Creeping on the ocean floor
With eight or twenty arms or more,
It’s an unexpected thorny beast
That gobbles coral for a feast.
“Thorny, lots of arms, gobbles coral,” Mari repeated. “That’s the crown-of-thorns starfish.”
“All right,” Dev said. “Good to have you back, Mari!”
Sage nodded in agreement as she took a bite of her banana. At least Mari was back to normal.
“I looked at the map,” Russell explained. “Our boat’s actually already docked in a good spot, so we could just dive in.”
The teammates looked at one another. Sage hurried to swallow.
“Then let’s go,” Dev said, and everyone grabbed their snorkel masks.
As they pulled on their flippers, Mari reminded them what they were looking for. The correct starfish species had many arms with lots of venomous spines on each one. It looked a little like a toxic cactus. It could be bright purple, orange, or red. “Most importantly,” Mari said, “it will be on the coral. Devouring it.”
The rest of the team was ready.
“Hurry up, Sage,” Dev said. “Why are we always waiting on you?”
“What?” Sage scowled, tugging on her flippers.
“It’s just a joke. You know, because usually you’re always ready before us, urging us on,” Dev said, and then jumped into the water.
Sage sighed. It really was not her morning.
At last, she was in the water and on the move. Life burst from every nook and cranny of the reef, a bouquet of color. The sea wasn’t too deep here. The plants—including the algae in the coral—needed the sun.
There was so much to see, Sage had to remind herself that they were searching for one thing: the crown-of-thorns starfish. They had to find it soon if they were going to win. The four teammates stayed close, and Sage willingly took the lead. Her eyes were bombarded with color: electric-blue fish, lime-green sea grass, orange bursts of coral.
Sage was so at home in the water, it took her a few moments to realize she had gone ahead on her own. When she looked around, Dev, Mari, and Russell were all crowded together, looking at something. As soon as she swam back to join them, Sage saw what they were staring at: the blinding whiteness of an entire island of reef robbed of its color.
Then she saw the crown-of-thorns. It was larger than any starfish she had ever seen, with more arms radiating from its center—each one covered with prickly spines for protection. But it was the coral that needed protecting. Sage knew that the starfish’s mouth was on its underside. Right now, that mouth was eating the polyps right off of their white limestone skeleton. Only a few branches of the staghorn coral remained the original bright apple green. When Sage moved to look away, she realized that there was another—no, two, no, three—crown-of-thorns starfish on coral nearby.
Dev zoomed in on the starfish and snapped the shot, then they all kicked to the surface.
“You sent it in?” Sage confirmed. Dev nodded, and they waited, treading water.
Sage turned to Mari. “You okay?” she asked.
Mari gave a small smile. “This starfish is actually pretty cool,” she said between raspy breaths. “It can spit out its stomach, more or less. Then its stomach digests the polyps right there, on the coral. When it’s broken them all down, the starfish pulls its stomach back inside and moves on.”
“Mari, your idea of cool is kind of bizarre,” Russell said. His nose and upper lip were all crinkled up.
Sage agreed. It sounded disgusting. In her opinion, the crown-of-thorns starfish was a more vicious predator than any shark.
“That was quick,” Dev announced, focusing on the ancam screen. “We have our next clue.”
Sage hoped that whatever it was, they could solve it quickly and get to the finish line in first place.
OUTBREAK
In a healthy ecosystem, predators like the crown-of-thorns starfish play an important role. These starfish help keep balance in the reef. They do this by eating the fastest growing corals, like the staghorn. But when the number of crown-of-thorns starfish skyrockets, they eat too much coral and jeopardize the health of the reef.
The life cycle of the crown-of-thorns starfish may help explain how an outbreak happens.
Only adult crown-of-thorns starfish feed on coral. The larvae—a very early form—eat plankton. Young starfish eat algae, a plant. When there is more food for the starfish at these younger stages, there will eventually be more adult starfish eating the coral. And since adult crown-of-thorns starfish are venomous, they have few natural predators.
