Eye of the Tiger Shark

by Ace Landers

  Oh no, Tammy thought. This is going to be another disaster!

  But then Alex prodded Tammy on the arm and said, “Look!” Two girls were getting out of their seats and making their way toward the table. One girl was tall and redheaded, and the other girl had curly brown hair and tan skin. Tammy recognized them immediately. It was Beckah and the girl from the bathroom!

  Beckah and the girl approached the table.

  “Tammy, Kyle,” Beckah said, smiling big. “It’s so nice to see you.”

  Tammy grimaced. “Hi, Beckah,” she said.

  “Congratulations on the beach cleanup, friends,” Beckah said. “That’s a big undertaking you have there. It’s five dollars each, right? Here’s a ten—Carina and I are very interested in going.”

  Alex took their money. Then he handed them two waivers.

  “I’m Alex, by the way,” he said.

  Beckah gave Alex a once-over, from his eager face to his death metal band T-shirt.

  “Pleasure,” Beckah said, even though it was clear that it wasn’t.

  “See you on the trip,” Carina said. “Bye now!”

  Then they left.

  After Beckah and Carina, there was a stream of other kids. Meg Levitz and Connor Jenkins came up; Steven Agarwal and Norah Giron. Even some of the eighth graders, led by Carolyn Cho, stopped by. Tammy couldn’t contain herself. It was basically the entire school!

  “As much as they seem to hate the Marine Science Club, they seem to love beach field trips,” Alex said, bemused.

  “This is going to be the best field trip ever!” Tammy exclaimed.

  After all the waivers and cash were collected, it was time to plan. Over the weekend, the three MSC members met. They pre-ordered enough pizza slices from Alex’s parents for the kids, and found some biodegradable trash bags to pick up debris. Then Kyle had the brilliant idea of also holding a contest. The kid who picked up the most trash would win a gift card to the pizza shop!

  On Alex’s side of things, he worked with his parents to make sure they weren’t creating a lot of waste. He was adamant that they not use any plastic straws, not just for the beach day but for any day.

  “Did you know that plastic straws are the eleventh most-littered item in the ocean?” Alex told anyone who would listen. “And they take up to two hundred years to decompose. That’s two whole lifetimes!”

  Tammy had even taken it upon herself to go down to Tiburon Cove over the weekend. She hadn’t seen the sharks, but she did see the same seagull as before.

  “If you see my friends, can you tell them about our beach cleanup?” she asked. If the sharks visited, and showed everyone how friendly they were … that would mean a lot for the MSC!

  The plan was in motion. And soon, the day of the field trip came.

  •

  Hammerhead was working on her flying suit when Mako swam over to her.

  I think the seagull wants to tell you something, Mako bubbled.

  The seagull? From before? Hammerhead’s spirits lifted! If it was the seagull, maybe it was a message from the humans!

  Hammerhead and Mako went zooming through the water, eager to meet the seagull at Tiburon Cove.

  A playful eel squiggled past Mako and bristled with electricity. Before anyone could say “shocking shark,” Mako took off after the eel. He chased it and tried to chomp it, but every time he caught the eel, a sharp snap of electricity surged through him. Hammerhead shook with laughter as Mako turned himself into a shark X-ray over and over again with each shock. ZAP! SNAP! ZIZZ! ZOW!

  Finally, the eel zipped away, leaving Mako energized but happy. As he swam back over to Hammerhead, Mako crackled with massive volts of eel electricity.

  Hammerhead smiled. She loved her ridiculous friend. Shark life would be pretty boring without Mako—and without Porbeagle, of course.

  Speaking of Porbeagle, they found him basking in some coral. He saw his friends and flopped over, eager and ready to join on their new expedition.

  As they continued swimming, a rush of bubbles blew by them. Porbeagle’s tongue hung out of his mouth as he happily chomped at the bubbles, but Hammerhead had a bad feeling about this. She’d seen these bubbles before. They came from the wake of a bigger shark. A faster shark. The kind of shark that she had wanted to avoid.

  Then a large orange shark darted out of the trench. He stopped in front of Hammerhead and flexed his muscles, showing off to the others. Hammerhead groaned.

  It was Tiger Shark.

  Hello, friends, Tiger Shark breathed. What are we doing today?

