by Ace Landers
Tammy sighed. A faint green glare wasn’t going to be worth anything to them. Not front-page newspaper material, anyway. Not even a social media post.
Kyle could tell that Tammy was about to lose it, so he waved her over. “Forget the cameras for a second. Let’s see what else these sharks can do.”
Hammerhead zipped back to Porbeagle’s side. Silly shark! she thought. You’re going to scare the kids away by leaping out of the water and baring your teeth!
In the long history between sharks and humans, one thing had always been true. Humans pretended to be big shark fans. They had a whole Shark Week and everything. But when it came to real life … well, humans weren’t the biggest fans of sharks there.
But the kids on this beach loved them. They kept jumping up and down off the sand dunes, and Porbeagle kept jumping out of the ocean. Hammerhead couldn’t believe what she was seeing!
Then the kid with a mop of hair actually did a backflip! Not to be outdone, Mako rocketed out of the water and turned a triple sharkersault, which was when a shark flipped nose over tail and landed with a massive belly flop.
The kids cheered as the splash from Mako’s trick rained down on the beach.
One of the kids held up a round yellow object and whistled. He bounced the object on the hard sand and it darted back up to his hand. Then he threw it toward them.
Oh no! It was all a trap! thought Hammerhead. This was too good to be true. The humans must have thrown some sort of shark repellent device at us!
Hammerhead ducked and waited for an explosion or an electric net to cover her, but the yellow object simply plopped in the water and floated above them. Hammerhead was not going to go near that thing.
Porbeagle, on the other hand, had to have it now! The shark wagged his tail and swam up like a torpedo, snagging the yellow object in his mouth. It was furry and wet and super chewy. While he was in the air, he saw the kids waving their arms. They must want this fuzzy, chewy thing back. So Porbeagle spit it out and smacked it with his tail.
The round thing flew through the air to the kids, who caught it. Then they all screamed with excitement.
Hammerhead wished she could make the kids cheer like that. Their laughter brought a smile to her face and it felt amazing. She circled the ocean floor, trying to think of what she could do to impress the humans.
Porbeagle swam up to his friend and nudged her forward.
Stop it, thought Hammerhead. I’m concentrating over here!
But Porbeagle wouldn’t leave her alone. The small shark zipped all around her until she nearly scraped her fins on the colorful shells on the ocean floor.
Hey, shells! thought Hammerhead. I could build the kids something from these!
Porbeagle nodded wildly and helped collect shells for Hammerhead. Mako helped too. Hammerhead worked in a creative fever. The water around her bubbled with the frantic imagination of a true shark artist at work. Mako and Porbeagle looked on as the dazzling display of shells formed into something new. Never before had Hammerhead’s fins moved with such certainty. It was as if the sculpture were making itself.
When they finished, the three sharks moved back to admire the creation. Mako’s jaw dropped and Porbeagle spun around in circles, though that was because he was chasing the pesky tail that was always following him!
I call it Surfer Dude, thought Hammerhead.
It was perfect!
Well, with the hermit crab photo and my shark notes, I’m sure we’ll still make the front page. Or maybe not the front page. Like, a medium page. But that’s okay. That’s progress! Tammy thought as she scribbled down notes about the sharks.
The sharks had followed the kids wherever they ran on the beach. They had jumped out of the water whenever the kids jumped off the dunes. The mako shark even did a loop the loop flip that looked like a circus act! And then Kyle threw a tennis ball at the sharks … and the porbeagle threw it back to them not once, not twice, but so many times that Kyle’s arm got tired!
Kyle sketched the sharks in his notebook. As the three kids kept saying over and over, they didn’t look like regular sharks. Sure, they looked familiar, but there was something special about them. Each one almost had its own personality.
Tammy had to admit, they actually kind of reminded her of the MSC members! The hammerhead shark was careful and a little head-strung about things, like Tammy. The porbeagle shark was friends with everyone, like Kyle. And the mako shark was a free spirit, like Alex.
