Strong Like the Sea, стр. 24
Uncle squats out of reach of the waves, where the ocean stretches up onto the sand as far as it can reach, spreading thin and clear like melted butter. With quiet patience, he waits as the turtle approaches.
I’ve never seen a turtle like it. Not green sea turtle, not loggerhead. Nothing I can think of has a shape like that. “What is it?”
At the sound of my voice, the turtle whips around and beats a fast retreat into the sea.
I cover my mouth. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare it.”
“Saisei is shy, but determined.” Uncle stands up and watches her go. “I keep telling her she should go be with her family over on Turtle Beach, but no. She always comes back. Laid a clutch of eggs here last year and everything. Go to your family, I say. Be with other turtles, I say. But she comes back every time like she thinks I’m her family.” Uncle shakes his head wistfully. “Do I look like a turtle to you?”
He’s so straight-faced, I can’t tell if he’s teasing or not. “Um, no?”
“Bah.” He walks slowly back to the house, Sarge at his heels.
What was that all about?
After a minute, I pull the mower string and the engine roars to life. But as I push the mower back and forth, I keep watch on the place where Saisei disappeared. Now and then, for just an instant, a dark head breaks the surface, and I wonder if she’s watching me back.
“Ten seconds and counting,” Jack croons from below as I balance on a chair and reach for an envelope taped to the top shelf.
“Shut it,” I hiss, my fingers barely grazing the corner of the envelope but not enough to grab it. “Almost got it.”
“Nine. Eight. Seven. Six . . .”
“Need help?” Dad calls from his wide metal desk at the back of the room.
“I can do it.” I grit my teeth. “One more second.”
“Three. Two.” Jack bounces by my chair.
“Got it!” I snag the envelope as Jack yells, “One! Time’s up, I win.”
I hop down off the chair. “Not! It was a tie.”
“No, I win.” Jack prances backwards, waving his phone with the screen flashing zero.
“Not!”
“I win a hundred percent.”
“Not—times a million.”
“Uncle Brody, you saw, right? She lost.”
“No way. Tied all the way.” Slippers slapping softly against the tile floor, I weave through empty chairs to Dad and bounce the envelope in my hand. It weighs more than it should for such a small package.
“I’m staying out of it.” The keys on Dad’s computer click a steady rhythm, the desk lamp accenting the shadows of each finger like ghost crabs hiding beneath his hands. “That’s between the two of you.”
Bright posters of natural spirals line the ceiling of Dad’s upstairs classroom: a snail shell, a rose, a hurricane, pineapples, pine cones, the side of a human skull, cacti, a human ear, sunflowers, galaxies—all of them with the spiral graph drawn over top to show the golden ratio math equation.
“Ready for your code name?” Jack matches my steps.
“Only if you are. ’Cause we tied.” Carefully, I rip the envelope open and peek inside, where white paper wraps around something flat and heavy.
“Ekolu and me looked up stuff with ‘hat’ in the words—you know, research—and we found a sick name for you.” He bumps my elbow. “Ready for it?”
“If I say no, will it go away?”
“Definitely not.” He spreads his fingers like starfish. “Code name: Shatter.”
Full stop. Shatter? Like glass? “Why would you name me that?”
“You don’t like it?” His grin fades.
“You think I’m broken?”
“No—not like that. You shatter codes and da kine, same as the lady in your report. We thought about Hatrack or Crosshatch, but none mo bettah than Agent Shatter. Give it a day. You’ll see.”
I roll my eyes—hard. Once Jack’s brain catches hold of something shiny, it wraps around tight as an octopus on a face mask and won’t let go.
The thick white paper crinkles as I unwrap the package and gaze at the copper swirl inside. Polished to a burnished gold, a nautilus shell shimmers in my hands. Deep in the creases of its perfect spiral, dark green tarnish winds round each curve, slicing through the shine like lines of fine seaweed curled on sand.
“Whoa.” Jack traces the spiral and glances at Dad. “Is this the prize? Did she win?”
A shivery rush rolls through me as if someone dumped a sack of leaves over my head, the edges prickly and fragile against my skin. Could it be the end? Does this mean I can show Mom on her call tonight that I solved her riddle? She’d smile, of course. Proud that I figured it out—maybe even call me her mini-me like when I first figured out her patterns at Auntie’s house years ago.
But Dad doesn’t cheer. He watches me with the same focus he uses when plotting out graphs and charts—like my reaction is one more variable to plug into his equations. His chair squeaks as he leans back and folds his arms. “What do you think, Alex? Is this the end?”
“Would you tell me if it was?”
“Would you want me to?”
I sigh. Would it kill my parents to give a straight answer? Having my question thrown back as another question turns every conversation with them into a test. Sometimes I don’t want to worry about which answer is right. And how many wrong answers do I get before I fail the test? If I’m wrong one too many times, will they give up on me?
I turn the shell over, tracing the spiral—identical on both sides. A perfect example of Dad’s golden ratio—except for the cork sticking out of the mouth of the shell.
Leaving the white wrapping on the desk, I hold the shell with the cork upright and wiggle it out. It pops free and