6

Harper and I catch up with the boys around the side of the old fish market, and she breaks the awkward silence by handing around a tub of cockles her dad bought from Sukhi with a wooden fork for each of us.

We sit on the harbour wall with our legs dangling over the edge. The tide is in now, but the water is still a steep drop away. We’re close to where the tourist boys threw chips at Liquorice the other week, and I try to keep my eyes hunting for Selkies, rather than red tissues.

Harper is chattering away about how weird cockles are when suddenly I hear a clatter racing along the cobblestones behind us and a huge sandy-coloured dog comes bounding up on the wall, almost toppling all of us into the sea.

‘Oh no!’ Finn says, dropping his fork so it falls into the water.

‘Pilot!’ a voice calls from above as Harper’s dad, Marcus, comes running down the path with his hands in his floppy hair. ‘I’m so sorry – he just ran away! Are you okay?’

Noah mutters that everything is fine as Finn and JJ start wrestling for his fork. And although I want to check that none of my family fell into the sea, I don’t seem to be able to take my eyes off the dog.

I love him instantly. Like a bolt of sunlight has broken through the clouds and harpooned me in the heart. My breath is stopped like I’ve jumped into an icy sea. His green neckerchief is the same colour as my hat and it makes him look like he’s just been filming a Western. His ears are long and floppy and he’s all power and energy as he tries to lick Harper’s face.

‘This is Pilot,’ she says, seeing me looking. ‘We think he’s a golden retriever cross, although we’re not sure what he’s crossed with. We found him as a stray just outside of Seville. He can’t come everywhere with us, but he gets to stay with us now – don’t you, boy?’

Pilot licks Harper’s face until she falls over, laughing, and then he comes bounding over to me. I take a step back, because even though I’ve wanted a dog since I was little, I don’t really know what to do with them. And this one has the power of a beachmaster seal, and I wonder if he has the teeth of one too. But Pilot doesn’t bite – he circles me, his tail whipping the back of my legs as he sniffs at my sea-salt skin. I bend down to scratch his ears, and his wet nose sniffs my hand.

Suddenly, he gives out a little bark like he’s just realized I’m a long-lost friend – and maybe I am. I laugh, sitting down on the path so he can climb onto my lap boisterously, trying to lick my ears.

‘He likes you!’ Harper says, laughing.

The boys all bend down with me to look into Pilot’s dark eyes, his tongue now lolling out of his mouth.

‘You should have that dog on a lead – seals are about,’ a gruff voice says from behind us as Old Phil walks past, fishing line in hand.

Marcus stumbles over an apology, trying to clip an extendable lead onto the collar hidden under Pilot’s neckerchief, but Old Phil is already ignoring him – like he does with all the tourists and city folk who come here on their holidays.

‘If you’re wanting Darweshi, you’re in the wrong place,’ he says to us. He points down the ramp to the jetty, where I can see Matty working on Fabrizio’s trawler again, and our other fisher neighbours out sorting their bait ready for tomorrow.

Harper takes Pilot’s lead off her dad, keeping a tight grip on it.

‘Thanks, Phil!’ we call as we race down the ramp, Marcus walking behind us. Our feet thud on the wooden planks and Pilot’s claws scatter. And it makes me wonder whether his claws are all-black like Liquorice’s too.

‘There you are!’ Uncle Darweshi calls up when he sees us. ‘Come on, you’re missing all the fun!’

JJ and Finn look like they don’t agree on Uncle Darweshi’s definition of ‘fun’, but we hop the gates and criss-cross down to the jetty by the water’s edge anyway, looking out to the fuel pump and the dozen different boats that call this harbour their home – including Nana’s red one, moored in her prime spot in the marina alongside the tourist yachts.

I make sure I stand next to Harper – even though she waves her arms around as she talks loudly. But she still has a tight hold of Pilot and I put my fingers down to him so he can sniff them, and I beam when he puts his nose into my hand, like a doggy handhold.

‘Look to the jetties close to Patrica May,’ Uncle Darweshi says excitedly, the sun glistening off his bald head as he jumps up and down in his socks and sandals.

Charlotte, who I saw on the beach last night, passes me her binoculars so I can peer towards the wooden platforms further towards the marina.

And there, resting in the sun on one of the jetties like long washed-up razor clams, are six grey seals.

‘I see them!’ Harper says next to me, looking through a small pair of binoculars that she must have had in her pocket this whole time. ‘What are they?’

‘Grey seals,’ Uncle Darweshi says, suddenly realizing she’s there and looking around to spot Marcus standing behind us, an amused look on his face. ‘We’re very blessed to have forty per cent of the world’s grey seal population here in the UK, which makes them very special indeed. But we don’t actually know much about them – where they go, what their habits are, that kind of thing.’

