the thing about jellyfish

by Ali Benjamin

  The text explained that the jar held something called an Irukandji jellyfish, whose venom is among the most dangerous in the world. Some even said it was a thousand times as strong as that of a tarantula.

  AN IRUKANDJI STING RESULTS IN EXCRUCIATING HEADACHE AND BODY PAIN, VOMITING, SWEATING, ANXIETY, DANGEROUSLY FAST HEARTBEAT, BRAIN HEMORRHAGE, AND FLUID IN THE LUNGS. WHEN STUNG, PATIENTS REPORT A FEELING OF IMPENDING DOOM; SOME PATIENTS ARE SO CERTAIN THAT DEATH IS IMMINENT THEY BEG PHYSICIANS TO KILL THEM SO THEY CAN “GET IT OVER WITH.”

  Well. That sounded completely awful. I read on:

  INDEED, THERE ARE A NUMBER OF DOCUMENTED DEATHS FROM IRUKANDJI SYNDROME, AND IT IS UNKNOWN IF IRUKANDJI STINGS HAVE BEEN THE TRUE CAUSE OF DEATHS MISTAKENLY ATTRIBUTED TO OTHER CAUSES. SCIENTISTS ARE TRYING TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE VENOM, AND ABOUT WHETHER THE TRUE IMPACT OF THE IRUKANDJI STING IS MUCH GREATER THAN PREVIOUSLY UNDERSTOOD.

  WHILE THE IRUKANDJI LIVES IN LARGE NUMBERS OFF THE COAST OF AUSTRALIA, IRUKANDJI-LIKE SYMPTOMS HAVE BEEN EXPERIENCED AS FAR NORTH AS THE BRITISH ISLES, AND IN HAWAII, FLORIDA, AND JAPAN. AS A RESULT, MANY RESEARCHERS BELIEVE THE IRUKANDJI HAS MIGRATED FAR BEYOND ITS NATIVE AUSTRALIA. AS THE OCEANS WARM, IT IS LIKELY THAT THE IRUKANDJI, LIKE OTHER JELLIES, WILL CONTINUE TO MIGRATE OVER GREATER DISTANCES.

  When I finished reading that passage, I read it again.

  Then I read it a third time.

  I looked at the photograph, at that transparent little creature. Nobody would ever see that thing in the water. It would be completely invisible.

  I turned back to the explanation. I stared at those words for a long time.

  Number of documented deaths . . .

  Migrate over greater distances . . .

  My head buzzed, and I felt a little dizzy. It felt like nothing in the world existed besides me and those words and the silent creatures pulsing all around me.

  Mistakenly attributed to other causes . . .

  I stared at the words so long that they started looking unfamiliar, like something written in an entirely different language.

  It was only when I exhaled that I realized I hadn’t been breathing.

  My classmates’ chattering returned to me then, and I hurried back up the stairs to the touch tank room where I’d left them.

  But upstairs, everything was different. The bearded aquarium worker had been replaced by a woman with a blonde ponytail. She said all the same things into the microphone—hands flat, keep still. The tie-dye T-shirts of my classmates had also disappeared; the touch tank room was now filled with kids in uniforms of khaki and plaid. This was a different school group altogether.

  I wondered if my classmates had gone back to the Eugene Field Memorial Middle School without me.

  I stepped out into the main part of the aquarium and looked around. It didn’t take long for me to spot those tie-dye T-shirts. They snaked around a giant ocean tank like a school of mottled, neon-colored fish.

  They hadn’t even bothered to visit the jellies exhibit. They knew nothing about the Irukandji. They would never even wonder.

  I understood then: Nobody would ever wonder. Nobody but me.

  The first time i see you, you are wearing a light blue bathing suit. It is the color of a summer sky, with sparkles all over it like stars, and it looks like day and night are happening at the same time.

  I am five years old, and I am starting kindergarten soon. We are at the big pool that is indoors. It is loud here. Everything echoes. The moms are sitting behind us on bleachers. They’ve brought us here, to this class they call Guppies, so we can learn to put our faces in the water and kick.

