of clothing left on his bed, Tristan took the map out of his welcome packet. It showed a detailed layout of the Sea Park. “So where’s this Conch Café we’re supposed to go to?”
“I tried looking it up using my map app, but the satellite link doesn’t seem to work here. Must be in a dead zone or something,” Hugh replied. “We’ll have to go the old-fashioned way. A paper map—how low-tech.”
Hugh got up to get his copy of the map out of a backpack on the floor nearby. Whereas Tristan was long and lean, Hugh was short and a bit pudgy. His dark hair was neatly combed, cut to just above his ears. He wore a navy blue IZOD shirt and knee-length, well-pressed khaki shorts with a matching canvas belt.
Tristan wondered if they were supposed to dress up for the first day of camp. He had on his black board shorts and a T-shirt his mother bought him during their last visit to the aquarium. It was gray with the black silhouette of a shark wrapping around from the front to the back where it said “A Shark Ate My Homework.”
“Looks like this Conch Café is on the other side of the park, between the wave pool and theater,” Tristan noted.
“Yes, that appears to be correct,” Hugh confirmed, looking at the map.
“Does that mean we have to go through that wall thing again?”
“Yeah, but I’ve done it a couple times. It’s not too bad.”
Tristan wasn’t so sure.
TRISTAN AND HUGH WALKED THE SHORT TRAIL back to the jungle wall. Luckily, there was a steady stream of kids making their way through. The older campers were about fifteen to seventeen years old. They nearly ran through, testing how fast the vines reacted as they stepped on each rock. The younger teens were less confident, hopping from rock to rock more hesitantly. Twelve-year-olds Tristan and Hugh were among the youngest there. They happily followed on the heels of an older boy with flaming red hair and a face full of freckles. He smiled at them, subtly encouraging them through the wall, without making a show of it. Tristan went slowly, but still stumbled a few times. Fortunately he never did a full face-plant or fell completely off the sea creature rocks.
By the time they got through the wall, most of the other kids were long gone. Tristan and Hugh figured the few campers left were also going to the Conch Café. Only problem was they seemed to be going in two different directions. Some kids headed down a path to the left, while the others were taking a walkway that went straight through the middle of the park.
“Which way should we go?” Tristan asked.
Hugh took out his map. “Either direction will get us efficiently to the Conch Café. One way goes along part of the lagoon. The other goes through the streams and rainforest area. By my calculation, there isn’t much difference in distance between the two. If we walk at the same pace, we should get there at an equivalent time either way. If I had my map app . . .”
Tristan stared at Hugh, his eyes glazing over as the boy continued to talk. “Uh, how ‘bout we just go through the park?” Thinking that in the future if he needed a quick decision, Hugh might not be the best person to ask.
“Okay,” Hugh replied surprisingly succinctly.
Tristan led the way onto a stone walkway lined by tall palm trees and bushes bursting with weird red puffball flowers the size of softballs. Soon the path became strewn with coconuts, at least a hundred of them. Tristan stared at the trail ahead—it was a minefield. He moved forward slowly, picking his way around and over the coconuts. The probability of twisting an ankle and flopping embarrassingly onto the ground was exceedingly high. Then he remembered reading that more people were killed each year by falling coconuts than by sharks. He immediately looked up for incoming head smashers. Hugh passed by, completely ignoring the coconuts and Tristan’s strange slow-motion dance as he tried to avoid the hazards on the ground as well as ones that could crash down from above at any minute. Tristan was thankful when the pathway cleared and gigantic green ferns lined the trail. The curling fronds were nearly as tall as Hugh. They heard running water and saw a small arched bridge up ahead in the distance.
Tristan ran ahead. There were no feet-grabbing coconuts on the path, yet as usual, he stumbled and nearly fell.
Hugh just smiled in a friendly, it could happen to anyone sort of way.
After regaining his footing, Tristan tried to act casual, as if he hadn’t nearly done a nosedive onto the trail. He gazed down into the water flowing beneath the bridge. “Hey, check out the fish.” He pointed to two big, fat, cobalt blue fish that were nipping at rocks. “They’ve got big buckteeth.”
Hugh joined him. He looked down, squinting in the sunlight. “I know what those are. They’re parrot fish. They live on coral reefs. I read that they eat algae and scrape up the coral. And then, when they—you know—defecate, they produce sand for beaches.”
“Yuck! A poop sand beach,” Tristan said with an expression like he’d just stepped into a really big, stinky pile of dog doo. They both looked totally disgusted.
“This must be one of the streams for snorkeling,” Tristan said, wanting to jump in right there.
“Yeah,” Hugh said, moving back from the edge of the bridge.
“You can swim, can’t you?”
“Sure, yeah, no problem. I’m just not that keen on swimming with other things in the water.”
“You sound like my sister,” Tristan said. “Uh, how come you’re here then? It’s a camp about sea creatures and all.”
“I like to learn about ocean animals, just don’t want to swim with them. My mother said I don’t have to go in the water with them if I don’t want to.”
Tristan thought about telling Hugh about his swim with the sharks, but figured Hugh, like everyone else, would think he had just been lucky or that he was ready for the loony bin.
From the bridge, the two boys quickened their pace, not wanting to be late. They went through an area thick with plants and trees. Stringy gray moss hung from the trees’ branches and there was a cool drizzling fog. Water droplets hanging off the moss sparkled like teardrop-shaped crystals. They passed a large, shallow pond with sea turtles swimming in it. On a small grassy island at the pond’s center, a flock of shockingly orangey-pink flamingoes ambled about. Tristan thought of the tacky hot pink plastic flamingos one of his neighbors had in their yard. They really looked nothing like the real thing.
Further along the walkway they came to another stream with a deep curving bend. Tristan could see something dark and shadowy moving in the water. It resembled a giant shape-shifting football. He moved closer, bending down to get a better look. The sand at the path’s edge was loose and like a bee to honey his foot found it and slid. No preventing it this time. Tristan tumbled right into the water. He thought: Why is it always me?
Smiling again, Hugh just nonchalantly asked, “How’s the water?”
Red-faced, Tristan climbed out of the stream and shook the water from his hair and clothes. “Feels kinda good. Did you see that moving ball thing? It was hundreds of small fish swimming all together.”
A little further down the trail, the quiet of the closed park was interrupted by the sounds of laughter and talking. Tristan and Hugh followed the noise. It led them out of the winding rivers and gardens to a building similar in construction to the bungalows, but much bigger and at ground level. They saw two other campers going in through the bamboo doors. A sign overhead read Conch Café.
As