Oil-Soaked Wings Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Half Title Page

  Title Page

  Dear Diary

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  About the Illustrator

  Glossary

  Talk About It

  Write About It

  More About Pelicans

  Seaside Sanctuary

  Explore More

  Copyright

  Back Cover

  Dear Diary,

  The past few months have been crazy, and not just because I moved across the country. I never thought we’d leave Chicago. The city was home my whole life. I loved the rumbling above-ground trains, the massive skyscrapers, the sidewalks filled with people.… Believe it or not, I even liked my school. It was the type of place where it was cool to be smart.

  But then, right after school ended for the year, Mom and Dad announced we were moving. They decided to leave their jobs as marine biologists at the Shedd Aquarium and move the whole family to Charleston, South Carolina! They both got jobs running someplace called Seaside Sanctuary Marine Wildlife Refuge—jobs that were “too good to pass up,” as they put it.

  And at first, I couldn’t believe Seaside Sanctuary would ever seem like home. Everything was different—the humidity, the salty air, the palmetto trees, the old brick streets lined with massive live oaks. Not to mention the flat, quiet beaches with water warm enough to swim in all year—you don’t see that along Lake Michigan.

  But it hasn’t all been bad. For starters, I met my best friend, Olivia, on my first day at Seaside Sanctuary. She was sitting by the turtle pool, reading. By the end of the morning, I knew three very important things about Olivia:

  Her older sister, Abby, is the vet at the sanctuary.

  She doesn’t like talking to people she doesn’t know.

  She wants to be a dolphin researcher when she grows up.

  And I knew we were going to be best friends.

  I still miss Chicago. But between helping the volunteers with feedings, cleaning tanks, showing tourists around, and prepping seal food in the industrial-sized blender, I haven’t had much time to think about my old life. And one thing is for sure—at Seaside Sanctuary, I’m never lonely, and I’m never bored.

  Chapter 1

  “Olivia!” I called down the beach. “Over here!” I shook out my beach towel and spread it on white sand as fine as baby powder.

  In front of us, the ocean stretched out to the horizon. When I first moved here to Charleston, I had no idea an ocean could be so calm—or so warm.

  Olivia fussed with her towel, laying it out and fidgeting with the edges until it was perfectly flat. “I can’t believe you found this place!” she said, finally lowering herself to her towel and closing her eyes against the sun.

  “I know—it’s like having our own private beach.” I’d been on a hike the week before when I spotted a pathway near the end of a string of cottages not far from Seaside Sanctuary. I’d followed it through waist-high thickets of palmetto scrub before it ended on this totally deserted stretch of sand. You couldn’t get to it from a street, which must be why it was so deserted—and perfect for Olivia and me.

  The day was perfect for the beach too—blue sky, blazing Charleston sun, a few puffy white clouds skating by. I lay on my back, closed my eyes, and listened to the shush-shushing of the water. I inhaled the familiar salt smell—and something else. There was another smell today—something acrid.

  I inhaled again and sat up. “Olivia, do you smell something weird?”

  “No.” She had her arm crooked over her eyes. Then she sat up too. “Yeah, actually.” She sniffed. “It smells bad.”

  “I think it’s the water.” I got up and squatted down by the tide line. I touched the water’s surface with my fingers. My fingers came away coated with a brown film. “There’s something on it.”

  I studied my fingers, rubbing them together. They felt greasy. Then, in an instant, I realized why, and my insides contracted. “It’s oil.”

  Olivia gasped. “Oh no. Oil in the ocean is bad, no matter what.”

  I nodded. I might be new to coastal living, but I even I knew that much. I shaded my eyes and gazed out to the flat horizon as if I might see some answers. But there was nothing.

  “Elsa?” Olivia said behind me. “Look at that pelican.”

  I turned around. The large bird was squatting on the sand a few yards away from where we stood. But it wasn’t the right color for a pelican. Pelicans are usually a beautiful white-gray. This pelican was chocolate brown all over. It looked sick too.

  I walked slowly toward it. “Hey, bird,” I said softly. The pelican squawked and waddled away, but it didn’t spread its wings and take off the way a normal bird would have. It didn’t seem able to fly.

