“How so?” I asked.
“Well, they are all over our art, for one!” Zev said and stopped walking to point at the mural next to us. Sure enough, there was an elephant in the middle of the kaleidoscope of colors. It was a dark gray color and had a headpiece of gold and jade that seemed so lifelike I had to look closely to see it wasn’t the real thing embedded into the building. Having taken my backpack with me out of the car and into the restaurant, I reached around to grab my camera and snap a photo.
Click!
“Look around, you’ll see them everywhere,” Zev continued, and I whirled in a circle to really study my surroundings. I had been so busy dodging people and vehicles, I hadn’t taken a second to look at the stone and wooden carvings dotted along the pathways and on the sides of buildings. All around me were elephants with beautiful ornamentations on their heads and draped on their large backs. I let out a “Wow” under my breath. The details were absolutely stunning!
Click! Click! Click!
“But they are protected under Sri Lankan law. Catching or killing a wild elephant carries a fine, and taking the life of an elephant is illegal under any circumstances,” Zev explained.
“Well, that’s good to hear!” I said as Zev once again grabbed my hand and pulled me along toward a main road that looked like the ones at home except that it had dense forest on each side. I was so entranced by the different greens of the forest that I didn’t realize Zev had stopped walking, which led to me running into his back.
“Why did we stop?” I asked.
Zev pointed ahead to one side of the dense forest, where leaves from the tall trees were shaking. He mumbled something that sounded like “aliya,” but before I could ask what he said, a large dark figure emerged. It was an elephant! It was huge, and I noticed lighter patches on its ears, trunk, and belly. I had never seen a wild elephant and didn’t quite know what to look at first. Its gleaming white ivory tusks? Its long trunk that was tentatively sniffing the air? The wide column-like legs? The long, flat ears that twitched with every noise as traffic slowed to a stop to stare?
“Is it the head female?” I asked. I didn’t know much about elephants, but I knew that females were in charge of elephant herds.
Zev shook his head. “No. It’s a male. But the female must not be too far behind.”
It was like she was listening. Suddenly, a bigger elephant appeared from the dense forest. It looked exactly like the first one, but this one had no tusks. She made a noise with her long trunk and then ambled out into the middle of the road with her large feet. Her tail whipping from side to side, she examined each vehicle and person that had stopped to let her through. More rustling from the forest took my attention away from her and the smaller male to see other elephants making their way out into the road.
Elephants of every size came out! Some were three times our size, and a few smaller ones followed close behind. I lost count of how many there were. But I did notice that almost every single one didn’t have tusks.
“Zev, are these all females? They don’t have tusks!” I asked.
“Some are. Some are baby elephants,” he said. He then started whispering facts about Sri Lankan elephants, making sure not to make too much noise to attract any attention from them. I whipped out my notebook and furiously wrote down everything Zev was telling me as we watched the beautiful animals slowly cross the road.
I stopped writing as an elephant lifted its trunk high in the air and let out a trumpet, and I wished I hadn’t left my camera in my backpack. It was another male, this one with large pink markings on both of his ears. He was the last one of the group and was wildly swinging his trunk from side to side as if telling everyone to back off and let him through. As he disappeared into the dense green leaves on the other side of the road, the traffic on the main road started up again and it was like nothing had ever happened.
“Well, we know where to go now!” Zev laughed as we hurried after the elephant herd. Zev reassured me we were close to the water hole, and after a few minutes of walking in silence, whacking away thick leaves from our faces, we made it! But the elephants were nowhere in sight.
“Maybe they weren’t thirsty. They might come back,” Zev offered. I nodded and looked at the water hole, which was full of local children. Some were swimming in the dark water, and I shuddered. While I wasn’t afraid of crocodiles after I had been bitten by one in Cuba, I still wasn’t the biggest fan of murky water I couldn’t see through. I would not be swimming in this.