I think we were meant to meet these sharks, Tammy thought. Almost like … she wasn’t sure what, but it felt as if it were fate.
Then she heard lots of splashing.
The sharks were waving their tails above the water to get the kids’ attention. Tammy, Kyle, and Alex waded into the water, though only up to their ankles. The water was warm from the sun.
Tammy could tell this was the sharks’ way of saying good-bye.
“Wait!” she called. “I have something for you.” She waved rapidly, trying to get the sharks’ attention.
Tammy had had the best day getting to know these sharks. It was the best she could remember—since she hung out with her grandfather in Japan, of course. The last Best Day Ever that Tammy had was when her grandfather gifted her the purple biodegradable hair ribbon.
“Use it well, ojo,” Tammy’s grandfather had said, calling her princess in Japanese.
Tammy loved the purple ribbon. But she realized now that it would be a good thank-you gift, from her to the sharks.
“Over here!” she hollered. “I have something for you!” Quickly, Tammy unwound the ribbon from her hair and dangled it above the water.
The porbeagle and the mako seemed suspicious, but the hammerhead swam eagerly up to her.
“It’s biodegradable, meaning it won’t last long and it won’t hurt you, but it’s special to me,” Tammy said. “And I hope it’s special to you. Thanks for meeting us.”
The hammerhead opened its mouth wide. Tammy was scared, but she placed the ribbon gently on one of the hammerhead’s teeth. The menacing shark seemed to nod, then disappeared underneath the water.
Suddenly, all the sharks’ tails disappeared. Tammy blinked back tears. She knew their friends were gone.
But just as suddenly as they were gone, a new figure rose up from the ocean! It was a statue in the shape of a surfer made of shimmering seashells. And it was riding on a seashell surfboard! The statue caught a wave and rushed inland toward the kids. Tammy couldn’t believe her own eyes. Had the sharks made this sculpture for them?
The sculpture was too big to take home, but Tammy snapped a photo anyway—of the sharks, the sculpture, everything. Maybe it wouldn’t come out, but if she played with the settings just right on her computer, maybe it would.
Alex waded out farther and caught the seashell surfer sculpture. It was held together with mud from the bottom of the ocean and some trash that must have been down there too.
As Alex guided it back to the others, Tammy spied the hammerhead shark popping up its head. She locked eyes with it and smiled. Then she gave it a polite wave, as if to say, Thank you.
The hammerhead shark seemed to give her a wink. Then it, along with the other two sharks, dove back into the water and swam away.
Tammy couldn’t believe it. Once the kids at school heard about this, they’d be begging her to join the MSC. She clutched her phone to her chest.
“I have to go home and edit this photo right away,” she said.
“Right away?” Alex repeated. “You don’t even want to come for pizza at my parents’ place? They’d really like to meet—”
But before Alex could say anything else, Tammy was already zipping away and calling her mom to pick her up. She just hoped that the photo would come out okay, no matter what else happened.
Tammy sent the photo from her phone to her email address. Then she opened it up on a photo-editing system on her computer.
Admittedly, Tammy wasn’t the best at graphic design or at photo editing, but she h
ad done some light editing in the past on selfies and whatnot, so she hoped that would be enough to work. Besides, she had captured a bit of the hammerhead and the sculpture in this photo, if she closed one eye and poked her tongue out to see. Now it was time to spruce things up!
First, Tammy adjusted the brightness all the way to 100 percent. Then she used the sliders to scale it back down. She took out some contrast in the photo, which was apparently what made it dark. Then she turned it back up again.
Tammy played around for what must have been an hour. Filter, unfilter, slide, unslide. But by the time she was done, she could make out only a vague little outline of a shark.
“This is hopeless,” she sighed. “It’s never going to work.”
But Tammy was determined to try anyway. She fished around in her school documents for information on submitting to the school newspaper.
Tammy stared at the leaflet in her hands. Of course, out of everyone in the school, the editor in chief of the newspaper had to be Beckah Cohen.
