Shark-Speak

Phweeeeeeet! “Everybody stop! Hands up in the air!”

Fifty-six tiny arms jerked up as if controlled by a single string. Megan’s whistle rattled against her chest as she headed for the touch tank, her twenty-eight charges for the hour staring as she jogged. First graders. Old enough to obey without the requisite thirty seconds younger children needed to process a command. Megan gave them the you’re-not-in-trouble smile she’d perfected as a camp counselor in high school and stopped, putting her hands on her waist.

“Good listening, y’all! Okay, put your hands down. We have a few things to go over before we get to the fun part. First of all, who wants to guess why we wash our hands before we get to touch anything?”

Half the hands went up. Megan scanned the group and called on a short girl wearing a grubby t-shirt with sharks printed all over it.

“Um, so we don’t get them sick?” the girl asked, twirling the end of her ponytail around one finger. Megan gave her a thumbs-up.

“That’s right. Germs and bacteria get stuck on our hands, and can make our friends in the touch tank sick. You don’t want to make the starfish and the stingrays feel yucky, right?”

The kids shook their heads solemnly.

“All right. Let’s go scrub!”

Megan caught the eye of the teacher and nodded to her left. The students filed off like ducklings. She sang the aquarium’s official handwashing song seven times as the kids took turns at the cluster of sinks, making a mental note of any kid who seemed inclined to be rambunctious or over-enthusiastic. She walked the class back to the tank with their hands in the air like a gaggle of tiny hostages to keep them from picking, touching, or scratching anything.

It hadn’t been easy to come back to work after Nana died, leaving Megan in charge of her two little brothers. Her supervisor at the museum had been kind and understanding, but could only spare her for so long. Megan thanked the stars she had a job she could do in her sleep - and sometimes nearly did. It wasn’t too hard to keep a smile plastered on her face, saying the same words and walking the same path every day.

She lined the kids up at the edge of the tank and demonstrated the safest way to touch the animals, running through her script (“With two gentle fingers, who can show me two fingers? That’s right! Now show me gentle touches. Just like that. Good job, y’all!”) before finally letting them dip their hands into the tank.

Satisfied that she’d get through the remaining forty-five minutes on autopilot, Megan slowly paced up and down the line, warning kids against being too rough and answering the same twenty questions she answered a hundred times a day. No, the stingray can’t sting you; we clip those parts off like you clip your fingernails so he can’t hurt you. Same thing with the crabs. Yes, the starfish feels really stiff and bumpy No, fish can’t grow fur. Don’t lean too far. Two fingers, please. Gentle touches, gentle touches. Remember we don’t pick anything up. Let the animals stay in the tank where they’re safe.

She reached the end of the line where the little girl in the shark-infested shirt bent over the low railing, her nose almost touching the water. Just as Megan was about to gently tug on the hem of her shirt to keep her from falling over, the girl stood up abruptly, something clenched in her fist. Her eyes were sparkling.

Megan knelt down. “Hey sweetheart. Did you pull something out of the tank? We’ve gotta let everything stay in the water. Come on, let’s put it back together, okay?” It was probably just a pebble or a shell, but rules were rules.

The girl pulled her fist to her chest and covered it with her other hand, shaking her head. Megan held out a hand and let the smile fade from her face. “Let’s see it,” she said, her voice just a little less sunny.

The girl faltered, then slowly stepped toward Megan. She slowly uncurled her fingers and extended her hand.

Megan gasped. The heavy silver and garnet ring shone in the little girl’s wet palm. Megan had worn it every day since Nana died, the memory of it growing looser and looser on Nana’s fingers until one day it slipped off as Megan held her hand. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed it falling into the tank.

“Treasure,” the little girl whispered. “I found treasure in the sea.”

Megan smiled at her, a real smile this time. “You found something really important to me,” she said, her voice lower than the one she usually used with the kids. “That ring is really special, and I lost it. And you found it. Thank you so much.” She held out her hand. “Can I have it back now?”

The girl, who Megan had hastily dubbed “Sharky-shirt” in her head, looked thoughtful, then quickly closed her hand and crossed her arms, securing her fist under her opposite arm.

“What’ll you give me for it?” she asked, still whispering, but with a streak of defiant certainty Megan had definitely not detected before.

