The Thing That Didn't Swim

Poko had about forty-seven questions about the Coral Bloom. He had been asking them for weeks. At breakfast. At bedtime. In the middle of conversations that were supposed to be about completely other things. His mother had answered the first twelve with real patience and genuine interest. Questions thirteen through twenty-two she had answered with less detail. After that she mostly smiled and said "you'll just have to see for yourself," which was not actually an answer. Poko had told her so, and she had smiled more. Which was also not an answer.

The morning he left, his father pulled him close. "I'm proud of you," he said. "It's a big trip for someone your size." He looked at Poko with warm eyes. "And try - just try - not to investigate every single thing you see on the way."

Poko promised. He absolutely, genuinely intended to keep that promise.

The open ocean was enormous and Poko loved every bit of it with his whole heart. He was slower than most creatures out here and he knew it, but slow had advantages. Slow meant more time to look at things. And there was so much to look at.

A strange purple shell was half-buried in the sand below - he circled it twice, trying to decide if it was just old or if something was living inside. Probably old. But interesting. A fish he had never seen before swam past with a spotted tail and enormous round eyes - he gave chase for a little while just to get a better look. What was that called? He would figure it out later. A current ran cold right through the middle of a warm stretch of water, which made very little sense, and he spent several minutes floating there trying to work it out before deciding it was a mystery for later.

He asked questions out loud even when nobody was around. Why does that rock have a stripe? What made that hole? Where does this current come from? Nobody answered. That was fine. The questions were worth asking anyway. Poko had always thought that questions were the beginning of knowing things, and knowing things was the best.

Then he saw it. He stopped.

He had seen a lot of things in the ocean and had at least a guess about most of them. But this - this was something entirely new. Enormous. Dark on the bottom, with a strange flat surface that cut right through the top of the water. It didn't swim. It just moved, making a low rumbling sound he could feel more than hear, which was fascinating.

Poko circled it from a distance. Then a little closer. Then a little closer still. He looked at the bottom of it - covered in strange bumps and colors, with a long dark line running down the middle. He looked at the things hanging off the side. Ropes. A big round shape. Something trailing in the water at the back that looked like - Oh!

He was in the net before he fully understood how it had happened. One moment he was moving in for a closer look, the next he was tangled, turned completely around, and stuck. He tried swimming forward. The net pulled tight. He tried backing up. Same thing. Sideways. Diagonal. He tried rotating. Nothing worked.

He stopped. His father's voice was very clear in his memory right now. Try not to investigate every single thing you see. He had some feelings about that. He set them aside.

Panicking wasn't going to help. So he did what he always did when he needed to figure something out: he looked around. Really looked. The net, the way it moved in the current, the water above him, the surface not too far up, the light coming through in long pale lines. He had gotten himself in here by being curious. Maybe being curious was how he got out.

That's when he saw the shadow.

A sea turtle, large and slow, moving along just below the surface. Close enough. Poko watched her for a moment. She had no idea he was there. As she passed overhead, he blew a stream of bubbles straight up.

The bubbles hit her belly and she paused. Looked left. Looked right. Poko blew more - bigger ones, a whole rushing cascade of them heading straight up. She looked down. But she still didn't see him. I'm too small, Poko thought. There was a brief pang to this - he was always too small - and then he remembered that being a pufferfish meant he wasn't always small.

He took the biggest breath he could. And puffed. He went from small to round and enormous in less than one second - spiky in every direction, straining against the net, taking up all the available space and some that hadn't been available. It was not comfortable at all. But it worked.

She saw him! She dove down and examined the situation - the net, the very round, very stuck pufferfish staring back at her. She had the expression of someone who had seen a lot of things in the ocean and was prepared to deal with them one at a time.

She didn't say a word. She just started working - slow and careful, pulling the net loose in one spot, then another, then another. Not rushing. Not panicking. Just working through it, steady as anything. She found the final rope she needed to move, held it wide, and waited. Poko deflated and swam through.

They rose to the surface together.

Poko took a breath of air and immediately started talking.

"Thank you," he said. "Also - what are you? I mean I know you're a turtle but I've never met one this big. Actually I've never really met a turtle at all, up close. And what was that thing? The big thing? I don't know what it is - do you? And are those ropes supposed to catch fish? Because one of them caught me and I don't think that was the plan -"

The turtle looked at him calmly. She did not look as if she could be rushed. "My name is Shelby," she said. "That thing is called a boat. And yes, the nets catch fish. Which is how you ended up in one."

Poko thought about this. "I was investigating."

"Maybe next time investigate from farther away," Shelby said.

"I'm Poko. Were you riding the front of that boat? Because it looked like you were riding the front of that boat." He grinned - he couldn't help it.

Shelby paused. "Yes."

"How did you know to do that?" he asked.

"I figured it out," she said. "On my own."

Poko stared at her like she had just said the most interesting thing he had ever heard. "That is amazing!" he said. And he meant it.

She turned and started back on her way. He noticed she was heading in exactly the same direction he was heading. He fell into pace beside her, not quite invited, but not not invited either.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"The Coral Bloom," she said.

Poko's mouth fell open. He stared at her for so long that he accidentally swam into a piece of kelp and had to untangle himself. "Me too!" he said, getting free. "Me too! Can I come? I have a lot of questions about it. I promise I won't investigate too many things on the way." He paused, being honest. "I'll really try."

Shelby looked at him for a long moment. Something shifted in her expression - not quite a smile, but close. "Come on then," she said.

They set off together. Poko asked four questions before they had even lost sight of the boat. Shelby answered every one. He was going to like her very much.