  The teacher blows a whistle, calling kids’ names one at a time. We are supposed to hold on to a foam board and kick and let her pull us around the shallow end. But you don’t jump in when she calls your name, and I don’t jump in when she calls mine, either.

  Your hair looks like straw in sunlight. I like your freckles, the way they look like constellations against your skin.

  When we are the last ones sitting there, just the two of us at the edge of the pool, the teacher with the whistle comes over to us. She says, Sorry, girls, it’s time to join the class.

  I am about to shake my head no when you turn to me. You look right at me, and I see your pink lips part. A smile. Then you take a deep breath and lower yourself into the water. The teacher hands you a foam board, but you don’t take it.

  Instead, you go underwater. Your eyes, hair, everything. And you swim. All the way over to where the rest of the kids are clinging to their boards. Underwater the whole way.

  I follow you. I lower myself into the water, not because the lady tells me to but because I want to swim like you can. And because I like your freckles and your sunstraw hair and the smile you showed me. And because at this moment, making a friend, and having one, seems like the easiest thing in the world.

  150 million stings

  When i arrived home on the afternoon of the aquarium trip, I was surprised to see my brother’s Jeep nosed up right next to my mom’s car. Next to Aaron’s Jeep, cross-legged on the driveway, sat his boyfriend, Rocco.

  I’d spent most of the bus ride home thinking about jellyfish. A sign next to one of the tanks had said that there are 150 million jellyfish stings every year. So during the ride back to school—while the other kids yelled and played music and threw notes from seat to seat and tried to get truck drivers to honk their horns—I’d made some calculations in the back of my science notebook.

  One hundred fifty million stings a year is equal to almost 411,000 stings every day, which is equal to 17,000 jellyfish stings every hour.

  And that means four to five stings every single second.

  I’d closed my eyes and counted to five. By the time I was finished, something like twenty-three people had just been stung.

  Then I did it again. One, two, three, four, five. Another twenty-three people.

  I counted again and again. I counted so much that the counting and the stings started to seem like the same thing—as if instead of measuring the stings, I was somehow causing them. And even though I knew that couldn’t be true, some part of me almost believed it: like, if only I could just stop counting, maybe I could make the stings stop.

  But I couldn’t stop counting to five. It was like one part of my brain insisted on defying another part of my brain.

  Rocco squinted up at me from the asphalt. “Well, hey there, Suzy Q,” he said. “Beautiful day, huh?”

  I didn’t answer him. He must have known I wouldn’t.

  He waved his hand toward the sky. “If I were a bird,” he said, “/ would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns___”

  He barely seemed to be talking to me. I liked that. It was like watching someone’s private thoughts, as if I were both there and not-there at the same time.

  “George Eliot,” he added, and I nodded, as if I knew who that was. Rocco is a graduate student in English literature at the university where Aaron coaches women’s soccer. Rocco is always quoting someone.

  If I were the type of person who still said things, I might have said to Rocco: Count to five. And when he was done counting, I could have told him about the twenty-three stings.

  Then I’d have made him do it again. And I’d have said: Forty-six stings.

  And again. Sixty-nine.

  Rocco interrupted my thoughts. “Aaron and I stopped by to see if we could convince you and your mom to go to the movies,” he said. “But she says you have a doctor’s appointment or something.”

  The doctor I could talk to. Ugh.

  Then he grinned. “Your mom, of course, took this as an opportunity to pass on some of her ‘treasures.’ She’s loading Aaron up now.”

  He emphasized that word—treasures—and I had to smile. Mom likes shopping at thrift stores—she calls it treasure hunting, though I have never figured out what exactly makes somebody’s discarded fondue set or chipped flowerpot a treasure. Mom just can’t resist what she thinks is a bargain. Our house is fille
d with boxes of oddball items like jars filled with buttons (she doesn’t sew), and muffin tins (she doesn’t bake), and knitting needles held together with masking tape (she doesn’t knit).

  Rocco patted the asphalt next to him. “Sit.” It was nice to be asked, but I needed to keep thinking about those stings. I shook my head, then gave a tiny wave goodbye. Rocco saluted me, closed his eyes, and lifted his face toward the sun.

