Carrie’s dad comes in from the garage carrying his golf clubs. “Ah, the sweet smell of brownies,” he says, picking up a fork to attack the tray.
Carrie fends him off with her spatula. “I can’t believe Mom let you out of the house in those pants,” she says, eyeing his turquoise plaid.
He strikes a pose for our benefit. “They almost distracted people from my golf score. What do you think, Kendra?”
“I think you’re lucky Judy and her crew are still down at Paco’s,” I say.
“I’ll have to get used to the spotlight, what with you practically living here these days.”
He’s exaggerating. I have been over more often lately, but that’s only because Carrie and I have a lot to talk about. It’s not like I’m hoping to run into anyone I couldn’t run into at the Mulligans, if he stayed where he belonged.
Carrie swats her father with the spatula. “Dad.”
“What?” he says. “Who wouldn’t want a camera crew underfoot all the time?”
Calvin slides into the kitchen in dirty sweat socks. “Brownies!”
“For our guest,” Carrie says, moving them out of his reach. “Not for you.”
“Kendra’s not a guest, she’s here all the time,” Calvin says, doing a double take at the sight of my hair. “Yow! What’s with the lid?”
Horrified, Carrie applies the spatula to her brother as well. But the teasing doesn’t faze me like it used to. The Mulligans are building my tolerance, whether I like it or not.
Calvin pulls a bag of cookies and some chips out of the pantry. “You look like Cruella De Vil on a bad day.”
“Now, son,” Mr. Watson says, as Calvin moves on to unload the refrigerator. “You just keep your mind on eating me into the poorhouse.”
“There’s two of us,” Calvin says. “I’m fixing Mitch’s laptop.” Tucking a couple of sodas under his chin, he backs away. “How was your company tournament?”
“Embarrassed myself as usual,” Mr. Watson says. “We have one of the finest courses in the world right next door in Carmel, and it’s wasted on me.”
“Don’t tell Mitch you golfed Boulder Beach,” Calvin says.
“Why would he care?” Carrie asks.
Calvin shrugs as he leaves the kitchen. “Something to do with otters. What else is new?”
I tell Carrie about how angry Lisa got the other day during a phone call that somehow related to golf. “She banned me not long after that.”
“Well, if you want back into that aquarium, I know someone who can help.”
* * *
Carrie knocks on Calvin’s door.
“What?” he shouts.
“Kendra and I want to talk to Mitch.”
Silence. Whispering. Fragments reach our ears.
“…climb out the window.”
“…not worth a broken arm, man.”
“…closet…?”
“…hockey gear…I could suffocate.”
Carrie pounds on the door. “We can hear you, losers.”
“Can’t it wait?” Calvin calls. “We’re still fixing the laptop.”
“Sure,” Carrie says, “But I have brownies.”
Calvin opens the door and tries to snatch the plate, but Carrie shoulders her way in. I follow, stopping dead in my tracks when I see the condition of Calvin’s room. It’s a hellhole. The bunk beds are unmade, and clothes, books, and electronic equipment are strewn everywhere. Calvin has to shove a half-eaten pizza aside with one foot to make room to stretch out on the floor. The entire room is like a scratch-and-sniff version of one of Jackson Pollock’s busy, paint-splattered canvases.
“You prefer this to your own home?” I ask Mitch. His bedroom at the Mulligans’ is off limits to everyone, but I caught a glimpse of it once, and from what I could see, he’s a neat freak.
“There are no cameras here,” Mitch says, glaring at me. “At least, there weren’t until you started stalking me.”
Stalking him! I turn to leave, but Carrie grabs my wrist. “Mitch, Kendra wants you to talk to Lisa about lifting her ban at the aquarium.”
Mitch pops an entire brownie into his mouth before asking almost unintelligibly, “Why doesn’t Kendra ask me that herself?”
I consider swatting him in the head with Calvin’s plastic light saber, but I know I’m going to have to suck it up. “Will you talk to Lisa for me?”