“Zev! Ayubowan!” we heard a voice call out, and I saw Zev wave to a small group of kids our age, who then made their way to where we were. The two girls were wearing matching yellow dresses with black-blue-and-white beading around the collars and hems. The beading was fashioned to look like flowers, which matched the beads in their long, curly black hair. One girl had her hair in pigtails, and the other had a ponytail. The guy wore a dark blue shirt with black pants. Their bare feet were covered in mud.
“This is Manisha, Punya, and Dilip. We go to school together!” Zev explained.
I waved and smiled as wide as possible. “Hi, I’m Adrianna. Nice to meet you!”
“Oh! You’re part of the family Zev was talking about coming to see a rare shark, right?” Manisha asked, tugging at her ponytail with her hand. I couldn’t help but notice her bright pink nail polish. I don’t get to wear nail polish because it would just flake off while working with animals.
I nodded. “Yeah, that’s me! What do you guys know about the Pondicherry shark?” I wanted to know everything they knew—maybe they knew stuff about this shark that wasn’t in the booklet Mr. Savage had given us.
Dilip shrugged. “Not much. My dad is a fisherman and he says there are a ton of species like that here in Sri Lanka. He sometimes catches them.”
“On purpose?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No, as bycatch. He’s targeting other fish, but the sharks like the bait he uses so he catches them instead. I think he throws them back.”
“Why would he do that? Sharks are scary!” Punya said, digging her bare toes into the squishy dirt we were standing on.
“Not all sharks are like that,” I said. “There are so many different species and most of them don’t hurt people. We’re not on their menu.”
“Their menu?” asked Manisha.
“Yeah, like we aren’t what they typically eat. Sharks usually eat ocean animals like fish, seals, dolphins, and turtles,” I explained.
“Some even eat other sharks!” Zev added.
The trio of friends scrunched up their noses. Okay, maybe they didn’t find that cool …
Dilip opened his mouth to say something when a trilling noise came out of his pocket. He held up a finger, as if to say, “Hold on,” and looked down at his phone, which said “AMMA” in big capital letters.
“Amma! Kohomada?” he asked into the phone.
I looked to Zev, who whispered, “He’s asking his mom how she is.”
Whatever language Dilip was speaking, it sounded beautiful. It was almost as if he was singing instead of just talking to his mom. With a beep, he hung up the phone and looked at us. “That was my mom. She wants me home because it is getting late.”
I looked at Zev, who was now looking at his own phone and grimacing. He held the phone up to me, showing we had been out for almost an hour! “Have a nice day, my friends! Suba davask! I’ll see you at school!” he said and grabbed my hand, leading us back the way we had come.
I waved over my shoulder. “Goodbye! Nice meeting you!” Manisha, Punya, and Dilip waved in return and I saw them heading the other way before we disappeared back into the forest. “We might want to run,” Zev suggested, and I nodded. Running wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do in a skirt and sandals, but I didn’t want to worry our parents since we had been gone for so long.
Mom, Dad, and Mr. Manil weren’t thrilled we had gone off so far during our Adrianna and Zev Adventure, but they were fascinated to hear we had come across a herd of Sri Lankan
elephants. According to Mr. Manil, it was rare to have a herd so close to one of the main cities, and therefore we must be lucky.
Mr. Savage, on the other hand, was stoked. “Wild elephants?! Perfect. We need to film a giant, stampeding herd for part of the episode. Nothing screams danger like a giant bull elephant charging atcha!”
Dad and Mom just rolled their eyes, with Dad joking to Mr. Manil, “Don’t pay attention to our overly enthusiastic producer.” Mr. Savage didn’t even hear the dig, too occupied with recording a voice memo to himself about “violent elephants.”
I looked at Feye and asked if they had gotten the fin clip and he nodded, explaining how they had met up with the marine biologist my parents were friends with, and that we would have dinner with her tonight. After some quick hugs and a big thank you, Mr. Manil and Zev dropped us off at the hotel where we would be staying while in Sri Lanka, along with Mr. Savage and the film crew.
Changing into a simple T-shirt and shorts, I was excited to meet this marine biologist friend and learn from her. It didn’t take long for dinner to come around and for me to get to do just that.