Recently, warm ocean water and other conditions have allowed more young starfish to thrive. There are now so many adults that they are destroying large parts of the reef, and the coral cannot grow back fast enough.
Related to the elephant
But with a tail like a whale,
It might have inspired tales
of mermaids,
But has longer whiskers than locks.
“Finally!” Dev cried. “A clue that doesn’t rhyme!”
“Finally!” Russell cried. “A clue that I know the answer to. It’s the dugong. Because the clue’s about locks of hair, not combination locks. Those things drive me crazy.”
Sage quickly thought ahead. They had already been in the water awhile. “Is everyone good to go?”
“Sure. We should just search here, right,” Dev said. “Maybe we could save time and catch up.”
Sage looked at Mari again. The younger girl wasn’t a strong swimmer to begin with, and she had been so sick the day before. Sage knew she should insist that they stop to rest, but she also yearned to keep going, to strive for the win.
“Let’s do it,” Mari said to Sage’s surprise.
They all dunked their faces in the water and started to search.
Sage wanted to find a dugong as fast as possible. The faster Sage worked, the sooner they would all get a break.
Sage remembered that sometimes, to escape sharks, dugongs would swim to the deeper waters of the reef. So she separated from the others and followed a winding path through the underwater towers of coral. The ocean floor began to drop away. The early morning sun did not reach to the bottom of the ocean floor here, and the water seemed murkier, the shadows darker.
Sage sensed something move below her. She squinted, trying to focus. There it was again. She couldn’t get a good look. If she wanted to find out what it was, she’d have to go deeper and dive with the snorkel on. She took a full breath and plunged down, pushing against the water.
Whatever it was, it slid under a shelf of coral. In the darkness, Sage couldn’t tell how big it was. She knew dugongs were shy. Maybe this mystery creature was the answer to the clue. Sage was starting to run out of air, but she worked her way lower.
She was now even with the reef floor. All at once, a bundle of tiny arms burst from under the coral. The creature scuttled toward her with jagged movements. Its body was the size of a baseball. The wriggling bundle was covered in tiny rings that began to glow an intense peacock blue.
Something strong seized Sage from behind and dragged her to the surface. She tried to scream, but water surged into her mouth. The sun flashed in her eyes, and her body quaked with coughs. Her arms lashed out as she tried to fight off whatever had grabbed her.
“It’s me!”
It took Sage a moment to register the voice. Then Mari appeared in front of her. “Blue-ringed octopus!” the younger girl sputtered. “More deadly than jellyfish.” She had Sage’s arm now and was pulling her away.
“No,” Sage yelled, finally finding her voice. She ripped her wrist from Mari’s grasp. “What are you doing? What are you doing here?” Mari turned back, confused.
Sage’s mask was foggy. She could barely even see Mari, and she didn’t want the other girl to see her. “You don’t look out for me. That’s not your job. I can take care of myself.”
“We got it!” a voice called out. It sounded far away. “Sage! Mari
!”
Sage was still trying to catch her breath. Water dripped from her forehead down the tip of her nose. Instinctively her hand rushed to her ear. She still had her earring.
“Russell got a photo of the dugong!” Dev’s voice called again.
“We’re here,” Mari answered. She waved as the two snorkel pipes came into view.
The boys’ faces were stretched with smiles. “It was awesome! He got it in like record time,” Dev said. “We’re still waiting for the next clue to come in, but show them,” he prompted Russell.
Just as Russell reached out to display the ancam screen, a shadow passed below. “No way. There it is again,” he said, pointing underwater.
The four kids lowered their faces into the water.
Sage forced herself to take calm, even breaths through the snorkel. She tried to forget what had just happened and focus on the dugong.
