Consider the Octopus: Chapters 26–36

My mom had me go to these yoga classes last year when she thought I was too stressed at school. I believe they call that a projection. Like when your mom gets cold and then she tells you to put on a sweater.

The water around us is fairly shallow, all whitecaps and turmoil on top of some of the most clear turquoise water you've ever seen.

Mom stays quiet and focused, her stance extra wide, trying to keep herself upright as she begins to swing the RIB around toward the shore edge part of the island.

The rest of the RIBs are pulled up on the beach next to us. Marco, Randi, Henry, Sabira, and Vance unload supplies as the scientists and SEAmester kids disembark on both sides.

Katie babbles something about being so scared she didn't know what she was saying, and Diamond Blue begins a convoluted story about how Sidney is Alex's real first name and her middle name is Alex, but she likes that and hates Sidney, and she isn't even sure what Katie was saying about that whole stowaway thing.

Do you know the trouble I could be in? We could all be in? It's not—it's not a smart or stupid thing, it's a liability thing.

There are laws, rules, waivers, protocol.

There are laws, rules, waivers, protocol.

We all hear it at the same time, me and Jeremy and his mom standing in the wet sand by the boat, Katie and Diamond Blue a bit away, looking at us with worried faces, and all the rest of the SEAmester kids and scientists, and Marco and Randi and Vance, who have gathered farther ahead under a white canopy tent.

I don't move my eyes, but in my peripheral vision I can see everyone rushing back.

She's way ahead of everyone else, calling out, while a whole trail of high schoolers lope across the sand, trying to catch up.

Tall, tall, tall, like makes-Katie-and-Ben-look-short tall, with chiseled cheekbones, a jutting chin, thick black hair that's blown back from the slowing whir of the helicopter blades, and the biggest, whitest smile you've ever seen.

He wears khaki shorts, a green polo shirt, and Timberland work boots that leave sizable footprints in the wet sand.

He wears khaki shorts, a green polo shirt, and Timberland work boots that leave sizable footprints in the wet sand.

His camerawoman is short and stocky, with short-short blond hair, and the camera is almost as big as she is.

Mom turns and gawks.

“Ready?” he asks, indicating that the rest of the crew should gather around. “We're about to go live.” Then he maneuvers Sidney and me to either side of him and slings an arm over each of our shoulders.

Damian Jacks here, coming to you from the Midway Atoll today, a national wildlife refuge located on the far northern corner of the Hawaiian archipelago, one of the oldest atoll formations in the world.

“This atoll is a nesting habitat for millions of seabirds, including the Laysan albatross, Phoebastria immutabilis, a gull-like population, now gravely threatened, not by natural prey, but by human waste and consumption.”

The camerawoman pans wide, moving from the white sands, to the shallow turquoise waters, to the vast blue ocean, the beauty of it masking approximately 88,000 tons of garbage—just one of five garbage islands humans have allowed to accumulate.

"And to be blunt, from what I'm told, in a few short months, too many of them will likely be dead. Because these birds are dying at an alarming rate. Why? Because of us. Is that right, Dr. Barnes?”

The woman who serves as the Oceania II's chief scientist sweeps a wisp of hair off her face as she squats next to where one of the babies has wandered up to her, practically on her foot.

"We want people to know about this particular species because they—and this island, this spot—are a microcosm of what's gone wrong in our world. Thousands of these beautiful creatures are dying each week, in a wholly avoidable way. Death by garbage. By plastic.”

"But not if these two preteens can help it,” Damian Jacks announces, standing again and ushering the boy and girl forward to come stand by his side.

But, suddenly, I'm overwhelmed by sadness.

“It's Jacques Cousteau. French naval officer, explorer, conservationist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author, and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water.”

"Don't forget this,'' I say, handing her over in her new swanky home, the hoop suctioned to the side, the little Styrofoam basketball bobbing along the top.

My dad only once mentions the potential dangers that might have befallen me as a stowaway, with no emergency contact form, no health insurance voucher.

My dad only once mentions the potential dangers that might have befallen me as a stowaway, with no emergency contact form, no health insurance voucher.

My mom takes Route 5 back home, along the coast, where the cliff is steep, dropping off just on the other side of the guardrail to where the whitecaps are crashing over the rocks.

There’s no animosity or jealousy in his voice.

In fact, he, Jeremy JB “Co-Founder and Organizer” Barnes, still finds it hard to believe he's as well versed in science as sports, but it's true. So much so that he is the host of an annual worldwide summit of young people, now in its third year, this year promising to be the biggest and best attended, thanks in part to a recent large monetary gift from none other than Damian Jacks of CNN.

He whips his head to look behind him, where his other best friend, Nick, the summit's new treasurer and VP, has unfurled a large white banner with a shark and a goldfish and a plastic bottle with a large red X across it on one side and a large pink sea creature on the other.

As for Rachel Carson herself, she had been gifted, by an anonymous donor, an unbreakable fiberglass travel tank with handle that could be easily transported, replete with real freshwater aquarium plants and natural gravel.

Sometimes he's just the same old clueless funny kid he was three years ago, when he first stood on the deck of the Oceania II and lamented how his heart had been stomped to smithereens.