“Dr. Chandrika! Over here!” my mom said as a woman with beautiful ebony hair came toward us. Her golden dress shimmered in the surrounding candlelight as she weaved between guests and servers.
“Hello again!” She waved enthusiastically and ran into my mom’s outstretched arms for a hug. After she gave a kiss on the cheek to my father and nodded toward Feye, her green eyes turned to me, a smile forming on her face.
“And you must be little Adrianna. I’ve heard so much about you!”
Little?! I was almost all grown-up, thank you very much.
“It’s nice to meet you, Dr. Chandrika. I hear you’re a marine biologist,” I answered as we all sat down to eat.
My dad laughed. “Here we go. Get ready for ‘twenty questions about your job’ in rapid fire, Dr. Chandrika.”
I looked in the direction of my dad, stuck my tongue out, and then looked back at the scientist at our table. Well, the one I wasn’t related to.
“I am a marine biologist! I study blue whales and their movements both here and around the world,” she answered, quickly glancing over the menu since she saw a waiter coming in our direction.
While we all decided on food, the table grew quiet. But as soon as the menus were whisked away, I went back to asking Dr. Chandrika about her work.
“So as a marine biologist, do you just basically live on a boat?” I asked.
She shook her head, her golden earrings tinkling together.
“That’s a myth! I work behind a desk, too—analyzing all the data I collect out in the field, writing it up, asking for money. I also run the organization Waves of Action, where we do educational marine science outreach in the Sri Lanka community,” she said.
“Do you have a fancy building?” Feye asked.
“No, just a regular building.” She laughed. “But we host a lot of events there—we’re hoping to have a big ocean appreciation event soon! I just came out of a meeting with some local sponsors.”
“How’d it go?” Mom asked, taking a sip of her water.
“I think it went okay. I mentioned that we possibly had a rare shark we’re doing DNA tests on right now and they were super interested in that. Funny how some people are fascinated by sharks and others think of them as monsters.”
“They aren’t monsters, though,” I mumbled. “I wish they could see that …”
Mom said something else, but I didn’t listen to a word she said because I could feel an idea blossoming in my head. Thoughts racing, I realized I had the perfect way to celebrate sharks with the people of the Sri Lanka community—a party! Just like Dr. Chandrika said! Who doesn’t like parties?
“Adrianna? What is it, mi tesoro?” Mom asked, noticing my thinking face.
“Mami, I think … I just thought of a way to get others to see sharks the way we do.” I smiled.
“Well, would you like to fill your mother in on this brilliant idea of yours?” Mom teased, lightly tickling my sides. I giggled and tried to squirm out of her grip, almost jumping out of my seat and in the way of the server who had our food ready.
Once he had put the plates down, I began to explain my idea of a shark party. “I got the inspiration from what Dr. Chandrika said about her ocean appreciation event. What if we hosted our own festival that was all about shark appreciation? There must be some cool shark scientists here. Maybe we can invite them to give a talk or two. And maybe you guys can release the shark in the small tank back into the wild!” I said.
“I bet Mr. Savage would be interested, especially since our original shark rescue plan went down the drain,” Feye suggested in between mouthfuls of his highly aromatic food. I would have to remember to steal a bite before he ate it all.
There was silence as the adults looked at me and put their own “thinking faces” on while they ate their food.
“It isn’t a bad idea, mi cariño,” my dad said, turning to my mom.
“It might … actually work.” Mom nodded. “And we can get Dr. Chandrika involved!”
“I definitely know of a few scientists who would be keen to help out. And we can use my connections with Waves of Action to see what else we can do.” She nodded enthusiastically. “I think the locals would be interested—especially if there is food!”
“We’ll tell Mr. Savage over breakfast about your plan and see what he and the network think,” Dad said, giving me a wink and smile.
The support made me so happy! As my parents and Dr. Chandrika talked more about “the logistics” of my idea (whatever that meant), Feye took a picture of his almost-finished food “for his fans.” He has an Instagram where he posts pictures of our travels and our work with animals. Eye roll. I picked up my own phone and quickly texted Alessi:
ADRIANNA: Just came up with a good idea for the show and the ’rents are happy about it!
