14

Uncle Darweshi goes next door to tell everyone our plan for the day, whilst Marcus makes us some cheese sandwiches. After a while, there’s a small group of fisherfolk gathered outside, bickering over the community litter pickers and binbags – including my cousins.

‘Well, it’s not doing us any good waiting by the phone in there – might as well make ourselves useful,’ Auntie Sue says when we step out. ‘Besides, Mother would be all for it, I expect.’

The other fisherfolk mumble in agreement.

JJ spots us, squatting into a superhero pose. ‘Come on, slow coaches – we’ve got seals to save!’

‘I thought you said seals were boring,’ I say as I barge my shoulder against his. I wrestle for his litter picker that’s like a long robot arm. Finn joins in as Noah tries to break us apart, and it feels good to have my silly cousins here. Like a tiny floating island in the middle of a rough sea.

‘Just think,’ Harper says to Old Phil, who looks a bit miffed about being made to wear a brightly coloured vest, when he usually just picks up the litter he sees from his boat. ‘Every small bit of litter we pick up is potentially saving the life of a living thing.’

Old Phil grunts at that, but JJ goes back into his superhero pose again. Finn and I copy him, cheering when I use the litter picker I won to put a dropped Coke can in Noah’s bag.

‘One seal saved!’ Finn shouts.

We all race down the path with Uncle Darweshi calling after us. ‘Remember – don’t pick up anything sharp or dangerous!’

We’re an odd group – children and old people, all wielding binbags. Harper’s loud laugh and excitement is somehow infectious, and soon even Old Phil is getting excited over spotting a crisp packet in a bush. When Nana and the fishers called me over to help them before, I always thought litter-picking would be dirty, or boring, or not really necessary. But being together with everyone doing something positive feels really good today, when everything else feels difficult.

JJ and I race each other to see who can fill our bags up the fastest, and thanks to a big polystyrene chip tray I find two gulls fighting over under a bench, my bag is half full before we’ve even reached the beach.

Now I’m looking for litter rather than ignoring it, the tide that’s now slowly moving back in reveals just how much rubbish is hiding under the waves. We find an old balloon floating between strands of seaweed and a glass bottle that doesn’t even have a message in it.

‘I thought you said you fishers were already cleaning these seas?’ Miss Thurston says, tutting when she finds an old fishing net tangled in a rock pool.

The elders all start arguing with her, and so we follow Pilot down to the edge of the water, away from them. There, we find little bits of plastic of all different colours washing up in lines, tangled in bladderwrack and frayed pieces of rope.

‘The bits of plastic are called nurdles,’ Marcus says behind me. ‘Harper and I saw loads of them when we were working with sea turtles in Costa Rica.’

‘Where do they come from?’ I ask, using my gloves to pick up a blue dot the size of a lentil.

‘Everywhere,’ Harper says, her nose scrunched. ‘This is what all plastic things are made from, but usually it’s the big ships and factories that spill them, isn’t it, Dad?’

I look up the beach, around where the tourists are sitting, and see lines of multicoloured plastic stretching all the way to the rocks.

Finn groans. ‘This is impossible. We’re never going to be able to clean it all up by ourselves.’

Uncle Darweshi shakes his head. ‘Well, no, but that’s not the point, you see—’

‘I bet there’s loads more under the waves,’ JJ says, cutting his dad off and already dropping his bag.

‘I bet I can find more,’ Finn says, not even stopping to take off his T-shirt before splashing into the water, throwing out a crumpled plastic bottle with a roar.

I look at Harper and she shrugs, taking off her dress to reveal a swimming costume. I grin at her and Pilot barks as the boys, Harper and I run into the waves together. Pilot picks up a big tree branch, which isn’t litter, so Finn throws it, and we all laugh as he goes charging in after it, his long fur stuck down with water.

I dive in under the waves, swimming deeper until the worry about Nana that’s gnawing at my bones lifts a little.

Down here, the line between magic and real life feels a little fainter. I think about the small glitter-fish I see swimming on the sandy seabed and imagine how they might knit themselves together to make giant sea creatures. The idea feels warm between my fingers until I find a crab with a plastic fork in his claw. I feel an angry flare light up inside me as the glitter-fish story swims away. The sea is usually my place away from real-world problems, but here the two are mixing together and I wonder why I’ve never noticed it before.

