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Harmony
Bay
By: Terry Sanville
On
a calm summer’s day, Nicky and his friend, Scooper, swim along the bottom of the bay. The light suddenly dims, as if
something large is passing over their heads.
“Must
be a fishing boat,” Scooper says. He lazily flaps his dark bat ray wings in the warm saltwater.
Nicky
flips onto his side to get a better look. “That’s no boat. LOOK OUT!”
The
friends dart in opposite directions. A huge finned beast shoots between them. Scooper burrows his pale belly into the muddy
bottom and lies still. Nicky circles, his sleek body quivering with fear.
“Hey,
brother, slow down,” the beast calls.
“You
. . . you don’t look like my brother,” Nicky replies, slowing only a little.
“You’re
a leopard shark, right? I heard about you little brown-spotted guys from my cousin up in San Francisco.”
“Yes,
and you’re . . .”
“Just
call me GW, short for Great
White.”
“Great
White?”
“Shark,
you idiot. Don’t ya ever go outside this bay?”
“Er,
no. It’s safe here and the food . . .”
“Food
you say?” GW flicks his massive gray tail and grins, showing off giant pointed teeth. “You know where I might
find some of them land creatures? They’re slow swimmers and easy to catch.”
Nicky
shudders at the idea. “Ah, no. We swim clear of people, and I mostly eat small things like clams and crabs.”
“Hey,
you’re a shark, aren’t ya? You should be in charge of this swamp.”
“It’s
not a swamp, it’s an estuary. And besides, we try to get along without . . .”
“In
my ocean, I’m the boss. Even the Orcas treat me with respect.”
“I’m
sure they do,” Nicky says, eyeing GW’s muscle-bound body.
“Well,
if you’re not going to tell me anything, I’ll catch you later.”
“I
hope not,” Nicky says and darts away, swimming toward the finger of land that separates the estuary from the churning
Pacific Ocean. In a short time, he slows to let Scooper catch up.
“Holy
mackerel, you sure have more courage than me,” Scooper says. “How can you talk to a bully like that?”
“I’m
too fast for him to catch,” Nicky replies, “but, he can make trouble for my family.”
“Yeah,
I can see how that might happen. If he attacks a human, the people will hunt down all sharks, anything with a dorsal fin.”
The
friends glide through the turquoise-blue water, feeling the outgoing tide gently tug them toward the harbor’s mouth. Nicky
finds a soft patch of black mud and buries his snout in it, rooting around for worms and small crabs.
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| Illustration by: Lori Nawyn |
“Hey, look at those dudes,”
Scooper says.
“Where?”
Nicky asks, his nose still stuck in the mud.
“On
the surface. Must be surfers paddling across the bay.”
“Yeah,
they do that every afternoon.”
The
shark and bat ray stare at two fish-shaped surfboards with bare arms thrusting into the water,
pushing them along. As they watch, the surfers stop and straddle their boards, white and tan legs sticking down into the water.
“OH
NO!” Scooper cries, and dives for the bottom.
Nicky
turns to see GW swimming slowly toward the resting surfers. He’ll eat one and save the other for dessert, Nicky thinks, then the peace will never return to us.
Swift
as a minnow, Nicky swims upward. He approaches one of the surfer’s dangling
legs and gives it a firm nudge. The human screams. He quickly moves to the second and does the same.
The
surface turns into thrashing whitewater as the humans paddle their boards toward the mid-bay
buoy. Their arms and legs disappear just as GW’s gaping mouth clamps down on one of the surfboards. The huge shark comes
away with a mouthful of white, crunchy debris. But the humans are safely out of
the water, clinging to the buoy.
With
flashing eyes, GW turns on Nicky. “Why did you scare them away? I should eat you and your whole family.”
“This
bay might be a swamp, but it’s our swamp. If you can’t respect our ways, you should leave.”
“Your
ways? Hah! Where I swim, it’s my way, got it?”
He
charges Nicky, pink mouth open wide, his huge tail pushing him forward.
Nicky
dodges out of the way, and swims toward the inland shore and the town, the part of the bay where his kind seldom goes.
He
has no trouble staying out of GW’s reach. But, the big fish is strong and will chase him out to sea. As Nicky nears
the docks, he sees the sleek white patrol boat resting next to its pier. He swims upward toward the light, taunting GW to
follow him.
“Catch
me if you can, fatso.”
“Who
you calling fat?” GW thunders and flicks his tail with all his might.
The
two fish break the surface, just aft of the patrol boat. In a flash, Nicky sees sailors yelling and pointing down.
GW’s
huge dorsal fin cuts the water, slicing past the ship’s starboard bow. A gray dingy drops onto the surface and begins
chasing them. Its outboard motor makes an angry sound.
Nicky
remembers that sound, the same one he heard when a boat’s propeller took a nick out of his tail fin when he was just
a pup. His friends called him Nicky after that.
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| Illustration by: Lori Nawyn |
He dives for the bottom and
watches the chase. GW also dives, but the water is clear and shallow and the dingy stays with him. He tries circling back.
The boat follows.
Finally,
the big fish charges toward the harbor’s mouth and the blue ocean beyond.
The
afternoon fog rolls over the bay, casting shadows on the water. Nicky rests in the waving,
green eelgrass. Crabs skitter out of his way. Brown pelicans dive into the sea
to snap up small fish. Finally, he starts the long swim home to Shark’s Inlet. On the way, he meets Scooper.
“I
knew that bully couldn’t catch you,” Scooper says. “You da fish, Nicky. You da fish!”
“I
don’t know, Scoop. After all that swimming, I’m real hungry. And, you’re starting to look mighty delicious.”
“You
wouldn’t . . .”
“No,
you’re my friend. But GW was right. I’m a shark. I am what I am.”
“I’ll
remember that,” Scooper says warily. “So, check out those crabs.”
“Where?”
Nicky turns to look. Scooper slips away along the muddy bottom, his poisonous tail flicking as he goes.
“Don’t
worry, Scoop,” Nicky calls after him. “I’m not that
hungry.”
Nicky
slowly works his way home. In the months that follow, his brothers and sisters and their shark-pups hound him, begging to
hear the story about the awesome chase across Harmony Bay, about the Great White Shark, and how humans can sometimes help.
The End
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