He gives Calvin a chocolately grin. “Did you hear the magic word?”
“I don’t think I did,” Calvin says, helping himself to a second brownie.
I grit my teeth. “Please?”
Mitch stalls a bit longer before saying, “I guess I could try. Lisa and I have plans tomorrow anyway.”
I wonder if he means a date, but he starts to explain—to Calvin, not me—that Lisa is collecting water and marine vegetation samples from locations along the coast as part of her graduate fieldwork. So far, she’s found that toxin levels are higher the closer you get to the Boulder Beach Golf Club. Her theory is that this is caused by runoff from the pesticides and fertilizers used to keep the club’s fairways green.
A few days ago, Lisa learned that Boulder Beach has bought a tract of prime oceanfront property and plans to move its fourteenth hole to this new location. Because it will sit above a partially enclosed cove, she believes the “chemical soup” will be concentrated enough to poison the food chain larger marine mammals depend upon. What’s more, the fertilizer runoff may foster kelp growth, which will attract more otters to the area.
“Will otters die from eating the tainted food?” Carrie asks.
“It’s possible,” Mitch says. “And the toxins could also affect their ability to reproduce. Either way, it won’t help build their population.”
“I’m sure the club’s owners wouldn’t move the hole if they knew it would cause so much damage,” I say.
Mitch rolls his eyes. “The club spent millions on that land. They’re not going to care about a few otters more or less.”
“Can’t Lisa at least call the owners and talk about it?” I ask.
“She has her own plan,” he says. “She’s going to collect evidence and then approach the Ocean Conservancy to lobby the state to shut down the fourteenth hole.”
“But won’t that take years?”
He nods.
“Then forget science. Why doesn’t she start up a protest group instead?”
“Because she’s an academic, not an activist.”
“Maybe we could do it.”
“We?” Calvin asks.
Mitch doesn’t say anything, so I keep talking. “Yeah. Maybe we can find a way to make them care. We can’t give in to some rich guy swinging an eighteen-carat gold club.”
“Gold clubs would bend,” Mitch says.
Why do guys take everything so literally? “My point is that animals don’t have a voice. We need to raise ours for them.” I’m really starting to warm up to the idea now.
He isn’t convinced. “I’ve watched my parents take on the establishment, and I know a battle like that can take years, too. Science might actually be faster.”
“That sounds pretty cynical coming from someone who said he wants to leave this planet a little better for the next guy,” I say.
He stares over my shoulder, lost in thought. Finally he says, “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to try.”
Carrie points to the brownie in his hand. “He’s not eating. That means he thinks it’s a great idea.”
He bites into the brownie. “It means it’s worth exploring.”
“In other words,” Carrie translates, “Kendra, you’re brilliant.”
Mitch starts packing up his computer. “I’ll run it by Lisa.”
“Why look, your laptop is suddenly fixed,” I say. “It’s like magic. If you’d prefer to climb out the window, I can carry it home for you.”
“You’re funny,” he says, leading me into the hall.
“And also brilliant,” Carrie yells after us.
“Get out of my room,” Calv
in tells her. “We were having a good time until you showed up.”
Mitch stands behind me, watching with his arms crossed as I tape a flyer to a lamppost on Alvarado Street.
“Add more tape,” he says. “Gale force winds can spring up out of nowhere.”
He’s being sarcastic, but I wrap another yard of clear packing tape around the post anyway. “I’m not taking any chances. We want a good turnout.”
The flyers are advertising the first meeting of our new protest group, Team 14.
By “our,” I really mean Lisa’s. And by “protest,” I really mean “public education.”
Lisa initially dismissed the idea, probably because Mitch told her it was mine. Once she recognized the endless opportunities it would give her to stun people with her knowledge and credentials, however, she was on it like an otter on a pound of squid. She even gave in when Mitch pressured her to let me come back to the aquarium, but only after reminding him that he’s supposed to supervise me.
This time he’s taking that order more seriously, because he volunteered to come with me to put up posters today. Bob and Chili are shadowing us, but Judy is sleeping off the margaritas she enjoyed at Paco’s grand opening.
