Free For the Girls' Sake by Janice Kay Johnson

sandwich."
    She giggled a little weakly. Instead of prying her fingers loose, he walked with her and Shelly, Lynn trailing. The gulls stayed behind, hoping for bread thrown from the diners eating outside just above.
    At a safe distance from the scary birds, Rose proved willing to let go and join Shelly. The adults strolled behind as the girls ran ahead, scrambling up a favorite driftwood log and jumping over and over again to the forgiving pebbles. Finally Shelly took Rose’s hand and led her onto slick rocks where they crouched to stare into a tide pool.
    As Adam looked over their shoulders, Shelly was saying earnestly, "We can’t take anything out. Sometimes I touch. See?" She dipped her hand into the cold water and let a swaying anemone brush her fingers. Her face scrunched up. "But if you take them home, they get icky. They stink and stuff. So we leave ’em."
    Rose nodded, not wanting to admit she didn’t have a clue what her new friend was talking about. Not two minutes later, she slipped over to her father.
    "Why do things get icky if we take ’em home, Daddy?" she asked, not bothering to hush her piercing voice.
    Death and decomposition was not what he wanted to talk about.
    "Because those are sea creatures. They can’t live out of the sea. Just like we need air, they need water."
    "But they could take a bath with me." Her mouth was pursed with perplexity.
    Lynn stepped forward. "They need this special kind of water. See? Put a drop on your tongue?"
    Rose stuck her tongue out, then made a horrible face at the taste. When she could speak, she exclaimed, "They want that kinda water?"
    "Just that kind." Lynn smiled at her. "And no matter how hard we try, we can’t make the bathwater right for them."
    "Oh." Rose thought it over. After a moment, her forehead smoothed. She nodded and went back to her friend, squatting beside her to stare down into the tidepool.
    Adam stayed near Rose as Shelly led the way next across mussel-and barnacle-encrusted rocks to a blowhole. Each incoming wave rushed beneath the rock in a froth of white, sending a thin jet shooting upward through the hole like a geyser. Here the roar of the surf surrounded them and spray hung in the air, dampening their hair and filling their nostrils and lungs with salty wet air.
    "Ooh," breathed Rose, clutching Adam’s hand and watching with wondering eyes.
    Eventually they made their way to a tiny cove of gritty sand between arms of basalt worn by the pounding of the waves. Adam dropped to his knees and helped build a sand castle grander than anything the girls could have done alone.
    He wondered wryly whether he was trying to make points with Lynn by showing what a great parent he was, or whether he was just avoiding having to talk to her.
    She gave no sign she noticed either way. Instead, under her daughter’s orders Lynn willingly ferried water by the bright plastic bucketful from the foamy fingers of surf. At the sound of her laughter, Adam sank back on his heels and watched her squelch back toward the construction site, her sneakers and the hems of her jeans soaking wet.
    Like Rose, she wasn’t a chatterbox, and her face didn’t have Jennifer’s animation, but it was bright and good-humored.
    "The wave got me," she announced. "I think the tide is coming in."
    Sure enough, each wave licked onto dry sand and inched toward the tide pools.
    "Let’s dig a moat," Adam declared. "We can watch the water rush around the castle."
    "Good idea." Lynn dropped to her knees and began hollowing out a trench with her hands, sand flying.
    "What’s a moat?" Shelly asked.
    Adam grinned at her. "It’s filled with water to keep the invaders away from the castle walls."
    "Oh. What’s ’vaders?"
    "Um." Almost unconsciously, he looked to Lynn for help.
    "Invaders are the enemy," she said in mock growl. "Like Ian and Ron at your play group, when they want to grab the dolls and run over them with their trucks."
    Shelly’s chocolate-brown eyes widened. "I don’t like