Read Shining Sea for Free Online

those eagle eyes of yours.”
    The sun has made its way toward the horizon. It glints off the mast of one of the boats; there is action below, something being pulled onto the deck. The sun-way along the sea’s surface makes the water seem even darker, almost metallic.
    “Nothing. Boats.”
    He has better than twenty-twenty vision. Unlike Eugene, who has to wear glasses.
    “Maybe I’ll become a sailor,” Eugene says, “when I leave school. Get out of here, see the world.”
    “Not me, man. Being trapped out in the middle of the sea on a boat is about the worst thing I can think of.”
    “That’s stupid. Worse than having your fingernails pulled out? Or being pinned above a bamboo plant until it grows right through you?”
    “Shut up, Eugene.”
    Eugene picks at a scab on his wrist. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that.”
    He and Eugene never talk about the stuff that was done to prisoners of war in the Pacific. Some of the other boys at school do, though, trading the stories back and forth as though they were baseball cards.
    A tern soars by, its sharp orange beak and feet narrowly missing their heads. It flaps its wings hard and dives. He takes one of the pebbles from his pocket and pitches it into the sea.
    “If your father was alive,” Eugene says, “he could show us how to skip it.”
    Eugene’s dad can’t skip stones. Eugene’s dad lost his right thumb and can’t hold anything properly. Including a job—or so the kids at school like to say. But his own dad was a master at skipping stones. Even from up high here on the Santa Monica Pier. His dad could do anything.
    His dad was a hero .
    Thirty feet below, the Pacific swirls and swells, the water deep green-blue and unknowable. There must be things living inside it, a whole other world, but nothing is visible. The tide is in; the sea is at its highest. He spits as hard as he can. He and Eugene crane over to watch the gob fall.
    He starts unbuttoning his shirt. “Let’s jump.”
    “No way.”
    He stuffs his shirt into his back pocket.
    “Come on, Francis,” Eugene says, frowning. “I don’t want to die.”
    The air feels soft on his bare chest. He pulls himself up on the railing and throws a leg over. “So, don’t. Meet me back by the bicycles.”
    “If the lifeguard sees he’ll skin us alive.”
    “Not a problem if we’ve died.”
    “If we don’t bust into a million pieces when we hit, we still have to swim all the way back to the beach. There are great whites out here.”
    “It’s not so far. Surfers come out this far.”
    “So? You know how your feet look after you’ve been sitting in a bathtub for a long time? All loose and shriveled? That’s what surfers’ brains look like.”
    “Pff.”
    “It’s true.”
    He swings his other leg over the railing and stands on the thin wooden ledge directly above the water, holding on to the pier with just one hand behind him. The breeze licks the back of his neck and down his thin shoulder blades. The water seethes way below, completely indifferent to him.
    Silently, he lets go. His feet slice the air; his heart lifts and rises right out of his body. He doesn’t care if he dies, doesn’t care if his body explodes into a million pieces when it touches the water. For a moment, he is like the tern—fast, free, soaring.
    Slap .
    He goes under, his mouth filling with the Pacific. The water is shockingly cold. His legs begin to kick. They fight his way back up to the light.
    “Yeeeee-hawwww!” Eugene hits the water a few feet away, his dark curls disappearing underneath its surface.
    He swims over, fumbling in the water to find his friend. The sea really is cold out here, much colder than he expected.
    “Aaarugh,” Eugene sputters, emerging, spitting water.
    They look at each other and begin to laugh. They roll with the waves, laughing, until their lips start to turn blue. Then they swim as hard as they can back toward the shore.
    They bike home through the waning afternoon. Eugene