Chapter Thirteen

Mom picks me up at the end of the first day. She looks overwhelmed and is carrying a large leather bag with her.

“How did the primer día go?” she asks, taking off her high heels. She replaces them with ballet flats.

“AMAZING. I went on a behind-the-scenes, ultra-exclusive tour! The back area looks so scientific with pipes and computers. It looks like a submarine. I also think I may have one new friend who also wants to save the oceans.”

Mom gives me a high five.

“See? The star worked.” She smiles.

“What’s in the leather bag?” I ask.

Mom softly moans. “I have to do work from home. That’s how I can pick you up early every day this week.”

When we get back home, I immediately call Jenny. I want to tell her about my first day of camp and see if she wants to help me save the oceans.

“Jenny, I’m on a mission. Meet me at the library.”

“On my way,” she replies.

I jump on my bike and ride to the library. When I see Jenny, I give her a big hug and hand her her gift. It’s a colorful bag from Mexico that I filled with Japanese peanuts. For at least five minutes, I ramble about my trip. I haven’t been able to tell her much since she was busy at dance camp.

“And I ate grasshoppers!” I conclude.

Jenny just shrugs.

“I ate duck eggs today,” she replies. Her mom likes to buy pickled duck eggs from the Vietnamese market.

We both laugh. Even though it was just a few days, I missed Jenny. It’s so great to have a best friend who understands that sometimes the food that doesn’t sound familiar is actually the best.

She then tells me all about her camp and does a dance demonstration. I try my best to seem interested, but I really just want to get started on saving the oceans.

As soon as she finishes, I tell her our mission.

“In Mexico, I decided I’m going to be a marine biologist and protect the oceans! And I need your help.”

“How are you going to protect them?” she asks.

I pause. That’s a good question.

“All right, so I haven’t figured out all the details. I just know the sea creatures need our help, and I thought we could do some research and figure out how to help them.”

Jenny looks a little more convinced.

“I’ll help when I’m not at dance camp or rehearsing. I have to practice a lot for my duet at the recital. That’s coming up soon.”

My stomach sinks a little. The oceans are more important than dancing. I wish Jenny understood that. I can’t complain, though. A little help is better than nothing.

“Where do we start?” She stands on her tippy toes like a ballerina.

We begin by consulting our faithful friend, the library catalog. It’s easy to find some books on the ocean on the computer, and we skim through the section a little bit. It’s mostly books that I’ve seen before. As you can imagine, I know that area quite well.

Jenny says, “This is great stuff about oceans, but we need some tips on how to save them.”

As much as I’d like to disagree, Jenny is right.

“Let’s ask a librarian,” I say as I stand up.

We find a librarian at the information desk. Jenny rings the bell to get his attention. It startles him for a second.

“How can I help you, young ladies?”

I speak up, pretending to be confident.

“I’m Stella, and this is my friend Jenny, and we’d like to save the oceans. And we need help finding research.”

“What go-getters! Follow me this way!”

He takes us over to the computers in the kids’ section.

“I’d recommend searching for oceans, but also conservation.”

“Of course, we learned about conservation last year!” I reply enthusiastically.

“Reduce, reuse, and recycle,” adds Jenny.

I nod. I learned about it in Ms. Bell’s class. The three R’s are all about conservation. Conservation is about preserving and protecting natural resources. Recycling is making sure reusable materials are not thrown in the trash. Instead the materials can be recycled and turned into something new!

“But what does that have to do with the oceans?” I ask.

“Sadly,” replies the librarian, “a lot of the trash we create ends up there.”

“Oh…,” we reply. I never realized that before. I was so focused on protecting sea creatures from people—like building a fence around turtle nests—that I didn’t realize we’re hurting them from far away, too. Like polluting their homes with our trash.

The librarian finds us a list of books in the catalog that matches both conservation and oceans. With our arms full of books, we leave the library. It’s more than enough to begin. At the last minute, Jenny grabs a book on baking for kids.

“It just looks too tasty,” she says.

Back at home, we start on posters. Jenny writes out in bubble letters SAVE THE OCEANS while I draw a mighty blue whale underneath. It’s the largest mammal, or animal, to have ever existed on the entire planet. It’s a symbol worthy of the cause.

Then I start writing facts on a separate poster. Like how there are one hundred fifty million metric tons of plastic in all the oceans. If an elephant weighs a ton, then that’s like one hundred fifty million elephants of trash! The more I write and read, the worse I feel about what we’re doing to the oceans. I think learning about conservation might go hand in hand with feeling a little bad.

After we finish making the posters, I feel less upset, but like usual I want to do more. I lie down on my thinking rug.

“All the facts are sad, Jenny,” I say, frowning. “I really hope I can figure out how to fix the oceans.”

“A snack might make us smarter,” Jenny says, looking at the baking book. She’s been flipping through the pages as I worked on the posters.

We head to the kitchen and brainstorm over some galletas from the pantry. I don’t know if it really made us feel smarter, but the cookies sure improved our spirits.