Strong Like the Sea, стр. 36
“I saw something out over the reef. A turtle maybe. It disappeared before I could really tell. I thought I could see it if I got out there fast enough. I was dying for a peek.” I take a shaky breath. “I almost did.”
“Turtles are docile.”
“The turtle didn’t scare me. The ocean did.” How can someone who loves the sea and everything in it possibly understand?
“What happened?”
“Dad told me to wait—said we’d go out together so I could snorkel above the class during the lesson, but I went out without him.” My swim goggles were pink. I wrinkle my nose. What a weird thing to remember. “I was sure I only needed a few minutes cause snorkeling’s easy, and I was fast. But I was stuck with all these tourists making noise and splashing. I thought they’d scare the fish away for sure, so I went first, ahead of all those people. Ahead of Dad.”
“Did your dad know you left without him?”
“Not at first. Dad was focused on his clients, and I didn’t say anything. I just swam out. The water was clear as glass.” I wave at the endless ocean. “Visibility forever. Seemed like I could see the whole reef at once—a whole rainbow of coral.”
I see it still. Anemones with crazy tentacles drifting back and forth, spiky sea urchins waving purple spines in the world’s slowest sword fight. “A jack fish bigger than me cruised along twenty feet below. I almost followed him until I saw the cleaning station full of bright yellow tangs. At least fifty were swarming over a green sea turtle, picking at its shell and cleaning its skin.
“I floated there and watched for a while.” I lick my lips. This was the part where I usually try to wake up, and I glance at Uncle, hoping he’d ask for something else—anything else, but he only stares out to sea and waits for me to finish the story.
My fingers knot in my shirt. “So the turtle leaves the cleaning station and swims toward me with a few fish still picking his shell clean. Out of nowhere, these big waves roll over us and a strange ripple goes through the water. The turtle starts swimming weird— like flapping its fins to go fast, but he wasn’t moving hardly at all. He beat his flippers hard, but still stayed like twenty feet away—at least I didn’t think he was moving. He was, though. We both were moving. The turtle was swimming, and I was caught in a rip tide.”
“Rogue waves can do that,” Uncle says. “Dangerous situation.”
“I tried to swim sideways to get out of it like you’re supposed to, but the current kept getting wider like it was following me. The turtle left or got swept away or something. I don’t know. But there was this one last rock jutting straight up out of the water, coming up fast, but I grabbed on.”
“You caught onto a rock?”
“Yeah, my fingers caught on lava or coral, I don’t know. I grabbed on as hard as I could and screamed for Dad, hoping he’d come if I held on long enough. I thought I heard him calling for me, too. But something powerful churned in the water beside me . . . this huge, dark thing with gleaming white teeth rising up from somewhere inside the rock—a viper moray eel.” I close my eyes, but the memories don’t stop. “It came straight at my face with its mouth open. I jerked back so fast I almost did a backflip. I kicked and splashed away as fast as I could.”
Uncle nods like he can see the whole thing.
“I had to let go—but then it was just me alone, with our island getting farther and farther away. The ocean had me and it wouldn’t let me go.”
“I see.” Uncle stands up and holds a hand out for me. “Kamalani told me you were rescued once, plucked half-drowned from the waves far out from shore, but I didn’t know the details. Who got you out?”
“Some guy in an outrigger canoe saw me and brought me back.” I let Uncle pull me up and then I brush the sand from my shorts. “It probably sounds dumb.”
“No. A ten-year-old keiki swept out like that? I can imagine how it would feel like the ocean conspired to take you away.”
Conspired. That’s it exactly. It baited me with something I wanted to see, tricked me and pulled me away, and when I grabbed onto something, it sent a viper moray to shake me loose.
I shiver.
Uncle bows his head. “Thank you for telling me. I already promised to help you with your challenges, but I think I can help you with this too. Do you trust me?”
Trust him? Grumpy old Uncle Tanaka? I bite my lip. The man I know never smiles, but this new Uncle makes me wonder if he was all bark but no bite. Maybe this really is the man Mom remembers. And if he’s good enough for Mom, he’s good enough for me. “I trust you.”
Okay, so maybe I want to trust him, but when Uncle asks if I want to ride back in the kayak I almost throw up.
Yeah, get back in the water today?
No.
Just no.
No power on earth could get me back in the ocean today.
At first, I worry Uncle will be disappointed or grumpy when I say I’ll walk back along the shore, but instead of arguing, he pushes the kayak into the