Shark Wars (4 page)

AFTER SWIMMING FOR THE REST OF THE NIGHT—
the sun was rising by the time Gray and Barkley got back—they reached the reef. How had they gotten so far away?

The worst part was the place was in an uproar. Gray hoped in vain it wasn't because of them.

Of course he was very, very wrong.

Atlas led the Line, along with many other shiver sharks, in a ragged, three-level triangle formation. That was weird. Gray had never seen them do that. What did it mean? They certainly didn't look happy, though.

“Gray!” cried his mom. “Are you all right?” She tried to swim ahead of Atlas but was slowed by Quickeyes and Onyx.

Atlas gave her a hard look. “Sandy, please.” Gray's mom nodded, and the Coral Shiver leader spoke again, “Gray, Barkley—are you okay?” Quickeyes and Onyx swam overhead, watching the distant waters. Why were they doing that?

“We are,” answered Barkley. Gray quickly agreed with his friend.

“Now tell me exactly where you were, and anything that happened,” Atlas ordered. Gray had never seen the old bull shark so…
commanding
before. Barkley told the story with Gray adding bits and pieces. Oddly, the more the story went on, the angrier Atlas and the others became. Except Gray's mom. She got scared.

A full council of all the reef dwellers was called. The sharks of Coral Shiver wanted to make the decision by themselves but were overruled by Prime Minister Shocks. Shocks would have probably let Atlas, Sandy, and the others in Line hand out Gray's punishment, but the other reef dwellers demanded their say.

Gray wasn't sure what was happening, exactly, but his mom was even more upset than yesterday. Quickeyes and Onyx took turns staring at Gray as if they wanted to eat him. Overbiter was busy gnawing on his own tail fin. He used to be second in the Line years ago and sometimes didn't remember he wasn't a member of the council anymore. Atlas and the rest never said anything and let him stay. Supposedly he had been a great warrior long ago. Yeah, right.

Shocks sent a weak bolt of electricity arcing into the water, calling everyone in the area to attention. Gray had never seen so many dweller leaders gathered at one time! There were all kinds of fish; tangs, grouper, lantern fish, angelfish, hatchet fish, clown fish, puffers, wrasse, frog fish, sunfish, doctor, and surgeonfish. Every other non-fish dweller seemed to be here too: big and small rays, eels of all sizes and colors, anemones, urchins, shellheads, turtles, and many, many others.

This would be really neat if I wasn't the reason they were here, Gray thought as he floated above the flat stone that was traditionally known as Speakers Rock. It didn't seem like he would get to speak, but there was no good area for everyone to see him otherwise, so Atlas allowed it.

Barkley was asked questions by the manta rays, their pilot fish nearby. Some of these rays were wider than Gray, and their larger cousins, the giants, were bigger in all ways. Supposedly rays were distant cousins of sharkkind from prehistore times. He didn't really believe it as they weren't very good hunters, living mostly on floating greenie, krill, and shellheads. They did have really cool stingers, but didn't use them for hunting. What a waste!

Gray watched his mother become more and more agitated as Prime Minister Shocks spoke with her. Gray wished he could hear, but they were in a place where the currents masked their conversation. The other dwellers who could listen in seemed satisfied, though. Suddenly the current shifted, and Gray could hear parts of what his mom and Shocks were talking about.

“You know what's out there!” his mother said. “Battle shivers are on the move! The Indi King's armada—”

The tide shifted, and Gray could only hear Shock's reply in bits, “…are only rumors!”

Battle shivers? That was the kind of intensely interesting stuff Gray always wanted to hear about—the stuff adults whispered and then stopped discussing whenever he or Barkley got close. For a moment Gray thought his mother was going to bite the distinguished eel. Shocks spoke to the next group of dwellers, and pretty soon everyone
except
Gray knew what was happening.

Come on!

Atlas and the other sharkkind in the Line tried to calm his mom, but it wasn't working. Gray felt awful. Why do I keep disappointing her? She broke free and swam toward him. Prime Minster Shocks tried to get ahead of her, but she left the eel tumbling in her wake with a furious tail stroke. “That's totally out of order, Sandy!” he harrumphed.

“I want a minute with my son!” she yelled, close to tears, her barbels quivering. After a stare down, Shocks gave her a curt nod. She approached Gray and said, “Just tell the truth, okay? We'll get through this.”

Get through what? he wondered. Gray was becoming irritated. A growing shark has to eat! They couldn't punish him for that. But a creeping feeling in his belly told him that they could.

Prime Minister Shocks let off another low-voltage attention grabber that quieted everyone. “Gray, please swim over here so everyone can listen to you answer my questions.”

“Umm, sure.” Gray moved to the area where the current would catch his words and broadcast them.

“Why did you leave the reef homewaters last night?” Shocks asked.

Everyone was listening and watching intently and Gray became nervous. “I, umm, I mean, we—” He looked over at Barkley. “We saw some fish and got hungry. They were mixed with shrimp, very delicious, by the way, and also—”

The gathered dwellers' whispering rose in volume as Shocks cut him off. “But wasn't it
you
who convinced your friend to go? In fact, didn't he say that you shouldn't leave the reef?”