It was funny to think that the dugong, with its short, wide trunk, could have inspired stories of mermaids. But it was graceful, floating along the reef floor. Sage had always felt so at home in the water. Now she just wanted to be anywhere else.
After the dugong had passed, the red team lifted their heads. “Let’s go back to the boat,” Mari said. “Sage found a blue-ringed octopus, or it found her. They aren’t common this far north, but I don’t want to stick around and see it again.”
“Whoa, those things are nasty,” Dev said.
The boys looked at Sage. She didn’t say anything. The octopus hadn’t stung her, but she still felt stunned.
By the time they were back on the boat, they had received their next clue. It was a set of coordinates. “It must be where we get the next challenge,” Russell said.
“I’ll show it to Javier and the captain,” Dev suggested, looking to Sage for approval.
Sage nodded, then went down to the girls’ cabin and sat on the edge of her bed. She found her family photo in her bag. Since no phones or cameras were allowed, this was all she had. She stared at it for a while.
When she heard the yacht’s motor rev up, she convinced herself to get her head back in the game.
She found the rest of the team on the deck. They stopped talking at the sight of her. She had expected that. It had happened a lot over the last year. In this case, it was a good thing. It gave them a chance to get their heads back in the race, too.
But then Russell pushed Mari forward.
“Sage,” her teammate said, “we’re worried.”
Sage took a breath and felt her shoulders draw back. Her chin lifted.
“I went after you on purpose. We need to stick together. That’s what teams do.”
It took Sage a moment to realize Mari was talking about what had happened at the reef.
Mari looked at the ground. Her cheek twitched. “I don’t care what you say. It is my job to look after you. It’s all our jobs. We have to look after each other.”
Sage looked out to sea, avoiding her teammates’ faces.
“Listen,” Russell said. “We know you want to be the team leader. You’re good at it. And Mari’s smart about animals, and Dev’s good with gadgets, and I’m whatever I am. But we’re all more than that. And you don’t have to laugh at our jokes or tell us what you want to do with the prize money. But we are a team. And you can’t tell us not to have your back.”
Sage shifted her eyes to look in the other direction, but they locked with Russell’s. He held her gaze and didn’t look away.
“Look,” she began, her voice soft. “I was supposed to apply for The Wild Life with my sister, but then she was in an accident.” Sage hadn’t told the story for so long. It had been almost a year—a year of doctors’ appointments and physical therapy. It seemed like forever. “The doctors said she couldn’t race, and I refused to do it without her. But my parents thought it would be good for me.” She paused and let her eyes sweep over her teammates’ faces. “They probably just wanted me out of the house. So I gave in, and promised myself that I would win. I would win so I could take Caroline everywhere she’s always wanted to go.”
Sage didn’t tell them about how she felt responsible for what had happened to her sister. It had been her job to look after Caroline at the track meet, but she hadn’t even seen when Caroline had broken her shoulder and her arm. Sage had been competing on the other side of the track. Caroline wouldn’t have even been there if it hadn’t been for Sage.
Sage also didn’t tell them that her earrings were a good luck gift from Caroline, just for the race. But the way Russell, Dev, and Mari looked at her, Sage knew she didn’t have to tell them any of these things.
“Sometimes, during the race, I get caught up in all of that. I want to win so much, I try to take charge of everything. It feels like the only thing I can do,” she said. “And then, when Mari got sick, it reminded me of Caroline. Then all I wanted was to make sure she would be okay.”
Sage was grateful for the silence that followed.
“And I was fine,” Mari said after a while. “You looked out for me, and I wanted to do the same for you.”
Sage couldn’t look at Mari, but she gave a slight nod. Sage wasn’t used to anyone looking out for her. That had always been her job.
“I get it,” Russell added, his arms crossed. “It’s a good reason to want to win.”
“Yeah, I’m all for winning,” Dev admitted, “but your sister would want you to have fun. You need to stop thinking about her accident. She’d want you to get the most out of it. She wouldn’t want you to run this race just to get first place.”
