guessing when you said the shark would surface beside the boat. It impressed the heck out of me, but your aunt Hannah is worried. She says you’ve changed since the day you were struck by lightning. Care to talk about it?”