Catch up!

“Spot!” called a fish from the frenzy. “Adam! Come join us.”

Adam looked at Spot and raised his eyebrows. Spot swam behind Adam and nudged him with his nose. “You gotta try it! Best feeling in the world!”

Adam took the hint and swam to the outer edges of the swirling mass. The fish within moved liked lightening. Adam was afraid to get in the middle of it all. He was new to this, couldn’t swim as fast as they could. Spot came up behind him. “Like this,” Spot said and darted right in.

“I can’t swim like that,” Adam said. None of the fish responded. They just swam around and around and around. Adam tried to follow their movements with his eyes but it made him nauseous after a while. Finally, he closed his eyes and kicked forward as hard as he could. With a start that surprised him, Adam found himself swept up inside the school’s excited movements. He didn’t have to try too hard to keep up because the other fish’s momentum kept him aligned. The school’s energy seemed to give the school more energy. Being part of it was like nothing Adam knew.

And, to his surprise, Adam didn’t feel sick at all. Now that he moved at the same speed as the school, their circular swimming didn’t bother him so much. He could even make out the blissful, determined faces of individual fish as their bodies propelled them around and around. Spot cut down from up above to swim next to Adam’s ear. “What’d I tell you?” he asked.

“It’s better than a roller coaster!” yelled Adam.

“A what?”

“Never mind,” Adam said. He let go of the bad things that had happened to him past few days and enjoyed, for a precious few moments, simply being caught up with the other fish.

—-

Catch up!

The fish swam in close to Adam and piled themselves on top of him. Adam could no longer stay afloat under the weight of the fish. Why were they trying to drown him? He sank under the water and, against his will, was forced to take a quick breath. His mouth filled with salt water. It tasted terrible and felt absolutely wrong in his mouth and nose, but not so bad and not so wrong that he wanted to quit breathing. He wasn’t drowning. Adam could breathe! He could breathe underwater! For the first time since the flood, Adam smiled.

Chapter 5
Under The Sea, Under the Sea

Adam swam down, down, down. He did half-flips before darting straight down and full flips before darting up toward the light and he did spirals and circles and corkscrews. Adam Might could breathe underwater! The sky shimmered green-blue beyond the surface of the water. Adam tilted his head to one side and caught a glimpse of the darkness spread out beneath him. How far down does it go? He shuddered.

Spot and his school gathered in a tight group ahead of and below Adam. He took a sharp breath and kicked off in their direction. Spot was in the center, talking to the school:
“All right, people. We’re looking for land. We’re looking for humans. We’re looking for anything that isn’t Ocean.”

“What about the Urchin Army?” a tiny fish on the outskirts asked.

“We are not looking for the Urchin Army,” Spot said with a wink toward the smaller fish. “Now, I have never seen land before. But, I had never seen a human before today so I think that perhaps land might exist, too. Does anyone have any ideas of where we might start?”

The school murmured and bubbled several responses. Adam heard “Coral City!” and “Water-Folk!” and other strange replies. Yet no answer seemed to unite the group. Finally, a voice cried “We need a Turtle!” This sent the school into a happy frenzy. They swam about so fast and furiously that Adam grew dizzy. Spot shot out from the throng and headed straight for Adam.
“A Turtle it is. They have seen many tides rise and fall and are sure to know something.”

Catch up!

I’m going to find out what happened. Adam rolled over to slide the top off the waterwood box. In a flurry of excitement, the school slapped the water with their hundreds of fins. As Adam pulled the breather from the box, the box collapsed in on itself.

“It’s all right,” said Spot. “That’s what happens to a wet, empty, waterwood box.” The box folded up into a tiny, flat square. “Put it away. You may need it.” Adam tucked the box into his suit.

Spot eyed the breather in unusual, quiet anticipation. The rest of the school swam silent as well. Hundreds of fish eyes stared at the translucent disc between Adam’s fingers. Adam gave Spot a nervous glance. Spot nodded up, then down. Adam took a deep breath and put the disc into his mouth. A single, tear streaked down his cheek. Adam swallowed.

Immediately, Adam stopped breathing. He tried to cough up the breather. Once, while eating out with his parents, he swallowed an ice cube and the cube lodged in his throat. His father had to grab him from behind and squeeze painfully hard. The ice cube flew from his mouth and onto a neighboring table. Now, the breather was stuck in his throat and there was no one to force it out.

The tiny disc was lodged in Adam’s windpipe. He struggled for breath, gasping and hacking while Spot and the school looked on. They seemed more interested in the process than concerned for Adam’s safety. Adam tried in vain to work the disc loose by rubbing his throat.

“Adam,” Spot said. “Adam, calm down. I think it’s supposed to do that.”

With eyes wide and full of panic, Adam turned to Spot. Unable to speak, he could only shake his head back and forth. Spot looked Adam right in the eye, then shot himself out of the water and over Adam’s head. This sparked the school to action.

