Marina skipped along a tiny jetty, before finally skidding to a halt about halfway down.

“Here we are,” she said. “Welcome to my home!”

“This?” Rio was unable to hide his shock. When she’d said her dad ran whale-watching tours, he had never imagined she actually lived on the boat too. “This is where you live?”

“Of course!” she said, giggling. “Where else would someone named Marina live?!”

The boat in front of them was anything but normal.

It had been painted to resemble a gray whale.

The hull was gunmetal gray, with an outline of a flipper facing the jetty. Where the boat tapered off at the rear, someone had sketched in a tail, curling around the edge of the boat, and at the front, a remarkably lifelike eye had been painted on. Finally, fluttering from the deck was a rainbow flag, gently curling in the breeze.

“Isn’t she just the best?” Marina exclaimed, clapping her hands together in glee.

Personally, Rio felt it was a little much. But then, everything had been brighter, bolder, bigger since he’d arrived in Ocean Bay. It was as if, by being here, someone had dialed up the brightness of his life and he had to blink to adjust. But if anything could help him get close to the whales—this boat was most definitely it.

“She’s called the Spyhopper,” Marina said, pointing at the handwritten lettering on the side of the hull.

“The Spyhopper?”

“It’s something gray whales do,” she explained, throwing her arms into the air. “WHOOSH! They push their heads out of the water like this. Almost as if they’re standing up. And then they have a good look around before disappearing again. It’s called spyhopping. No one really understands why they do it, but it’s one of the reasons why I love them so much.”

“You’ve brought a guest, I see.”

“Dad!” Marina spun around, giving him a mock captain’s salute. “You don’t mind, do you?”

Rio swallowed. Marina’s dad wasn’t like his—a dad who wore gray suits to work and spent much of his spare time either watching soccer on the television or playing on his phone. But then, Rio wasn’t sure what to expect from someone who lived on a boat and ran whale-watching tours for a living. He was older than Rio had anticipated, with thick, unruly hair salted with flecks of silver and whiskers on his cheeks. His face was tanned, with creases around the eyes, and his nose had been broken at least twice. He was tall, with broad shoulders, and wore cowboy boots and a white shirt under a vest the color of the sea.

But it was his voice that captivated Rio the most. It was deep, like rich dark chocolate. The kind of voice a double bass would have if it could talk. And when he spoke, it was as if the earth itself should sit up and listen.

“Please jump on board.”

Rio had never been on a boat before. The gap between the Spyhopper and the wooden jetty was only a step, but it was a step over water, nevertheless. And who knew what lay below? Marina jumped across without a second thought, and crossing his fingers for luck, after a slight pause, Rio did likewise.