This, I notice now for the first time.

I wonder when Ari started to notice—because I’m suddenly sure that she has.

I clear my throat. “EZ, are you wearing your seat belt?”

Ari gasps and swerves over to the shoulder before slamming on the brakes. Quint curses and immediately turns around to make sure the kennel in the back is okay.

“Sorry! I’m sorry!” says Ari, breathless and wild-eyed. “But you have to be wearing a seat belt!”

“Okay, okay. Calm down.” Ezra sits back and pulls the seat belt around himself, clicking it in place. “There we are. Locked and loaded.”

A new silence falls around us as Ari pulls back onto the road. “So, Quint,” says Jude. “How long have you been volunteering at the center?”

I peer into the car’s side mirror. When Quint leans the right way, I can catch glimpses of his mouth as he speaks.

“I pretty much grew up there,” he says. “I wasn’t allowed to start officially volunteering until I was fourteen. But I’ve been helping out since I was little.”

“You work there during the school year, too?”

“Yep. Spring is our busy season, when we’re taking in animals almost every day. We get shorthanded fast. For the most part the teachers have been pretty cool about it, though.”

“They say that life is the best teacher,” says Ari.

“And where do you go to school?” asks Ezra.

“St. Agnes,” she answers.

Ezra gives a low whistle. “I’ve always liked a girl in uniform.”

Ari’s cheeks go crimson again.

I turn to glare to Ezra. “Do you have no filter?”

He looks back at me. “What do you mean?”

I shake my head.

The conversation circles back to the rescue center. Quint seems surprised when Jude and Ari start peppering him with questions about the animals and the care they receive and what we do as volunteers. I can feel him shooting amused looks at me, but I keep staring out the window, watching the palm trees flash by.

It’s true that I’ve hardly told them about the center and my time volunteering. Honestly, there hasn’t been much to tell. Planning the cleanup has by far been the most exciting thing I’ve done—and now, rescuing this sea lion, of course. Other than that, it’s been almost four straight weeks of scrubbing and blending, blending and scrubbing.

But now I can feel them growing curious, just like those people on the beach. When you come face-to-face with one of these creatures, you become invested. You want to help.

I want to help. More than anything, I want to help this poor animal in the back of Ari’s car.

Ari dares to drive five miles per hour over the speed limit, which is practically drag racing for her. The center isn’t far, but it feels like it takes us a month to get there. My heart is in my throat. The sea lion is silent, and that silence is nerve-wracking.

Finally we pull into the gravel lot in front of the center. Rosa and Dr. Jindal are waiting, and the next few minutes are a blur of activity. My friends and I fade into the background as the kennel is lifted from the back of the car and rushed into the center. I know they’ll take him straight to the exam room. We follow hesitantly, doing our best to stay out of the way, lingering in the narrow corridor as the sea lion—still alive, if barely—is administered fluids. As its eyes and wounds are inspected. As Quint prepares a formula of protein and electrolytes. The delicious fish smoothies will come later.

I notice Jude’s nose wrinkling, and it takes me a moment to remember this is the first time he and Ari have been here. The first time they’ve been hit with the overwhelming stench of fish. Funny, over the past few weeks, I’ve almost gotten used to it. I never could have predicted that on my first day here.

When it’s clear there’s nothing I can do to help, I offer to give them a tour. We stand all together in the yard, admiring the harbor seals sunbathing on the warm concrete. The sea lions chasing one another in and out of the water. The elephant seals swishing their fins against their backs, throwing imaginary sand onto themselves, an instinctual mechanism for keeping themselves cool in the wild.

Everyone is smitten. Well, Ezra has been here before, but Jude and Ari are impressed. Ari coos in delight at how adorable they all are. But when she crouches down next to one of the closed gates to start talking to a harbor seal named Kelpie, I feel terrible that I have to put my hand on her shoulder and coax her away.

“We’re not really supposed to interact with them,” I say sadly, remembering when Quint explained this to me on one of my first days.

Ari gives me a baffled look. The same look, I’m sure, that I gave Quint at the time.

“They try to discourage us from bonding with the animals as much as possible,” I explain. “And to keep them from bonding with us. We’re not supposed to talk to them or play with them or interact with them at all, other than what we have to do to take care of them.”

