out of all of us, Clay might have been the person who’d needed Max the most.
“The museum sounds amazing,” I said, trying to say something true.
Clay met my eyes. “You can come with us if you want.” He gave a little shrug. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”
For some reason, the way he said it made my eyes sting with tears. I blinked them away.
“You just pay close attention,” I said, “and then come back and tell me everything.”
“Roger that,” Clay said.
“Hey, Brainerd,” a kid called out to Clay a minute later, “I found a shark’s tooth!”
He held up a triangular piece of plastic.
“Awesome,” Clay said, refusing to take the bait.
That kid’s name was Matthew, but he’d just started telling people to call him “Mad Dog.” A few seconds later, I leaned over quietly and said, “What did Mad Dog just call you?”
Clay kept sifting. “Brainerd,” he said. “It’s a nickname.”
I tried to proceed gently. “How did you get that nickname?”
Clay paused. “It’s supposed to be insulting. You know: ‘brain’ plus ‘nerd’? But Dr. Alfred Brainerd happens to be one of my favorite rock-star scientists, so the joke’s on Matthew.”
“Don’t you mean Mad Dog?”
Clay wrinkled his nose. “I’m sticking with Matthew.”
I couldn’t tell how much the nickname bothered Clay. “Do you want me to tell Matthew to stop calling you Brainerd?”
He met my eyes and shook his head. “Nah,” he said. “I take it as a compliment.”
I nodded, like Gotcha.
Whether he did or didn’t, this wasn’t the moment to take a deep dive into it. He seemed okay—better than okay, actually, as he went back to chattering along about the marine life and general history of the Gulf of Mexico: the dolphin stranding a couple of summers ago, the details from a book he’d read about the 1900 storm, the escapades of various pirates.
“There’s pirate gold buried everywhere,” Clay promised. “Max and I used to look for it with his metal detector.”
Max had loved that metal detector.
“He left it to me,” Clay said then. “In his will.”
There were those tears again. I swallowed. “Will you take me looking sometime?”
“You got it,” Clay said, and dumped a sifted pile of bottle caps in the trash bag.
A minute later, Mad Dog called, “Brainerd! What’s this?”
He pulled a nylon fishing net up from under a fine layer of sand. Some teachers came to help. By the time the whole thing was uncovered it was as big as a blanket.
“It’s a ghost net,” Clay said.
The kids perked up at the word “ghost.”
“That’s the name for nets that have been abandoned and end up floating free in the water,” Clay explained. “They’re made of nylon, so they don’t disintegrate, and they kill wildlife all the time. Fish, and sea turtles, and pelicans, and dolphins—they all get caught in them and suffocate. Or starve.”
“Well, not this net,” a little girl named Angel said, marching over to Mad Dog with a trash bag. Mad Dog got her meaning and started stuffing the net in the bag. Soon it was disposed of.
“Thanks, Brainerd,” Mad Dog said, and then a bunch of other kids chimed in, high-fiving him and cheering the demise of the ghost net.
Such a hard moment to read: the nickname seemed mean, but the thanks seemed genuine. I decided to follow Clay’s lead on it—and he seemed happy, so I concluded it was a win.
And just at that moment, when I was feeling glad we were there, and proud we’d snuck the kids to their rightful beach cleanup, and happy to have learned so much beach trivia from my brainy little pal, and maybe just a little triumphant over the disposal of the ghost net myself, I looked up to see a figure standing on the seawall, looking down at us.
A male figure, backlit by the cloudless sky.
Duncan.
He came halfway down the concrete steps and surveyed us all—kids and teachers alike—as if we were the most shameful batch of heartless rule breakers.
“What’s going on here?” he said at last, in a low, none-too-pleased voice.
The teachers all looked around at each other. Alice seemed to hunch a little shorter.
Finally, I stepped forward. “Just cleaning up some beach trash.” Then I pointed at the trash bag full of the net, and said, as if it would make any sense, “Just being heroes and saving the ocean.”
The kids cheered, and Duncan turned to stare at them.
Then he looked at me like I was very naughty. “Didn’t you get my memo?”