both laughed, sitting together on the hot rocks, watching the baby orca nuzzle its mother. The next day, Mom and I went down to the Whale Museum in Friday Harbor, the island’s main town, to report that we’d sighted a new orca baby.
“Yours is the first sighting of a new calf this season!” the woman in the museum told us. She checked her logs. “It looks like that was L Pod out near Lime Kiln yesterday. The official name will be L91 but would you like to pick a nickname for him?” she asked, smiling.
“Would you, honey?” Mom repeated, putting her arm around my shoulder.
I took a bite of raw carrot and thought about what to name the new baby orca.
“Muncher!” I announced a minute later. Mom laughed and the museum woman carefully wrote out an adoption certificate for Muncher.
“Congratulations,” she said, handing me the sheet of paper. “Now you be sure to take good care of Muncher.”
“I will,” I promised. “Muncher can be my baby brother!”
“Well, we don’t know yet if he’s a boy or girl,” the museum woman said with a laugh.
A lost memory comes rushing back to me now: Mom’s reaction was … odd. She looked surprised and then something else, sort of sad, I guess. I remember asking her what was wrong, but she didn’t answer. Just shook her head and smiled. I’d forgotten that even happened until now.
The sound of paper and shuffling feet snaps me back to the present. I look up and Mr. O’Connor is staring right at me.
“Umm … sorry, what was the question?” I quickly try to catch up.
“Matrilineal group. What does that mean for orcas?”
The whole class sits waiting for me to answer. Mr. O’Connor tilts his head. He knows I know, but I can’t answer this one. I shake my head no, concentrating on my sneakers instead.
“All right then,” he says, annoyed at having to answer his own question. “Matrilineal groups are pods made up of two or three generations that share a close female ancestor, usually a mother and grandmother. Offspring travel and stay with their mother and her pod for life.”
My heart hurts. Hands down orcas are better at parenting than some humans. My humans, for example.
“Now … our visitors number nineteen animals, mostly females and their calves, with a handful of frisky adolescent males.”
I check the clock. Five more minutes.
“A team of experts are on their way down from Friday Harbor. Marine biologists and whale researchers. Cetologists—note that the word derives from the order name.”
Chairs scrape. A few people cough.
“They’ve asked me to round up some volunteers. Mostly the work will be hauling equipment around, helping set up traffic barriers, grunt work for the grunts.” Mr. O’Connor smiles and passes around a sign-up sheet. “But they’ve promised to include educational opportunities when they can, depending on how long the whales stay, of course.…” The bell rings and a few kids start to stand up, but Mr. O’Connor isn’t finished. “Wait … you’ll also earn community service hours and get firsthand exposure to science in action!”
There’s a flurry of activity as everyone gathers their stuff and scrambles for the door.
“Extra credit!” Mr. O’Connor shouts.
I can’t seem to move. Mom kept trying to plan our whale-watching trip for this summer, I kept saying no. Is this my second chance? I steal a glance at Lena. She’s already at the front of the signup line, her mind made up. She sees me look and waves me over. My head is pounding. I stand up and leave the room fast, before Lena can stop me.
Maybe that trip with Mom would have made a difference, but now it feels too late. And all the community services hours in the world aren’t going to bring Mom back.
CHAPTER 5
The lunchroom is buzzing with everyone chattering about Mr. O’Connor’s extra credit project. Listening to some conversations, you’d think he’d promised they’d get to swim underwater with the whales instead of hauling trash and directing traffic. I try to slip in and out unnoticed, but no luck. Harris sees me and waves me over. Somehow, Lena is already magically there, along with Grace, a thin, pale girl with deep blue eyes. I sit down at their table and Grace looks at me with the same expression she always gives me: Oh, you again.
“Why not do it?” Harris is saying. “We get excused from all afternoon classes if we sign up. Besides, I got some free time now that my old man’s showed up again.”
“Because it’s going to be work,” Lena reminds him. “Not just time off school.”
Harris sips his pop and shrugs. “How hard can it be?”
“Harder than most stuff you’ve ever done,” Grace says, her voice flat.
Lena shoots her a look, but Harris just grins.
“You don’t know hard,” he laughs, looking Grace in the eye. Then he turns to me. “You sign up, Marisa?”
I feel my face redden. A simple “no” won’t do it, because it’s sure to be followed by “why?” And that’s complicated, just like Harris’s life, or at least that’s what I used to think before my life got complicated. It’s no secret that Harris is in charge of his little brother, Jesse, when their dad’s not around, which seems to be most of the time. I wouldn’t even know Harris or Jesse at all if it weren’t for Mom’s volunteering at the youth shelter. Mom again.
I fumble to open my lunch and decide to ignore his question when Lena smoothly answers for me instead.
“Heck yes, we’re going.”
I stare at her. “What are you talking about? I didn’t sign up.…”
“I know. I signed us both up.” She smiles, eating a handful of grapes. “What are friends for?”
“You can’t do that,” I whisper. “You can’t just go signing other people’s names for things!” Grace snickers and I lower my voice, “Besides … I can’t do it.”
“Why not?”
“I … I’m too busy,” I stammer. “I can’t miss all those afternoon classes.”
“Right,” Lena says, frowning. “Gotta make sure you bring your ‘A’ in Language Arts up to ‘A+’. What happened to your famous Love of Science?”
“That’s not the point!” I jump up. “You can’t just go making decisions for other people!” I feel my face starting to flush. Everybody’s listening. Grace sticks out her lower lip, giving me a fake “poor you” look.
How can I explain? I can’t shake the weird feeling that I’m just moving through days, going through the motions, when really I should be doing something more important, like trying to find Mom and bring her home.
“Well, it’s too late,” Lena says simply. “Oh come on, Marisa, when else will you have a chance like this?” She crumples up her lunch bag and looks at me hard. “Ever since fifth grade you’ve been going on and on about how awesome orcas are, you’ve dragged me to whale movies, you play whale songs on your Walkman.…”
I sigh, listening. There’s nothing to say without outright lying. She’s right.
“You even did one of those whale adoption things with your mom, didn’t you?”
I stop her right there.
“Look … I told you, I’m not going.” My voice sounds louder and meaner than I intended.
She frowns and leads me away from the others. “Listen, Marisa. I’m