Shelly felt a lump form in her throat. She did know. How could she not? She used to be the head of the Kids Care Conservation Club at the aquarium. Earlier that year, she had spoken to Mr. Aquino about starting a chapter at school. That was before she became friends with Kendall.
“This straw looks harmless enough,” Mr. Aquino went on, gesturing to the exhibit, where a smiling stingray drifted serenely behind the glass. “But it’s no laughing matter. This little straw could kill an endangered animal like that turtle—or poison our precious oceans.”
“Death by killer straws,” Kendall murmured, shaking her iced latte with its two straws at Attina and Alana. “Anything but the Killer Straws!” she added, flicking the tops of the straws.
Attina and Alana giggled at her quip and sipped from their own iced lattes.
Shelly cringed, feeling bad for Mr. Aquino.
Her teacher gave up. “All right, I’ll give you two options—dolphin exhibit or gift shop.”
They all yelled, “Gift shop!” at the top of their lungs.
Shelly kept her mouth shut. She wanted to visit the dolphins—watch the feeders toss fish to Sassy and Salty and maybe even dip her hand into the open-air tank and pet Lil’ Mermy, the youngest dolphin in the pod. But it would just have to wait for another time.
Fit in at all costs, she told herself as she sidled up to her new friends.
“Please,” Kendall said to her posse, then loudly slurped her iced latte through its two straws. “First no more plastic bags, and now they want to take away my straws? No thanks.”
“For realz,” Attina chimed in, fiddling with her sparkly headband, which perfectly matched her sister’s, though Attina’s was pink and Alana’s was blue. “Who cares about boring old fish, anyway?”
“Hashtag BTD,” Alana added. “Bored to death.” She drank from her iced latte.
The three girls turned to Shelly expectantly, each sipping from her drink.
“Right . . . so boring,” Shelly mumbled, forcing out the opposite of what she actually felt.
“Totally,” said Kendall with a smile. “Shells, we love how you’re such a know-it-all.”
Alana and Attina tittered at her remark.
Shelly didn’t know how to take it, so she simply smiled. “Thanks, I think,” she said.
The girls began to trail behind the rest of the class, heading for the aquarium gift shop. Shelly glanced at the front entrance that led up to the main exhibit, and she spotted the new security system and alarms installed on the doors. She’d overheard her father talking on the phone with the police, saying that somebody had been trying to break into the aquarium the past few weeks.
But then the entrance passed out of sight as Shelly and her friends headed into a dark and narrow corridor marked by portholes. Only shadowy light filtered through the round windows, and undersea creatures darted past the glass. This was Shelly’s favorite part of the aquarium.
Kendall nudged her side. “Hey, who is that?” she asked, cocking her eyebrow.
Shelly followed her gaze to a boy about their age leading a group of tourists past them through the corridor. He had curly black hair paired with green eyes the color of ocean shallows. His smile lit up as he talked animatedly, pointing to jellyfish spinning and twirling in a graceful undersea dance. Their transparent bodies glowed with bioluminescence in the large porthole.
Shelly shrugged. “Oh, that’s just Enrique.”
“Just Enrique,” Kendall said in mock horror. “Major swoon.”
“Total swoon,” Attina and Alana said in unison.
Shelly studied his face, trying to see what Kendall, Attina, and Alana saw. But all she could see was a friendly boy who shared her fascination with marine life. Everyone at the aquarium was family, including Enrique. She couldn’t think of him any other way.
“His older brother Miguel is a college kid,” Shelly said. “Miguel studies marine biology and volunteers here for his fall internship. Sometimes Enrique tags along to help out. He’s actually pretty silly. And kind of a . . . science nerd,” she added, the last words slipping out.
“Science nerd, huh?” Kendall asked, pulling a grossed-out face. “Never mind.”
Suddenly, something gelatinous swam up to the porthole behind Kendall’s head. It moved like a gigantic spider, only quicker, cutting through the water and blocking out the light.
Attina squealed and dropped her cup.
Alana pointed to the porthole. “Kendall, watch out!”
Just then, a slimy tentacle shot toward the glass.
“Get that slimy monster away!” Kendall yelled, leaping back from the porthole and squeezing her cup of iced latte as she did. The plastic top popped off, and coffee splashed all over her pink designer tank and yoga pants, staining them a milky brown. Attina and Alana both screamed again and cowered from the glass, which frightened Shelly more than the tentacle or the sea creature to whom it belonged.
“It’s okay,” Shelly said. “That’s Queenie, our giant Pacific octopus. She’s harmless—”
Another tentacle slapped the porthole, making the girls shriek again. But not Shelly. Then Queenie unleashed a thick cloud of black ink and darted into it, her huge body swallowed by the darkness she had unleashed in the tank. As fast as she had appeared, Queenie was gone.
Kendall aimed her manicured nail at the porthole. “Harmless? That thing attacked me!”
“Actually, she’s probably more scared of you,” Shelly said, defending Queenie as if she were an old friend. “Octopuses only release ink when they’re afraid. It’s how they escape—”
“Look what it did to me,” Kendall interrupted, pointing to her stained clothes. “And news flash for you,” she said, staring daggers at Shelly, “I could have been seriously injured.”
Shelly bit her tongue. She failed to see how an iced coffee stain could have seriously injured anyone. She glanced back through the porthole, where ink still clouded the water, and wondered if Queenie was on to something about her new friends. She pushed the thought away.
Kendall rapped with her knuckles on the porthole, which, Shelly knew, was against aquarium policy. “You hear that, you big ugly monster?” Kendall called out to Queenie. “I’m going to file a complaint with the school. They should cancel this dumb field trip next year.”
Shelly felt her stomach churn. School field trips like this one were the bread and butter of their family business. They depended on them to keep the aquarium running smoothly and to put food in the tanks and on their table. This was the day all the local schools came to the aquarium. It was practically a city holiday. Shelly spotted Little River Middle School making their way past an exhibit across the room—and she saw Judy Weisberg’s familiar silhouette framed by the tank.
Judy was surrounded by the other swimmers from the Little River team—rival swimmers.
Judy was tall for her age and stood out from her classmates. Her curly black hair was cropped short, better for tucking inside a swim cap. Her tanned face sported a constellation of freckles that dusted her cheeks. She must have been swimming outside all summer to prep for swim season, Shelly thought with a frown. Between the separation and move, Shelly had barely had a chance to dip her toes in the water, let alone train.