Instant Karma

by Marissa Meyer

  Next to the door is a framed movie poster—the iconic Jaws poster, of all things.

  But no, on closer inspection I see that it’s a spoof. The giant shark head looming up from the depths is actually a gray speedboat seen from above, and the swimming girl has been replaced with a harmless-looking shark. The title, Laws, has a caption: HUMANS KILL 11,400 SHARKS PER HOUR. SHARKS KILL 12 HUMANS PER YEAR. PETITION TO CHANGE SHARK-CULLING LAWS.

  “Per hour?” I mutter. Can that statistic possibly be real?

  I also can’t help but shudder at the second number. The idea of being snagged in the ocean by a great white has literally kept me up at night, and I’ve never even seen Jaws.

  A single sheet of white office paper catches my eye. Someone has printed another Jaws spoof poster and taped it next to the poster. This time, the title reads Straws, the swimming girl has been replaced by a sea turtle, and the “monster” coming out of the deep to devour it is nothing but a bunch of plastic straws in the shape of a shark’s head.

  I chuckle. That’s actually pretty clever.

  The barking of sea animals suddenly increases and I turn toward a screened-in back door. Beyond it is a large courtyard full of chain-link fences and blue plastic pools and … well, I’ve found the noisemakers.

  I inch my way around the desk, careful not to bump any of the teetering paper stacks, and approach the screen door.

  The courtyard has no fancy tanks. No giant aquariums. But a heck of a lot of seals. Or maybe sea lions. Or otters? I don’t know, but they’re shiny and relatively cute and taking turns splashing through the plastic pools or chasing one another around the concrete that shines with puddles of water everywhere.

  I notice that, while some of the pools are small plastic kiddie pools like I’d buy at the variety store on Main Street, there are other larger pools built into the ground along the far side of the courtyard. An array of awnings and pop-up tents and tarps tied to the tops of the chain-link fences offer mottled shade as the sun tops the side of the building. A tangle of hoses wind their way from platform to platform, and there is equipment piled up in every corner: coolers and pool nets and scrubbing brushes and more plastic buckets than you’d see at the local hardware store.

  A door bangs off to my right, making me jump. Two women, wearing identical yellow T-shirts, emerge from the far end of the building. They approach one of the kiddie pools, which is housing a solitary animal. It watches the women approach, its whiskers twitching around its nose.

  “Excuse me?” I say, pushing open the screen door. It screams on its hinges.

  The women spin toward me. One of them looks to be about my mom’s age, with wispy black hair pulled back into a messy braid. The other is older and stockier—seventies, maybe—with white hair curled in a bob and a strand of pearls around her neck that don’t go with the basic T-shirt at all.

  “Hello?” says the younger woman. “Can I help you?”

  “Yes, maybe. My name is Prudence Barnett, and I’m doing a project on local ecotourism. I was hoping to learn more about this center. What you do here and how it benefits the local wildlife, and also the community. Maybe I could even … help out? Like, on a volunteer basis? For a few hours … or ask you some questions, if you’re not too busy?”

  The older woman laughs and tucks a clipboard under one arm. “Oh, sweetie pie. We’re always busy.” She sighs and looks at the other woman. “I’ll see if I can dig up those pamphlets from last year to give to her.”

  But the dark-haired woman ignores her. Her eyes are on me, her brow taut. “Did you say Prudence?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I dare to take a few steps away from the door. I glance at the nearest pool, which is behind one of the fence enclosures. The animals there don’t seem to notice that there’s a stranger in their midst. That, or they simply don’t care. “I won’t take up too much of your—”

  “You go to Fortuna High?” she interrupts.

  I pause. “Yes.”

  “Huh.” The woman’s gaze slips over me, head to toes, but I can’t tell what she’s trying to assess. “I think you might know my son. Quint.”

  I freeze. My expression remains neutral, professional, but inside I’m shocked. This is Quint’s mom? And also … he’s mentioned me? To his mom?

