He surfaced and watched them drag Ma out of the water. There were two human males. A dark-haired, muscular one was holding Ma down. One that resembled a pale manatee was telling him what to do.
Ma lay on her stomach, flattened and exhausted, across the stern. “Head?” she panted. “That’s all you want?” She snorted, coughed. “Gone. Sucker’s gone.”
“So where is it, Marion? Don’t play senile on us,” said the pale fat one.
“Ha! Sold.” She wheezed. “You’ll never get the money. It’s hidden. It’s going to a good cause.”
The pointy black feet of the dark one straddled her torso, and an arm with a drawing on it grabbed a handful of her wet hair to raise her head. “We don’t give a hoot about the f——ing money, ol’ lady. We want the head. You’re using up your time.”
She turned her face up to him. “No kidding,” she said. She crossed her eyes and stuck her tongue out the corner of her mouth. She giggled and snorted.
The rounded human hissed something.
Booger sensed trouble. He had to get their attention. He rolled on his side, stuck his tail at an angle, and powered. He zigged. He zagged. He did the best shark imitation he knew how.
Gold chains glinted as Pointy-foot leaned out over the water. Strong perfume drifted down and made Booger gag. “You saved that one for nothing, woman. He needs to be put out of his misery.”
The pudge motioned to Pointy-foot and he let go of her hair. She looked weak and paler than ever. Booger sensed he must do something fast.
He dove to the bottom and looked, kept searching, using up the seconds. At last he found what he needed. A rock. A nice sharp piece of dead coral.
He gummed it and rose to the surface. He could hear talk, but couldn’t see Ma anymore. He took the coral to the black, shiny-painted surface and dug in. He zigged. He zagged. He cut deep into the fiberglass, propelling himself the length of the boat. He gashed at the hull. He couldn’t make a hole like he wanted, couldn’t sink them and save Ma—no matter how hard he tried—but he cut some ridges. He would know this boat if he saw it again.
He heard Ma’s voice from above. He surfaced. She was still flattened on the deck. He sensed her ebbing strength from her husky breath.
“Swim, son. Fast. Go. They have guns.”
The crashing started as she spoke, and the four out-boards rumbled and churned up water. Booger couldn’t make it under the boat. The water was ripped again and again alongside him. He felt a zing and tasted blood, hot and frothy, in his mouth. He had to swim. He blasted away at top speed until the engines roared. He turned to catch sight of the boat skimming the water in the opposite direction.
It was sometime later he found Ma’s body. He let her drift for a time, in the warm bay that she loved, but his own homing instinct made him sense he should take her near shore. She’d want her Fay-calf to know what happened.
He nudged Ma to a quiet place, where the water was less murky and the sand soft enough for them to drag her out. She was peaceful. Her lips were set in the certain way he’d noticed when she cuddled skin to hide with him in the shallows on a summer evening. She’d had the last snort on those guys.
Booger had slept and foraged, and his wounded lip stopped bleeding. He was used to pain and it was too late to worry about scarring. He watched Ma puff up till her wrinkles were gone and she resembled his true birth mother. Then the tan human brought the others to take her away.
Now as Booger listened to the sirens racing too late to the explosion on the bridge, he struggled with his grief—a feeling of outrage at the whole land-world. He relived the foul smell of perfumed male, the gold chains catching sun, the shiny black pointed feet straddling Ma’s sinewy frame.
His blood began to heat. A chemical reaction took place in his disproportionate brain. The bristles on his back rose straighter, his shoulders squared, and his tail flared out and took up a steady, pulsing throb. He licked the crusty scab inside his mouth. Was it justice he wanted, or vengeance?