Fourteen-year-old Samantha spends her days exploring the shallow reef behind her island home. With her world locked in a battle against rising seas, scientists deploy genetically modified corals to rebuild reefs and protect the coastline. No one expects the reefs to be a hotbed of evolution, but they are.
When an octopus flows off a rock in her lagoon, Samantha is startled. When he purposefully arranges pieces of coral on the sand, trying to communicate, she is shocked. How she responds may determine the fate of life on Earth.
Chapter 2~ Samantha
I should start at the beginning. My name is Samantha. I’m fourteen, and I live with Mom and my brother Jerry. I was born in 2035, eight years before the rising sea flooded the Atlantic coastline forcing mass evacuations. Some cities, like Miami, are now part of the ocean floor. The flood covered our house on Georgia’s coast, so we lived in our car for a while until we landed in a temporary tent city outside Savannah. Back then, all I wanted in life was a dry bed and regular meals. At the time, that was a lot to ask.
I didn’t get a bed in the camp, but I did get a dry sleeping bag. It was better than trying to sleep in the car. Jerry was only four, and he shared a mattress with Mom and Dad. The camp was crowded, loud, and hot. I spent most nights awake listening to kids crying. Some days we got a hot meal, but mostly it was peanut butter sandwiches and a milk box. I missed Mom’s cooking. We didn’t know how long we would be at the camp or where we would go next.
Then the Reef Restoration project recruited Dad as a biologist and Mom to record data on tides, currents, water temperature, and pH. They gave us a modular house on an island five miles off the mainland at a field station named Georgia Coastal Habitat Ten. It was great to have a place of our own again. The house was on the highest part of the island and raised on a platform. You needed to climb the stairs to get to the place, but you could see the ocean once you did. I had my own bed, and Mom cooked our meals. My school was online, which suited me just fine. We lived at Coastal Habitat Ten for eighteen months. Long enough for it to feel like home. Long enough to feel safe.
But the water started rising again. At first, there were just a few high tides where the ground under the house got wet. Then, it got worse. Sometimes there was so much water that fish were swimming under the house. I couldn’t stop crying when they said we had to move. Dad tried to make me feel better. He said the Institute would take care of the move. But I started waking up in the middle of the night, thinking we were back at the tent camp and couldn’t get back to sleep. Mom started taking me to a doctor for depressed kids on the mainland.
The Institute gave us boxes for our clothes and personal stuff a week before we were to move. We packed our boxes and had them ready when they came. They dismantled our house and moved it to another island. Mom described the houses as “KISS” (Keep It Simple Silly). The house had waterproof polymer panels for walls, floors, and ceilings. They unbolted the pieces and took everything to the new location. So our new house is really our old house, just in a new place.
I wanted to visit our old island and reef, but Dad said no. He said the island would soon be under water. When I asked about visiting the reef flat, he said it was already too deep. We would need to use SCUBA. He looked sad, saying no. I think it hurt him a lot when he lost his reef.
But things were different at Coastal Eleven. I was older, and Mom and Dad let me pick colors for curtains and make choices about arranging the furniture. Mom took me around the island, showing me all the places to explore. Dad started taking me out on the reef with him. We’d walk off the shore, and soon we were knee-deep in water on the reef flat. In under an hour, we were in the lagoon, swimming around sea fans, soft corals, and small coral heads. The lagoon was so shallow that I could stand with my head above water, at least at low tide. Going out to the lagoon with Dad and seeing the corals made me remember what it was like to be happy.
Didn’t you know there were coral reefs in Georgia? Well, they haven’t been here long. Corals reproduce by sending eggs and sperm into the ocean—the larvae travel with the currents. The Georgia corals moved here from Florida. With the seas getting warmer, they could settle and start new reefs here in Georgia.
The bioengineered heat-tolerant corals saved the Florida reefs and unexpectedly spread northward and deeper. Now Florida and Georgia both have thriving reef systems. That is the good news. The bad news is that much of Florida is now under water. I think Dad loved reefs more than anything else. And after spending time with him, I came to love them too. The reforestation and reef restoration projects were part of a push to slow and reverse global warming. The hope was that robust and expanded reefs, with bioengineered corals, would protect the mainland from storms and flooding. Corals don’t just protect the mainland from wave action. They remove carbon dioxide from the air when they build exoskeletons. Coral growth slows climate change, so they are essential to everyone.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s great that reefs are good for the planet, but I would love them anyway because they are just so beautiful. The colorful fish are everywhere, and the soft and hard corals are amazing. I had a hard time believing Dad when he told me they are animals because they look more like plants. My favorite coral is purple and takes the shape of fingers. It’s called Porites furcate, or purple finger coral. The lagoon floor looks like a garden of flowers with yellow, green, and purple sea fans (soft corals) waving in the current. Dad taught me not to touch any corals because touching them can give them diseases. He said I should never step on them and taught me to stay on the patches of sand. It took a lot of concentration to learn how to avoid stepping on coral, but I do it instinctively now.
We were on the reef almost every day back then. But in 2045, there was an outbreak of dengue fever. Dengue is spread by mosquitoes, and it seemed like everyone was getting sick. We used repellent and tried to stay inside at dawn and sunset when the mosquitoes were really biting, but Dad got sick. The hospital was so crowded that his bed was in a hallway instead of a room. He died five days later.
When Dad died, I lost my teacher and my best friend. Now, what helps me most is going out on the reef flat. When I’m on the reef, I feel like I’m with Dad. I can almost hear his voice telling me the names of corals and tropical fish. Being on the reef makes me feel less alone and less sad. I promised to stay on the reef flat or in the lagoon, in the section close to shore (although sometimes I’m not all that close.) I had to work on Mom, but she gave in, and now she lets me go out on my own.
Dad died two years ago. I still spend most of my time on the reef studying marine life. I do my online schoolwork, but it doesn’t compare to what I’m learning on the reef. I’m keeping detailed journals on everything I see. Everyone calls me a science geek. It’s true. I get busy with ocean stuff and forget to show up for meals. Mom fusses at me because I’m too skinny. It’s not that I don’t get hungry. I just sometimes forget to come in.
About the author:
When not writing, she walks with her husband, bikes, camps, keeps up with her adult children and plays with their attention-demanding cats.
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