I dashed between the twisted coconut tree trunks, backpack on my shoulders, shield raised, praying to stay alive. Long, needle-sharp quills whizzed around me. I could hear them ping and snap as they bounced off my shield. At least they weren’t hitting me.
There was one problem. The arrow on the inside of my wristband was leading me back towards the sea – in the direction of the flying quills.
I heard the growl of the waves and the crash of the surf, like air forced through clenched teeth. Soon, I was still among the trees, but running parallel to the shore, with the ocean in sight. I was not ready for what I saw.
In the water, just beyond the shallows, were rows 50and rows of strange fish. Now, I knew where the quills were coming from. The fish were striped, white, reddish-orange and brown, with round staring eyes and wide mouths turned down on the sides. On either side of their bodies, their fins fanned out like feathers in a peacock’s tail. Their tailfins, covered with smaller spines, flashed from side to side. But what really caught my eye was the row of long, deadly spines along each fish’s back and tail. Even though I couldn’t see their undersides in the water, I was pretty sure they had more spines there as well.
They were lionfish, a species from the South Pacific and Indian Oceans, that had been brought to Caribbean and American waters, by none other than … humans. People focused on the lionfish’s unique looks had bought them for exotic saltwater aquariums. Then they’d tossed them away or let them escape into the wild. Now they were a top predator in the Caribbean and Atlantic Oceans, cornering and consuming over fifty species of fish, including those that many coastal communities relied on to live, like snapper and grouper, as well as coral reef natives like parrotfish. In fact, lionfish risked destroying reefs throughout the region by threatening 51the local fish that kept those ecosystems alive.
It didn’t help that they laid about two million eggs a year!
As if that weren’t enough, these lionfish were like none I’d ever seen. For one, they were about the size of rottweilers, making the seawater a bubbling cauldron with their tails and fins. I stared at them, amazed. Lionfish usually hunted alone, or at most, in pairs, but here they were – a school of lionfish lining the water.
Voot! Voot! Voot! The nearest fish sent their spines shooting up into the air and arcing down toward me. I raised my shield and ducked back into the shelter of the trees. I peeked out from behind the scarred trunk just in time to see a new set of deadly spines grow out of the lionfishes’ backs.
Great. They were sprouting new spines like starfish growing new limbs.
I knew from a Biology project at school that scientists were studying starfish and zebrafish to understand how to regenerate organs in the human body, even heal the brain and nervous system. But this wasn’t something that lionfish were usually able to do. At least, the ones I knew about.
I wished Da were here to see this and help me 52escape. He’d worked with me on my school project back when he was in Trinidad, before he had to leave the island again for work.
We’d learned that, in humans, the liver had the ability to grow back after illness or injury. Meanwhile, starfish could grow a whole new body from a single leg!
Now, I shivered, looking at what the Council had done – they’d turned life-saving research into a weapon.
Anyway, I had to keep moving. Da wasn’t here and if I missed the next door, I could be trapped in this place forever. For all I knew, Adri had already escaped. I was on my own.
I took a deep breath, raised my shield, and ran as fast as I could through the trees.
That seemed to enrage the lionfish. From the water, they made pulsing noises like the beating of war drums. They sent such a hail of spines that I had to take cover behind another tree.
I licked my chapped lips. There was probably water in that thermos in my rucksack, but there was no time to get a drink.
I tried moving forward, but there were too many 53arrows. I was stuck in place.
I sank down to the sand, my back against a coconut tree’s lined trunk. My mind went back to the first time I had seen lionfish.
It had been nothing like this …
“Delicious,” Jake had pronounced the dish at the seaside dinner he’d taken us to in Chaguaramas, on the northwest tip of Trinidad.
This was just last week, before they’d left for Mum’s exhibition in Barbados. Now it seemed like a lifetime away.
There was an effort to get people to eat lionfish at restaurants, to help keep their numbers down. Jake said that, properly cleaned and seasoned, it tasted like flaky, buttery whitefish. The fork had looked tiny in his tattooed arm, as he drew it gently across the half-eaten plate and took another bite.
“Try some, Marie,” he offered, his top-knot moving slightly in the breeze.