Tammy and Beckah had once been best friends. They’d lived on the same block, actually. It was the three of them, the Three Amigos: Tammy, Kyle, and Beckah. Then Beckah’s family moved to the nicer part of town, and Tammy stopped hanging out with her so much. Beckah had wished Tammy a small “happy birthday” on that day, though, so maybe not all hope was lost.
Tammy took out her phone and searched Beckah’s contact information. She had to admit, she was a little sad to see the two microphone emojis next to Beckah’s name. Long before she’d been editor in chief, Beckah had wanted to be a singer. Now the emojis were just a sad reminder of what once was—now that Beckah was too cool for them, anyway.
Tammy dialed the number and waited while the phone rang.
“Hello?” came a voice. “This is Beckah.”
“Becks,” Tammy breathed. “It’s Tammy. Hi.”
And like any two friends who haven’t really spoken in a while, the girls both braced themselves, wondering what was about to transpire.
“I saw that you’re editor of the school newspaper. Congrats, Becks, that’s really great,” Tammy said, not sure what else to say.
“Thank you, Tammy,” Beckah said. “And congratulations to you as well. Mr. Lopez said you’re heading up some science club, right?”
“Marine science,” Tammy replied. “The Marine Science Club, actually.”
“Yes, yes, that was it. Well, that’s very wonderful for you,” Beckah replied.
“Actually I was calling you about the MSC. I was thinking maybe we could be featured in the paper. You can interview me, of course, and Kyle, obviously. And our third member, Alex!”
Tammy could hear Beckah bristle on the other end of the line.
“Er, Tammy,” she said. “I don’t mean to offend you, but you do know that we report news, right? I’m not so sure the Marine Science Club has done anything newsworthy.”
“But that’s where you’re wrong!” Tammy snapped back. “We were just at the beach, and we went to Tiburon Cove, and—”
“Tiburon Cove?” Beckah repeated. “Tammy, you can’t be serious. That place is awful, and it smells!”
“Yes, yes, Kyle already gave me that speech,” Tammy replied. “But, Becks, listen, we went there, and we saw three—brace yourself—three sharks! Swimming out to us! They made us a gift—a sculpture! And we studied them, Beckah, with our own two eyes. Well, six eyes. Since there were three of us, but you know what I mean!”
Beckah sighed on the other end of the line. “Tammy,” she said slowly, “do you have any evidence you saw these sharks?”
“Well, kind of, but—”
“Kind of and evidence aren’t the same thing, Tammy,” Beckah replied. Then her voice softened. “Look, I want to help you, I really do. I know how much this kind of stuff means to you. But if I print anything in the paper that isn’t cold hard fact, my butt is on the line. You have to understand that, right?”
Now it was Tammy’s turn to sigh. “I understand,” she said.
“But I’ll make you a deal, since we’re old friends. You get me a nice, clear, crisp photo of these sharks, and I’ll help you make your club the coolest club in the whole entire school. You have my word.”
Tammy nodded, even though she knew Beckah couldn’t see her. “Thanks, Becks,” Tammy said. “That means a lot.”
There was a silence on the phone, and Tammy knew she had to break it.
“I miss you, you know,” she said. “Kyle misses you. Our part of Waverly misses you. You’re welcome to come to a Marine Science Club meeting anytime. We don’t have a treasurer.”
Beckah smiled, even though she knew Tammy couldn’t see her, either.
“We’ll see,” she said, and then she hung up.
The Marine Science Club decided to meet back at Tiburon Cove on Monday after school.
Tammy was prepared now. She packed her backpack with water bottles for the three of them; her phone; an extra phone battery, just in case; and an old flashlight she’d found in her mom’s drawer. If the sharks were out again, maybe Tammy could get a better photo, this time with the flashlight!
As Tammy and Kyle arrived at the boardwalk, there was already a floppy-haired kid waving back to them. He smiled a toothy grin.
“MSC meeting number three,” Alex called out. “And good timing too. It’s about to be low tide.”