I twist the tape gun to the side and try to slice the thick tape against the sharp edge. The tape pops out of its dispenser, uncoiling as it hits the ground. I gather it up until it’s wadded together in a filthy ball.
“May I?” Mitch asks.
“No,” I say, wrestling with the tape a bit longer. “I can handle it.”
“Obviously,” he says, whipping out a pocketknife and cutting the tape. “But fortunately you don’t have to do it alone, because I, Mitch Mulligan, am a postering expert, and I’m willing to share my techniques with you at no cost.”
“Zoom in, Bob,” I say. “This is going to be gripping.”
Mitch holds a poster against the window of a diner. “First, select a good location and place the poster at eye level. Then take out your properly loaded tape gun, which makes dispensing a breeze. When improperly loaded…well, you saw what happened.” With a deft movement, he secures a corner of the flyer to the window with a small piece of tape. “It’s all in the angle and the wrist.”
While Mitch is addressing the camera, a man in a white apron comes up to the window inside the diner and raps sharply on the glass. Mitch jumps, sending his tape gun crashing to the sidewalk.
The man opens the door. “What are you doing to my window?”
Mitch offers the man a flyer. “We’re promoting—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” the man says. “You’re defacing private property. I’m calling the cops.”
“No need, sir,” I interject. “We’ll take it down.”
The man glances from me to the cameras and back again. “I recognize you. You’re that kid from The Black Sheep.”
I step forward to shake his hand. “Kendra Bishop.”
“Love the show,” the guy says. “Especially because it’s local. When you said good-bye to your little otter friend…”—he pauses to thump a fist against his heart—“it got me right here.”
I squirt a squiggly line of ketchup across my French fries and look up at Mitch, who’s sitting opposite me in the booth. “Is this okay? Or do you want to demonstrate the proper technique?”
“If you take that attitude, there’s nothing I can do to help you,” he says, grinning as he bites into a grilled cheese sandwich.
“I don’t need help, I’m doing fine on my own,” I say, pointing to the row of flyers across the diner’s window, plus the ones on the bulletin board behind the counter. “You’re the one who almost ended up in custody.”
“He wouldn’t have called the cops,” Mitch scoffs.
“Because I won him over,” I say. After I signed the owner’s apron and had my picture taken with him, he offered all of us a free meal. Bob and Chili were only too happy to put down their equipment and get busy on a couple of burgers. “I know it hurts to thank me, but—”
“For someone who claims she didn’t join the show for the fame, you seem to enjoy the attention.”
“For someone with such high principles, you seem to be enjoying your free lunch,” I counter.
“You’ve got a point,” he says. After chewing in silence a moment, he adds, “Maybe I overreacted about the whole kayaking thing.”
“Overreacted?” I say. “Is that the best you can do?”
“Judy pulled her circus into my private—”
“I know and I felt awful about it,” I interrupt. “But you’re going to have to lighten up about the crew if we’re working on Team Fourteen together. I’m under contract, as Judy keeps reminding me, and I can’t control her.”
He nods reluctantly. “Okay.”
“And would it kill you to be a little less grumpy?”
“Grumpy?” He looks surprised. “That’s just who I am.”
“That’s not always who you are,” I say. He tries to sprinkle vinegar on my fries, and I pull them away. “Promise.”
“I promise to try not to be grumpy.”
I push the fries toward him. “Good. Now, promise to take everything I say seriously and admit that I’m smarter than you.”
“Who asked what time otters get up?”
Black Sheep Rule Number Thirteen: Quit while you’re ahead.
The diner’s owner plies Bob and Chili with more pie at my request, thereby giving Mitch and me a little more time to chat.
“Since you’re so smart, you must have big plans for your future,” Mitch says.
“Plans?” I can’t even imagine what life will be like after the show ends and I’m back in New York. I want it to be different from what I left behind, but I’m not entirely sure how yet. “You mean, when I graduate from high school?”