“You look like you’re enjoying it for all of us!” Mum teased him.
She adjusted the batik wrap-dress with a hummingbird design that she had made herself. Then she took a bite from his fork, her already wide eyes opening with 54surprise. “Mm …That is good!”
The fish slices were in a spicy ceviche, with shallots, garlic, pepper, lime juice and strips of green mango. It looked great, but if there was one thing I’d learned from my adventure in the forest: looks could be deceiving. I wasn’t sure I wanted to try lionfish.
Tayo squealed and tried to swipe the fork from my hand.
“Zo?” Jake lifted his plate slightly, reaching for a clean fork. “You always go brave,” he looked at me warmly, eyes crinkling in his tanned face.
I hesitated.
“No pressure though,” he said quickly, putting the plate down.
I had to give Jake Lee credit. He’d stumbled across us after my parents’ divorce, gotten married to my Mum and had Tayo in what seemed like a whirlwind year. Yet, from the beginning, he was always extending the olive branch to me one way or another. Since Samaan Bay, when he and Da had spent days side by side in the forest searching for me, he had earned even my Da’s respect.
I decided to do my best to return some of the kindness he’d shown me. 55
“Sure! I’ll try it!” I said a little too loudly.
“It’s okay, Zo,” Mum leaned in.
She was always telling me to be true to myself, in big and small things. I knew that she was right, but it was easier said than done.
Like, right now, I didn’t want to taste the new fish, but I also didn’t want to give Mum and Jake another reason to feel rejected. Tayo protested loudly for his piece, while Mum kept trying to tell me it was okay.
I took a bite of the fish. It tasted good. And it felt even better to see the smile that lit up Mum’s face like the sun–shining against her beautiful black skin.
I wanted to keep that smile on her face every day.
I took a deep breath and snapped back to myself. My family was a world away. I was trapped behind a coconut-tree being attacked by mutant lionfish, in the middle of a Council-made disaster. Part of me could still taste the tart, spicy green mango in the dish that Jake had shared. It felt like the burn of missing my family: always there under my tongue.
I pushed myself up. I had to get out of this. I had to see them again. Hopefully, these fish had no idea that I’d eaten their cousins.
I lifted my shield and ran to the next tree. After 56a few more minutes of dashing from tree to tree, I slid to an abrupt stop. A few steps ahead of me, the line of trees ended. There was just a stretch of sandy beach, without even rocks to use as cover.
Then I saw it, not far away–the second door!
I felt a fresh wave of hurt. Adri must have gone through it. He was nowhere to be seen.
At least the door was still there.
I looked down at my wristband. Three more minutes. I’d have to make a run for it, with nothing but my shield and rucksack to protect me. I braced myself against the last tree.
The lionfish were right there in the water, sending off showers of arrows. Their calls felt like my frantic pulse.
I took a jagged breath and ran.
Even though I was sprinting as fast as I could, for some reason it felt like I was moving in slow motion. I could see a hail of spines flying toward me like a deadly swarm.
I raised my shield, but a stabbing pain hit my left leg. I fell and curled myself up under the shield as best I could. One of the lionfish spines had grazed my left calf. Thankfully, it wasn’t stuck there, but 57it burned where it had marked my skin.
I curled up under the shield, then tried crawling forward toward the door, while still protecting myself from the storm of arrows. For some reason, the door was blurry.
Right. How could I forget. Lionfish spines released a painful venom. I tried to stand but my leg was on fire. I crawled forward in the sand.
I remembered Da warning me when we went scuba diving at Buccoo Reef in Tobago, that lionfish venom could cause paralysis, burning, chills, even a deadly allergic reaction. My heart jumped in my throat. At least, so far, I could still move.
I had to get to that door.
One more minute before it closed.
I dragged myself forward under the shield. Everything blurred, then tilted. I couldn’t get up. I fought to keep my eyes open; to call for help. Maybe Adri would come back for me.
“Help!” I called.
No one answered.
I tried to hold on to Tayo’s howling laugh, Jake’s kind eyes and my mother’s smile, but it was too late …The world around me faded.