I take the fork up to the surface and throw it out onto the pile of litter. By now though, the adult arguments are so loud that even the tourists around us have stopped their holidays to watch.

‘You’ve got no idea,’ Old Phil shouts, pointing at Auntie Sue. ‘We do more than our part, picking up after everyone. Is it our fault these out-of-towners come in—?’

Auntie Sue turns red. ‘We? I may be the harbour manager, Phil, but I’m still a Grey. I know perfectly well—’

‘But what about all these new regulations coming in?’ Matty chimes in. ‘It’s difficult enough to make ends meet.’

Uncle Darweshi shakes his head ‘Sue doesn’t make the rules, Matty, you know that. It’s just her job to enforce them—’

‘Yeah, well, if you ask me, you’re just enforcing the end of the old ways. The end of fishing,’ Fabrizio says.

Auntie Sue takes a step back, looking upset.

The sea dripping off my skin is making me shiver as I wade out into the shallows with the boys. Finn hides behind me and JJ kicks at the waves, trying not to look at his mum’s red eyes. And I don’t understand – because this was supposed to be bringing us all together, and now everyone is upset and angry about so many different things that have nothing to do with the rubbish on the beach.

‘Stop!’ a cross voice barks from the sea behind me – too quiet to be heard over the shouting by anyone other than Harper, the boys and me. We turn around and spot Noah slightly behind us, a desperate look on his face.

The adults still argue – all bickering about old things changing and whether it’s good or bad. Whether there’s money left to be had. If the elders overfished the waters, or if the new rules are ruining fishing for ever. And then slowly, my shy, quiet cousin marches out of the shallows to stand between them on shore. Noah digs his feet into the shingles, takes a deep breath, and a huge sound erupts from his chest like a howling seal.

‘STOP!’ he shouts.

Everyone stops. The adults, the tourists around him – everyone.

He bites his lip, like he’s already embarrassed about all the fuss he’s made, but he still keeps speaking. ‘Just – stop. Don’t you see – this isn’t even about litter, or fishing, or regulations. It’s about…’

He trails off and I feel my knees buckle slightly, because he’s right. I see it in the faces of everyone that was just yelling, and my cousins too.

It’s all about Nana. Everyone is feeling just as helpless and horrible as I am. And even though that makes me want to dive back into the water and disappear and never come back to land again, it also makes me stop shivering.

At least I’m not alone.

Auntie Sue steps forward, gathering Noah into a big hug as Uncle Darweshi kisses the top of his head.

Everyone else shuffles from foot to foot, muttering apologies and looking around. It feels awkward and strange, until Harper steps forward. She picks up one of the bags and starts putting the pile of things we dredged out of the sea in it. And slowly, everyone starts copying her, picking things up again in silence until our brigade of fisherfolk have collected almost five bags full of rubbish.

‘I never knew you could be so loud,’ JJ jokes to Noah as he comes back over to us.

He hides back behind his hair. ‘I was just cross at everyone shouting at Mum like that. She acts all stern, but she’s not really…’

Harper puts her hand out and squeezes his. Noah smiles shyly at her and I nod.

‘It was really brave,’ I say. ‘And it shut them up.’

Finn laughs, rolling his eyes at the older fishers still muttering about the tourists, playing with plastic beach toys and drinking from the same types of bottles we just fished out of the water. ‘Well, it made them quieter, anyway.’

JJ scowls. ‘They’re right though. If the tourists helped, we’d have filled twice as many bags by now.’

Old Phil overhears and nods, keeping his voice down. ‘These city folk are just here to take, take, take.’

I look at Harper as she drops Noah’s hand.

‘They might want to help,’ I say, ‘if we asked. If I was on holiday, I think I’d probably want to know how I could help…’

Or maybe I wouldn’t. Maybe I’d want to forget those real-world facts and live in a soft, perfect world instead.

But Harper nods. ‘I think you’re right, Martha. Maybe we should organize a big litter-picking drive this weekend. We could spread the word and invite everyone!’

Old Phil grunts again and I’m about to stick up for her when Mum appears suddenly behind us.

‘Martha? Boys?’ she says, her expression tight. She puts her hand on my shoulder and something about the way she does it makes even the sea hold its breath. She looks at me and my cousins and we’re all suddenly silent. ‘Can you come back home now, please? We need to have a chat about Nana.’