3 THE SEAL

CHAPTER 3 THE SEAL The gull swooped past the crowd of creatures and cried, "Help! Roz! Follow me!" Then she swung back around the way she had come. Roz started running, and Brightbill started flying, and together they followed Gale north across the island and down to the rocky shore. Seabirds and otters and crabs had gathered on the rocks, and lying in the middle of the gathering was a seal. His nose was bleeding. His eyes were swollen shut. Roz knelt and inspected his injuries. From the seal's mouth came a weak voice. "The poison tide is coming!" "I do not understand," said the robot. "I was hunting in the north with my friends and family when we noticed a shimmering patch of water,"

said the seal. "We were curious, so we swam closer. And then we felt the poison. The shimmering water burned our mouths and our noses and our eyes! I couldn't see, and I called out for the others, but nobody called back. The poison tide kept washing over me, and the pain was too much, so I turned and swam for my life, back into clear ocean water, and I just kept swimming, for days, until I arrived here." "What is the poison tide?" said the robot. "Where did it come from?" But the seal couldn't answer because he suddenly erupted into a fit of coughing. The animals exchanged nervous glances as the seal coughed and coughed. Everyone wanted to help him, but there was nothing they could do. When he finally stopped coughing, the seal hardly had enough strength to speak. "Please," he whispered. "I want to feel the ocean." Very carefully, Roz lifted him up, carried him across the rocks, and released him into the shallows. The touch of salt water against his body brought a faint smile to the seal's face. It was too hard for him to speak, so without saying a word he slowly swam away and disappeared beneath the waves.