“Hopefully it won’t do this now,” Aiden said, “but when they feel threatened, sea cucumbers have a wonderful defense mechanism.”
“What’s that?”
“They puke up their intestines.”
“They what?”
“Basically, it looks like they turn themselves inside out. They go from kinda gross-looking to completely vile, making predators think they are already dead, and therefore, unappetizing.”
“You have to be joking.”
“Not at all.” Aiden looked up, and his eyes glimmered with boyish mischief. “Want me to see if I can piss it off?”
“No!”
“Touch it, then.” He held it a little closer, and I cringed.
“Not a chance.”
“If you don’t,” he warned, “I’m going to start fucking with it until it pukes!”
“No!”
“Then touch it!”
“Ugh!” I scrunched up my face, terrified the thing was going to jump out at me, and reached out tentatively with one finger. I stroked the top of it, surprised it wasn’t as slimy as it looked. It was still gross though, and I said so.
Aiden smiled as he tucked his hand back under the surface of the water and let the thing go.
“That’s twice you’ve lived today,” he said. “Shall we go for number three?”
“I think my quota of touching gross sea life has been reached.” I folded my arms over the paddle’s handle.
“I had something else in mind,” Aiden said. He dipped his paddle in the water and moved us away from the trees.
We paddled a little farther down the canal and closer to the bay. There were plenty of others out and about, mostly in kayaks or standing on paddleboards. There were even a couple of groups led by a nature guide.
The weather was perfect, and the water was perfect, and the whole thing was just beautiful. I relaxed as I became more comfortable moving the kayak around, but I was still glad Aiden was behind me and doing most of the actual steering. When I looked back at him, he was peering over the edge again.
“Hang on,” he said as he paddled backward for a moment. The kayak stilled, and Aiden took his cap off and placed it backward on my head.
“What are you doing?” I asked as I grabbed the cap and turned it around the right way.
“Just hold onto the edge of the kayak and brace yourself,” he commanded. Then he stood up.
“Aiden!” I cried as he dived into the water, causing the kayak to rock back and forth. A few moments later, he surfaced and swam up to the front of the kayak, grasping the side with one hand.
In the other hand, he held up a giant conch.
“Oh my God!” I screamed. “Is it…is it alive?”
“It is,” he said. He turned the huge shell to the side and let me look. Right around the edge where the shell coiled back into itself, I could see the pink flesh of the moving conch, hiding itself from the air.
“I wasn’t expecting to find one this big,” Aiden said. “A lot of them get taken home by tourists. Sometimes they don’t even know it’s a living thing—they think it’s just the shell.”
I reached out without prompting this time, and ran my finger along the edge of the shell. It was smooth and cool to the touch.
“I figured since you liked collecting shells, you’d like seeing a live one.”