AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Nope. It only eats little things called plankton.” He put his phone back in his pocket. “You can’t even see them without a microscope most of the time because they’re that small. They just vacuum them up in their mouths as they swim along.”
Michael told her more about the animals he’d seen surfing and snorkeling. He’d tried his hand at underwater photography a few times too, though he didn’t have a natural eye like some of his friends. Pearl hung on his every word until they reached the front of the line.
They ordered their ice cream—Pearl got her rainbow-colored ice cream with rainbow sprinkles, Michael got a scoop of dark chocolate, crème caramel, and butterscotch, and Caitlin got strawberry, raspberry, and coconut. Instead of getting all of them in cones, which were going to be messy in the heat, they each got a cone stuck into their cups of ice cream.
They took their ice cream outside and down the block, Pearl still asking about Michael’s snorkeling adventures until they spotted a place to sit.
“Pearl is probably going to ask me to go snorkeling now,” Caitlin murmured to him as Pearl skipped toward the picnic tables nearby.
“I’d be happy to take you both,” Michael said. “If you’re interested, that is. It won’t be as exciting snorkeling somewhere like the Caribbean, but there’s an old shipwreck not too far from here that we could look at. ”
“You know what? I’ll try it. That sounds like a lot of fun.”
“Try what?” Pearl asked.
“Snorkeling,” Caitlin said. “Michael knows where an old shipwreck is and we could look at it.”
“Like a pirate ship? A real one?” Pearl’s face lit up.
“Kind of. It happened a long time ago. Now a lot of fish have made it their home. There are lots of places to hide.”
“Is snorkeling scary?” Pearl asked, a tinge of nerves coming into her eyes.
“It’s… different.” Michael didn’t want to lie to her, but he didn’t want to scare her either. Pearl had taken to surfing better than most kids her age, but that didn’t mean she’d automatically love getting used to using the snorkel. “But it’s easy to learn. And once you do, you won’t forget it.”
“And I’ll be doing it with you so we’ll be trying it together,” Caitlin said, resting her hand on Pearl’s shoulder.
“Yay!” Pearl pointed at a table not far away. “There’s a spot!”
Michael had the sudden, overwhelming urge to kiss Caitlin—he was so excited to see her explore new things. But they were in the middle of the sidewalk and some people on scooters were quickly approaching.
“Watch out,” Michael said, pulling her aside so she wasn’t in the path. The people on the scooters whizzed by.
“Thanks for the save,” she said, putting her free hand to her chest. “I can’t believe I didn’t see them coming.”
“They were moving pretty fast.” Michael glanced back at the scooter riders, who were down the block at that point. “I don’t blame you for not seeing out of the back of your head.”
Pearl was laughing from the picnic table she’d chosen, her lips blue from her ice cream. Caitlin chuckled too. The look between them suggested that there was a joke that Michael was missing.
“What’s the joke?” Michael asked, sitting down across from Pearl.
“This one time, Mommy took me to get ice cream and there were a bunch of skateboarders on the sidewalk. One nearly ran into her but she did this thing.” Pearl got to her feet and did an impression of Caitlin avoiding a skateboarder. She teetered back and forth on her heels, holding an imaginary ice cream up in the air. Caitlin and Michael laughed as Pearl righted herself.
“That was a very accurate impression,” Caitlin said.
“But she saved the ice cream! And it was the last scoop of the flavor I liked so I was happy.” Pearl sat back down, digging her spoon into her ice cream.
“That was a great day, wasn’t it?” Caitlin said, stealing a tiny bite of Pearl’s ice cream. Pearl didn’t mind.
“Yeah.” Pearl swung her legs back and forth, a big smile on her face.
“What did you two do?” Michael asked.
“We went to the science museum!” Pearl shifted so she was on her knees, almost bouncing. “And we saw this big dinosaur but it wasn’t real. They just made it to show people what it looked like a bajillion years ago.”
“A bajillion, huh?” Michael smiled, his eyes meeting Caitlin’s equally amused ones.
“Yeah. And some big rock came from space and they were all gone. And there’s still a big dent in the ground where it happened because it was so big.” Pearl sat back on her heels. “But don’t worry, that doesn’t happen that often. The teacher at the museum said so.”
