Chasing at the Surface

by Sharon Mentyka

  “Breathe!” a few scattered voices call out.

  “Breathe what?”

  “BREATHE AIR!” everyone shouts together.

  “Okay, good. Now, the last reported sighting of orcas in Dyes Inlet was about forty years ago, in the late 1950s. I was just a wee tyke then, toddling along,” he adds in a silly voice.

  The class laughs. Everybody likes Mr. O’Connor. He’s funny and loud and somehow manages to jam two years’ worth of work into 7/8 Science. If you keep up, there’s a good chance you can test out of freshman bio in high school.

  “So IF the average life expectancy of killer whales in the wild is thirty to fifty years, AND only a few out there are thirty-five or older.…” He gestures to the windows that face out toward the inlet, “… what can we infer about our nineteen visitors?”

  The class is quiet. Fifteen seconds. Mr. O’Connor coughs. Thirty.

  “C’mon! Who’s our math whiz?”

  “Maybe …” Lena offers, “some of them have never been here before?”

  “Precisely!” Mr. O’Connor jabs at the air like a marathon winner, the chalk still in his hand. “Everybody put your fins together for Lena!” The class claps halfheartedly, some kids rolling their eyes at Mr. O’Connor. I glance over at Lena and she gives me a thumbs-up.

  “These are very likely unknown waters to the majority of these whales. So as long as they remain—and how long that will be is anyone’s guess—we have an extraordinary opportunity to learn about them. Kind of like having a new kid move across the bridge.”

  He means the Warren Avenue Bridge, the main link that connects the east and west sections of Port Washington. Around here everything depends on which side of the bridge you live on—how much money you have, who your friends are, what you’ll do when you grow up. There’s only one thing we all share—Dyes Inlet.

  “Now,” Mr. O’Connor spins around to face the class, “who can tell me what the basic social unit of whales is called?”

  “A school!” someone calls out.

  Mr. O’Connor smiles but shakes his head.

  “A herd?”

  It’s Harris, a hard-to-ignore kid from one of the trailer parks on the west side of the bridge. The class laughs. He catches my eye and grins but I look away. Harris has the thickest black hair I’ve ever seen, besides mine. He’s so tall he has to twist his legs every which way to get them to fit in under the desks. And he’s old—almost fourteen.

  “Herd is close, but no cigar,” Mr. O’Connor says, flicking an imaginary cigar in front of his mouth.

  More animal groups are called out. Then it gets too silly and Mr. O’Connor starts to lose patience. Why isn’t anybody answering? I drum my fingers on my desk. I can’t be the only one who knows this.

  “Do any of you actually live here in the Pacific Northwest?” He waits, tapping his chalk on the desk. “Please! Someone?”

  Finally I raise my hand. Mr. O’Connor points his invisible cigar at me.

  “A pod.”

  “A pod. Thank you, Marisa.” He stretches out his hand to me and makes a small bow. “Orca groups are called pods. They’re extremely complex social structures. One pod can comprise the extended family unit of as many as four generations traveling together.” He gestures toward the inlet again. “Our visitors here are part of the Southern Resident killer whales in the San Juan Islands that have three pods: J, K, and L.”

  At the mention of L Pod, a jumble of memories flashes through my mind, and the room feels suddenly as hot as a summer day.

  “What’s with the letters, Mr. O?” Harris calls out. A few people snicker.

  “Actually, it’s a good question,” Mr. O’Connor replies. “It’s a taxonomic system developed by whale researchers up in British Columbia. They started with ‘A’ and worked their way through the alphabet as they studied the pods to the south.”

  “Cool!” Harris says. “Kinda like Triple-A baseball.”

  “Each whale is given an alphanumeric code. The letter represents the pod affiliation, and the number is each individual identified within that pod. The smallest social unit within a pod is the ‘matrilineal group.’ Can someone please enlighten us as to the meaning of matrilineal?”

  I’m only half listening, remembering instead a super hot Fourth of July that Mom and I spent up on San Juan Island … it seems so long ago now. I was probably eight years old and every memory I have from that trip is perfect. Dad was working a month-long carpentry job on the west side of the island and staying on the jobsite, so Mom and I came up for a week to visit.

  The house was on an amazing bluff that overlooked the main straits where the Southern Resident orcas travel in the summer months. Every day we’d see the whales passing back and forth—breaching, jumping, and chasing each other in circles. Some days we’d climb down the rocky slope past the old abandoned limekiln to Deadman Bay. From the beach there, the orcas’ huge fins looked even more gigantic. One morning, I was poking around in the sand looking for agates when Mom called to me from farther down the beach.

  “M! Come look … I think the pod has a new baby!”

  I scrambled over to where she stood on the rocks peering out at the water, Dad’s old black binoculars glued to her eyes. “Where?” I asked, already reaching out to have a look.

  “There.” She passed me the binoculars and pointed. “See? Just past the big one … he’s tucked in close to his mother.”

