He splashes me back. ‘If you’re done being paranoid, I really do have something for you.’ He pulls a glittering chain from the pouch of his dive belt. ‘Happy early birthday, Ana.’
He hands me the necklace: a single black pearl set in gold. It takes me a second to understand what he’s given me. My chest tightens.
‘Mom’s?’ I can barely say the word.
The pearl was the centrepiece of Mom’s mangalsutra, her wedding necklace. It’s also the only thing we have left of her.
Dev smiles, though his eyes get that familiar melancholy drift. ‘I got the pearl reset. You’ll be fifteen next week. She’d want you to wear it.’
This is the sweetest thing he’s ever done for me. I’m going to start weeping. ‘But … why not wait until next week?’
‘You’re leaving for your freshman trials today. I wanted you to have the pearl for luck – just in case, you know, you fail spectacularly or something.’
He really knows how to ruin a moment.
‘Oh, shut up,’ I say.
He laughs. ‘I’m kidding, of course. You’re going to do great. You always do great, Ana. Just be careful, okay?’
I feel myself flush. I’m not sure what to do with all this warmth and affection. ‘Well … the necklace is beautiful. Thank you.’
‘’Course.’ He stares at the horizon, a flicker of worry in his dark brown eyes. Maybe he’s thinking about the security grid, or he really is nervous about my weekend trials. Or maybe he’s thinking about what happened two years ago, when our parents flew over that horizon for the last time.
‘Come on.’ He musters another reassuring smile, as he has done so often for my sake. ‘We’ll be late for breakfast.’
Always hungry, my brother, and always moving – the perfect Shark captain.
He swims for shore.
I look at my mother’s black pearl – her talisman that was supposed to bring long life and protection from evil. Unfortunately for her and my father, it did neither. I scan the horizon, wondering where Socrates has gone, and what he was trying to tell me.
Then I swim after my brother, because suddenly I don’t want to be alone in the water.
In the cafeteria, I wolf down a plate of tofu-nori scramble – delicious as usual. Then I rush to the dorms to grab my go bag.
We freshmen live on the first floor of Shackleton Hall, above the eighth-graders. Our rooms aren’t as spacious as the sophomore and junior digs in Cousteau Hall. And they’re definitely not as nice as the senior suites in Zheng He, but they’re light-years better than the cramped barracks we shared as eighth-graders during our ‘chum year’ at HP.
I suppose I should get this out of the way. Harding-Pencroft is a five-year high school. We’re divided into four houses, based on the results of our aptitude tests. We call the academy HP for short. And, yes, we’ve heard all the Harry Potter jokes. Thanks anyway.
When I get to my room, my room-mates are freaking out.
Nelinha is stuffing tools, extra outfits and cosmetics into her pack. Ester is frantically sorting index cards. She has, like, twelve stacks, all colour coded, labelled and highlighted. Her dog, Top, barks and jumps up and down like a furry pogo stick.
It’s the usual pandemonium, but I can’t help but smile. I love my crew. Thankfully, rooms aren’t assigned by house, or I would never feel like I could be off duty and relax with my besties.
‘Babe, don’t overpack,’ Nelinha tells Ester, while stuffing more socket wrenches and mascara into her own bag. （Nelinha calls everybody babe. It’s just her thing.）
‘I need my index cards,’ Ester says. ‘And treats for Top.’
Yap! Top barks in agreement, trying his best to touch his nose to the ceiling.
Nelinha shrugs at me. What can you do?
She’s rocking a sort of Rosie the Riveter look today. Her lush brown hair is tied back in a green bandanna. The tails of her short-sleeved denim work shirt are knotted over her dark midriff. Her calf-length khakis are permanently stained with machine grease, but her make-up, as usual, is perfect. I swear, Nelinha could be crawling through the aquarium’s pump system or fixing a boat engine and she’d still manage to look fashionable.
Her eyes widen when she sees the black pearl at the base of my throat. ‘Pretty! Where’d that come from?’
‘Early birthday present from Dev,’ I say. ‘It, uh … belonged to our mom.’
Her lips form an O. My room-mates have heard all the tragic stories about my family. Between Nelinha, Ester and me, our dorm room is one of the world’s largest producers of tragic stories.