  We’re just enjoying ourselves, Hammerhead communicated back. Don’t mind us.

  Hammerhead tried to keep on her way, but Tiger decided to follow. He coughed up a fish bone and used it as a comb, running it over his gills. Hammerhead had to admit that this move made him look cool, but she was not going to clap for him. He wasn’t the center of attention.

  She swam around him again, then felt a tap on her shoulder. With a deep breath, she turned around ready to scream at him, but Tiger was too interested.

  I have nothing to do. I want to join you, Tiger motioned back.

  Well, you can’t. We have a secret club, said Hammerhead.

  A secret club?

  Now Porbeagle started bounding around excitedly.

  It’s called the Terrestrial Science Club. We meet with humans above the sea!

  Hammerhead almost wished she had a video camera to record Tiger’s reaction.

  Tiger at first thought they were joking. He even pretended to laugh. He smiled at them, showing his big, toothy grin. But when he realized they weren’t joking, his amusement quickly turned to horror. Humans? Tiger seemed to say. Humans?

  In the shark world, humans are just as scary as sharks are to humans. Humans pollute the ocean, and they fish the sharks, and they fish the fish that the sharks eat, making them have less food. Not to mention, they had big, scary boat-things. Tiger didn’t like boat-things. No shark did.

  Well, now I have to go with you! Tiger motioned back. If I don’t, who is going to protect you three?

  Tiger flashed another deathly smile, showing off all his chomping teeth.

  Hammerhead wanted to protest, but before she opened her jaw, she saw something gray and graceful flittering above the water. It was the seagull!

  Hammerhead and the other three sharks poked their heads up. The seagull gave them great news: The kids were coming back! And they were bringing a whole bunch of other kids too!

  Tiger couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The beach was going to be flooded with measly, unruly, ungrateful humans? And Hammerhead, Mako, and Porbeagle didn’t even care?

  Consider me the fourth member of the Terrestrial Science Club, Tiger motioned back. Tiger may have been the biggest, meanest shark in the sea, but he cared about his friends deeply. He didn’t want them getting hurt. I’m going on this beach trip if it’s the last thing I do, thought Tiger.

  Hammerhead really, really, really wished that Tiger hadn’t joined her friends. It’s not that Hammerhead didn’t like Tiger (Tiger definitely had his good days), Hammerhead just didn’t want him disrupting the flow of things. Especially not when their interactions with the humans were so good. But now that he knew about the humans’ Beach Day! plan, Hammerhead knew there was no way to shake him off.

  We’ll just have to make sure he doesn’t bite anyone, Hammerhead thought. Or scare anyone. ’Cuz that would be—Hammerhead gulped—bad.

  On the day of the beach trip, Hammerhead glanced at her reflection in the mirror on her pirate ship. She wanted to make sure she looked nice and spiffy and totally not scary. Which is probably not hard for a human to do—but beyond hard for a shark!

  With Mako and Porbeagle’s help, Hammerhead tied Tammy’s ribbon into a bow. Then they used a comb to put it on top of Hammerhead’s head, right between her two eyes. Hammerhead felt a little silly, but even Porbeagle said she looked nice!

  When they were ready, the three sharks went to Tiburon Cove together. A
nd of course, Tiger followed.

  They’re really your friends? Tiger bubbled.

  Aye, Mako responded.

  Tiger shrugged. He promised that if the humans played nice, then he would too. But Hammerhead wasn’t sure if that’s what Tiger really thought. She was skeptical, to say the least.

  Meanwhile, Tammy, Alex, and Kyle were at the beach. They announced the contest to everyone: The kid who cleaned up the most litter would win a gift card to the pizzeria!

  Wahoo! Hooray! Yippee! the kids cheered.

  I guess that’s the answer to everything, Tammy thought. Field trips where you miss school … and get pizza.

  The three MSC members passed out bags for everyone to collect trash. And then they were on their way.

  On the boardwalk, Tammy found a lot of gross stuff. She picked up Italian ice cream cups, discarded sunscreen bottles, and even some plastic containers from the burrito shop a mile away.

  Alex collected some things too. He and Kyle shared a bag, and together they found tons of water bottles, unused Band-Aids, and gum wrappers.