  Drat. I can only imagine all the horrible accusations he’s cast my way. If he rants about me half as much as I’ve ranted about him, then it’s going to be a long uphill battle to get on this woman’s good side.

  I briefly consider apologizing and excusing myself and scurrying away, but I hold my ground. My smile brightens, and I try to forget that Quint and I have been mortal enemies for the past nine months. Maybe, just maybe, all he told his mom was that we were lab partners, tasked with doing our semester project together.

  “That’s right,” I say, giving an extra bubble to my voice. “We were lab partners this year in biology. You must be Rosa?”

  “Yes.” She draws out the word. She seems more than a little confused. “This is our office manager, Shauna.”

  Shauna smiles at me, her round face dimpling. “So lovely to meet a friend of Quint’s. I’ve been wondering when he’d start bringing girls around. Thought it was only a matter of time.”

  I laugh awkwardly. Oh, if she only knew. “It’s nice to meet you both.”

  “Are you taking summer classes or something?” asks Rosa.

  “Oh, no. I just…” I pause. How much to tell her? “I’m just doing a bit of extra-credit work. Everyone says I should stop being such an overachiever, but I can’t help it! And … well, Mr. Chavez’s class really gave me a new appreciation for our local sea life. I’m dying to learn more about it.”

  For the first time, my answer seems to have pleased Quint’s mom.

  “You do know we aren’t a public facility?” says Shauna. She unclips a pen from the clipboard, thumping it against the pages. “But I can surely help you schedule an appointment. Rosa, I’ll go check your calendar for the week.” She heads into the building, humming to herself.

  “I’m sorry,” I say to Rosa. “I didn’t mean to intrude. If I could just ask a few questions about, say, local marine habitats, and maybe how tourism impacts the lives of these gorgeous animals?”

  Rosa chuckles, but it lacks humor. “Well, I could give you loads of information about that,” she says dryly. “But Shauna is right. This isn’t a good day. I’m sorry. One of my volunteers didn’t show up, and we just recovered a sea lion this morning—it’s the second time she’s been brought in, which is…” The groan she makes is full of disappointment. But then she waves her hand at me, brushing her frustration aside. “Never mind. It’s a sad story. Maybe we can schedule a phone call? Or here, I’ll give you my card and maybe you could just email your questions?”

  “Yeah,” I say as Rosa walks past me into the lobby. She starts riffling through a desk drawer. “That would work. That’d be great, actually.”

  She finds a card and hands it to me, then stands back, two fingers pressed to her lips. Her apprehensive frown has returned. “You know,” she says uncertainly, “Quint could probably tell you as much about this place as I could. Maybe you could talk to him?”

  I laugh. I can’t help it. If she’s making this suggestion, then she must not know the details of our less-than-stellar partnership after all.

  “No,” I say, wishing I could snatch back the laughter as soon as it’s out. “I mean, I’m sure he’s … I just really think it will look better for my project if I can talk to the…” I glance down at the card. “Owner and director. Not, you know. Her son.”

  “Well, be that as it may, I know your biology teacher was very supportive of Quint’s time here. If you do decide to come back, maybe we can talk a bit about those volunteer opportunities you mentioned. Honestly, it’s been a long time since we brought in new help, so I’m not entirely sure what I’d do with you. But with some training, it might actually be nice to have another set of hands.”

  “Right,” I say, tucking the card in
to my pocket. “Volunteering. Yeah. I’m really sorry no one is around to … train me? I’m sure that really takes a lot of time and effort. You know, I should probably just let you get back to work. But I’ll email you some questions for sure. Thank you.”

  Her eyes wrinkle around the edges when she smiles, and it’s odd how she can look simultaneously too young and too old. I find myself searching for a resemblance to her son. Her hair and skin are darker, and her eyebrows are reasonably tamed … though I suppose that could be maintenance as much as genetics. She’s a beautiful woman, and I can see vestiges of her youth. I think she might have looked more like Quint at one point. But she also seems tired, stressed. Like there’s a weight on her shoulders that hasn’t been lifted for a long time. Whereas Quint exudes a carefree confidence, like there isn’t a thing in this world that could worry him.

