I have to get away from the sea otters so the poachers don’t see them. I sprint for a rock to hide behind.
Why have they come back?
About sixty feet away from me, they cut their motor and stop. One of them leans over the side of the boat like he’s looking for something. His bag, I bet. They must have noticed it was missing.
They’ll be desperate to find it so no one knows they’ve been harvesting sea urchins out of season. I can’t hear what they say, but I can see them arguing. Then two of them pull on dry suits and splash overboard.
My hand clutches my paddle. What if one of them swims over to the sea otters? He’ll see Gertrude. Then what?
Without thinking, or even knowing I’m about to do it, I paddle out from behind the rock. I have no plan, but I have to keep them away from the sea otters.
“Hey,” I call. My voice hardly comes out. I try again. “Hey.” This time I’m louder. Mark looks at me.
“Hey, Maya, are you calling us?” he says.
I wet my lips and cough to clear my throat. “Are you looking for a harvest bag?”
He doesn’t answer.
I cough again. “I saw a bag here earlier. Is it yours?”
Mark leans forward. The look in his eyes has changed. Before he was playing at being friendly. Now he knows that I know. He starts his engine. I’ve made a big mistake.
I was so concerned about the sea otters that I forgot to worry about myself. How could I be so stupid?
“Saul, over here!” I shout, but there’s no answer.
There’s a narrow channel between some rocks ten strokes behind me. If I can get in there, Mark won’t be able to reach me. I paddle hard backward. The kayak wobbles and heads toward a rock. I correct my angle and try again. I’m still five strokes away from the channel.
Below me, I see a dark shape. At first I think it’s a sea otter, but it is moving too slowly. Then I see bubbles, and I know exactly what it is. A diver.
I brace myself as the diver hauls himself up onto the stern of my boat. He flings his chest across my back hatch. His feet hang in the water. He leans sideways and tries to tip me.
I throw my weight the other way.
He leans his weight left. I fling mine right. Somehow I keep the boat upright. He growls at me. It doesn’t sound like a human voice. He leans again. This time I go over.
The man lets go of my boat. He lunges at me underwater. I struggle to roll the kayak upright, but he’s too close. He’s got a rake in his hand.
He’s coming right for my face.
A second before he hits me, something streaks by and knocks him out of the way. His tank falls to the sea floor below him. I’m running out of air, and I have no time to see what it was that hit him, so I set up my paddle and roll.
When I surface, Saul is sitting in his kayak beside me. He has his paddle in one hand and his radio in the other. He’s checking underwater to see where the diver got to. Mark’s boat is coming our way.
“Are you okay?” asks Saul. “I can’t believe you just did that. What were you thinking?”
It’s a good question, but we don’t have time to think about it right now. The channel is right behind us, but we won’t both fit. My head spins around, searching for a way out.
“Head behind a rock,” I shout. Saul understands immediately. He grabs the bow of my boat and sweeps it around, changing my angle. He gives me a push. I take one stroke, and another and another. In five seconds Saul and I are surrounded by rocks.
“They’re still coming,” says Saul. It’s true. Mark is motoring straight toward us.
I want to cry, but I need to keep my head.
I breathe deeply. My fingers grip my paddle so tightly my knuckles feel like they might crack. I’ve done the thing I most feared. I’ve put everything at risk. Me. Saul. The sea otters.
I look underwater. One of the divers still has a tank. He could be anywhere.
Then I see a shadow slide under the water. The bubbles rise to the surface. I thrash my paddle in his direction. He backs away.
When I look up, Mark is almost on me.
A wake rears off the back of Mark’s boat. It sends a wave crashing over the rocks. Spray flies off into our faces. Our kayaks rock wildly. I grab at Saul’s boat.
The wave passes, but Mark circles around again and another wave hits the rocks. The spray soaks us. Our boats rock, knocking into each other. The diver swims up behind us, cutting off our escape from the rocks. Saul thrashes his paddle at him, but he only backs away a few feet.
“They’re trying to corner us,” I call to Saul. I’m so frightened I want to puke.
“Leave us alone,” Saul shouts.
The boat doesn’t even slow down.
Around it comes again. It’s moving faster now. The wake is higher than our kayaks.
“Arghhhhhh…” I shout as the spray hits me.
“We have to get away from the rocks,” Saul yells.
But we’re too tight against the rocks to move. The swell from Mark’s wake has pushed us so close to the rocks, we’re in danger of being dashed against them. Our kayaks will break.
We’ll be swamped.