“Yeah,” Russell added. “She’d want you to have good times, and answer clues that end in rhymes.” Russell burst out laughing at his attempt at poetry. Dev rolled his eyes, horrified.
“You started it, man,” Russell claimed. “You said, ‘Run this race, just to get first place.’ Next year you should get a job writing the clues.”
The look on Dev’s face was hilarious, and Sage was soon doubled over with laughter, wiping fresh tears from her eyes. It was not long before Mari gave in. The red team had lost it. They were in no condition to run a race.
CREATURE FEATURE
DUGONG
SCIENTIFIC NAME: Dugong dugon
TYPE: mammal
RANGE: coastal waters of the Indian Ocean, Pacific Ocean, and neighboring seas
FOOD: sea grass
While it has a tail with two flukes, similar to a whale, the dugong is more closely related to an elephant. But other than the color of its thick skin, the dugong has few physical traits in common with its big-eared cousins. Dugongs don’t even have earflaps! They do, however, have a large snout with a long upper lip for picking sea grass, which is this picky herbivore’s first choice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Its love of grass is the reason for its nickname: sea cow. This name can also refer to the dugong’s close relative, the manatee.
Javier seemed taken aback when he found the team in a huddle of giggles. “I’m glad you’re having a good time, but we’re almost to the coordinates,” he announced.
“Thank you,” Russell said. “We are having a good time.” Then he added, “I hope that’s not a crime.”
Dev whacked him in the stomach with the back of his arm. “Sage, can you please tell us what to do so he’ll stop?”
Sage wasn’t sure what to say. Was this her job? Was this what she needed to do for the team? She looked to Mari, but the other girl just shook her head.
Sage sniffed back the laughter and pushed herself off of the deck floor. “Someone get binoculars,” she said, surveying where the boat was headed. “We need to figure out what the next challenge will be.”
Dev scrambled to his feet, grabbed his binoculars, and focused them into the distance.
Javier turned toward the main cabin. The guide seemed relieved that Team Red was back on track.
Dev assessed that there was a small fleet of kayaks docked at a floating platform. Farther in the distance was an island. “There’s a pennant with the Wild Life logo on it!” Dev
exclaimed. “It’s on the beach.”
“You think we just need to get from the platform to the island and we’ll be done?” Mari asked.
“Well, we could ask Team Purple,” Dev said. “I can see someone in a purple shirt already on the beach.”
Sage shook her head. Team Purple was impressive.
As the yacht’s engine decreased to a purr, Sage’s heart rate nearly doubled. The boat pulled up, and the team climbed right from the boat’s ladder to the floating dock. When they looked back to Javier, he had something in his hand. It was a large red key. He handed it to Sage.
“Thanks,” she said, and they all waved to their trusty chaperone.
“It must be for the kayaks,” Dev said, motioning to the two-person boats tied to the dock. He quickly examined the key and the various locks. “Our key will only work on the red one.”
Sage calculated that there was one canoe missing: the purple one.
How much of a lead did the Smarties have? When Sage looked to the Wild Life flag, she could see that there was a kayak in the water. It wasn’t even halfway to the beach.
“Look! They’re not that far ahead!” Sage exclaimed. It wasn’t the same, racing for second place, but Team Red still had something to prove. “Mari, you’re in front. Russell in the back.” Sage held the shell steady as her teammates slid into place, and Dev handed them paddles. “Russell, you up to coming back for us?”
“Yeah,” he said, already pushing off.
“Hurry!” she yelled.
As she watched them paddle toward the island, she wondered how long it would take Russell to row back.
“You know, it’s a good thing you’re so good at taking charge,” Dev said. “Otherwise, you would be pretty annoying.”
Sage glanced at Dev, who smiled.
“Thanks,” she said. “I guess.” She reached for her ladybug earring.
They both watched as Russell and Mari paddled through the water.
Great Reef Games Page 4