He nods. “You must have thought about it.”
“Not really.” I wish I had a more interesting answer, because he’s known what he wants to do with his life since he was Egg’s age. “If I hadn’t come to California, I probably would have given in to my parents and become a banker.”
“But you did come, so now what?”
“I’m still figuring it out, but banking is officially off the list.”
Black Sheep Rule Number Fourteen: Design your own future.
“Maybe you could be an art critic for The New York Times,” Mitch suggests.
I look up to see if he’s making fun of me, but he appears to be serious. “An art critic?”
“Why not? You know a lot about art and you have opinions.”
He thinks I have opinions! Opinions are good. Opinions mean I have a personality. “Well, I don’t know enough for that.”
“Maybe not yet, but you could study art in college. If you’re interested enough, you’ll want to learn all there is to know. At least, that’s been my experience.”
He reaches for the remains of my blueberry pie and finishes it in three mouthfuls. It astounds me how much he can eat, but I’m glad he feels comfortable enough with me now to take food off my plate.
“I’m not sure I’m that interested in art.”
“Well, think of something else, then. My parents always tell us to ‘follow our passion.’”
Passion? I don’t even know what passion feels like. But as I watch Mitch drink the rest of my soda, it occurs to me that I might get the chance to find out while I’m here.
In just a few short days, Team 14 has grown to two dozen members. Lisa has set up the “head office” in the only room at the aquarium big enough to hold us and the equipment we need: the supply room. There are no windows and it smells like stale otter, but it has phones, two computers, and space for everyone to work. At the moment, Carrie and Meadow are stuffing envelopes with flyers, while Tia and a few others are painting posters.
The janitor wheels in another desk. “Where do you want it, Kendra?”
I’m the one in charge right now, because Lisa took Mitch with her to gather more samples. I point to Tia, who is sitting on the fl
oor using an empty otter kennel as a makeshift work surface. “Over there, please.”
Judy hops onto the desk to claim it when it comes off the dolly. “Finally!”
Tia stares at her.
“What, you think you’ve got it bad?” Judy asks. “I thought I’d seen the last of these clammy walls, but if KB insists on running her little campaign out of here, I’m going to need somewhere to keep my things.” She sets her coffee cup on the desk and slides her purse into a drawer.
“Judy, off,” I say, crossing the room. Tia has absolutely no interest in marine life, but she was kind enough to volunteer her time and her artistic talent. The girl deserves a desk. “You can store your stuff in my desk.”
“Excuse me, Miss Bossy Boots.” Judy follows me back to my desk. “I am the producer of this show. I should have my own desk.”
“I’m the star of your show and I should have my own bedroom, but that didn’t happen either, did it?” I ask. “It’s a tight squeeze here, so we have to share. Which reminds me, since you’re taking up space, how about rolling up your sleeves to help?”
“I’m here to document, not participate, remember?”
“I notice you participate when you feel like it. When there’s free booze, for example.”
“Well, excuse me if I’m not moved by seals. If you’d found a more compelling cause, I might be stuffing some envelopes.”
I slap a pile of flyers and another of envelopes in front of her. “I want to see some paper cuts, fast.”
“And I want to see an attitude adjustment, now. This is a supply room, KB, not the White House.” She tosses the envelopes back to me. “You haven’t been yourself since you joined this group.”
I take that as a compliment. If Judy can’t accept the new Kendra Bishop—the one who has the guts to transform herself from low-key conformist into hell-raising activist—that’s her problem. All I’d seriously aspired to with Black Sheepism was to conquer my fears on what the rest of the flock thought about me. I wanted to become more independent, but I never had any ambition to lead the flock myself. Yet, here I am, with people looking to me for advice and direction.
“Kendra,” Meadow says, “can I call the golf club?”
“I think it’s better if I keep trying,” I tell her. Meadow looks disappointed. Though only ten, she has none of my insecurities. Wait till she hits puberty. “Hey,” I say, leaning in for a closer look. “Are those eyelashes fake?”
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