Cold water enveloped Shelly as she plunged.
She spiraled down through what appeared to be tangles of kelp. What was happening to her? Where was she going? Finally, she somersaulted to a stop in a dim underwater cavern.
She began to swim, holding her breath, not sure where she was going, just knowing she needed to find an exit, to find air. But seaweed snagged at her ankles, trapping her.
“Leave here . . . turn back!” came a tiny, pained voice as clear as day, even that far underwater.
Shelly looked down and saw faces on the seaweed. And with her heart racing and air running out, she realized it wasn’t seaweed at all, but withered gray life-forms with sallow eyes and gaping, contorted mouths. They were nothing she had ever studied or seen in the aquarium. They couldn’t be talking to her, though. She must have imagined it.
A current gripped her and sucked her down.
She tried to swim against it, but it was too strong. Her lungs ached, fit to burst.
Suddenly, an enormous crystal ball clamped around her, and her mouth opened in a silent scream. But then the water drained from the enclosure, and she was able to breathe, though she spluttered and spat and pounded her fists on the curved crystal.
“Help! Let me out!” she yelled. Everything looked distorted through the glass. She could barely make out the underwater cavern. Glass bottles lined the rough-hewn walls, and there were glowing anemones and the eyes of those . . . things. She gasped as something huge, bulbous, and black swam past her. What was that?
“Lose something, dear?” The same deep, rich voice she’d heard in her little brother’s bedroom emanated from the shadowy corner of the cavern. “So coy!” A black tentacle shot out of the gloom and rapped on the glass. Shelly cowered, fear gripping her.
“Wh-what do you want?” she gasped.
“Circle up and pay attention, students!”
Mr. Aquino attempted to corral his class, a rowdy group of sixth graders from Triton Bay Middle School, as they gathered around the main aquarium exhibit. When the chatter quieted only a little, he raised his voice again. “Now, who can tell me what this marine animal is called?” he said, pointing to a large graceful creature paddling through the rippling blue water.
Before Shelly could stop herself, she stuck up her hand. “Leatherback sea turtle.”
“Very good, Shelly,” Mr. Aquino said. “Now, why do sea turtles eat plastic bags?”
“ ’Cuz they’re dumb fish!” Normie Watson said, prompting snickering.
“Actually, they’re not fish—they’re reptiles,” Mr. Aquino said with a disapproving frown. “And they’re not dumb. They’re actually very smart! Now . . . anybody else?”
Shelly was secretly glad that he’d shut Normie down. Serves him right. She watched the sea turtle drift past the sunken pirate ship and treasure chest that decorated the faux-undersea environment. It wheeled around a rusty, barnacled trident, the centerpiece of the exhibit, which stuck out from the bright white sand. Suddenly, a huge reef shark swam behind Mr. Aquino.
“Watch out!” Normie yelped, pointing to its huge jaws, filled with jagged teeth. Gasps and nervous giggles rang out. “Megalodon just tried to chomp Mr. Aquino’s head!” he said.
As if anything could swim through the glass, Shelly thought. She thrust up her hand again, since no one had answered their teacher’s question yet, and Mr. Aquino pointed at her.
“Because sea turtles mistake plastic bags for jellyfish, their main food source,” she said.
“Correct again, Shelly,” Mr. Aquino said, flashing her a smile while her classmates groaned.
Shelly’s new best friend, Kendall, shot her a look and mouthed one word: Nerd. Attina and Alana—the twins who rounded out their friend group—giggled at Shelly. Kendall had long blond hair that swooped around her shoulders like it was out of a shampoo commercial and blue-green eyes the color of the sea. The twins were identical, with curly auburn hair in a stylish asymmetrical bob and brown eyes. All three girls were dressed the same, in designer athleisure clothes from Ever After Boutique in downtown Triton Bay, the quaint seaside city where they lived. The trio also slurped iced lattes from disposable plastic cups with two plastic straws each. Shelly’s cheeks burned with embarrassment.
I shouldn’t have kept raising my hand, Shelly thought. It was a hard instinct to fight.
Science nerds were more revolting than rotting fish to the popular kids. She’d had to change schools at the beginning of the school year, when her mother moved her and her little brother, Dawson, from their big old house by the ocean to the townhouse in the complex on the edge of the canals, and it had taken her many long months to make new friends.
One glorious day, Kendall had invited Shelly to sit with her group at lunch. Shelly had become fast friends with the three of them after that. Nothing was going to ruin Shelly’s happiness about that friendship, including her father leaving their house and moving into the weird dingy apartment with the stained carpets that always smelled like greasy delivery food, and her brother’s goldfish, Mr. Bubbles, going belly-up and getting flushed down the toilet the past week. Nothing was worse than having no friends.
“Nice job, Shelly,” Mr. Aquino said with a wink, snapping her out of her thoughts.
“Nice job, Shelly,” Normie mocked. “Of course she knows everything about fish.”
Everyone knew that Shelly’s parents owned the Triton Bay Aquarium. A year earlier, she and her little brother used to love going to work with their parents on the weekends, following their mother around while she managed the feeding schedules and directed the staffers, or hanging with their father in the office while he handled the bills and dealt with guest relations.
But the days of both her parents being at the aquarium at the same time had passed.
Shelly followed as Mr. Aquino led the class to the next tank on the tour. Shelly caught sight of her reflection in the tank’s clear barrier. She had long, curly dark hair streaked with blond highlights from all the time she spent on the aquarium’s outdoor sundeck feeding the dolphins. Her eyebrows and eyes were darker brown than her sun-kissed skin. Her favorite thing about her appearance was her long, strong legs, which helped her swim fast.
Sunlight filtered through the water, casting strange shadows onto her classmates. She didn’t need to look at the illustrated placard to know what this exhibit housed: spiny lobsters, stingrays, barracuda, and garden eels. The lobsters, looking like giant red insects waving their antennas, lumbered around the bottom of the tank filled with coral reef and sea sponges.
Mr. Aquino held up a white plastic straw. “Now, can someone tell me what this is?”
They all stifled their laughter at the easy question. All except for Shelly, who prevented her arm from rising. She wasn’t going to risk Kendall calling her a nerd again.
“Uhhh, I’m pretty sure that’s a straw,” said Normie. “Do I get extra credit now?”
The class broke into laughter.
Our sea sponges here are smarter than Normie, Shelly thought with a head shake.
“It’s not just any straw,” Mr. Aquino replied, ignoring Normie’s request. He slipped into his full-on enthusiastic-teacher mode, waving the straw around. “It’s a plastic straw I found on the beach this morning.” He paused for dramatic effect. “Did you know that ninety percent of seabirds and fifty percent of sea turtles have been found to have plastic in their stomachs?”