Tammy checked the tide clock app on her phone. Alex was right—the ocean was moving from high tide to low tide. The three friends made their way from the boardwalk to the outskirts of Tiburon Cove. They noticed that as the shoreline moved farther out, more tide pools were revealed.
On Saturday, when they saw the sharks, high tide had been coming in. Tammy worried that the sharks might have come and gone already. Maybe they missed them?
Kyle could read the look on Tammy’s face. “They’ll be here. Don’t worry.”
After a moment of sitting and watching, Alex said, “Hey, Tammy? I know you really want to get MSC into the school paper. But I wouldn’t have believed me either if I hadn’t seen what those sharks could do. So I brought a video camera this time. Maybe we can capture their movement and get on the morning announcements!”
Tammy looked up at Alex with a big, bright smile. She hadn’t even thought of that! The morning announcements were broadcast to the whole school. It was maybe even a little cooler than the school newspaper!
“That’s a great idea,” Tammy said, beaming at her friend. “Now we just have to sit and wait.”
And wait.
And wait.
And wait.
Hammerhead couldn’t believe it. She kept turning the purple ribbon in her fins over and over.
Sure, it wasn’t exactly a glass bowl, perfect for her land suit. But it was something! Even if that girl had said it would disintegrate.
Hammerhead was so interested in the ribbon, she hardly noticed a knocking at her sunken ship door until it got really, REALLY loud.
That knocking was coming from Mako. And he wasn’t rapping on the wall politely with his fin like a normal shark. He was headbutting the wall, over and over and over and over!
Hammerhead waved for him to stop, but Mako wouldn’t. His eyes were wider than usual, and he pointed to the ocean floor with his nose.
It’s gotta be something important, Hammerhead realized, so she swam over to find out.
When Hammerhead reached Mako, she noticed a drawing in the sand that looked like a map of Tiburon Cove, with three stick-figure people on the beach and a drawing of a small shark with a long tongue in the water.
Oh, shark boy, thought Hammerhead. The kids last time were nice, but this could be an entirely different set of folks! And poor unsuspecting Porbeagle went back to the beach without us! We have to go too!
In a flash of bubbles, Hammerhead and Mako thrust forward, hoping to join their curious and trusting friend. They swam as quickly as they could.
When they reached the water just on the outskirts of the cove, Hammerhead splashed around
in a hurry. Porbeagle was nowhere to be found. What happened to him?
Mako pointed his fin at the three people, as if to say, Look over there.
Hammerhead turned toward them. She could almost breathe a sigh of relief! They were the same kids as before—she recognized the girl who had given her the prized ribbon.
But where was Porbeagle?
Mako rushed around frantically, looking behind sea rocks and algae clumps. He popped back up with a mess of kelp on his head that looked like the one human’s floppy hair. Mako shook his muck-green mop as if to say, I can’t find him anywhere!
Hammerhead was alarmed. Porbeagle was missing! This was an emergency, and emergencies called for extreme moves.
Hammerhead poked her head up above the water.
Kyle was the first one to notice the fins peeking out of the sea. “Look, the sharks are back!”
Tammy and Alex raced deeper into the water than they had last time. Kyle stayed behind, but the three friends could still hear one another.
Alex held up his camera, then waved to the sharks and yelled, “Hey! Over here! Do one of your amazing tricks, please? We’ll make you famous! The biggest superstars of the ocean!”
“Wait,” said Tammy. “Something’s different this time. There are only two sharks, and they’re swimming all over the place. Last time they were more—I don’t know—more focused. Today, though …”
“Today they seem worried,” Alex finished her thought.
“They don’t seem worried to me,” Kyle squealed as a crest of water shot toward them.
The water was coming from the hammerhead. Then as quickly as it swam, the shark stopped.
“It’s stuck,” said Tammy, looking over at Kyle and Alex. “It needs our help!”
“Wait, Tammy!” yelled Kyle, but it was too late.
The hammerhead shark was beached on a sandbar. Most of its body was still underwater, but its violet-blue back jutted out in the sun. Tammy didn’t think twice. She moved through the ocean as the waves rolled gently past her.