by John Morano
Then someone called, “Is a body beneath a head?”
All the boy could say was, “Help me . . . please take me aboard.”
Even though Binti was very safe at the cleaning station, she continued to use her camouflage. She couldn’t help it. She didn’t really know how to turn it off. Her posture, her shape, and her color would all change automatically based solely on her surroundings. The only time her primary defense system could be short-circuited was during intense emotional situations—terror, birth, mating, or anger to name a few.
In one sense, Binti was lying to herself. She pretended that the reason she came to the cleaning station was to socialize, but that wasn’t the whole truth. Deep inside her mantle, she hoped that she’d meet a creature who knew where she could find her special shell. Both Paykak and Hootie had seen enough to know that any conversation with Binti inevitably touched on the topic of shells at one point or another. The octopus was obsessed.
While she gabbed with a grouper named Fraco and a snail she’d never met before, the discussion turned to shells.
“I don’t think the odds are with you on this,” Fraco said in his waterlogged baritone.
“Why not?” Binti asked. “You don’t think I’ll find my shell?”
“Well, you don’t really have a shell. You’ve evolved without the need for one. So why waste your time looking? Just go with the evolutionary flow. You know, in a way, you’re almost violating the intent of the spirit-fish.”
“That’s not true,” Binti countered. “I may not have a shell, but I’m a mollusk, so I should have one.”
“Squid’s a mollusk. It doesn’t have a shell. I never heard one of them complain.”
“They’re squids! It’s different.”
“So what? You want to be a nautilus? A cuttlefish, perhaps? They’re kinda like octopuses with shells.”
“You’re on another species again.” Binti blushed deep red in frustration. “It’s about an octopus and a shell. Not squids. Not nautiluses. Not cuttlefish. An octopus. Me. Get it?”
The grouper shook his large head. “Well, you’re the one who mentioned mollusks. I’m just following your thought.” Fraco didn’t buy her argument at all, but he did enjoy the discussion. “You should have what you have. Let me ask you this. Have you ever seen an octopus with a shell?”
“But that’s not the—”
“Oh yes, it is the point. You’re an octopus. Your kind don’t have shells. You just want what you can’t have. The algae’s always greener on the other reef.”
Speaking as much to herself as she was to the grouper and the silent snail, Binti blurted, “I just want one! Think how beautiful it’ll look on me. Think how difficult it’ll be to eat me. I’ll be stronger and more beautiful. I need a shell.”
The snail finally spoke up, although a little tentatively because some octopuses love to eat the little gastropods. “The name’s Noril. I hope you don’t mind, but you’ve got one big problem.” The snail carried instant credibility, carried it right on her back.
“I’d love to hear from an expert,” Binti said. “So what’s my big problem?”
The snail studied Binti with her eyestalks. Then she said, “Size. You’re too big for a shell. Believe me, I know from shells. And I’ve never seen a shell that would fit you.”
“Snail’s got a point there,” Fraco echoed.
“No, she doesn’t. What does she know? I don’t have any bones. I could fit into lots of shells.”
“Next!” a goby called.
“Well, that doesn’t sound very practical,” the grouper observed.
“NEXT!” the impatient goby shouted. “Come on, Freako, move those fins!”
“It’s Frac-o,” the grouper grunted. “Sea ya, Binti. I think you’re wasting your time, but if I see any good shells, I’ll let you know . . . Nice to meet you, Noril.”
“Thanks, Fraco. Have a good cleaning.” Binti turned to the outspoken little snail, who was sifting through the sand looking for a snack, and asked, “Honestly, do you think I’m wasting my time?”
Noril held out her head, stretched her long, slender body, blinked her eyes, and said, “It’s not for me to say. It’s your time. Do what you want with it.”
Binti pressed, “But you live in a shell. This should make sense to you.”
“When a little snail who needs protection slips into its shell, that, bubble-uh, makes sense to me. I have a cousin who wears an anemone on her back. That even makes sense to me. But you’re an octopus. You don’t need a shell.”
