As Tessa watched the sharks, an enthusiastic aquarium-educator girl led a group of little kids around the corner. All the kids were wearing orange Tshirts that read “Third graders rock the world!!!”
Tessa tried to sneak past them before they filled the corridor but didn’t quite make it.
Great.
With a practiced flourish, the aquarium girl gestured for the children to stop.
“How many of you know how to smell?” Her voice was high and chattery and to Tessa it seemed to echo way more than the acoustics of the corridor should have allowed. All the children raised their hands. “And taste things like pizza or hot dogs… or broccoli?” At the words pizza and hot dogs the children smiled, at the word broccoli they grimaced but faithfully raised their hands.
“And touch and hear and see?” More hands.
“Well,” she continued, “those things are called our senses. Most of us have five, although some people may lack one or two. Well, sharks belong to a group of fish that have no bones in their whole bodies and are the only animals on the planet who have a scientifi-cally proven sixth sense! Sharks can hunt fish even when they can’t see or smell them! The man who discovered this unique ability was named Stephano Lorenzini. Let’s say that together: Stephano Lorenzini. Isn’t that a nice name?”
Tessa drew in a thin, aggravated breath. Aquarium Girl was doubly annoying. Not only was she way too chipper, but she didn’t even have her facts straight. Lorenzini didn’t discover the receptors; Marcello Malpighi did-fifteen years before Lorenzini ever started taking credit for it. Tessa felt like correcting her but decided against it. Years ago at school in Minnesota, she’d learned the hard way that it’s best to keep your mouth shut when you know more than the teacher does.
Aquarium Girl went on, “When sharks move their heads back and forth, they’re not looking through the water, they’re sensing where other fish are. Kind of like using a metal detector. Let’s all do it together!” The girl began wavering her head back and forth like a shark using his electrosensory organs to search for food, and the class of children imitated her.
Tessa most definitely did not.
Above and around them, the sharks circled in their three-dimensional patterns. Endlessly swimming. Endlessly moving, watching, sensing.
Grace and death.
Both eerie and beautiful.
The girl who didn’t know who Marcello Malpighi was coughed up something that had been caught in her throat, swallowed it again, and then launched into her closing speech. “Sharks, the sea’s magnificent prowlers of the deep, have roamed the earth’s oceans for millions and millions of years. And so,” she concluded, “untouched by nature and time, sharks remain one of nature’s most magnificent and enduring miracles.”
That was it. Tessa couldn’t put up with Aquarium Girl anymore.
First, she taught historical inaccuracies, and now logical inconsistencies. After all, if sharks were miracles, they couldn’t be from nature, and if they were from nature, they couldn’t be miracles. You can’t have it both ways.
Time to go.
But as Tessa was easing past the children toward the next exhibit, she saw a bull shark turn suddenly and swim directly toward the glass. It pivoted at the last moment, curled toward a shiny fish the size of a large cat, and bit it in half.
All around her, the children began shrieking and pointing. Some of the third grade boys were yelling, “Cool! That shark just ate that fish!” Some of the third grade girls were wailing about how gross it was.
Tessa heard Aquarium Girl stutter something about how sharks don’t normally attack that kind of fish and that it might have been a mistake that someone put that fish in there, and that really there was nothing to worry about since sharks are basically good creatures just like all animals because only humans are truly dangerous, but Tessa noticed that her voice didn’t sound quite as chipper as before.
The remaining portion of the fish twitched awkwardly as it sank, until a tiger shark swooped forward, gulped it down, and then circled once again, stony-eyed, through the water. And all the while, a thin trail of blood rotated slowly toward the surface of the water, like autumn mist curling up in a breeze.
Grace.
And death.
Blood seemed to be following Tessa everywhere. She hurried past the children to find a bathroom where she could throw up.