The Shark Rider (21 page)

“Coach, you can't send us home
now
. It's not like anything that happened was our fault. We don't know what's causing the fish kills. And the manta from last
night said it would come back today to tell me what's going on.”

“Hold on, hold on.” Coach held up his hands. “Nothing's been decided yet. But this is a lot for you all to handle. You're only Snappers. We're lucky no one was hurt yesterday.”

Hugh raised his hand.

“Yes, what is it, Haverford?”

“How did water get in the gas?”

“We believe it was from the squall last night. Look, outboard engines are notoriously temperamental. Having one break down is not all that surprising. I've already spoken to our
wonderful
first mate about the absence of paddles in the boat and the radio issue. I don't think anything like that will happen again.”

“Then why, like, make us leave?” Ryder asked. “We kicked it yesterday, dude.”

“Yeah,” said Sam.

“
Yeah
,” added Tristan.

Even Hugh and Rosina nodded their heads.

“Uh, Coach?” Sam said.

“Yes, Marten, now what?”

“The red pills. Just so you know, they kinda worked too well. My, I mean, our webbing didn't go away right after we got out of the water. I still had some when I climbed into bed.”

“Interesting,” Coach mused. He then handed each of the campers a bottle of Sea Camp water. “We'll stick with these for now.”

“I thought we had to leave?” Tristan questioned.

“As I
already
said, nothing's been decided.” Coach rolled his eyes and turned to Meg, who was standing nearby. “It's just that the situation here seems to be a little more complicated than we expected.”

Tristan wondered what
that
meant.

Meg smiled at them. “The captain mentioned a reef nearby and suggested we take a swim this morning while we wait for the inflatable. I thought we could check out the shoreline and then head to the reef. The water here is very calm, so it'll be an easy swim, especially for all of you. We could also release a couple of those drifters you brought along.” She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Might be a good opportunity to prove you should stay. We might even find that manta, Tristan.”

The teens agreed enthusiastically. Clearly, no one wanted to leave and face the disgrace and humiliation of quitting or getting kicked off their first official mission before it was complete.

“Do you have your robo-jellies with you?” Coach asked.

The teens shook their heads. Tristan, Hugh, and Sam offered to go below to get theirs.

When they were in the passageway outside their cabins, Tristan paused. He turned angrily to Sam and Hugh. “Can you believe it? They're thinking of sending us home and bringing in some senior campers. That would totally stink. I don't know about you guys, but I want to stay and find out what's really going on.”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “Totally. We have to stay. Something's
not right here. It's strange how all the animals are acting and everything that happened yesterday.”

Tristan nodded. “I bet Coach thinks something weird is going on too, and that's why he wants us to leave.”

Hugh just stared at them worriedly and turned a shade whiter.

Coach called down from the deck above, “C'mon, Snappers, get a move on!”

The teens grabbed their robo-jellies. On the way back, they ran into Coach Fred heading to the bridge. “I'm going to distract the captain so he won't notice that Dr. Gladfell is the only one actually using snorkeling gear.” Then, surprisingly, he looked almost warmly at the campers and spoke softly. “Look, I know you want to stay and that nothing that happened yesterday was your fault. In fact, you all did quite well. Just be careful out there this morning. If you can come up with some new information without any more trouble, maybe I can convince Director Davis to let you stay.”

Tristan, Sam, and Hugh were so shocked they just stood there with their mouths hanging open. The angry pit in Tristan's stomach lessened. Now he
had
to find that manta ray.

“Well? Don't just stand there.”

The three teens sprinted for the stern. When they arrived, Ryder was just jumping in. Rosina was already in the water. A rope ladder hung from an opening in the side of the ship. Meg put the robo-jellies in her yellow mesh bag. The teens each drank about half a
bottle of pink water before also jumping in. The scientist then donned her fins, mask, and snorkel and joined them. She led the group on the surface toward shore.