“But they’re so cute,” says Ari, peering back down at Kelpie. “How can you stand it?”

Honestly, I hadn’t much cared before now. Quint told me not to bond with them, so I didn’t. No biggie. “It’s easier if you think of them as wild animals,” I say. “They aren’t pets. The goal is to release them back to the ocean, and if they’ve been domesticated, it could be more difficult for them to survive out there. Plus, we don’t want them to be too comfortable around people. If they approach a human out on the beach or something, who knows what could happen?”

I can see understanding in their faces, but they’re still clouded with disappointment. I don’t blame them. Why would anyone spend so much time here if they can’t even interact with the animals?

I think of the sea lion back in that exam room, the one I’m already thinking of as my sea lion, and I can tell that it will be so much more difficult not to bond with it. Heck, I’m already attached.

But at the same time, I desperately want it to be okay. To get strong. To get to go back home.

“That’s too bad,” says Ari, stepping away from the enclosure where some of the sea lions have started to pile up on top of one another. “I guess I’d kind of been picturing you here … I don’t know. Cuddling with them or something.”

I laugh. “Not quite.”

Then I remember—

“Actually,” I say, my heart lifting, “let me introduce you to Luna.”

I lead them back inside, to one of the enclosures. It’s been set up specifically for Luna, the sea lion that had been brought in for the second time on the first day I came to the center. Unlike animals in other pens, she’s been given a handful of toys. A couple of balls, a dog’s squeaky toy, a length of rope. “This is Luna,” I say. “She’s super playful, and so smart. And unlike the others, we’re encouraged to play with her. They want to get her used to the presence of people as much as possible.”

“What for?” asks Ezra, leaning over the wall. He picks up the rope and tosses it toward Luna. It lands a few inches from her nose. But it seems like she’s maybe just waking up from a nap, and she doesn’t go for it. She just looks at the rope, yawns, then blinks at Ezra, unimpressed. “Playful, huh?”

“She’s just tired,” I say. “Luna has a cognitive disorder. She’s never going to be able to feed herself out in the wild, so we can’t send her back. She’s going to be given to a zoo or something instead.”

“Will she bite?” asks Ari.

“I haven’t seen her bite anyone yet,” I say, “but volunteers do get bitten here pretty regularly, so you never know.” Opening the gate, I step inside and pick up the ball. I roll it toward Luna. She stares at it for a second, then rolls onto her tummy and takes the ball into her jaw. She chews on it for a second, before flicking it back toward me. I stop it with my toe, pick it up, and toss it again. This time she rears up on her flippers and bounces it right back to me.

I grin. I don’t know if one of the other volunteers has been working with her to learn tricks, but it’s the first time I’ve played catch with a sea lion, and the moment, as simple as it might seem, is magical.

“Prudence?”

I catch the ball on another rebound and turn. Quint has joined us, his eyes twinkling to see me in the pen with Luna. “Having a good time?”

“Yes, actually.”

“We figured it out,” says Ezra, draping his elbows casually over the wall. “The key to getting Prudence to loosen up is to be a seal.”

I tense. “She’s a sea lion,” I say a little darkly.

Jude glances at me, then at Ezra. He opens his mouth, and I can sense him getting ready to come to my defense, but, to my surprise, Quint speaks first.

“Don’t be an ass, EZ.”

Ezra looks honestly confused. “Am I being an ass?”

“Sort of. Prudence is cool. Anyway, I came to give you guys an update.”

Ezra looks from Quint to me. I happen to catch his eye as he’s giving me a thoughtful, appraising look. I swallow and let myself out of Luna’s enclosure. “Is it going to be okay?”

Quint knows immediately who I’m talking about. Before he can answer, Luna barks, annoyed that I’m abandoning our game.

“Sorry,” I tell her, tossing her the ball. “I’ll be back later, all right?” I face Quint, bracing myself for whatever news he has to give us. “Well?”

“It’s a he,” he says, “and we think he’s going to be okay.”

My heart lifts, and I know I’m not the only one. We’re all committed to this animal now, and a surge of joy passes through our whole group. Even Ezra hisses excitedly, “Yes.”

Quint’s hands come up, a warning. “Nothing is guaranteed. There’s usually a twenty-four-hour period when we consider them in critical condition. He could take a turn for the worse still. But Opal is optimistic.”