The Shark Rider (4 page)

Ms. Sanchez walked swiftly through the room.
Tristan looked around to see if any of the patients from last summer were still there—the diva scallop who demanded a blue shell to match her eyes, or Hugh's buddy, Old Jack, the six-armed octopus.

“We can visit the patients in here in a bit,” Ms. Sanchez told him as they walked to a large, open, garage-like door. Going outside, they came to several small, round pools spread out and shaded under a plastic tarp.

Doc Jordan, the park's slightly chubby veterinarian, was standing next to one of the pools. She wore a pair of thin Lycra leggings and a camp T-shirt. Her frizzy, dark hair appeared to be trying to escape from the thick headband she used to hold it back. With her hands on her hips, the veterinarian stood staring into the tank. Her kind, round face was scrunched up in a puzzled look. “Hey there, Tristan. Heard you were back early. Good timing, given our new patient here.”

Tristan got an odd but now recognizable feeling. He peered curiously into the pool. Something thin and silvery gray cruised slowly by. It was about two feet long. He leaned down to get a closer look. “What is it?”

He heard a faint voice in his head:
What is it? I'm not a what. I'm a she
,
obviously
.

Sorry 'bout that,
he thought.

Doc Jordan climbed into the tank. “It's a young shark, a female blacktip. Her friends brought her in a few days ago. Dragged her here, really. We don't think she was very happy about coming.”

“What's wrong with her?” Tristan asked.

Sugar, nothing's wrong with me. I'm gorgeous.

“Not sure. She's very thin and obviously weak,” Doc Jordan answered. “Maybe you could come in here and ask her what's wrong.”

Tristan took a swig of the Sea Camp water he'd brought along, thinking it might strengthen his communication skills. He took off his sandals and stepped into a nearby rinse bucket. He then climbed into the tank. The small silvery gray shark slowly swam by. When her black-tipped dorsal fin broke the surface it wobbled from side to side.

“Ask her what she ate before she arrived,” Doc Jordan said. “Might be that she had something toxic or bad. She's refused everything we've tried to feed her so far.”

In his head, Tristan said hello and asked the shark about her diet.

She replied weakly.
Let's see. The other day I had some lovely green algae with grassy overtones and some nice crunchy Sargassum. Ooh—just love those little balls filled with air. They pop in your mouth.

Tristan turned to Doc Jordan. “She says she's been eating green algae and Sargassum. Whatever that is.”

“It's a brown algae. Any fish, like barracuda? They can carry ciguatera poisoning.”

Tristan asked the shark if she'd had barracuda lately or some other fish.

Heavens, no, honey. I'm a vegan.

“She says no. She's a vegan,” Tristan told her. “What's a vegan?”

“Aha,” Doc Jordan exclaimed. “A vegan is a very
strict vegetarian. That could be the problem. Sharks are not herbivores; they eat meat. If she's only been eating algae, her stomach is probably a mess. And she must not be getting enough protein or minerals.”

Tristan explained to the shark why they thought that being vegan might not be so good for a shark.

The young blacktip paused for a moment and then told him:
But sweetheart, I don't like the taste of meat or blood. Just the sight of it makes me feel faint
.

Tristan chuckled thinking of a shark that faints at the sight of blood. The small blacktip swam next to him and smacked his leg with her tail.
Hey, it's not nice to laugh at me just because I'm different from others of my kind
.

Tristan silently said he was sorry and that he knew how she felt. “She doesn't like the taste of meat and especially blood. Makes her feel faint.”

“Oh, well that could be a problem,” Doc Jordan said, stroking her chin quizzically. “Hold on, I've got an idea. I'll be back in just a minute.” She hurried off into the aquarium room.

Minutes later, the veterinarian returned carrying a metal bucket filled with brown pellets. “Tristan, see if you can convince her to try one of these yummy
shark treats
we just happen to have on hand.” She winked at him, adding, “They're soy-based. We feed them to some of the other fish. Just tell her they are definitely vegan-friendly and very tasty. And we've added some vitamins that will make her feel better.”