Tristan swam beside Sam and Hugh, behind the others. The water was calm, warm, and well lit by the morning sun as it passed between clouds. Tristan glanced at the sandy bottom, but he wasn't really paying attention. He was thinking about the manta ray and hoping it would show up soon.

Sam let out a muffled cry. Tristan reacted instantly, turning to see what was wrong. With her hair streaming behind her like wheat-colored seaweed, Sam raised her eyebrows in surprise and smiled to him underwater. Bubbles of air escaping from her mouth rose toward the surface. She pointed to a small cove ahead that was surrounded by big, tan rocks. Between the rocks, the sand was bright white and the water was amazingly clear. It was also teeming with fish, tens of thousands of fish, maybe even millions. An enormous, shimmering cloud of two-inch-long silver fish literally filled the water. Tristan kicked gently toward the astonishing abundance. He floated through a narrow crevice between two rocks and into a shallow pool. It was a rock hot tub filled with fish. The fish parted gracefully as he floated in. He watched as sunlight glinted off their silvery sides. So captivated by the fish-filled rock hot tub, Tristan quickly forgot about everything else. He felt relaxed and at peace. Tristan floated for a little while longer and then swam to a small beach where the others were standing waist-deep in fish-filled water.

“This is so cool,” Sam said, swirling happily around in the fish. “I've never seen so many fish. Never swam with so many fish. Did you see how they moved? Hugh, what are they saying? What have they seen? Did I say this is
soooo
cool?”

Hugh shook his head, exasperated. “Cool for you, maybe. Half of them are trying to talk to me, all at the same time. It's like crazy fish voices in my head. Seriously, you could go nuts here.”

Meg took off her mask and snorkel. “They all look healthy; that's good. Hugh, take a breath and try again. Ask if they've seen or felt anything odd in the water.”

“Okay, I'll try, but don't expect much.” Hugh took a deep breath and floated amid the fish.

“Any sign of the manta, Tristan?” Sam asked hopefully.

He shook his head.

Hugh stood up. “Dr. Gladfell, I mean, Meg, they can't agree on anything. One fish says sometimes at night they start feeling bad and it comes from the north. Another fish says it's in the mornings and comes from the west. A lot of them say the others are crazy, that there's nothing wrong.”

“Dude, like, that's no help at all,” Ryder groaned. He looked bored, as did Rosina, who was dribbling mucus into the water. She watched as it spread from her hands out over the surface.

A bunch of fish suddenly leapt out of the water in front of the group. Like a wave of porpoising silver bullets, more fish jumped. Tristan wondered if something was chasing them.
Maybe it's the manta? Something else?
He tentatively put his face underwater and looked around. Something silver, narrow, and about a foot long raced by. Barracuda.

Just as Tristan popped up to tell the others, seemingly out of nowhere, two huge black birds swooped down and nearly knocked him over. Each had long, narrow wings, a white chest, and a forked tail. Reaching down with sharp talons, the giant birds grabbed at the jumping fish. One bird flew off empty-handed, but the other came away with a wiggling, silver catch.

Two more black birds swooped down, but instead of going after the leaping fish, they chased after the bird with a meal dangling from its talons. The bird carrying the fish swerved, ducked, and then shot skyward, trying to lose its pursuers.

Rosina studied the birds. “What are they?”

“They're frigatebirds,” Meg answered.

“How come they don't just dive in for the fish?”

“They can't swim or even get wet. Frigates are opportunistic feeders. They feed on fish however and whenever they can get them. As you can see, they often steal fish from each other or other birds. That's why they're also known as pirate birds.”

As if to demonstrate the fact, several more frigatebirds joined the dogfight, swooping, diving, and hovering in an all-out attempt to steal the one bird's catch. It was an astonishing aerial display—
Top Gun
, bird style.

“Hey, maybe you can talk to them,” Tristan suggested to Rosina.

“They look kinda busy right now.”