“Well, yeah. But he's always trying to keep me from doing fun stuff—” Gray stopped in confusion as the murmurs from the dwellers got louder, in some cases surging to outright yelling. Except for his mother. She was crying now. Atlas glared again. Gray continued with his point, speaking over the crowd so he would be heard. “Hey, I was hungry!” For some reason this made things much worse.

Shocks zapped the water with a heavy charge to quiet the crowd enough so he could speak. “ORDER!” he yelled. “I will have order!” The eel turned to Gray. “Is that why you left the reef and drew the attention of a tiger shark, who was himself a member of a shiver? Because you were hungry?”

“Umm, well, I didn't go out there with the intention of meeting anyone, but, yes, I was hungry.”

“So you put your hunger ahead of the safety of everyone on the reef. Is that right? I hope you're at least full!”

It took a moment for Gray to realize what he was being asked. Unfortunately, his mouth was already speaking. “I'm still a little hungry but—wait-—what?”

The gathered dwellers exploded, everyone shouting, clacking their claws, basically making any loud noise they could as a sign of their anger. Prime Minster Shocks futilely shot electrical charges into the water. He needed to call the rest of his eel friends to raise the voltage before he got everyone's attention and order was restored.

“Mom!” said Gray as she swam close to him. “I'm really sorry! I'm—”

She cut him off with a slash of her tail. “I know you are, Gray. Look, there's something I haven't told you. You're going to have a brother and a sister.”

“What?!”

His mother was much sadder than he would expect her to be as she told him the news. “You're going to be a big brother. Oh, Gray, I'm so sorry.” She sobbed.

“Why are you sorry? Why are you crying?” he asked. “This is great! I've always wanted brothers and sisters!” Then Gray grew confused. “I really am happy, but why are you telling me now? I don't exactly get it.”

There were tears in his mother's eyes as she said, “Because that's the reason I can't go with you!”

“Go with me? Where?”

Sandy was led away by Atlas and the other sharks in the Coral Shiver Line. “Meet me at the Tuna Run! Prove yourself as a strong and good hunter and they'll take you back!” The noise grew so loud that Gray could no longer hear his mother.

The Tuna Run! He was allowed to go! But what did she mean by take him back?

He grew cold and afraid as Prime Minister Shocks swam near Speakers Rock directly in front of Gray. It was then he noticed that Barkley was also blubbering. This isn't going to be good, he thought.

Shocks cleared his throat to speak. There was absolute silence now. “Gray, you've endangered the shiver because of your own selfish desires. If this was the first time you needed to be disciplined it might be different. But it isn't, so…” Shocks looked at him sadly but pronounced the sentence in a clear voice. “You are hereby banished from Coral Shiver!”

THE WORD ECHOED IN GRAY'S EARS LIKE THE TIDES.

Banished.

Prime Minister Shock's word was law by the reef, and even though Gray was a big fish, the sentence would be carried out. The octos from the octopus clan were waiting with their foul jets of black ink if he didn't obey. And the seedier bottom feeders who lived on the dark side of the reef—Orin the scorpion fish and his friends came to mind—were poisonous enough to send even Gray to the Sparkle Blue if he caused trouble. Aside from his mom and Barkley, Gray's only ally was Yappy! And that was only because Yappy's family couldn't
stop
him from talking. Not until they caught him, anyway.

For a moment Gray almost chuckled at the thought of Yappy zipping around, with so many others chasing him and yelling, “This is a slippery slope! What will you do when they come for you? Slippery slope! Slippery slope!” But Gray sobered quickly, remembering how Barkley's family ushered him away before he had the chance to react at all. That was probably a good thing. The dogfish could get emotional sometimes.

“At least I didn't give them the satisfaction of throwing me out,” Gray muttered. He swam out, head high, on his own. Truthfully, the reef and Coral Shiver homewaters were too small for a fin like him. Gray needed space if he was going to live it up. Maybe Prime Minister Shocks had done him a big, fat favor.

It sure didn't really feel that way, though.

Gray almost began to sob but stopped when he saw a giant sea turtle staring as it leisurely floated by. “What you lookin' at, shellback? You want a piece of me?” The turtle churned its stubby legs a little faster. For their kind this was the equivalent of a panicked rush. Gray was satisfied with the reaction, so he didn't go ram the turtle. “You better not tell anyone I was crying!” he yelled at the turtle's receding figure. “Because I'm not!”

Gray had traveled for three entire days, near as he could figure. When he was near the reef, he could sense the depth of the water and didn't need to open his eyes to tell if it was day or night. In this open water, Gray stayed near the surface to keep himself oriented. Not that he was afraid to go deeper, of course. He just didn't want to go deeper
right
now. “At least the sun shines into the water the same way,” he said aloud. But it was colder and the current stronger. Not like home at all. What I'd give to be grounded by the reef again, he thought sadly.

