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cousins.”
    â€œUgh, they’re cannibals?” Joe grimaced. “As if they weren’t scary enough.”
    â€œThey’re a lot more likely to eat each other than people,” I said, taking the chance to give my brother a better understanding of sharks. “Statistically, more people are killed every year by cows than by sharks. People are afraid of sharks, but the truth is that sharks have a whole lot more to fear from us. Shark hunting, commercial fishing, and the illegal shark-fin trade have decimated global shark populations to critical levels.”
    Joe rolled his eyes. “That’s great to know, bro, but it’s the Joe Hardy population I’m worried about.”
    â€œEven if we were diving with larger species, few shark attacks on humans are ever fatal,” I told him. “Most are just cases of mistaken identity, where the shark confuses the person for a seal or other natural prey animal. You don’t have much meat on your bones anyway, so even if one did accidentally take a bite out of you, they’d probably just spit you out like a bad brussels sprout.”
    â€œWell, that’s reassuring,” Joe huffed.
    I was disturbed too, but not because I was worried about a shark attack. There was another reason I had the shark-hunting problem on my mind as we geared up to dive into Predator Reef.
    Like Murph had said, sharks are an essential ingredient in a lot of traditional Chinese medicines.
    Just like with sea turtles.
    As we entered the calm water of Predator Reef, I hoped we would find something to prove that wasn’t the case with Captain Hook.
    Since Joe was taking scuba lessons and had a lot more experience than I did, I was going to let him go first and do most of the dive detecting in the deeper part of the exhibit tank, while I searched closer to the surface. We were going to use the aquarium’s special “dive comm” masks, which would allow us to communicate with each other underwater, so we could actually talk without having to rely only on hand signals.
    A rainbow of brightly colored fish scattered in front of him as Joe began his descent.
    â€œHow’s it looking down there, Joe?” I asked. The dive comm masks made everything sound a bit bubbly, kind of like you might expect someone to sound underwater.
    â€œTotally sweet! It’s like exploring a whole different planet!” Joe’s enthusiasm was obvious even through the sound of all the bubbles. And there were lots of bubbles. They spewed upward toward the surface as he talked, making it a little difficult to clearly see Joe as he dived down.
    I swam through the shallows above Joe. I didn’t have the clear view he did because of the bubbles, but it really was beautiful. Actually being underwater in the fishes’ world was unlike anything I’d ever seen before.
    â€œI’m going to head for the nook where they found the broken coral,” Joe said, releasing another stream of air bubbles from the dive comm mask.
    â€œRight behind you,” I replied.
    A series of sleek, shark-shaped shadows passed over the bottom of the reef as the blacktips patrolled their domain. Man, was this cool! A moment later the cloud of fish vanished in a flash, taking cover in the coral. That was strange. The fish shouldn’t have been scared of us. It took me a second to realize it wasn’t us they were afraid of. Another shadow had appeared. It might have seemed cool too, if it wasn’t so terrifying. It was shaped like a shark as well, but this one was huge. Like, horror-movie huge. I wiped my mask, thinking maybe the condensation was making me see things. It wasn’t.
    Predator Reef had an uninvited visitor. One of the big sand tiger sharks had somehow gotten into the exhibit.
    It wasn’t just any sand tiger either. From the size of it, it could only be Bruce, the biggest shark in the whole aquarium. And Bruce did not look like a happy shark.
    Bruce