Page 25 of A Line in the Sand
“Good, good.” Max nodded. He’d been down to the beach for the past three days in a row and he hadn’t seen any marked nests, though. “Excellent work. About how much of the island do you think you covered during the summer months?”
The bingo caller puffed out his chest, straining the letters on his Turtle Team shirt. “Over six miles.”
Max felt his eyes widen in surprise. Six miles encompassed over half the length of the island. “I’m impressed, you guys. How do you manage to cover that much beachfront every morning?”
There was a brief pause, and then the seniors all burst out laughing. Every one of them. Like a proper team.
“Goodness, Max. Not six milesa day,” Opal said.
“Do you know how old we are?” Ethel asked.
More laughter followed.
“Sorry.” Max held up his hands. “Six miles a week, then?”
Mavis shook her head. “Not quite.”
Max cleared his throat. “A month?”
“Honestly, Max.” Mavis let out a little snort, and the tiny Chihuahua in her lap flinched. At least it wasn’t dressed as a lobster or any other variety of shellfish. “There are eleven of us on the Turtle Team, and we probably have six good hips between us.”
“Understood.” Max nodded, stifling a grin. He had, after all, seen this crowd do yoga. “But how exactly do the six miles come into play?”
“We walked a total of six miles over the whole summer,” Ethel said. “And we marked four nests, which is double the amount from last year.”
Mavis nodded. “Molly kept track of it on her fancy spreadsheet on her computer. She said we did really well…considering…”
Mavis’s voice drifted off, and Max could sense his reputation slipping back into villain territory. Who wouldn’t seem like an antihero in comparison to Molly’s lovable mermaid persona?
The last thing he wanted was to make the seniors feel bad, particularly when it appeared that they did more for the community than any other group on the island. The residents of the senior center poured their hearts into Turtle Beach on the regular. When Max thought back to his summers on the island, so many of the most memorable evenings had taken place in the same lobby where he’d been contorting himself into downward facing Dalmatian and pretzel poses every morning, from bingo nights and bake sales to arts and crafts projects and guest lecturers on marine life and beach ecology. Max in no way wanted to imply that the seniors weren’t doing enough.
“You’ve done a wonderful job,” he said, even though four turtle nests probably represented less than ten percent of the sea turtle eggs that had actually been laid and buried on the island.
There was no telling where they were all located, and now that summer was coming to a close, the eggs would start hatching soon. Tiny baby turtles would crack through the eggshells and crawl their way up and out of the sand to the water. Without the help of humans watching over the nests, only a small portion would make it to the sea. The beach was a dangerous place for newborn hatchlings. In an ideal scenario, the turtle hospital would know when and where nearly all the nests had been laid, so teams of volunteers could babysit the area when it was time for the turtles to be born.
Four nests was a start, though.
“Next year, we’ll be able to cover more territory. I just got a new electric scooter,” the bingo caller said proudly.
“Itbooks,” said the man next to him.
Ethel nodded. “That scooter is like something out ofThe Fast and the Furriest.”
Nibbles the Chihuahua’s tiny ears pricked forward.
“You meanThe Fast and the Furious,” Opal said, enunciating with care.
Behind Ethel’s purple glasses, her eyes rolled. “That’s what I said.”
Max held up a hand before he lost complete control of the meeting. “I get the picture. Again, great job, and I look forward to seeing this smokin’ scooter.”
“I’d say you could try it out, but maybe you should master the Jeep first.” The bingo caller shot him an exaggerated wink.
Touché.
“Maybe we should move on to SandFest,” Max said.
Opal spoke up at once. “Mavis, Ethel, and I have got that completely under control. We’re spearheading the Turtle Team’s entry this year.”
