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Shelly frowned, feeling protective again.
“Ha! I knew it!” Kendall said with a triumphant whoop. “You do care!”
“No, I don’t,” Shelly said, but her protest sounded weak even to her ears.
“Then prove it.” Kendall’s words rang out.
Attina and Alana watched Shelly with mischief in their eyes.
Shelly swallowed hard, tasting bitter coffee at the back of her throat. Her friends’ eyes all looked her way. She held the plastic cup over the ocean. Several feet below, the waves swirled and frothed, beating up against the barrier between the aquarium’s tanks and the untamed sea.
A million thoughts raced through her head. It’s just one little cup, right? What harm could it cause? Doesn’t everyone litter sometimes, even accidentally? Besides, she’d never do it again. Just this once. But still her fingers wouldn’t release the cup. She thought of Queenie, and the leatherback sea turtle, and the dolphin pod, and all the sea creatures in their care, but then she pushed the thoughts away. She glanced at her friends, watching her with twinkling, eager eyes.
“Hurry up, fish lover,” Kendall said, puckering her lips. “Chuck it out there already!”
When Shelly still didn’t budge, Kendall sighed, turned, and headed down the catwalk. The twins wobbled after her. The moment was slipping by Shelly. Her heart raced.
Fit in at all costs. With that reminder, Shelly forced her fingers, one by one, to release the cup. It dropped from her hand, catching on the breeze and sailing to the sea. It landed on a wave, where it floated and bobbed. Shelly looked at her friends, who broke into hearty, genuine smiles.
“Nice job, Shells!” exclaimed Kendall, hugging her. “Knew you had it in you.”
“Uh, thanks,” said Shelly, giggling.
Attina and Alana also hugged Shelly, and the girls all whooped and cheered for her.
She’d done it. She’d achieved true friendship status.
“Maybe we can make this a tradition,” said Kendall. “Visiting the aquarium the day before our first meet.”
Shelly’s stomach lurched, but she felt hopeful: this meant Kendall wouldn’t send in a complaint after all and risk discontinuing class field trips to the aquarium. Shelly nodded at her.
“All right, let’s head back,” said Kendall, leading the twins across the catwalk.
But Shelly couldn’t fight her guilt, and she glanced back out to sea. There, atop a white-capped wave, bobbed the cup before something reached up . . . and pulled it under. It looked like a black tentacle. Shelly blinked. But the cup was gone, along with whatever thing had grabbed it.
“Did you see that?” Shelly asked, but Kendall and the twins were already by the door.
“Let’s jet,” Kendall called back to her, “unless you want to stay out here with the fishes.”
Before Shelly could follow, she heard a strange noise. It sounded like someone was laughing. And not in a nice way. Then the cackle was drowned out by another noise: roaring water. The roaring grew louder. Shelly jerked her gaze back to the ocean, just in time to spot a huge wave that had materialized out of nowhere. It was ten feet tall and moving toward the catwalk.
Moving fast.
Shelly yelled as the wave hit her square in the face. It knocked her off the catwalk and sucked her toward the open ocean. Then it pulled her down into a swirl of fizzing bubbles and dark water that crashed into her nose, mouth, and ears.
She tried to swim for the surface, toward the dim light overhead, clawing through the cold water, but the undertow latched on to her like a vise. Still she struggled against the strong current, gulping salt water. Her lungs burned and screamed for air. She was going to drown.
Then she felt something curl around her ankle.
Something slimy. Cold.
It tightened its grip.
And pulled.
“Shelly, wake up!” cried a familiar voice.
The first thing Shelly noticed was that she was freezing. Shivering, teeth-clatteringly cold. The second was that it felt like she’d just swum five hundred meters. Every muscle ached. She coughed, bringing up a jet of salt water, then flipped over onto wet sand and cracked open her eyes.
