The Island of Dragons (Rockpools Book 4) Gregg Dunnett (desktop ebook reader .TXT) 📖

to change my mind when I see the bed, and see her holding lots of different bikinis and things against her, asking me which type is most suitable for whatever we’re doing. I have to tell her I don’t know for sure we’ll be able to use it, and that confuses her even more. Then we book an Uber, even though she does have a car, a little Audi, but we’ve drunk quite a lot of the wine now. I get it on my account, so I don’t have to tell her where we’re going.

It drops us off down by the waterfront, and I lead her towards the aquarium.

I don’t completely approve of aquariums. I think it’s best if animals get to live their lives naturally, but on the other hand, they do give people a chance to see marine animals in realistic looking situations, and there’s some evidence that this leads to them better respecting the natural world. I read an article about it in National Geographic once. And a lot of aquariums, like this one, also do a lot for research and conservation. That’s how I got to first meet Kevin. He was only the day manager when I first met him, and I was quite young, and to be perfectly honest I think I annoyed him a bit because I kept coming up with suggestions for other animals they could display, and for how they could do it, and also offered to bring them animals that I collected. But as I got a bit older, and a bit more sensible, he became the deputy manager, and now he runs the whole aquarium. And now we’re quite good friends.

“Why are we going to the aquarium Billy? Isn’t it closed?”

“It is for most people,” I reply, leading the way. “But not for everyone.”

It’s not Kevin who meets me at the door, they have a security guard, but Kevin’s told him what I want to do, and he lets us in, and locks the door shut behind us. Then he looks Lily up and down and raises his eyebrows in surprise, and winks at me and tells us to have fun and not trip any alarms. Then he waddles off back to his room.

“Where’s he going?”

“He has a little room. It has all the CCTV, so he’ll be keeping an eye on us.”

“But what are we doing here Billy?”

“I wanted to show you around.” I smile at her.

Most of the lights in the tanks are on timers, because fish are used to the rhythms of day and night just like we are, but there’s some light in the hallways – kind of the same as if there was a full moon. But it always looks different at night anyway, because there’s no people here. I take the lead, showing her the first few zones – that’s how they have the animals arranged, in zones. It’s all a bit basic, but it’s kinda fun too.

In the Amazon zone they have about fifty red-bellied piranhas that actually do look quite menacing. The display says they can form feeding frenzies and strip an animal of all its flesh in minutes, but that’s mostly a myth, it only really happens during times of starvation. Mostly they just eat insects or seeds that fall in the water. There’s also a really fat iguana called Susan. The Africa zone has tilapia, giant perch, a couple of pig-nosed turtles, and lots of otters. They don’t like people much, so they’re much happier at night when no one’s around, and we get to see them playing, which is cute because there’s some pups too. There’s a zone called The Abyss, which is supposed to be about animals from the deep oceans, but of course they can’t reproduce the pressure of the real deep oceans, so it only has pictures of creatures like the Dumbo octopus, and then some fish from shallower seas that just happen to look scary or odd, like conger eels and nautilus. But Lily doesn’t seem to mind. I’m able to explain to Lily what all the animals are, and what makes them interesting, and she goes from one display to next completely transfixed. So that when we finally get to the big tank in the middle of the tropical zone, she’s forgotten what I asked her to bring.

It really is big by the way, the size of a large swimming pool, but deeper and there’s a glass tunnel that leads underneath it – it’s kind of the grand finale of the warm seas part of the aquarium. You see the pool from above first, so you can’t quite make out what’s in the water until you’re standing right above it.

“Are those sharks?”

“Yup. Black tip reef sharks, nurse sharks and epaulette sharks. And rays, and zebra fish, and guitar fish, and a few tuna, and a turtle, he’s called Norman.”

“Norman?”

“Yeah, he’s a loggerhead. You have to be a little bit careful of him, because one time he bit someone, but you just push him away and he gets the idea.”

Lily looks at me. “Are you suggesting I go swimming in there,” she points at the giant pool. “With sharks?”

“I thought you might like to. It’s really nice and warm.” It’s actually so warm in the water that the atmosphere up here, out of the water, is uncomfortably hot.

“Are you serious?”

In response I go to the storeroom door. You wouldn’t really notice it if you didn’t know it was there, and I key in the security code to open it. Inside there’s a few diving masks hanging on hooks. I grab a couple. “You can get changed in here if you like. Out here is all on the CCTV, so the security guy might be watching.”

“Oh my God. You are serious.” She doesn’t go inside, but walks back to the pool and half-way out across the bridge. She looks down, and I join her, seeing all the fish cruising around. Mostly the different species act pretty