Page 24 of A Line in the Sand
But for once, the mention of Turtle Beach’s overachieving mermaid didn’t faze him. He had volunteers. He had a plan.
And for the first time since Max had made the questionable choice of leaving his careful, orderly world behind, he had the most precious thing of all—a faint glimmer of hope.
***
Max’s hope took a serious hit half an hour later when he headed toward the conference room to meet the Turtle Team. He wasn’t sure what—or, more specifically, whom—he’d expected, but the sight that greeted him as he rounded the hallway corner stopped him in his tracks.
Walkers…
Walkerseverywhere.
Mobility devices were parked outside the conference room in a jumble of aluminum legs, metal wicker baskets, and those fuzzy dissected tennis balls that were supposed to make walkers easier to slide along the floor. Max crossed his arms and regarded the gridlock. The narrow aquarium hallway looked like a parking lot for an AARP convention.
It’s fine, he told himself. Max loved that the senior citizens of Turtle Beach were such an active part of the community. Max might be many things, Merminator included, but he wasnotageist. Sea turtles often lived to see their one hundredth birthdays, a fact that Max had gleefully committed to memory when he’d been a little boy. He’d started doing yoga every morning with the eighty-plus crowd, for crying out loud. Max loved older people.
He just wasn’t so sure they had what it took to build an award-winning sand sculpture that would dwarf Henry’s vintage Jeep Wrangler.
Relax.Max took a deep breath.They can’tallbe elderly.
But oh, yes. Yes, they could. Max strode into the conference room and sure enough, he found a dozen or so of the bingo-loving yogis from the senior center sitting around the table dressed in blue and green tie-dye T-shirts with the words Turtle Team emblazoned across their chests. The three women who’d had front row seats to Max’s near-drowning at the dog beach—Opal, Mavis, and Ethel—occupied the chairs closest to the head of the table. Because of course they did.
“Ladies.” Max nodded in recognition.
“Good morning, Max.” Opal Lewinsky stood and handed him something that looked like a chocolate milkshake and smelled like Starbucks on steroids. He noticed she was still wearing her neon yoga clothes beneath her Turtle Team T-shirt. “Ethel, Mavis, and I brought you a treat from Turtle Books to celebrate your first meeting with the Turtle Team.”
“Thank you.” Max took the drink.
The women stared at him expectantly until he took a sip. It tasted like a candy bar that had been dunked in coffee.
“Mmm.” Max took another pull from the purple, oversized straw. “Delicious.”
“It’s a Milky Way frozen latte,” Ethel said.
“From Turtle Books,” Opal repeated. “It’s a cute little bookstore and coffee shop on the boardwalk.”
Mavis nodded. “You should stop by sometime.”
“Soon.” Opal grinned.
Max narrowed his gaze at the three of them. Why did he have a feeling the Turtle Team queens were up to something? “Perhaps I will.”
“Good.” Opal beamed at him and sat back down.
“Shall we move on to business now?” Max said.
Everyone nodded.
“Great.” Max took his seat at the head of the table. He resisted the temptation to dive straight into SandFest business. He needed to get a general idea of what the group did first. “Why don’t you tell me what the Turtle Team is all about?”
The seniors all glanced at each other until Opal, who was apparently the unofficial Turtle Team captain, spoke up again. “We support the aquarium and the sea turtle hospital. We also help preserve the island’s shoreline as a nesting ground for endangered sea turtles.”
Max nodded. So far so good. “What exactly does that entail?”A man who Max recognized as the bingo caller from the night before leaned forward with his elbows planted on the conference table. “During the summer, we take turns walking the beach early in the morning, looking for turtle tracks in the sand.”
A sound plan, considering that female turtles typically came ashore in the wee hours of the morning on summer nights to lay their eggs. Monitoring the beach for evidence of turtle activity was key for all sea turtle preservation programs.
“What do you do when you locate a nesting spot?” Max asked.
“We mark it with stakes and neon tape so beachgoers know not to disturb the nest,” Mavis said.
