Page 50 of Instant Karma

It’s all a little disconcerting given how civil he’s being. How civilI’mbeing.

And then it hits me.

We actually accomplished something together.

Sure, that accomplishment was nothing more than pureeing up a bunch of fish guts, but still, the fact that I only sometimes wanted to strangle him seems kind of huge.

All signs of Angry Quint have gone. He’s back to his old casual self. But—no. Not exactly like his old self, the Quint Erickson who’s driven me absolutely bonkers all year. It’s more like being with a Quint clone. I never, in a million years, would have pictured him working someplace like this. The beach, yes. On a surfboard, sure. Playing video games in his mom’s basement until he’s forty, oh, most definitely. But this is a side of Quint I didn’t know existed, that I never even considered a possibility.

But his confidence here, his knowledge, his ability to actually do what needs to be done. It’s unsettling.

And maddening.

Why couldn’tthisguy have been my lab partner?

“Ready to meet some of the patients?” Quint asks, oblivious to my silent stewing.

I smile tightly. “Been waiting all day.”

We return to the long corridor. Most of the enclosures have three or four animals inside them, with the names of the patients written on a small whiteboard beside each gate, but Quint doesn’t need to look at them as we pass by. “We can get up to two hundred animals in a single season,” he says, “and it can be tough coming up with new names for them all, so we tend to put them in groups. Lately we’ve been on a superhero kick, so here we’ve got Peter Parker, Lois Lane, and Iron Man. Avenger and Hulk are out in the yard.”

“Does your mom come up with the names?”

“Naw, usually we let the rescue crew name them, or sometimes whoever found them and called us. People get really excited when they get to name the animal they found, and that can inspire a whole new slew of names. This year someone named an elephant seal Vin Diesel, which inspired an entire action-flick group—Bruce Willis, Lara Croft, James Bond… We also have a huge Harry Potter group going on right now, because one ofthe volunteers is a megafan. So far, we’ve got…” He inhales deeply and his eyes rise to the ceiling as he tries to count them all off. “Harry, Hagrid, Percy, George, Fred, Krum, Draco, McGonagall, Dumbledore, Tom Riddle”—he pauses to give me a secretive look and whispers—“he was always bullying the others. And…” He perks up and crouches down in front of one of the gates. A sad-looking animal is resting on its side, staring up at us with unblinking eyes. “Luna Lovegood.” He shakes his head. “You weren’t supposed to come back here. What happened?” He shakes his head. “Poor girl. You look terrible.”

I stare at the animal. I don’t think she looks that terrible. Just tired. And definitely skinnier than a lot of the others we’ve passed.

“She’s lost a lot of weight since we released her,” he says, as if reading my mind. He sighs. “Back to step one.”

“Will you try to release her again? After she gets better?”

“I don’t know.” He stands up. “Our goal is always to return them to the ocean, but if she can’t survive on her own…” He shrugs. “I guess we’ll see what Opal thinks.”

“Opal’s the vet?”

He nods. “Sorry, I guess I should introduce you to more people.” His expression is hesitant and I know he’s thinking it would be a waste of time. I know he still doesn’t expect me to come back.

But for the first time all day, I realize I’m actually not eager to escape. Fish guts aside, it’s actually been kind of interesting.

“So, the animals here, they all… what? Washed up on the beach? And someone called you?”

“Usually, yeah. People can tell something’s wrong. A lot of times it’s obvious stuff, like they have wounds from a shark bite or something, or maybe they’ve got a bunch of fishing line tangled around them.” Quint’s expression darkens. “One time we rescued a sea lion that had nineteen fishhooks caught in his skin.”

I shudder, remembering the photo in his report.

“That’s awful. Was he okay?”

“He made it. We released him a couple years ago. We named him Captain Hook.”

I laugh. “Was there also a Peter Pan?”

“No,” Quint says, in a tone that suggests this is a ridiculous thing to ask. But then he grins. “But we did have a Mr. Smee and a Tinker Bell.”

I fold my arms on top of the short wall that separates the enclosure from the walkway and peer down at Luna. “What are those markings on her side?”

“That’s how we tell them apart. It’s like a code. There’s a chart in the office that explains it, but pretty much every mark is a different number. We shave the fur, but it’s easier to make straight lines than curves, so they get a little V instead of the number five, and two dashes instead of a nine, that sort of thing”

Luna’s markings are two arrows, each pointing toward her head.

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