  I walked toward the house, adding numbers as fast as I could.

  One hundred and fifteen stings.

  One hundred and thirty-eight.

  One hundred and sixty-one.

  Inside the house, Aaron stood near the front door, holding a cardboard box overflowing with kitchenware: a yellow metal platter covered with roosters, an eggbeater, a worn-out-looking waffle maker with the price tag ($3.97) still visible.

  “Well, well, well. Look who’s here.” Aaron grinned at me. My brother. Tanned and athletic, always ready with an easy smile. Sometimes Aaron seemed almost too good to be true.

  Mom poked her head out of the kitchen. “Zu,” she said, and she winked at me. She has called me that forever. Zu is her nickname for Suzy, which is funny, because Suzy is already a nickname for Suzanne. Once, a few years ago, I tried to get her to call me simply Z, the shortest nickname of all, but it never took. “We’re leaving for your appointment in fifteen minutes. Your dad’s meeting us there.”

  Mom wore her work clothes, the pantsuit she wears whenever she shows houses. Her shoes were off, though, and her frizzy hair—I inherited my wild mop from her—had fallen out of its bun.

  She placed some salad tongs on top of Aaron’s box.

  “Ma,” Aaron said. “We don’t need any more stuff.”

  “Hold on a sec,” she said. “I’ve got a cutting board I want to give you.” She squatted down on the kitchen floor, opened up a cabinet, and began rummaging.

  “Rocco’s waiting, Mom,” Aaron said. He looked at me and rolled his eyes. I spun my finger next to my ear as if to say, Crazy.

  “Hey,” he said, just to me now, as Mom rattled pots and pans in the kitchen. “School okay?”

  I shrugged.

  He looked at me closely. “Suzy, middle school sucks,” he said. “You know that, right?”

  I looked down at the floor.

  “No, really, Suzy. When I was in seventh grade, all I wanted was to get the heck out of there. And I hadn’t even lost my best fr—” He stopped quickly and shook his head. “I’m just saying. It won’t always be this way.”

  When I didn’t say anything, he added, “I promise, Suzy.”

  And just like that, I felt a lump welling up in my throat.

  Mom breezed out of the kitchen holding up a cracked wooden board, cut in the shape of a pig. “Found it! You must need a cutting board. Everyone needs a decent cutting board.”

  She placed it on top of the box and Aaron laughed. “Hmmm,” he said, frowning at the pig-shaped slab. “Maybe not that cutting board, though . . .”

  Mom slapped him gently on the arm. “You be nice to your ol’ mom.”

  “Okay, but can my ol’ mom let me get to the movies?”

  “Yes, of course,” she said with a sigh. “I’ll set aside a pile of kitchen stuff and save it for you later.”

  I walked to my room as my brother called down the hallway, “See ya next time, Suzy!”

  I sat down at my desk and opened my notebook. I started a new count.

  One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . .

  Through the window, I watched Aaron walk toward Rocco.

  Twenty-three stings.

  Jellyfish were stinging every single second of every single minute of every single day.

  Rocco stood, took the box from Aaron’s hands, and carried it over to the car.

  Forty-six stings.

  They were stinging day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year.

  Rocco set the box down in the backseat.

  Sixty-nine stings.

  He picked up the pig cutting board and looked at Aaron. Aaron shrugged, as if saying to Rocco, That’s my mom for ya.

  Ninety-two.

  Then they got in the car and shut the doors. Through the windshield, I saw Rocco rumple Aaron’s hair. They looked like they were laughing. They leaned toward each other and kissed before Aaron backed the car out of the driveway. Then they were off—headed to the movies, to the kind of life people get to have when their words don’t ruin everything.

  Seeing them, all that easy happiness, made me feel mixed up inside. It was like I could remember happiness, but also couldn’t remember it, all at the same time.

  Mostly, though, I knew I didn’t deserve happiness.

  Would never deserve it ever again.

