Page 142 of What You Wish For

But when I reached the pilings underneath Murdochs and started sweeping the area with my flashlight, I saw something odd. It looked like a capsized motorboat that had washed up near the shore. Oh, God. Had Clay tried to take out a boat somehow? Had he tried to head out to sea? Where would he have even found a boat? Most boats were on the bay side, or in the ship channel. The Gulf side of the island was too shallow for boating.

I called for Alice to come down, and I walked closer—out into the waves. I looked harder.

And then I realized, it wasn’t a boat.

It was slick, and gray.

And it was… a fish of some kind.

A really, really big fish. A fish the size of a sedan.

And that’s when I saw, standing beside the fish, up to his rib cage in the waves: Clay Buckley.

It was a hell of a sight.

For half a second, I couldn’t speak, or move, or respond in any way. All I could do was take it in—until Alice arrived behind me.

“Clay!” I shouted, as Alice hooked her arm around me and propelled me forward.

“Holy shit,” Alice said, as we made our way closer. “Is that…?”

It sounded too crazy to say out loud. But we both could see what we saw.

“It’s a whale, right?” I said.

“Sure looks like one.”

“A baby one, maybe.”

I’m shaking my head in disbelief even now at the memory of it.

It was impossible.

But it was also unmistakable. It couldn’t really be anything else.

Not only was a whale washed up under the pilings of Murdochs gift shop, but it looked like Clay—our nine-year-old Clay—was talking to it.

We got closer and then paused for a second, just…flabbergastedby the sight—and then I trained my flashlight beam on Clay. He looked up and squinted at it, clearly aware that he was the subject of somebody’sscrutiny, and then, I swear, he lifted a finger in front of his mouth, and he shushed me.

Then he turned his attention back to the enormous creature beside him in the water.

Alice fell back to call and report that we’d found him, as I continued sloshing my way closer to Clay in the water.

As I closed the distance, I could see what was going on—though I could hardly believe my eyes. The massive animal beside Clay, which was half-submerged in the waves, was tangled in a fishing net. And Clay was standing right beside it with his pocketknife open, sawing at the rope of the netting.

“Clay, you need to step back!” I said, though he had clearly been there for a good while—and the idea that he would step back now just because some grown-up came along and told him to was pretty laughable.

I mean, this mammal was taller than he was. And there was skinny little Clay, right there, in the waves, risking getting crushed with each shift of the tide—and he absolutely didn’t care. Also, he seemed to be singing.

“Are you humming a Christmas carol?”

Clay didn’t look away from the net, but he nodded. “‘Silent Night.’ It’s the softest song I know,” Clay said.

And that’s when I knew. Clay wasn’t scared, and he wasn’t traumatized. He was helping. This kid knew exactly what he was doing right now in the middle of this crazy situation. He was trying like hell to make things better.

What would Max do?

“Do you have a knife?” Clay called. “Do you have anything sharp? Scissors even?”

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