Doc Jordan gave a few of the brown pellets to
Tristan, suggesting he feed them to her by hand. Tristan thought back to last year when he fed Snaggle-Tooth with a squeeze bottle. Even though the shark didn't have any teeth, his hand still quivered like a jiggling piece of Jell-O.

He heard the shark say:
Honey, I'm not going to bite you. Remember, I don't like blood—especially human. It's disgusting! I'm getting woozy just thinking about it.

Tristan looked at the pellets. They reminded him of dog chow. He lowered his trembling hand into the water. The shark swam slowly around the pool and then approached Tristan's hand cautiously. She took two pellets, munched on them and then took a few more. It reminded Tristan of feeding goats at the petting zoo when he was little.

Goats? I'm no goat! Now I really feel faint. Imagine, me being compared to a goat.

Tristan forgot that sharks and rays could essentially read his mind. This shark was not only a vegan, but also clearly very sensitive and not just to the smell of blood. He'd have to be more careful.
Sorry. That's not what I meant. You don't look anything like a goat
.

Heavens me, I should think not.

As the small blacktip continued to chew her food, Tristan listened intently.
Not bad, not bad, tastes a bit like fresh sargassum, a little crunchy and kind of tart. Do they have this stuff in sea grass flavor?

Tristan asked Doc Jordan.

“Not sure. But I guess we can try to make it sea grass flavored. We need to fatten her up and get her
stronger. She probably has a body image problem as well. We'll have to work on that. Thanks so much for your help, Tristan. It would be great if you could stop by now and then.”

“Sure,” Tristan replied, thinking how good it was to be back at camp, to feel useful and like he was good at something.

“Want to see some of our other new patients?” Ms. Sanchez asked as she walked to another of the large round tanks. Tristan got out of the shark's tank, said good-bye, and followed eagerly.

There were two sea turtles in the tank. He watched as one swam slowly up to a large bucket affixed to the side of the pool. It put its front flippers and head over the edge of the bucket. The sea turtle then coughed, spitting up some yellowish liquid along with several bits of blue. It coughed again and puked out a scrunched up ball of tan plastic. Now Tristan was the one who felt queasy. It reminded him of when he had the stomach flu and spent several super nasty hours hugging the toilet.

“I can hardly watch,” Ms. Sanchez noted. “We've been getting a lot of marine life in like this. It's all that plastic pollution in the ocean. The animals ingest it and it clogs up their throats, stomachs, and intestines.”

She picked up a brown bottle from a table nearby. “It induces vomiting. Not very pleasant for them, though. But if we can get the animals to spit up most of the plastic, they have a pretty good chance of survival. Unfortunately, many creatures don't make it. Sea
turtles are particularly vulnerable. They think those thin plastic bags so many stores use look like jellyfish, one of their favorite foods. They gobble them right up.”

Tristan vowed to get his mother to use cloth bags at the grocery store from then on.

From there they went back into the room filled with aquariums. The first tank they came to was about three feet long. The glass was unusually thick, like a double-hulled tanker, and, strangely, the lower six inches of each inner wall was covered in plastic bubble wrap. Inside, a small pile of rocks sat on the sandy bottom. There was also something stuck in the sand near the rocks. Tristan bent down to get a better view. It was a puffy, six-inch-tall red doll, like a miniature version of those padded dummies he'd seen people use to practice karate or boxing.

He must have had a puzzled look on his face, because even before he could ask what was in the tank, Ms. Sanchez said, “Ever seen a stomatopod? It's also called a mantis shrimp.”

“Uh, no.” Tristan shook his head.

“Amazing creatures. Let's see if we can lure Hammer out of his burrow.”

Ms. Sanchez rinsed her hand with seawater and took a small snail out of a bucket sitting nearby. She placed it inside the tank. “Okay, now watch closely. If you blink, you might miss it.”