  Hypothesis

  A hypothesis is a tentative explanation, a proposed answer to the question that underlies your research. Think of it as your best educated guess.

  —Mrs. Turton

  After aaron and Rocco left, I opened my notebook and began writing:

  - There are 7 billion people on the planet.

  - There are 150 million jellyfish stings every year.

  - Seven billion divided by 150 million is 46.6.

  - That means there is one jellyfish sting for every 46.6 people.

  - There is no such thing as .6 of a person, of course—so what I really mean is one jellyfish sting for every 46 or 47 people.

  - I know many more people than that in real life.

  - There is a good probability, then, that I know at least one person who has been stung by a jellyfish.

  - No one has ever told me that they have been stung by a jellyfish.

  - It is likely, then, that the person I know who has been stung by a jellyfish didn’t tell me.

  - Maybe she didn’t tell me because she couldn’t.

  - Maybe she couldn’t tell me because she is dead.

  - Maybe she is dead because of that jellyfish sting.

  I put down my pen and sat quietly for a long moment. From downstairs, I heard my mother calling my name, but I was too busy thinking to answer.

  Maybe Mom was wrong. Maybe things don’t just happen, like she’d tried to tell me. Maybe things aren’t actually as random as everyone seemed ready to accept.

  Things had ended between me and Franny in the worst way. If I’d known, I’d have said sorry for the way things happened. I’d have at least said goodbye. But a person doesn’t always know the difference between a new beginning and a forever sort of ending. Now it was too late to fix any of it.

  But maybe I could still do something. Maybe I could prove that there was an actual villain in Franny’s story. A villain worse than me.

  I picked up my pen again, and I wrote:

  HYPOTHESIS: That the Worst Thing was caused by a sting from an Irukandji jellyfish.

  That’s when my door burst open. Mom stood in the doorway with a very angry look on her face.

  “Zu,” she said. Her voice was sharp. “Come on.”

  I closed my notebook. And just like that, we were off to the doctor I could talk to, even though anyone who knew me should have known that I wasn’t going to say anything at all.

  Background

  Your background provides the context for your scientific quest. What do we already know? What don’t we know? Why does it matter?

  —Mrs. Turton

  I could tell you a lot about jellyfish. The first thing I want to tell you is this: They are older than dinosaurs, older than insects, older than trees or flowers or ferns or fungi or seeds. They are at least 600 million years old, probably older than any type of living thing you’ve ever seen with your eyes or imagined inside your brain.

  There have been five mass extinctions since jellyfish showed up on the scene. One of those extinctions, the Great Dying, killed off nine out of ten species on Earth. Picture that. It would be like going to the zoo and discovering that nearly all the animals had vanished. Maybe all the cages are empty except for a handful of birds, a small
rodent or two, a couple of clams and snails. Everything else is just gone, poof, their cages forever barren.

  It’s not just mass extinctions that wipe out species, either. Almost every species that has ever existed has already disappeared forever.

  But here’s the thing: All that dying, all those extinctions? They didn’t do a thing to jellyfish.

  If you could build a bridge from where we are today—a time of peacocks and giraffes, monarch butterflies and human beings who shove each other into lockers—back to the beginning of what most of us think of as life itself, that bridge would be jellyfish.

  Jellyfish separate the world that was from the one that is.

  Here’s a calculation: If all the time that’s passed since jellyfish showed up were compressed into a single eighty-year life-span, three billion heartbeats, humans would appear on the scene only during the person’s final ten days on Earth—the last million heartbeats or so. Jellyfish would have been around for everything else—birth, infancy, toddlerhood, childhood. We humans would appear only to witness those final, gasping breaths.

  And if it is true what they say, if it is true that the sixth mass extinction is going on right this minute, if the world around us is dying in ways we cannot even imagine, then maybe this is the end of us, too, and of everything we know.

  And that is a very scary thing to think about.

  But the main thing to know is this: The whole time, from before any of those extinctions, from life’s origins until this minute, jellyfish have been there, pulsing their way across the oceans and back.

  Jellyfish are survivors. They are survivors of everything that ever happened to everyone else.