Catch up!

“What? Why do I need that thing if we’re looking for land? Besides, I’ll choke if I swallow it.”

“For two reasons: one, the school doesn’t think the breather will choke you if you swallow it. If the breather lets water-folk breathe air, we think it will allow air-folk to breathe water. Two, we have to be careful about where we take you. If the Urchin Army sees you and files a report…oh, the entire school would be in trouble. And who knows what they’d do to you. Take you to Altern, that’s for true.”

“Where’s Altern?” asked Adam.

“Not where – who. Altern is king. King Altern of Deep Fright. Great Leader of the Urchin Army, High Lord of Ocean, and so on and so on.”

“Altern doesn’t like humans?”

“I doubt Altern’s ever known one. But the point is this: we don’t want to cross the King. The more discreet we are, the better. We want to avoid, not invite, the Urchin Army along for our trip. All you have to do is swallow the breather and, assuming it does what we think –,” at this Spot turned over to float belly up alongside Adam, “we float right on by any trouble.” The fish smiled at Adam. To show approval, the rest of the school slapped their fins on the surface and spit fountains of water into the air. “We can find land just as easy underwater as above.  It doesn’t float, you know.”

“What doesn’t float?”

“Land, of course. So swallow up.”

Adam looked up toward the sky that had always been there above him. Patient and secure, its ever-changing shades of blue and purple and grey, the sky snuggled the world like a safety blanket. Adam thought of his parents, his friends, his bedroom, his old life. Was it all really gone? Were they all dead? They can’t be, thought Adam. Not all of them.

Catch up!

Two more jellyfish closed in at Adam’s side and pushed their heads around the first jellyfish and Adam too. Another jellyfish pushed its head into Adam’s arms, which forced him to let go of the box. Adam could no longer swim. The jellyfish gripped him tight before the whole mass slowly started to sink under the water.

Adam heard a small splash behind him then a familiar voice yelled, “JELLIES!” Adam looked up in the air to see Spot overhead. The fish had leapt from the water over the tight mass of jellyfish. The water around the jellyfish came alive with a foamy fury. From beneath came hundreds upon hundreds of fish that all looked like Spot. Their rapid swimming and jumping caused the water to froth up violently.

The fish swam in a tight formation back and forth over, around, and even through the group of jellyfish so that the jellyfish couldn’t help but be swept along by the force of their movements. The jellyfish had to let go and, as they did, Spot’s school split into several different groups. Each group circled around one or two jellyfish and then swam off away from Adam, carrying their jellyfish along with them.

Throughout the excitement, the waterwood box didn’t float away. Adam swam toward the box, thankful for its support. Spot’s head popped up right beside him. “Adam, everything’s going to be all right. My school has decided to help you find land.” Adam didn’t reply. He put his head down on the box and passed out.

When Adam woke, the hundreds of fish in Spot’s school surrounded him. The fish startled Adam and he thrashed about in the water, letting go of the box and forgetting how he was supposed to swim now that he had on the suit. He sunk into the water. Several members of Spot’s school swam underneath Adam and buoyed him back up to the surface. Adam rolled over and floated on his back, breathing heavily. Spot took advantage of the break in the confusion to speak up: “We’re going to help you, Adam. But, you have to swallow the breather first.”

Catch up!

Chapter 4
Being a Breather

Adam decided he would swim slow and steady in one direction until he ran into land or ran out of energy, whichever came first. He tried to kick his legs only to remember that he was wearing the warm, constricting clothes. After some experimenting, Adam found he could swim as well as before (if not better) while wearing the tube, just not the way he was used to. He had to move his whole lower body in one, wavy motion instead of moving each of his legs separately. So, gripping the box, he swam forward without knowing or caring where he might wind up.

In a trance, he moved this way, seeing nothing but water, hearing nothing but wind. Adam’s trance broke when his bare feet brushed up against something soft and slimy. He immediately stopped swimming and pulled his legs in toward his body. The water around him undulated. Adam gripped the box tightly, trying to sit atop it and get his body out of the water. All around him, just under the surface, floated fluid, purple-red-blueish bubbles. Adam kicked and thrashed at the bubbles but they wouldn’t pop. Instead, they multiplied. They multiplied and drew nearer…close enough for Adam to see long, milky-colored tentacles trailing out all around him and the bubbles. He was floating in a giant bloom of jellyfish.

Adam panicked and pulled out his Swiss Army knife. Trying to swim directly through the bloom was like trying to swim through a bunch of wet clothes. He slashed out with his knife but still the jellyfish packed in tighter. It didn’t seem to matter to them that he cut and thrashed them. One of the bigger bubble-headed creatures made its way through the throng from behind Adam. It pushed its gooey, bendy head right into Adam and, like putty pushed against a stick, it began to mold itself around the boy.