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better than loose, because loose ones might slip off when he started swimming. Forrest had donned his fins back on the beach, which was not a very smart idea. Jack had to admit to feeling a certain satisfaction when he saw Forrest waddling awkwardly across the sand like a duck with big, webbed feet, flopping toward the water.
    Except for the Landons and Forrest, Jumbie Bay was deserted. It had an ideal beach: smooth, pale sand with enough trees along the edges for shade; a shallow, gradual descent into the clear water; schools of tiny fish visible less than ten feet from shore.
    â€œDon’t go too far out,” Olivia warned them. “I want to be able to see all three of you at all times. Try to stay close together. And whatever you do, don’t stand on the coral reefs. That will damage them. If you need to stand, make sure you’re on the ocean bottom. If it’s too deep there, just tread water.”
    They all nodded and moved farther out into the bay. Ashley’d been a great swimmer from as far back as Jack could remember, always gliding through water like a sleek, skinny seal. Now, resembling an aquatic astronaut with her mask over her eyes and nose and the snorkel tube in her mouth, she took the lead.
    Deliberately, she kicked a splash of water at Jack, who was right behind her; he grabbed her ankle and gave it a hard tug. A minute later he noticed Forrest was swimming hard to get ahead of him. Let him! Why compete when the day was so perfect, the ocean so warm, the sun hot on his back, the fish so colorful?
    Olivia swam up to them and bobbed in the water, taking the tube out of her mouth to say, “Have you seen all these fish? They’re fantastic! Thousands of those little silversides, and the trumpetfish—I love trumpetfish. And those really bright ones are called parrotfish. But we should swim over toward the cliff, because that’s where the reef is. Come on, follow me.”
    They did, paddling in a row after Olivia. Again the image of ducks flashed into Jack’s mind: Olivia, the mamma duck, leading three baby ducks, but Jack and Forrest were both bigger than Olivia. Only Ashley was still smaller than her mother.
    Olivia had been right. When they came close to the cliff and peered down through the water, they saw coral, all kinds of coral. And lots more fish—one poking its face out from a little cave in the bottom of some brain coral; one with a gold stripe running from its eye to its tail like the racing stripes on a car; and three that had white stripes on black, like zebras. Others darting in front of Jack’s face seemed close enough to touch but were always farther away than they looked.
    Forrest grabbed Jack’s arm, jerking him up out of the water. “Did you see them?” he yelled.
    Ashley raised her head, too, and asked, “See what?”
    â€œSquid. Two squid down there.”
    â€œYou mean like giant octopuses with suckers on their tentacles that grab you and pull you down until you drown?” Ashley looked ready to swim back to shore.
    â€œNo, just squid. The kind they cut up for calamari in restaurants.”
    Jack didn’t know what Forrest was talking about. Calamari? What was that? But he lowered his face mask to follow the direction where Forrest was pointing. He saw them, then, funny looking things like flying saucers with tails, only the tails were actually their arms and tentacles, all squeezed together. Eyes peered out from where the saucer part ended and the arms began. The squid shot through the water like little torpedoes.
    The coral caught his attention next. He knew the name of at least one species—elkhorn coral. It looked just like the horns of the stag elks that wintered on the refuge where his mother worked. Brain coral was also easy to spot. It really did resemble a brain lifted out of someone’s skull and dumped on the ocean floor. Other corals waved in the gentle current like fans.
    When Jack raised his