“Okay, looks like we're not going to find out anything here,” Meg told them. “Let's head out to the reef the captain mentioned to see what's there and then release the robo-jellies. Follow me.”

The group paddled out through the shimmering cloud of fish. Hugh swiveled around manically as he passed through. Tristan grinned. He was glad he didn't have hundreds of fish voices in his head. Soon the swarms of fish thinned out, giving way to empty sand and smooth, blocky, tan rocks. As Tristan swam, he looked around, again hoping to spot the manta.

The group swam along the shore and then headed seaward. Tristan watched below him as the bottom changed. Wisps of sea grass now sprouted from the sand, and there were scattered green sticks with bushy tops sticking up like short paintbrushes. Last summer, Ms. Sanchez told him what they were, but he'd forgotten. He was pretty sure they were some type of algae. Tristan then noticed another algae; this one was easy to remember. It was named
Halimeda
and resembled clumps of green cornflakes strung together in chains. When they first saw it in Florida, a heated cereal debate arose among the campers. Tristan voted for cornflakes, while Rosina argued that it looked more like strings of green granola. Sam was convinced it resembled moldy oatmeal.

Tristan then saw some white fish with yellow stripes along their midsections. They were poking around in the sand, looking for food. Two whiskers hung from
each fish's chin. He'd seen similar fish in the lagoon at Sea Camp—they were goatfish. The bottom continued to change as they swam farther offshore. The water deepened, and there were scattered corals, sea whips, and a few more fish swimming along the seafloor. Tristan noticed a small brown damselfish darting in and out of a pile of coral and rubble. He figured it was probably tending to its algae farm and would attack him if he got too close. Last year in the Bahamas, Hugh swore one had nearly bitten off his finger. Another of those weird serving-platter fish swam by; this one was purple with iridescent blue lines on its body and translucent fins running along its top and bottom.

Tristan dove. A yellow brain coral about the size of a grapefruit sat atop a pile of old reef rubble. Small purple and red spirally things stuck out of its surface. They resembled miniature Christmas trees and looked soft. He tried to touch one, and it instantly withdrew into a tube. The reaction was so fast it reminded him of someone flinching after touching a hot pan. Tristan had no idea what they were and made a mental note to ask Meg. He then noticed a cluster of long black spines sticking out of a nearby hole. Assuming it was a black spiny sea urchin, like the ones Alvin had warned them about, he kept his distance. He returned to the surface and looked around for the others.

The rest of the group was following Hugh. He was chasing something on the bottom. Tristan swam over and tapped Sam on the leg.

“Octopus,” Sam said. “Won't talk to him.”

Hugh stopped swimming and pointed to another small stack of coral rubble. He shrugged his shoulders and came to the surface. “Won't come out. No matter what I say.”

Just then, Tristan noticed something on the sand in front of the reef. It was square and seemed to be wiggling on the inside. He swam closer for a better view. The others followed. It was a fish trap, about three feet in length and two feet wide. The wiggling came from all the fish crammed inside and mashed up against the trap's wire mesh. Many of the fish had cuts from the metal. A big, droopy-eyed grouper stared sadly at Tristan. It was squished between two squirming black-and-yellow French angelfish.

The teens gathered overhead on the surface.

Sam looked horrified. “They've even caught really small fish. They can't even be big enough to eat.”

Meg nodded. “They're trying to outlaw this type of trap fishing. It does terrible damage to the fish population and reefs here.”

“Let's let them out,” Tristan suggested.

“Yeah, like a prison break,” Sam said.

Meg glanced around nervously. “Okay, but do it quickly. Messing with someone's trap is dangerous business.”

Tristan and the other campers swiftly dove down to the trap and looked for a way to release the fish. Sam found a hinged door with a latch on it and tried to open it, but it was stuck. Ryder tried to muscle the door open, but it still wouldn't budge. Rosina pushed
the teen aside and coated the latch and hinge with a blanket of slippery, slimy mucus. Sam tried again, and the door swung open.