Chapter 18
“He’s injured.We need to help him.” I handed Jasmine the binoculars, making sure not to brush her skin. It had been an accident. But the way she’d jerked away told me the touch had been unwanted.
I stalked to the stairs at the back of the boat.
“You will do no such thing,” Jasmine commanded.
I stopped in my tracks. Shit. What was I doing? My jaw flexed.
“They’re wild animals, remember?”
I looked back at the sea lion.
She brought the binoculars up to her eyes. For someone so smart, I was acting pretty stupid. How many times had I harped on about them being wild, and interactions with them needing to be limited?
“Firstly, the injury appears to be contained to the blubber. It looks like a clean cut.”
I took a deep breath and trudged to her side. She shoved the binoculars into my hands.
“Secondly, look at the sea lion’s fin. It has an old injury—a chunk is missing. That’s the sea lion you microchipped last week. The one I told you was scared of humans.”
Jasmine was right. Anyone would think she had the degree in marine biology, not me. I was an idiot. It was all because I wanted to get away from her touch and the strange feeling it invoked. I wouldn’t have acted so rashly otherwise. I never had before.
I shook my head. I hadn’t responded to any of her comments. “Yeah, sorry.”
What else was there to say? Something more intelligent, perhaps?
I scanned the remaining sea lions. I couldn’t see any other injuries.
“Can we go swimming?” Rose asked.
“No, the water is too murky. We can’t see what’s in there,” Jasmine said.
Bailey went to the stairs and studied the water. “Could there be sharks?”
“There could be.” Jasmine turned the boat and headed to the other end of the cove. All the sea lions were calm, lounging in the sun.
“We should test the water,” I said.
“Why?” Bailey asked, coming to stand beside me.
“The salinity levels of the water can change after a storm. And dirt and sand could be stirred up.”
“Is that why the water is murky?”
“Yes.”
“Can that hurt the sea lions?”
“It might make it harder for our sea lion friend to heal. It can also clog up the gills of fish, which means they can’t breathe and will die.”
I pulled out some beakers from my backpack and a refractometer.
“If the fish die, the sea lions won’t have anything to eat,” Bailey said.
“The sea lions fish in the deeper water.”
“We should test that too then,” Bailey said.
“Yes, we can do that. We should test it every day to check for changes.”
“How do we test it?” he asked, looking at the equipment I’d pulled out of my backpack.
“We’ll take a sample of the water in this beaker.” I held up the beaker to show him.
Rose came and stood beside him.
“Then we’ll collect some of the water and put it in this refractometer.” I showed them the piece of equipment that resembled a thin torch. “The refractometer will measure how the light changes when it passes through the water.”
Bailey’s eyebrows drew together. For a moment, I forgot he was only eleven and not one of my university students. The students I taught at university were older and had a more comprehensive understanding. I needed to explain it in a way he could understand.
“Light travels differently through water with lots of salt than water with a little bit of salt. This instrument can tell us how much salt is in the water by the way the light travels through it. Does that make sense?”
Bailey nodded. I looked at Rose to make sure she understood. She nodded too.
“We can also put samples of the water into these test tubes over the next few days to see how the murkiness changes.” I showed them the test tubes. “We’ll put the dates on the labels so we know what sample is from what day.”
The boat drifted to a stop. Jasmine turned it off and dropped the anchor.
“Why did we stop?” Bailey asked.
“The more we move, the more the water is stirred up. We need to be still when we take the sample, so it’s accurate,” she said.
Jasmine was a practical thinker. I liked that about her. I liked that she was a great mother and a hard worker. I liked that she would speak out if something bothered her. I liked too much about her. And that was not smart.
I wrote the date on the beaker.
“Can I take the sample?” Bailey asked.
I shook my head. “Not this time. I want to reach down as far as I can. My longer arms are better for that.”
“OK.”
Most of my students would have been pissy, but he just accepted it. I liked Bailey too; because of his curiosity and willingness to learn. I shook my head. I shouldn’t be getting close to them. When the house next door was finished, we could have some degree of separation.
I grabbed my bottle of water and an eyedropper. “I’ll show you what the reading is for plain water if you like.”
Bailey and Rose nodded eagerly.
“Sit next to me,” I said to them.
I opened the angled end of the refractometer, took a sample of water from the bottle with the eyedropper, and then put two drops into the refractometer and closed it. I looked into the device. The numbers read zero.
I handed it over to the children. One by one.
“See how it says zero? That means there’s no salt.”
They handed it back and I cleaned it. “Now let’s do the same for the sea water.”
Jasmine watched us with a small smile on her face. Bailey and Rose concentrated the whole time. Rose wasn’t her normal chatterbox self. She listened and took everything in. Their ‘wild’ label was effectively demolished.
Perhaps it would have been safer for them to remain wild. I’d enjoyed their company all day. And most other days. It was dangerous to get close, but for some unfathomable reason, I just couldn’t help it.