  “Any of this stuff could have trapped Porbeagle,” Alex said sadly, glancing down at his pile. “I’m glad that now it won’t.”

  Tammy agreed. She wondered what her grandfather would think. He was a marine biologist in Japan, and he was the person who got her interested in the field to begin with. When Tammy grew up, she wanted to be just like him.

  Tammy walked down the beach, eager to see what everyone else had collected. She found Miranda Quinones down by the shore.

  “Any luck?” Tammy asked Miranda.

  Miranda made a face.

  “I found a candy wrapper,” she said, pointing to a sole candy wrapper inside her bag. “Pretty gross, yeah?”

  “Super gross,” Tammy said. Then she flashed a smile at her. “Thanks for nabbing it!”

  Annabel Magno had a huge collection of soda cans in her bag. Ashton Amarado had even more. So did Bex Kubila and Justin Harmond. The more Tammy walked, the more kids she saw collecting trash. The kids at Waverly Middle School were giving back. They were doing something. Tammy felt amazing!

  She almost wasn’t even bothered by the group of kids gathered on the beach who were not picking up trash. It seemed like those kids, a group of ten or so, had decided the beach trip was more about suntanning and having fun. They even had a volleyball out.

  Almost not bothered.

  That’s completely awful, Tammy thought. Who would even do such a thing?

  Tammy knew just what she had to do. She waltzed over to their camp. And when she got there, she recognized Leo McCormack instantly. His big, hulking figure could be picked out in a crowd anywhere.

  “Leo!” Tammy called. “You’re not helping out?”

  Leo was wearing a pair of giant sunglasses. He saw Tammy and tried to ignore her. But Tammy was not very good at being ignored.

  “Leo McCormack!” Tammy screeched. She screeched so loud that all of Leo’s friends turned and looked. Tammy gulped. Two of Leo’s friends were Beckah and the redheaded girl, Carina.

  Beckah’s sunk this low too? Tammy thought.

  Leo faced Tammy, held up a soda, and shrugged.

  “A beach day is a beach day,” he said nonchalantly.

  Tammy could feel her face hot and red, and she didn’t think it was because of her sunburn.

  “You, out of everybody here, should be helping us clean the beach,” Tammy said, loud enough so that everyone could listen. “After all, you’ve seen the sharks!”

  The other kids stopped what they were doing. They all looked at Leo.

  “You’ve seen the sharks?” Beckah repeated. Her gaze kept darting back and forth between Leo and Tammy. “Leo, what is this nonsense?”

  Leo took a deep sigh.

  “I mean, I—” He took a glance at Tammy. “Yeah. I’ve seen the sharks.”

  There was a collective oomf.

  “Oh my gosh,” Beckah muttered quickly. “Everyone, Leo is in on this too! The marine science hogwash!” The other kids started giggling.

  “No, I’ve really seen the sharks,” Leo replied. “I’m not a liar.”

  Beckah continued laughing. The horde of other kids laughed too. One of them even called him Lion Shark.

  “Leo, Leo, fins on fire,” chanted a boy with slick brown hair.

  “Dudes, stop teasing,” said Leo. “You don’t believe me? Fine. I’ll prove it.” There was a collective gasp. “Follow me. We’re going to Tiburon Cove.”

  Tammy, along with other kids including Carina, Beckah, and Leo, all entered Tiburon Cove. Immediately, the kids started complaining. “It smells like rotten eggs!” Carina called out. “This place stinks worse than Principal Sutker’s socks!” called another. “Ew, ew, ew!”

  Tammy didn’t like the idea of bringing everyone to meet the sharks—she wanted their interaction to be far more organic, and ideally with people she knew would be respectful—but she was also tired of being labeled a fraud. Now was her chance to prove that she wasn’t.

  “You get used to it,” she told them. “Now, shush. Be patient. They’ll be here. There’s three of them—a hammerhead, a mako, and a porbeagle shark.”

  They waited for a few minutes but nothing happened.

  “I’m outta here,” said Carina. “My nose can’t take it anymore. I think it’s going to fall off because it smells so bad in here.”

  “That’s because Leo farted!” said another kid, someone Tammy recognized named Reina Gaboor. Tammy did not think very highly of Reina.