Frustrated and disappointed, Binti quipped, “You don’t understand.”
Noril flashed a knowing smile and said, “Maybe I don’t. I’m not a mollusk or an octopus. But let me tell you what I do understand. I wear a shell. All day, every day. And believe you me, it’s not as wonderful as you think it is. This thing is heavy, it’s hard, it slows me down. It’s lonely too. I’m in here all by myself. I’d love to swim around naked like you and everyone else in Makoona, but if I did that, I wouldn’t live too long. I can’t be you any more than you can be me.”
“But I don’t want to be you.”
“Yes, but you want to be like me. Listen, let me tell you something my mother told me. Maybe it’ll help. What you are is the spirit-fish’s gift to you. What you make of yourself is your gift to the spirit-fish. Think about it, my friend.”
As she swam away, squeezing water through her siphon, Binti reflected on the logic of the gabby gastropod. Why should I swim against the current? she wondered. I am what I am, a shell-less, boneless camouflage creation. I should accept what I’ve been given and make the most of it.
But even with those thoughts swimming inside of her, Binti knew, out of the corner of her eye, she’d always be looking for a shell. And, although she told no one, she believed it was precisely what the spirit-fish wanted her to do. Hopefully, the shell, the quest, or both would reveal some larger truth to her.
Binti swam along the landward side of Makoona, where she could usually find an easy meal. Ironically, she was hunting for snails slightly larger than the one who just counseled her. And when Fraco was done with his cleaning, he might be hunting for an octopus, among other things. It was reefality, the law of the sea.
She felt it as soon as it washed across her, a slight chemical change in the water picked up by her highly developed senses. She could taste the caustic bitterness against her body. Then she felt a subtle crease in the current waft against her supple skin. It didn’t occur to her that had she been wearing a shell, her skin might not have registered these clues. But she wasn’t wearing a shell, and she did pick up on them. Binti was being hunted. The octopus had three choices: freeze and blend, hide, or flee. And she had to decide quickly.
The chemical disturbance, stronger now, stroked her skin again. Binti’s greatest fear as an octopus was realized—a moray was hunting her. Without thinking, she froze under a stand of green table coral and waited while her body turned dark green and took on the texture of the thicket. If the moray had already seen her, it would strike quickly. If it had only caught her scent, it would try to sniff her out, something most morays were quite capable of doing.
Binti hoped she had lost the predator, but the nerve endings on her suckers suggested that the moray was still on the prowl. The octopus wondered if it hunted her specifically or if it was just hunting in general. She raised her eyes slightly above her mantle so she could see almost three hundred and sixty degrees around her. Binti couldn’t locate the moray, but she could taste the slime in the water.
Suddenly, something sharp clamped down on one of her limbs and began dragging her out from under the coral. It was the moray. It, too, had changed color, sliding through cracks and hugging the sea bed until it found one of Binti’s arms.
Instinctively, Binti slipped three other arms around the base of the coral and held on tightly. If the moray managed to pull her out into the open water, she’d be dead. The predator tightened its grip on her arm and tugged. Binti felt sear
ing pain as its twisted, spiny teeth cut through her flesh. The teeth were angled so they would dig into and cling onto whatever they clamped down upon.
Binti felt her arm tearing from her body. Although she’d never lost an appendage, she’d met other octopuses who had. With their powers of regeneration, the arm would eventually grow back, but an octopus with seven arms instead of eight might be less able to feed and defend itself. In some situations, like her present circumstance, a missing arm could decide the delicate balance between life and death. And the fact that the arm would grow back did nothing to diminish the pain Binti felt at the moment. Besides, the arm would only grow back if the rest of the octopus survived.
The moray began to roll over and over, hoping to twist Binti loose. Her arms held the coral, but the pain caused her to lose focus. She tried to slip another pair of arms around a rocky outcrop to stabilize the twisting of the moray. As she reached for the rock, the base she was already anchored to snapped. The coral collapsed on top of her, and the moray dragged her out into the open water while the shards cut into her soft flesh. Binti’s blue blood began to trickle into the reef. Soon, other predators would investigate.