Megan almost called the teacher over or stood up and demanded the ring back before she lost control of the class, but something in Sharky-shirt’s stance gave her pause. The delighted sparkle in the girl’s eyes was gone, replaced by something much harder - too hard for a kid that young, Megan thought. Her body was tense, like she was fully expecting a fully grown adult to wrestle her to the ground over a piece of costume jewelry. The shirt she wore was just a little too small, and had a stain at the collar and a hole in the sleeve. It looked like she’d brushed her own hair that morning.

She looked like Megan had before they’d gone to live with Nana.

She was only eight when she and the boys had moved into Nana’s cluttered, cheerful house, and she didn’t think the boys remembered much of their life before. She remembered being afraid to ask her parents for new shoes, trying to braid her own hair before her hands were big enough to manage it. She remembered holding herself in that same clenched stance while she told her first grade teacher that everything was fine at home.

Megan felt something loosen in her chest as she slowly nodded. “What’s your name?” she asked.

“Camila,” the girl answered.

“Okay, Camila,” Megan said quietly, in the same voice she used with skittish dogs, “I want my ring back. What do you want?”

Camila’s expression clearly showed she hadn’t expected Megan to play ball: fear and curiosity mixed with a little disbelief.

“You think about it,” Megan told her. “I’ll be back in a minute.” Megan stood and walked the line again, pausing to talk about stingray diets and starfish trivia. Camila took her place at the end of the pool again, this time frowning in concentration. Megan watched the clock and waited a full five minutes before making her way back to her.

“Well?” she asked quietly, kneeling down next to Camila as if to tell her a fact about sturgeon. “Have you decided?”

Camila nodded. “I wanna see a shark,” she said quietly.

Oh. That would be easy enough. “Well, what if I take you to an underground glass tunnel where sharks swim right over your head and next to your face?”

Camila turned and glared at her. “We’re already doing that,” she said disdainfully. Drat. Of course she’d have come on the same class trip last year.

“Well, what did you have in mind then, if you already knew you’d get to see a shark?” Megan asked.

Camila pursed her lips and pouted thoughtfully. “I wanna talk to it,” she said. “Where it can hear me.”

Megan felt a sympathetic sadness well up in her throat. How many times had she wished at that age to talk to someone - anyone - who would actually hear her? What was this kid’s story? How had she gotten to the point where she believed no one who could talk back would listen?

There was no way to explain to Camila that Megan was just a part time “school engagement coordinator” with a high school diploma and zero access to the feeding stations or the ocean-sized tank that held her precious sharks. And the thought of betraying her by bringing in another adult to intervene and end the situation was heartbreaking.

What would Nana have done?

“Okay,” Megan said. “I’m going to come back in a few minutes and we’ll figure this out, okay?” Camila’s face relaxed as she nodded and turned back toward the touch tank. Megan knew that look. It said, an adult has promised to figure this out, so I can let it go.

Megan did her laps of the line, and stopped to check in with the teacher, who had spent most of the hour on her phone.

“Don’t judge me,” she said with a tired smile. “This is when I catch up on emailing these kids’ parents. First grade is a rough one for a lot of them.”

“I get it,” Megan assured her. “Plus, it’s not like teachers don’t need breaks, too. It’s all good.”

“I saw you with Camila - the girl in the shark shirt,” the teacher said. “She’s usually so quiet. It’s wonderful to see her take an interest in something like this.”

If only you knew, Megan thought. “She doesn’t talk in class?”

The teacher sighed. “Not in class, not out of class. She’s one of those kids who doesn’t make trouble so it’s impossible to tell what’s really going on. No one can really get her to open up.”

I bet, Megan thought. “Well, she was talking to me about, uh, sharks. If you’re okay with it, I’d like to make sure she sees the shark exhibit in the main part of the aquarium.”

The teacher scanned the row of kids and looked uneasy. “Well, we should try to keep them together, but -”

“ - I’ll be with her the whole time,” Megan blurted out. “Just a few minutes, and then we’ll join you all in the underwater tunnel. I just -” she scrambled for something, anything the teacher might understand. “It’s rare to have a kid with such a profound interest like that. I want to just, you know, open her world a little bit.” She gave the teacher an earnest, innocent smile and held her breath.

It worked.