‘That’s where we come in,’ I whisper to Harper, pointing to the camera Charlotte is holding with the huge lens. ‘Every seal has spots on their fur that are like a fingerprint – that means you can tell who is who.’ I look out at them again through my binoculars, hunting for all-black fur, but seeing only grey. ‘Nana always says they’re just like people – all unique and none the same.’

Uncle Darweshi looks delighted. I think he thinks the boys and I don’t listen to him very often. We probably don’t, but only when he’s going on about safety and boring things.

‘That’s right, Martha!’ he says, bouncing in his sandals again. ‘And when we know which seals are which, we can use that information to keep tabs on them – whether they rear any pups, where they go, if they have any injuries…’

‘What seals are these?’ Marcus says, squinting out at them.

‘That’s what the pictures are for – so we can cross-check the database when we get back,’ Uncle Darweshi says.

‘Although I’m pretty sure that big one on the left is Seashell,’ Charlotte adds. ‘With David Beckham and Rubber Duck next to her.’

Harper cracks up laughing suddenly – her laugh is loud and wild, making everyone look around with their eyebrows up. ‘Rubber Duck?’ she says. ‘What kind of name is that?’

Charlotte chuckles with her, looking at me like I have something to do with why this loud girl is here with us. I bend, distracting myself with Pilot’s floppy ears that feel soft and silky. ‘They’re named after the markings on their fur mostly,’ she says. ‘So, David Beckham has a football shape on his neck, and Rubber Duck – well – she has a rubber duck on her back.’

Harper is still laughing, and it makes everyone else join in too. We’ve known this so long, we’d forgotten it was even funny.

‘Have you seen the all-black one – the pup we saw yesterday?’ I ask Charlotte quietly, who shakes her head.

‘Not in this haul-out. But I checked the database and we don’t have any melanistic pups listed at the moment, so the naming rights are yours if you can get a picture of it, Martha.’ Charlotte smiles.

I’m excited about that, as I already know her name, and it makes sense for other people to know it too. But also, the thought of her being away from her family when they’re all gathered like this makes me worry about her and whether she’s okay.

JJ looks really bored now – especially as he didn’t win the fight with Finn on who gets the other pair of binoculars. ‘Nana’s always banging on about seals – I don’t see what’s so good about them.’

‘They’re our family,’ I say, frowning. ‘We share the same blood.’

But JJ lounges across the wooden barrier behind us. ‘Selkies? Martha, that’s just an old fairy tale.’

I feel my face get red hot and Noah nudges his brother again.

‘True or not – seals are important to all of us,’ Charlotte says, kindly. ‘And your nana knows that better than most. She’s the reason there’s a seal charity here in the first place and why all the fisherfolk work so hard to keep the seas clear. She’s been a real environmental pioneer.’

‘The sea belongs to sea creatures – humans are just visitors,’ I say, remembering all the times Nana has said it, making sure all the other fishers of Middlesea live by that code.

Meanwhile, Harper is asking loads of questions about Selkies and what seals need our help with. But something in the water distracts everyone before they can be answered.

‘Hey, Dad – what’s that seal doing?’ Noah asks, focusing on a light grey seal in the water playing with something.

I lift my head from Pilot’s as Uncle Darweshi clears his throat. ‘We see that a lot. Seals are a bit like dogs, you see – very inquisitive, always playing…’ Pilot stares up at each of us in turn with the same dopey look on his face that Liquorice gave me when I first met her in the water.

I smile, reaching for my binoculars again to watch the seal as he throws something back and forth in the water, like he’s playing fetch with himself.

‘Is that a plastic bag he’s playing with?’ Finn says next to me. ‘What happens if he swallows it?’

‘Ah, yes,’ Uncle Darweshi says, lowering his camera. ‘That’s the question, isn’t it, Finn? What happens when the rubbish we’re finished with ends up in the path of a wild animal?’

We all go silent, because we know the answer, but none of us wants to say it. I drop the binoculars and kick them away, so hard that they almost drop over the edge into the water with the rest of the litter.

Harper frowns, bending to pick them up. ‘We can go just go and rescue it, can’t we? Take the plastic bag away?’

But Uncle Darweshi shakes his head. ‘We can’t rescue seals when they’re in the water – they swim away, sometimes taking bags and things with them. They’d all scarper as soon as we got down there, and resting is really important to seals’ survival. That’s why human disturbances cause such bother and why we tell you kids to stay a hundred metres away. That and your own safety, of course…’

Everyone watches the seal playing. I try to look at Pilot and think only about how great it is to meet a dog that likes me and wonder about whether we might become best friends. But the longer I stay, the more impossibly huge the world feels – like it’s spinning so fast, I can’t find anything to cling to.

‘I don’t feel well,’ I say quietly, stepping away. And even though Uncle Darweshi offers to give me a lift home and Noah tells me that the seal has got bored of the bag and swum off, I still walk back up the boards on my own.