Gray looked down to where the water darkened. Although he could sense the bottom was there, he couldn't see it. How did dwellers there even know what time it was? It was even colder than the water around him. And always black as night. Gray's stomach churned. He was hungry, but the ocean seemed absolutely empty! It was eerie. And when there were fish, they came and went so fast he actually missed with his strikes. Compared to the ones by the reef, these fish were bigger, stronger, and faster. Gray's stomach growled again, and he grew scared. Maybe he'd just starve in the open waters.

“Hey, Gray!” Gray almost jumped out of his skin. It was Barkley!

“Would you stop doing that?” Gray sputtered, momentarily forgetting his situation. But
only
for a moment. They were a very long distance from the reef. “What are you doing here?”

Barkley was uncharacteristically tongue-tied for a moment. “Umm, nothing. Just stretching the ol' fins. You know me, always trying to broaden my horizons.”

“Go home.”

Barkley made a rude noise. “Who do you think you are, ordering me around? Takiza the magical fighting fish?”

Gray chuckled despite the situation. Takiza was a legendary fish who supposedly could conjure whirlpools and underwater lightning with magic. There were lots of fantastic stories about Takiza, who went by lots of different names depending on whom you asked. One time he supposedly fought ten great whites, the meanest of all sharkkind, and beat them easily when they threatened a baby dolphin. It was a fantastic tale and obviously just for amusement. “Be a good shark or Takiza will come and put you in your place!” The worst part of it was that Barkley's dumb comment reminded him of the reef and his mom telling him stories about Takiza, which made him even more homesick.

Gray sighed. Even though he was arguing with Barkley, the truth was that he
wanted
his friend to stay. But that was wrong. Gray was exiled and Barkley wasn't. His home was by the reef, and Gray couldn't let him throw that away. “I know what you're doing, but you should turn around.”

“And I know what you're doing, Gray. But we've been friends since you were born—I was born first, so of course I remember—and I
want
to come along. I was going to sign up for Miss Lamprey's migration class this year, anyway. This'll be like that, only better! Besides, you think I'm going to let you hoard all the adventure like some adventure-hoarding hermit crab?”

Gray replied with a subdued “Okay, then.” It was all he could do not to burst into tears. Tough fin you are, he thought to himself.

They found a swift current, which pulled them deeper and deeper into the open waters of the Big Blue. Gray enjoyed the silence for a time. But with Barkley being Barkley, silence never lasted too long.

“So, where we going?”

“Umm, into the open ocean,” Gray answered with as much confidence as he could muster.

Barkley sighed. “Yes, I'm aware of that—being here and all. We're into the Atlantis Ocean now, North Atlantis, by the way. But where do you want to end up?”

“I don't know. I started swimming in this direction after they kicked me out. I didn't have some big exile plan ready to go. You know, you can get annoying in a fin flick!” But Gray wasn't really mad at Barkley. He was mad at himself. He was so upset after being banished that he had started swimming without even thinking about where he was going. He certainly didn't want to end up in the Arktik where he heard the very water froze, forming jagged masses that could crush a shark!

Barkley flexed his flukes at Gray in irritation. “I'm hungry. How about we find some food?”

Finally, something they could agree on. It took a while, but they did find, and more importantly,
catch
some food. First Gray chased a small horde of cod toward Barkley, who picked a few off. It was either a horde or upper drove. The dogfish thought it was an upper drove of eight or nine hundred. Gray didn't care as he was unable to catch even one since the small horde or upper drove was fast-moving and left the area quickly. But Barkley returned the favor by finding a lower cluster of sailfish. One muscular game fish didn't know what hit it as Gray pounced from below, taking most of it down with an enormous bite.

“Any cod left?” Gray asked after he'd finished off the last of the sailfish.

“You know, sailfish work out constantly. They think their bodies are temples. You might learn from that kind of thinking,” Barkley told Gray while jabbing Gray's stomach with his tail.

“Hey, I'm big cartilaged!”

Barkley swam away, leading Gray in a slightly different direction. What was he doing?

“By the way, I'll pick the way we're heading, since it's my exile!” Gray told his friend, perhaps a little too vehemently, as he corrected their course.

“Right. What grade did you get in navigation class again?” Barkley asked innocently.

Oh, now he was playing dirty. Gray had taken the navigation test immediately after eating a puffer fish which had
not
gone down well. It felt as if the fish were inflating in his stomach, which cramped violently the entire day. The galling part was that he got
lost
during the exam! Miss Lamprey knew Gray was sick, which she took into account, but he got a poor grade that cycle.

The truth was Gray didn't know where he was going. For the first time in his life, he was swimming without a purpose. That scared him. Before, if he was unsure of what to do, he'd ask his mom. But he couldn't do that anymore. He was about to confess this to Barkley when the dogfish whispered a fearful “Uh-oh.”

There were four sharks swimming in a tight pack; a thresher, a bull, a sawfish, and a great white. Miss Lamprey said great whites should be left alone in the open ocean. She said they hunted other sharkkind, even when they weren't hungry. For fun.

“Umm, Gray? How about we make like a sea frog and scoot?” suggested Barkley.

It was a good idea. But too late.

The four sharks fanned out and swam toward them.