  “Something’s wrong with him.” I squatted down and eyed the bird carefully. He had a big chunk missing out of the web on his right foot. But I wasn’t focusing on his feet. It was his feathers that were the problem. “It’s like he’s covered in …”

  I stopped and looked at Olivia. We realized at the same time what that something was.

  “Oil,” we both said at once.

  Olivia and I quickly straightened back up.

  “We have to tell someone,” I said. “My parents. Or your sister.” The first stirrings of panic were creeping up my chest. The dirty pelican squatted miserably on the sand. He looked sick. I felt sick when I looked at him.

  “Can we take him with us?” Olivia asked. I knew just how she felt. I couldn’t stand to see the sick, bewildered bird left all alone either.

  “I don’t see how,” I told her. “We don’t have any way to carry him. And I don’t want to hurt him by accident if we pick him up wrong.”

  Olivia nodded. “You’re right. Let’s just go get help and get back here—fast.”

  We packed up our towels and left the beach as quickly as we could. Just before we reached the head of the trail, I looked back at the deserted stretch of sand. The pelican still sat there, just above the tide line, the dark, filmy water lapping at his feet.

  * * *

  Something was wrong when we got back to Seaside Sanctuary—I could tell right away. There were no volunteers scrubbing tanks or carrying buckets of fish to the animals. In fact, all of the paths and pens were deserted, except for the animals inside.

  I stumbled over a broom in the middle of the center path, lying there as if someone had dropped it suddenly. An overturned bucket lay beside it. Olivia and I looked at each other with wide eyes.

  “Where is everyone?” she said, clearly as worried as I was.

  I didn’t have an answer. The place was eerily quiet. The only sounds were the hum of the air conditioner, the soft lapping of the ocean waves nearby, and the occasional squeak of our dolphins in their coastal sea pen.

  Then I noticed my mom’s red backpack sitting outside the door to the office. She was here.

  Olivia and I ran up and opened the door. Mom, Dad, and Abby, Olivia’s older sister and the sanctuary vet, turned around. A man I didn’t recognize was there with them. Mom’s face was pale, and my first thought was that an animal had died.

  “Oh, Elsa, Olivia. We’ve had terrible news,” Mom said.

  “We saw something terrible too!” I burst out. “On the beach. There’s a p
elican covered in oil.”

  Mom’s face grew even paler. “That’s what I was trying to tell you,” she said. “There’s been an oil spill.”

  I gasped. Olivia grabbed my arm. Oil spills were a disaster—I knew that, even if I’d never actually been near one. Oil would spill out of a ship or an underwater pipeline, because of an accident of some kind. It would spew out onto the water and float on the surface. The oil would kill fish and crabs and coral and seaweed and dolphins and seals and birds. And it would stay and stay until someone cleaned it up, which was hard—and expensive—to do.

  Dad put his arm around my shoulders. “This is Chris Hauser. He’s a wildlife biologist with the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. He came to give us the news. Apparently a tanker carrying oil collided with another ship not far from shore. No one was hurt, but a huge hole was ripped in the side of the tanker. We can expect oil coming ashore here on Sullivan’s Island within the next few hours.”

  “Dad, it’s already here.” Quickly, I detailed what Olivia and I had seen.

  When I finished, the adults nodded. Their faces were lined with worry.

  “Seaside Sanctuary has volunteered to be a cleaning station for oiled pelicans,” Abby told us. “There are probably going to be hundreds affected by the spill, and they’ll all need to be fed, watered, warmed up, and cleaned before they can be released again. It’s a big job, but since we’re right on the coast we’re the most logical option.”

  “What can we do to help?” I asked.

  “Chris is going to advise us and work with us,” Abby continued. “This afternoon, workers will set up a temporary building at the edge of the property. The Department of Wildlife and Fisheries will organize volunteers to work with the birds.”

  Chris nodded. He was a middle-aged man with the kind of rough skin that signaled years spent outdoors. “We’re really grateful to Seaside Sanctuary for volunteering all your space and resources. We’re going to need them.”

  He looked right at Olivia and me. “These pelicans will die without help—and they’ll suffer. The oil will poison their skin, they’ll swallow it when they try to preen their feathers, and then it will poison their insides. They can’t keep warm with oil covering them, and they’ll become too cold to live. They can’t fly, so they can’t hunt for fish. They’ll starve.”

