Free Wish by Joseph Monninger Page A

Tommy said.
    He reached out his hand and touched the teeth marks. The fiberglass board appeared slightly sprung with the impact from underneath. The teeth marks closed over the widest section, and it didn’t take much imagination to see how an arm dangling over or a hand cupping water in mid-paddle would have been cut free as simply as a carrot.
    “I’ve seen pictures,” Tommy said, awestruck, his hand going back and forth over the board, “but it’s way different seeing it in person.”
    “Everyone says that,” Ty said, obviously a veteran atgoing through this. “It’s always amazing to get people’s reactions. Some people can’t take their eyes off it.”
    “Do you mind saying what it was like?” Tommy said.
    “Oh, here he goes again,” Little Brew said, and Frankie shook his head and jumped onto the half-pipe to get away. “He’s told this story a million times. With every new shark attack, he gets calls from reporters and it all starts up again.”
    “It was loud,” Ty said, ignoring his little brother. “I mean, it was such a weird sound to hear in the middle of the ocean, this loud crushing sound of its teeth going into the board. I e-mailed you most of this stuff, though. You know the details.”
    “Yeah, but it’s like seeing the board,” Tommy said. “I want to hear you say the words. Did you feel like the water was sharky? Before it happened, I mean.”
    “It felt like it does before a storm. Quiet and calm, but the type where you sense that something big is coming. A guy I know says that a great white makes everything around it quiet. Fish scatter and seals take off. It’s like the best gunslinger in the world stepping into an old western bar.”
    “You should take them up to the cove,” Little Brew said, his eyes touching mine for a second. “To show them the sea lion.”
    “A sea lion washed up with a giant bite out of its neck yesterday. Great white, most likely. The seal probably got away, but it bled out and then washed up.”
    “It happens,” Little Brew said. “But the lifeguards may haul it off, so if you want to see it, you should do it sooner rather than later.”
    “You still surf?” I asked Ty.
    “Sure,” he said. “I figure the chances of a guy getting attacked twice by a shark are out of this world, so I’m the safest guy in the water.”
    “The sets are up to about twenty feet,” Little Brew said. “They’re building. You can come out with us tomorrow if you like. It’s Columbus Day. No school.”
    “We wouldn’t miss it,” Tommy said before I could object. “Right, Bee?”
    “Well, we’ll see,” I said. “We have to catch a plane tomorrow night.”
    “First thing in the morning,” Little Brew said. “A whole crew is going out. There may even be some people filming for a promo. The big wave contest is in November.”
    I looked at Ty. He looked at me. And he nodded.
    It was the kind of nod that said he would take care of Tommy.
    I nodded back, our eyes making sure.
    We drove a beat-up conversion van to see the dead seal in the afternoon. Little Brew sat in back with me, his body splayed out, his bleached shorts ripped here and there. He wore a red bandana around his head and I saw the tattooof a nautilus shell on his right calf. Tommy rode shotgun and Ty drove. We kept the windows down. It felt good to be driving next to the ocean, the breeze filled with salt. I wasn’t sure what Ty had told his brother, but both of them treated Tommy with care. They didn’t baby him, exactly. They teased him gently, telling him he was out of control about sharks. Little Brew said Tommy needed a Native American name to protect him from the sharks, so he played around with ideas until he came up with Snow Pony. It was such a goofy name that it worked, and I watched Tommy swell each time they used it on him, jazzing him up and telling him he was way too East Coast. No one had ever given him a nickname before. No one had ever included him so easily.
    We stopped at