“All right,” the teacher said. “Yeah, that sounds fine. Just make sure she gets back in plenty of time to see the tunnel? The kids always love the tunnel.”

“Absolutely,” Megan promised. She turned to the group and blew her whistle. The kids lifted their arms and let her lead them back to the sinks. The teacher then lead the group toward the underwater tunnel and Megan hung back. She tapped Camila on the shoulder and jerked her head in the other direction.

“You’re coming with me,” she said.

The undisguised delight on Camila’s face made Megan want to cry. She hoped she was right, and that her offer would be enough to let the little girl go home with some peace. The ring hardly mattered anymore.

She stuck out her hand and Camila took it, letting Megan lead her back through the exhibits. On the way, Megan began to explain.

“So, I want you to understand something. We are not going to see a shark right now.”

Camila stopped and eyed her suspiciously. Megan paused too, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze. “BUT,” she continued, “you didn’t just want to see a shark, right? You wanted to talk to one.” Camila nodded slowly, still squinting at Megan like she wasn’t about to buy any nonsense.

“Okay,” Megan said, and started walking again, tugging Camila along with her. “Well, today, you’re going to get a very special opportunity. I’m taking you to someone who talks to sharks.” She snuck a sidelong glance and was relieved to see Camila’s eyes widen with interest. “Is that good enough for you?” she asked, trying to make it sound like she was negotiating a tough deal. “Will that give you what you’re looking for?”

“Yeah,” Camila said quietly. Megan nodded briskly and rounded the corner. The static shark exhibit was busy as usual, but the corner she wanted was free. Megan pulled her walkie-talkie out of her back pocket and tried to keep her voice completely level as she asked her friend Saskia, who worked in animal care, to come meet with a special visitor who wanted to meet the lady who could talk to sharks. She quickly turned off her unit before Saskia could ask any questions where Camila would hear, and sat the little girl down in a child-sized chair next to a poster about great white sharks.

Saskia, bless her, arrived within a few minutes. Megan intercepted her at the doorway, and furiously whispered, “I told the kid you speak shark. All she wants is to get a message across. Play along? Her name is Camila.” Saskia replied with an aww-how-cute face and nodded gamely before heading over to the corner.

“Hi,” Saskia said warmly. “You must be Camila?” Camila nodded politely, showing none of the brashness she had with Megan. “I’m Saskia. I work with the sharks here at the aquarium. I understand you have something you’d like me to tell them.”

“Can you really talk to them?” Camila asked a little breathlessly. Saskia nodded, her face completely serious.

“I talk to them all the time,” she said. “They don’t talk back much, but I know they understand me.”

Well, that much is true, Megan thought. They’ve probably definitely figured out what “dinner” means by now. She took a few steps back, keeping half an eye on the rest of the room, and her ear trained on Camila. Saskia pulled out a pad and pen and started taking notes as Camila talked and talked. After about two minutes of nonstop chatter, Saskia held a hand up.

“You know what?” Megan heard her say. “I think that’s good. Sharks don’t like it when you talk too long. But this is perfect and I will make sure to tell them everything you said tonight. Okay?”

She saw Camila nod and shake Saskia’s hand before Saskia rose and headed Megan’s way. Camila stayed where she was, which gave Saskia a moment to lean in and whisper a choked-up, “Thank you.”

Megan slipped into the chair Saskia had left empty and held out her hand. Camila dropped the ring into it, and Megan slid it onto her finger then held out her hand to Camila.

“Come on, Sharky-shirt,” she said, grinning. “Let’s go find the rest of your class.”

*

Phweeeeet! “Everybody stop! Hands up in the air!”

A flurry of little hands flew over the row of tiny heads. Camila grinned. It seemed like they were getting younger every year. Her pre-vet courseload didn’t leave a ton of room for side gigs, but she’d promised the aquarium they could have her for school groups on Wednesday mornings. It was a break she needed, and a job she loved.

“Okay, great job! Now who wants to tell me why we go wash our hands before we put our hands in the touch tank?”

The kids started bouncing up and down and calling out to her. Camila dramatically put her finger to her chin like she was deep in thought and scanned the row. There. Fourth from the left. A little girl with her hand up quietly, and a dress full of jellyfish. She’d keep her on eye on that one today.

Camila pointed to the girl, whom she was already calling Jelly Belly in her head, and nodded.