When she emerged from the rubble, the moray, still locked onto her arm, began to spin itself again. This disoriented Binti, prevented her from anchoring herself or escaping, and allowed her attacker to get a better grip on another arm. Without having something to hide in or hold onto, Binti knew she’d die. The moray would never unlock its jaws. It wouldn’t settle for an arm when it could eat an entire octopus.
In an act of desperation, Binti fired a blast of dark ink into the water between her and the moray.
An octopus doesn’t like to release ink unless it’s an emergency, because it can take time to build up a fresh supply. Normally, the ink would serve as a distraction and block the moray’s senses of sight and smell, but Binti was already in its mouth. It didn’t need to see or smell her. It could taste her. Binti released the ink anyway, hoping the moray might ease its grip for a moment. It didn’t.
The octopus was exhausted. They were surrounded by a cloud of silt, sand, black ink, and blue blood. The struggle had gone on as long as Binti’s strength would allow. Camouflage could do nothing for her now. She couldn’t jet away. She had no ability to hurt the moray. Her puny beak had little effect on the thick length of muscle that twisted and shook her. Poison that would have paralyzed lesser fish was essentially useless against the moray.
Binti began to think about how quickly her life had passed, how little she’d accomplished. She had no mate. No young would survive her. She hadn’t found the shell that would unite her with the spirit-fish. Her life on Makoona was less than a ripple on the sea.
Binti knew that it was over, that she was experiencing her final moment, but for some reason, she couldn’t accept that her life had ended. Making a final attempt to free herself, Binti released her chewed-up arm from her body, hoping it might give her an opportunity to flee.
Before the octopus could retreat, a sudden surge of water rolled over her and slammed her onto the sandy floor. Pinned to the bottom, she was pushed down into the sand. It was as if the moray had somehow felt the need to bury its meal. But the predator’s jaws no longer held her. Binti emerged from the sand, jetted off into a patch of sponges, squeezed under one, adjusted her color, and froze.
With no idea why the predator had released its death grip, the octopus was afraid to even breathe. She tucked what was left of her severed arm beneath her, doing her best to keep her blood from marking her position.
The moray had disappeared. Where did it go? Why did it vanish? the octopus wondered. Perhaps the spirit-fish also didn’t like the timing of Binti’s demise. And then she saw it hovering inside a wide, dark coral cave, staring in her direction. At the moment, it was dressed in gray with black spots. As she watched him, Binti realized that it wasn’t an eel at all. It was Fraco from the cleaning station.
Dangling from the corner of his mouth was the green tail of the moray. What Binti saw next literally caused the octopus to turn white. Hanging from the other side of Fraco’s mouth was Binti’s arm. The massive grouper chomped down one time, sucked in both the tail and the arm, shook his head side to side, and swallowed hard.
Just as the moray had transformed Binti from hunter to hunted, Fraco had transformed the moray. Binti had never been so happy to see the grouper before. He must’ve grabbed it the moment it was about to finish me off, she thought.
But even though Fraco had rescued Binti, seeing her arm disappear down her savior’s throat provided good enough reason to be careful and to stay hidden. The octopus wasn’t at the cleaning station any more. The rules were different out here. Binti would wait—she had all the time in the ocean. After all, she’d just been reborn. Binti turned herself a sandy yellow and hunkered down among the sponges. Life suddenly had a new sweet flavor, like lobster in her lair.
The son of highly educated parents, Kemar spoke several languages. Fluent in his native tongue, he was also comfortable speaking French and English. He could stumble his way through a Chinese dialect or two and some Vietnamese. It was one of the main reasons the boy had been able to survive for so long on his own.
The man in the boat who extended his arm to Kemar was a middle-aged Chinese fisherman. The man smiled and helped the boy into his launch. As he climbed into the boat, the cooler popped up from beneath Kemar and started to float away unnoticed. When he hit the deck, Kemar dropped to his knees, exhausted. The fisherman handed him a water bottle, and the boy drank from it.
