“I never thanked you and your friend for introducing me to Aquamarine,” Raymond said.
“I’m sorry it didn’t work out,” Claire said.
“But it did.” Raymond was surprised. “She said she would find me, and she did.”
When he swam back into the sea, Claire could see that he wasn’t really alone. There in the deepest blue water was a girl who was waiting for him, far beyond the breaking waves. For some time afterward, Claire brought her camera down to the beach, hoping for a photograph of Aquamarine to send to Hailey. But after a while she put her camera away. Hailey would be coming to visit next summer and that wasn’t so very far away. If they were lucky, if they watched carefully, they might still be able to spy Aquamarine. Far beyond the tide pools and the jellyfish, beyond starfish and snails, she is swimming there still.
About the Author
Alice Hoffman is the author of over thirty acclaimed and best-selling novels which have been published in more than twenty languages, including The Dovekeepers, which Toni Morrison called “beautiful” and “harrowing”; The Museum of Extraordinary Things, which People Magazine called “spellbinding”; and most recently, The Marriage of Opposites, which USA Today called “lush” and “evocative”. She lives in Boston and can be found online at www.alicehoffman.com.
Copyright
Copyright © 2001 by Alice Hoffman
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Press, a division of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC and SCHOLASTIC PRESS and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
This is a work of fiction. The events described are imaginary, and the characters are fictitious and not intended to represent specific living persons. Any similarity to real events or persons is purely coincidental.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 00-055718
First edition, May 2001
e-ISBN 978-1-338-04647-2
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.