Tristan had no idea what to expect. Seconds later, one of the weirdest, strangest, most bizarre animals he'd ever seen scurried out from under the rocks. It
sort of resembled a shrimp—a mega mutant shrimp. Or maybe it was a miniature messed-up lobster without big claws or spines. It was about five inches in length and had a long, segmented, shelled body; a square head; two big, round, half-blue, half-pink eyes on stalks; and a whole lot of legs. The odd creature made a beeline for the snail; its numerous short legs moved surprisingly fast. It waved two small antennae over the snail's round shell and then paused to look around. Then the mantis shrimp attacked. But it was so fast that Tristan wasn't sure exactly what happened. The snail's shell, however, now lay in pieces, decimated, as if blown up by mini underwater explosives. Astonished, Tristan watched as the stomatopod picked up the limp, lifeless body of the snail and sauntered proudly back to its lair.

“Just amazing,” Ms. Sanchez said. “They have one of the fastest, most powerful strikes in the animal kingdom. Want to see that again?”

Tristan nodded, at a loss for words.

“Okay, this time look closely at the shape of the stomatopod's second pair of legs. Then watch how Hammer attacks the snail.” She placed another unsuspecting victim into the tank.

The mantis shrimp reappeared, hesitated for a moment, and then scurried over to the snail. Tristan leaned down. His eyes were wide and his straight, narrow nose was mashed up against the tank. The creature's second leg was funny looking, kind of like a hinged club. The stomatopod again waved his antennae deceptively gently over the snail. Then, lightning-quick,
Hammer whacked the snail. Over and over, he struck with his clubbed leg. The snail's shell was once again totally destroyed. And with another tasty treat in claw, the stomatopod returned to his burrow.

“Whoa! It hit it wicked fast.”

“Exactly,” Ms. Sanchez said. “For quite obvious reasons, this type of stomatopod is called a smasher. They use their club-shaped second legs to literally smash their prey to bits. Some stomatopods have legs shaped like spears instead of clubs. They're called spearers and thrust out their legs like swords to impale their prey.”

“Cool,” Tristan said. “What's the bubble wrap around the tank for? And that doll thing?”

Before Ms. Sanchez could answer, Hammer, the club-wielding attack shrimp, came out of his burrow. The creature stood up on his middle legs and rotated his freaky half-blue, half-pink eyeballs around. The stomatopod then crawled to the tank's bubble-wrapped front wall and struck with such ferocity that Tristan leapt backwards, thinking the glass would shatter. Before disappearing back into his sandy burrow, Hammer took a moment to also smack the miniature fighting dummy over the head.

“There's your answer. I don't think Hammer likes us watching him eat, and besides, he has a serious anger management issue. It's why he's here. The residents of the reef where he lives were sick of him destroying the neighborhood and attacking other creatures. They asked if we could do something. It was sort of an undersea intervention. We sent a team in to work with his neighbors and lure him out of his burrow. They
convinced Hammer to come here for help. We need to figure out why he's so mad and find other ways for him to deal with his anger. But so far, the only thing that's happened is that he's destroyed three of those fighting dummies and cracked two aquariums. We're hoping he'll take a shine to someone soon and open up about his problems.”

“Hey,” Tristan said. “Maybe Hugh can help. He's pretty good with the communication thing.”

“Maybe,” Ms. Sanchez replied. “I really don't want to lose any more tanks.” She moved on to another aquarium nearby. It was larger than the first and half-filled with rubble, some corals, and a cluster of sea anemones that resembled flat, multicolored flowers.

Tristan peered into the tank. He didn't see anything all that unusual. He recognized a cute, two-inch-long pufferfish. It was brown with white, crisscrossing lines, had a skinny little snout, and had a barely-there tail. There was also a tiny, bright yellow, coin-shaped fish and a few skinny ones with stripes like he'd seen in the stream earlier.

“See the fish in the corner with the big black eyes? The silvery one with the pinkish-red, horizontal stripes?”

“Yeah, that one.” Tristan pointed to a fish about three inches long.