Barely an inch taller than the boy, the fisherman wore stiff, dirty pants that reached below his knees but came up well short of his ankles. His arms and legs were thin but seemed quite strong. A pack of cigarettes was stuffed into his soggy shirt pocket. The man’s eyes virtually closed whenever he flashed his narrow, tobacco-stained smile.
Grinning at the boy and nodding approvingly, the fisherman said in passable English, “Am Bao.” He gestured around him. “My boat . . . my reefs.”
Kemar handed back the water bottle. “I think you came just in time . . . Do you know if the water would have gotten much higher?”
Bao looked up at the rising moon, allowed the breeze to blow over him for a moment, and then shook his head. “No, not much higher.”
Kemar mumbled, “I could have made it.”
Bao pointed to the spot where the boy had been perched and said, “Could put you back.”
Suddenly Kemar’s eyes went wide and he shouted, “The cooler! The gold!”
While the word “cooler” had little effect on Bao, the term “gold” seemed to register. He waited anxiously for the boy to expand on the statement.
“It was in the cooler. I was standing on it.”
“Gold? In cooler?” Bao reached for a diving mask and a large lantern.
“It’s in a blue can. It must be floating around here somewhere.”
Instantly, Bao switched the lantern on and combed the swells. He and Kemar leaned over the side, shuffling from stem to stern and starboard to port, hoping to spot the treasure. Off in the distance, Bao locked the bouncing beam of the lantern on something sloshing in the swells.
“There!”
Kemar rushed to Bao’s side. “That’s it!” he yelled.
“Hold light, boy. Bao get boat there.” Bao raced the vessel toward the object like he was chasing a school of tuna on the open sea.
“Hurry! It’s sinking!”
Bao pulled alongside the cooler, gaffed the handle, and pulled it on board all in one smooth motion. The boy picked up the box, turned it upside down, and then faced Bao.
The fisherman said it for him. “Empty.”
The two spent the next forty-five minutes trying desperately to find the gold. All they recovered were a mango and an orange. Dejected, Kemar peeled the orange while Bao turned the boat toward home. Focused on the fruit, the boy didn’t notice his rescuer slip a bleach bottle buoy over the rail to mark the spot.
By
the time they reached the crude bamboo structure that served Bao as a dock, the two had learned a few things about each other. Bao had heard an abridged version of Kemar’s story, listened very carefully about the lost gold, and had formulated some plans for the boy. Kemar had learned that Bao usually liked to come in from the sea under cover of darkness so that others couldn’t see what he’d brought in, or more importantly, how he’d come by his catch.
The boy saw that Bao was fishing with surplus grenades, which explained the explosions Kemar had heard just before Bao appeared. It seemed to be an effective way to fish. Working alone, Bao had returned with a very impressive catch. Kemar helped him unload fish and gear. For the boy, it felt strange to be on land again.
When they were done, the Cambodian asked the fisherman, “Where is this place?”
Bao grunted and said, “Makoona.”
Responding to Kemar’s blank stare, Bao continued, “Knowing name not really help much. Still have no idea where you are.”
“Well, I have an idea,” Kemar countered.
“No, you don’t,” Bao interrupted. “You nowhere.” Then he picked a few loose items off the sand and casually strolled off.
Kemar called out, “Is there somewhere I can get work? Do you know anyone who will hire me?”
Bao turned back. “I just save life.”
“Yes. Thank you again.”
“Say ‘thank you,’ but ask, ‘Is anyone I work for?’ No debt to Bao? Now you safe from sea, and Bao have served purpose? Boy say ‘thanks’ and yet ask to work for another? Has Bao done nothing for you?”
“Well, what would you have me do?”
“No need to give back to Bao?”
“What do I have to give? Would you like my kremar, my shorts, my shirt? That’s all I have.”
Bao was setting the boy up. He knew exactly what he wanted. The time to strike had arrived. “Owe Bao a great debt, agree?”
Reluctantly, Kemar assented. “I guess I do.”