  “Thanks for stopping by,” she says.

  “Of course.” I tip my head gratefully, backing toward the door. “I’ll just let you—”

  My back smacks into something and I stumble. A hand grabs my arm to steady me.

  I glance over my shoulder and freeze.

  So does he, his hand still gripping my arm.

  “Oh. Quint,” I say, daring to smile. “Wow. What a small world!”

  FOURTEEN

  “P-Prudence?” Quint stammers.

  He’s wearing a yellow T-shirt, too, and now I can see the logo printed on the chest. The words FORTUNA BEACH SEA ANIMAL RESCUE CENTER surrounded by a ring of turtles and seals and dolphins.

  “What are you doing here?” I say, even though I’m staring right at the answer.

  He works here.

  But that means that Quint Erickson has a job. Or, at least, a volunteer job. I wonder if his mom pays him to be here. Somehow, that idea seems easier to digest. Either way, though, the utter lack of responsibility he showed all year long makes it impossible to imagine him staying in anyone’s employ for long.

  Maybe his mom just hasn’t had the heart to fire him.

  Quint lifts an eyebrow and his hand falls away. He walks around me, into the lobby, which is suddenly cramped with the three of us standing there. “I work here,” he says. Then his eyes narrow, first skeptically, and then into something almost smug. “You read the paper, didn’t you?”

  I cross my arms. “Maybe.”

  I wish his mom weren’t here so I could immediately start yelling at him. All my annoyances from the morning come storming back. How he went completely rogue on our project, without even bothering to inform me of the particularly relevant and might-have-been-helpful information that his mom runs an animal rescue center.

  “So, what? You came here to critique my spelling?”

  “That wouldn’t be my first comment, but since you’re bringing it up … you do know that Fortuna is spelled with an a, not an e, right?”

  His jaw tightens. “Autocorrect,” he deadpans.

  “Proofreading,” I counter.

  “Okay!” he practically shouts. “This was a fun encounter. Thanks for stopping by.”

  His mom clears her throat, drawing both of our gazes toward her. She looks expectantly at Quint.

  His shoulders shrink into something almost like a pout, and he lazily gestures from me to his mom and back. “Mom, this is Prudence. Prudence, my mom. I think I’ve maybe mentioned her … a time. Or two.”

  “Yes, we actually met a few minutes ago,” says Rosa. She smiles at me. “Quint has told me that you’re exceptionally dedicated to your schoolwork.”

  Quint looks almost uncomfortable at this statement. We both know dedicated is not the word he used to describe me. Bossy, maybe. Or controlling. Or impossible to please. If he’s comfortable cursing around his mom, he might even have said worse.

  I’m sure that whatever he’s told her, it definitely wasn’t something as generous as dedicated.

  “Oh!” says Rosa, her eyes suddenly brightening. “That’s it! You can train her!”

  My focus snaps back to her. “What now?”

  “It’s perfect. You already know each other, you’ve worked together … I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me before.” She sighs and tucks a loose strand from her braid behind her ear. “My brain is so scattered these days.”

  “Whoa, whoa,” says Quint, looking from her to me and back. “What are you talking about?”

  “Prudence,” she says, gesturing at me, “came by today because she’s doing some extra-credit work for your science class, and she wanted to get some hands-on information, maybe even spend some time doing volunteer work for us.”

  Quint shoots me a look. I smile sheepishly back.

  “And I don’t have time to train anyone new, but it would be nice to have an extra hand over the summer. And then you show up and … I don’t know. It seems a little serendipitous.”

  Quint raises an eyebrow. “Extra credit, huh?”

  I shrug. “I need to bring up that grade somehow.”

  “Oh, and Quint…” Rosa sets a hand on his shoulder and her expression is suddenly disheartened. “I was going to send you a text when I got a second, but … well, Luna was brought back today. She was found up at Devon’s Beach, horribly dehydrated.”