  Suddenly, there was bubbling coming up from the ocean. Tammy braced herself. This was it! This was Hammerhead, come to prove to everyone that they were wrong about the MSC!

  “Hammerhead!” Tammy called out, running toward the bubbling. She crossed her fingers, hoping that she wouldn’t trip. Thankfully, she didn’t. She was right beside the bubbling, gazing out, when her heart sank.

  The fin that poked out of the water was not Hammerhead’s fin.

  Nor was it Mako’s.

  Nor was it Porbeagle’s.

  No, this was another shark’s fin.

  “That’s a tiger shark!” came a voice. Alex had joined the group. “Everyone, stay back!”

  Of course, the kids did the opposite of listen.

  “Oh, it’s so cute,” Beckah said. “Can we go see it? I want to take a selfie with her, that’ll look so good in the paper—”

  “No. No. NO!” shouted Tammy. “I don’t know that shark. I’ve never seen it before. It might be dangerous. In fact, it’s probably dangerous. NO ONE go near him.”

  Carina pretended she couldn’t hear her.

  “Becks, can you pass me your phone? I put it in your backpack. I need to snap this.”

  Tammy exchanged a helpless look with Alex, as if to say, I need you. Thankfully, Alex came to her call.

  “Tiger sharks eat everything, from fish to birds to squid to seals to turtles to even other sharks,” Alex told everyone. “We gotta go. Now.”

  Beckah squared her eyes on Leo. “Leo, you said you met these sharks, right? Well, now’s your chance to prove it. Reach out and pet him.”

  “Stop!” Tammy yelled, but it was too late.

  Leo stuck his hand out toward the tiger shark. It swam instinctively toward him, bared its teeth, and then … wham!

  Out of nowhere, another shark came and smacked itself right into the tiger shark!

  “Hammerhead!” Tammy screeched. She could recognize her odd-shaped shark friend anywhere.

  Tammy bent down to Hammerhead and reached out. But she noticed that Hammerhead wasn’t swimming toward her. And there was something red glistening in the ocean.

  Hammerhead might have jumped in front of the tiger shark to save Leo, but she also got hurt in the process. Her dorsal fin was badly damaged.

  “Oh no, no, no, no,” Tammy screeched. Her friend was hurting. What was she going to do?

  •

  Hammerhead’s vision was blurry. All she knew was that she’d jum
ped in front of Tiger and a kid. Tiger was prepared to bite, and Hammerhead could not let that happen.

  Of course, Tiger was also a strong shark. His bite had injured her fin significantly. Hammerhead might have saved the kid, but her whole left side felt terrible.

  Hammerhead! screeched Mako from beneath the sea. You’re hurt.

  Hammerhead wanted to bubble back a “yes,” but she felt too much in pain. Instead, she squared her eyes on Tiger.

  How could you do this? Hammerhead sounded. We trusted you. We took you into our club!

  The kids were dangerous, Tiger replied. They could have just as easily hurt you. That one reached out to me and it looked like he wanted to attack! I wanted to make sure they didn’t bother us again.

  Hammerhead did not agree with Tiger, but at least she understood. Tiger really hadn’t meant any harm. The kid had approached Tiger, not the other way around. It only made sense.

  As Hammerhead started to drift in near-consciousness, she could feel a paddling at the top of the water. What was that? Hammerhead thought. She looked up and it was Tammy, trying to reach her.

  I understand where you’re coming from, what you’ve been led to believe, but these kids aren’t dangerous, Tiger, Hammerhead motioned back. They’re trying to help. They’re trying to be our friends. And now … now I need some help.

  Hammerhead closed her eyes. There was only one thing left to do.

  As swiftly as possible, Hammerhead floated up. Right to Tammy, right to where the water met the sky.

  Wow, thought Porbeagle.

  His friend was flying.

  •

  When Hammerhead reached the top, Tammy dashed into the water. She didn’t care how ridiculous she looked, or what Beckah and Carina and Leo might say, or whatever else happened. All Tammy knew was that her friend was in trouble. And she needed to help her.

  Tammy cradled Hammerhead in her arms. Then she got an idea.

  “Beckah,” Tammy called out. “You’re the only one here who has my grandfather’s phone number. Can you call him, please? He’ll know someone who can help.”