ALESSI: What was the idea???
ADRIANNA: Some locals here seem to be afraid of sharks. So, we are gonna throw a shark appreciation party!
ALESSI: That sounds like your kind of party! But will people come?
That stopped me right in my tracks. It wouldn’t exactly count as a party if it was just our family and the crew. Would anyone show up? Dr. Chandrika seemed to think so, but it’s not like we had friends here … But I knew someone who did! I smiled, remembering my new friend Zev. And maybe Manisha, Punya, and Dilip would like to go, too! But I was getting ahead of myself.
ADRIANNA: Will work on that. First need Mr. Savage to say okay to the idea.
ALESSI: Good luck!
The next morning, I awoke under the softest sheets I have ever felt. I rolled over to see my mom awake on her side of the bed we shared, reading a book about Sri Lankan wildlife.
“¿Mamá?” I asked, whispering. The boys were still asleep, and we could hear their soft snoring.
My mom adjusted her glasses and smiled at me, giving me a kiss on my forehead. “Buenos días, mija. How did you sleep?” she asked.
“Okay. But I couldn’t get the shark out of my head,” I sighed, fluffing my pillow up to sit next to her and resting my head on her shoulder.
My mother nodded, wrapping an arm around me. “I know, it’s tough seeing animals in distress. Not every place will have big, open spaces for the animals they keep.”
“But can’t we do anything about it?” I asked.
Mom shook her head. “Not always. Remember, even though you love sharks, it doesn’t mean everyone else does. Many find them scary—like monsters, even.”
“But they aren’t!” I said a little too loudly. I thought about my conversation with Dilip about his dad, the fisherman. And Punya’s reaction to his dad seeing and handling sharks. Suddenly, I had an idea.
“You guys! Wake up! I just had an idea on how to get people excited about our shark festival—and save the shark!” I exclaimed.
“Adrianna! Let them sleep,” Mom chastised me.
“No, no,
this is too important. Hombres of the Villalobos familia! Wake up!” I laughed, jumping on their bed.
“Oh. My. God. Adrianna, get off!” Feye grumbled, sliding farther under the sheets as Dad’s eyes popped open at the rude intrusion I was creating.
I ripped the sheets off his side of the bed and kissed his head. “¡Levántate! This is important!”
Dad had pulled himself up, so he was sitting like Mom, and rubbed his eyes, looking at the time on the nearby clock. “It better be at five in the morning! What are you doing up so early, A?”
“I couldn’t sleep, but that’s not the point,” I answered, poking my brother’s face until an eye flew open.
“I am up. But if you want to keep your finger, you’ll stop touching my face or I’ll bite it off,” Feye growled.
“Mom! Feye threatened bodily violence!” I mock-wailed, and he grabbed me with both of his arms in a big bear hug and tugged me back onto the bed.
“Feye! Adrianna! ¡Basta! It’s too early and we don’t want to wake up any of the neighbors—especially the camera crew next door,” Mom reprimanded us, pointing to the wall our beds were joined to, on the opposite side of which were Mark, Alice, and Connor sound asleep.
I took a deep breath and told my family about my conversation with Dilip, Manisha, and Punya. “We should involve the fishing community here! The fishers have already been interacting with the sharks, both dead and alive. And they care about the health of the ocean ecosystem since it’s important to their livelihood.”
“That’s something we’ll have to talk to Dr. Chandrika about, but I think that’s a really good idea to get the community involved, Adrianna,” Dad said.
Mom nodded. “Exactly. We want to make sure we get local scientists involved with this and not contribute to parachute science.”
“What the heck is that?” Feye asked. “Is it the science of parachutes? That has nothing to do with sharks.”
“No, no. It’s when researchers come to a place to do research, but they leave without any investment in the community. It basically makes it so that a region is dependent on outsiders to do scientific work, and that makes it hard for local conservation efforts to take off.”
Swimming With Sharks Page 3