Free The Secret of the Seal by Deborah Davis Page A

anywhere.”
    Tooky slipped under the water. This time she didn’t come back. Kyo shut his eyes and imagined undersea caves and somersaulting seals. They welcomed him to their home and chased each other around seaweed and rocks.

K yo got restless waiting for Tooky the next day. He fished in his pockets and found a smooth gray stone.
    The stone was tapered at one end and almost round in the middle, while the other end was flattened and flared, reminding Kyo of a seal’s tail. He dug his knife out of another pocket and held it tightly.
    Closing his eyes, he pictured a seal: rounded head, widely spaced eyes, blubbery neck, thick, full body, sleek tail.
    Then he opened his eyes, half expecting to see the rock changed into the form ofa seal. It was still just a rock. But now he could see the seal in it clearly and he began to carve.
    Tooky’s shining wet head poked up through the hole in the ice. She came out of the water and lay drying in the sun.
    Kyo continued to carve, glancing frequently from the stone to the seal and back to the stone. Tooky rolled on her side just as Kyo finished the stone seal’s head.
    “Are you tired of holding still for me?” Kyo asked as he slipped the carving and knife back in his pocket.
    Kyo put his hand lightly on Tooky’s back and let his arm rest across her body. The seal rolled gently side to side, then with a quick shake threw his arm off.
    Kyo draped one leg across her. Again she tossed him aside. Giggling, Kyo threw both an arm and a leg over her solid body. When she tossed him this time, he rolled away, laughing, then climbed on her back. He clung to her neck while she rocked back and forth, and he laughed so hard that he fell off.
    Tooky prodded him with her nose and plopped down beside him. When Kyo lay his arm gently across her this time, she did not shake it off. She lowered her head, closed her eyes, and slept.
    Clouds covered the sun, and a cool wind gusted over them. A little chilled, Kyo hid from the wind behind the seal and huddled close to her broad furry belly.
    Her heart was a muffled
ba-boom, ba-boom
in his ear. He watched the little white puffs that formed and dissolved near Tooky’s nose each time she breathed.
    Suddenly, she stopped breathing. Kyo kept watching for the little breath-clouds, but when minutes had passed and none appeared, he sat up, alarmed.
    Was she sick? he wondered. Was she dying?
    His eyes blurred. He wiped them with a mitten. Crouching over her, he listened close to the seal’s nose. He heard nothing.
    Holding back tears, he pressed his ear to her body.
Ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom
 … just like normal.
    Tooky was awake now, watching him calmly. She didn’t look sick, Kyo observed, and the little clouds were forming again every few seconds in front of her nose.
    Kyo put aside his worried thoughts. For a while he and Tooky played together, and when the seal napped later on, he wasn’t so surprised to see her breathing halt again.
    This time he watched more patiently. He saw that she breathed between long pauses. He tried to hold his breath as long as she did, but it was impossible.
    “Wake up, Tooky!” he called out when he had tired of his breath-holding game.
    Tooky’s eyes snapped open, and as Kyo had expected, her breath came faster. She wriggled toward the water and slipped away. Puzzling about her strange, slow breathing, Kyo headed for home.

W hy does Tooky’s breathing slow dawn when she sleeps? Kyo was still wondering the next day as he helped his father untangle their sled dogs’ traces. He was thinking of asking his father about the seal when the sound of a distant, unfamiliar hum distracted him.
    The hum grew into a deep buzz, and then into a loud, growling whine. Kyo saw a man approaching on a snowmobile pulling a sledge. Kyo had seen snowmobiles, but no one in their small settlement owned one yet. He watched with wide eyes and an openmouth as his uncle George drove the noisy contraption to his house and stopped.
    Kyo had never