  It’s clear this news is upsetting to Quint. I suspect Luna is the sea lion she mentioned earlier, but I’m surprised at Quint’s reaction. He doesn’t even try to disguise his horror.

  “Is she…?”

  “Opal is with her now. It’s touch and go so far. You know how these first hours are so critical…”

  Quint swallows, then nods. “She’ll fight. She did last time.”

  Rosa, though, doesn’t look as confident. “It seems like she’s still having problems feeding herself. I’m worried…” She makes a sound in her throat, hopeless and distraught. “It’s possible we may not be able to rehabilitate her. If she pulls through this, we might need to consider other options. I don’t know. Let’s wait and see what Opal finds out.”

  Quint drags a hand through his hair, making the front stick up oddly above his brow.

  A sorrowful silence falls between them.

  I inch forward. “Um. Who’s Luna?”

  Quint shuts his eyes, like he forgot that I was there, or maybe he was just hoping that I’d magically vanished. “No one.”

  But Rosa answers, “She’s a sea lion that was found washed up on the beach last year. We had her for five months and thought she was ready to go back, so we released her a few weeks ago. But…” She shakes her head. “She was brought in again this morning.”

  “How do you know it’s her?”

  “We tag all our animals, so we can keep track of them even after they’re returned to the ocean,” says Rosa. “And … she was always one of Quint’s favorites. I’d recognize her even without the tag.”

  Quint frowns at her, then turns his irritation on me. “You should probably leave,” he says. “We have things to do here, and I’m sure you don’t actually intend to volunteer.”

  I straighten. “You don’t know that.”

  “Please. You? Working with sea animals?”

  “Quint—” says Rosa warningly, but he cuts her off.

  “It’s a terrible idea, Mom. Trust me. Morgan and I can handle the feeding and washing just fine, especially now that I’m on break.”

  “Morgan isn’t coming in today,” Rosa says. “She had an accident this morning and had to go to the hospital.”

  “Hospital?” says Quint.

  “I guess she broke her leg and will be out for a few weeks, at least.”

  “Broke her leg? How?”

  Rosa shrugs. “She said she was doing some painting and fell off a ladder.”

  My heart skips.

  Hold on. Morgan.

  Oh, criminy.

  “Okay, okay.” Quint waves his hands at his mom. “I’ll handle it. You go take care of the pools. I’ll start in on the food.”

  “And…?” Rosa tilts her head toward me.

  Quint’s voice darkens. “We’ll see.”


  His mom must know this is all she’s going to get from him right now. And she also must sense the animosity between us. She flashes Quint a grateful smile and heads back out the door. I spot Shauna still outside, standing over one of the pools and jotting notes on a clipboard.

  “Well,” says Quint, the second his mom out of earshot. “I have a lot to do. See you around, Prudence.” He turns to head down the long corridor.

  “Hold on!” I say, following him. “I am redoing that project whether you like it or not, and I’m not leaving here until I have enough science-based information that I can go back and outline the best plan for ecotourism the state of California has ever seen.”

  He spins back so fast I nearly crash into him for the second time that day. His thick eyebrows are drawn tight, making his features look almost severe. I’m startled to realize he’s angry. Not irritated. Not mildly annoyed. This is actual anger.

  Quint Erickson doesn’t get angry.

  I take a step back, though I’m not proud about it.

  “Do you ever listen to anything anyone else says?”

  I blink at him.

  “In case you weren’t paying attention, we took in a new rescue today, which means Mom and the vet already have enough to deal with, and we’re suddenly short-staffed, which leaves me to clean two dozen pools and feed almost a hundred animals, and you and I both know that you didn’t come here today so you could slop around buckets of fish guts.”

  I grimace.

  “On top of that, Mr. Chavez made it very clear that he would only accept revisions if they’re a team effort, and there is no power in the universe that could get me to spend another minute working with you.”

  I gape at him, speechless. His breathing is ragged, his cheeks red. It’s a side of Quint I’ve never seen before, and it takes me a second to realize … he’s not just mad, though clearly I’ve done something to upset him. No. He’s stressed.