  I looked and looked until finally I saw a little black head poke up alongside the shiny black flank of the mother whale. But the little orca was black and orange, not black and white like the others! I thought the sun might be playing tricks on me.

  “Why is he that funny color?” I asked. “Is he okay?”

  “Yes, he’s fine,” Mom said, snapping some pictures with her camera. “Isn’t that amazing? Nobody knows why the calves start out that color. The orange will fade to white as he grows. Wouldn’t it be funny if human babies were born orange?”

  We 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 wi
th 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 not stupid. I know things are weird for you since your mom left.” I cringe, but she doesn’t back off. “But you won’t talk to me about it. So I have to do something.”

  I start to protest but she holds up her palm.

  “You owe it to me to at least try.” She spins in place and is gone before I can even open my mouth to say “no” again.

  ––––

  It’s almost six-thirty by the time I get home. I glide down the marina embankment and heave my bike over the wharf’s edge, securing it against the leeward wall. When I unlock the front door, it’s dark inside—Dad’s not home yet. I turn on the light and slump down on the couch, not moving until my growling stomach gets my attention. No homemade dinner waiting for you, Marisa. Looking around the quiet room, it’s so easy to feel sorry for myself again.

  Irritated, I punch the TV button on and head to the kitchen, hoping I can find something fast and easy to eat. I open the door and the refrigerator whirs to life, but what’s inside is pretty bleak. Not much more than an almost empty jar of peanut butter, yellowing broccoli, and some questionable egg salad.

  Not like before. Dad and I used to cook together, a lot. Lemon chicken. Six-onion soup. A spicy red pasta sauce made with garlic, capers, olives, and anchovies that Dad said was named for the “Italian Ladies of the Night.” We always made it on special occasions because it was the dish Dad was cooking when he first met Mom years ago. The story goes that she was waitressing at a Pioneer Square steakhouse and putting herself through nursing school in Seattle. Dad had taken a job as a fry cook. Mom said one of the things she loved about him was how he would sear steaks wearing a tie that he’d throw over his shoulder. “I took one look and knew he’d be a special guy,” she laughed.

  Mom was never big on birthday parties but each year, she’d let Dad dress up with a white shirt and tie, toss it over his shoulder, and cook her up a big batch of Pasta Puttanesca for her birthday. As I got older, he let me help. But this year was different. Mom sat at the table, staring out the big window that faced west toward the inlet. It was like she wanted to be anywhere else but here with us.

  “Happy Birthday, Abbe,” Dad had said, coming up from behind and ceremoniously laying a plate of pasta down in front of her. Then he kissed her on her neck. “I love you,” I heard him whisper.

  Mom’s eyes flickered and she looked as if she was going to burst into tears. She didn’t, but she didn’t smile either. She didn’t do anything. We ate our dinner in almost complete silence.

  “C’mon, Abbe, you know how I love cooking this for your birthday,” Dad said, after awhile, “Don’t disappoint us—”

  “It’s easy to disappoint, isn’t it?” Mom said. “We try and try and still we let so many people down.…”

  She wasn’t really talking to us
. I tried to catch her eye but it was like she didn’t even know I was there.

  “I thought I was being brave. All these years.…”

  “Abbe, honey—” Dad pleaded.

  “Stop,” Mom turned and looked at him sharply. “This is wrong. It’s just all wrong.”

  And with that, Mom stood up. I can still hear the sound of her chair scraping on the wood floor as she pushed it roughly back. A minute later, I heard the door slam as she left the house.

  I remember turning to Dad, not understanding. Wrong about what? I asked, but he didn’t answer. Didn’t or wouldn’t. But I’d never seen him look so sad.

  The sound of tinny music on the TV wheedles way into my head. The evening news is starting its wrap-up.

  “And that’s it for tonight, folks. But before we sign off, Stacy, can you give us an update on our marine visitors?”

  “I sure can, Jake. We now know that the whales in Dyes Inlet belong to a subgroup of orcas that summer here in Puget Sound known as L Pod. Researchers are worried that they might be lost, Jake, because these are unknown waters for these whales.”

  “And I understand they’ve identified nineteen whales?”

  “That’s right, Jake. L Pod is really one big happy family. Each whale has a name as well as an assigned number: Faith, Canuck, Muncher—”

  I stand there, frozen, the refrigerator door open. Did I hear that right?

  “They’re going to be monitoring them closely to be sure they’re not showing any signs of stress.”

  “Well, Stacy, they look pretty relaxed to me.”

  Jake and Stacy continue to banter with each other, laughing at their own jokes. I slam the refrigerator door shut so hard it shudders, then click off the TV. It’s suddenly and pleasantly quiet again.

  I try to think back if I ever learned how whales behave when they’re stressed, but I can’t remember. I’m pretty sure Jake and Stacy don’t know. Do they get quiet and forget to eat? Do they leave the pod and swim off by themselves?