  “Stop!” I cried suddenly. I couldn’t stand to hear that terrible list of sufferings anymore. “We’ll do everything we can! We’ll clean them.”

  “Good.” Mom squeezed my shoulder. “We’re going to need every pair of hands we can find. The pelicans are depending on us.”

  I thought back to the sad, oiled bird on the beach. He needed us. They all did. I was so glad we could do something to help them.

  Chapter 2

  From there on out, everything was different. Within two hours, I barely recognized Seaside Sanctuary. Trucks started arriving, and workers unloaded plywood and tarps and tubs and hoses and cases and cases of what turned out to be dishwashing liquid.

  Mom called a local fabric recycler and soon a van pulled up and dumped what had to be two hundred pounds of old towels. Everywhere I looked, people were setting up tubs, connecting hoses, constructing crude tables and walls out of plywood and two-by-fours. Up on ladders, workers were stapling heavy-duty tarps to skeleton walls and carrying in rolls of chain-link to make pens.

  Mr. Hauser was in the middle of it all, directing workers, supervising the placing of the washing tubs. “We’ve got several stations,” he explained to Olivia and me. “Follow me. I’ll walk you through the process.”

  I appreciated that he talked to us like we were grown-ups, which adults hardly ever did. Most of the time, they talked to us like kids who had food on our faces. But Mr. Hauser was a different kind of grown-up. I could see that.

  “When the birds are first brought in, Abby will examine them,” he explained. “Mostly, she’s looking at their mouths, to see if they’ve swallowed too much oil, or to see if their skin is damaged from the oil. Then we’ll put them in these pens.” He pointed to the chain-link pens a worker was assembling. “There they’ll be banded, so we can keep track of them. The first thing is we’ll feed and water them.”

  “I thought the first thing would be to wash the oil off them,” Olivia said.

  Mr. Hauser nodded. “Yes, that’s what most people think. They will get washed. But remember, these birds haven’t been able to eat because they can’t hunt. And because their feathers are stuck together with oil, their bodies are losing moisture and getting dehydrated. The washing process is actually pretty traumatic for the birds. It’s the physical equivalent of you or me running a marathon. They have to be strong to withstand it. And food and water will help with that.”

  “So then what?” I urged him. “After they eat and drink and rest?”

  Mr. Hauser led us across the tarp enclosure to a long table that stretched almost the entire length of the temporary building. Plastic tubs were arranged along the top, on mats, with big numbers in front of them.

  “Then they’ll get washed,” he continued. “This is the big moment for them. We’ll hose them and carefully scrub their feet and skin. The volunteers will use Q-tips to get the oil out of the birds’ eyes and mouths. Here, this way.”

  He led us outside the temporary building and over to another series of pens at the very edge of the sanctuary’s property. The pens were open to the air, but the chain-link was blocked with plywood and white sheets hung over the entrances.

  “Why are they blocked off?” Olivia asked.

  “This is where the birds will go once they’ve been cleaned,” Mr. Hauser said. He pushed open a gate. Inside was a large pool with Astroturf stapled over the edges. “They can rest here, preen their feathers, and let their natural oils coat them again. We’ll feed them fish, but you have to stay behind the white curtains when we toss fish to them.”

  He held up a finger. “It’s very important the pelicans don’t start associating humans with food. We don’t want them to get comfortable with us. In fact, as strange as it sounds, we almost want them to be a little afraid of us. That way they’ll avoid humans after they’re released. That’s better for wild birds—to stay wild.”

  With that, Mr. Hauser let the curtain drop, shielding the pen once again.

  “Wow!” I exhaled. The whole process was a little overwhelming. “And then they’re released?”

  “And then they’re released. Once they can show us they’re eating fish, we’ll drive them out, away from the oil, and let them go.”

  Olivia and I looked at each other. I don’t think either of us had any idea how much work went into helping oiled birds. I’d just imagined that we’d bring them in, scrub them off, and let them go.

  Suddenly, we heard the thunk-thunk of van doors slamming out in the parking lot. Mr. Hauser looked at his watch. “That’s the first batch of pelicans now.” He fixed us with a serious gaze. “Are you girls ready? This won’t be an easy sight.”

  I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders. Olivia nodded firmly. “We’re ready.”

  Chapter 3

  Workers pulled crate after crate off the vans. They looked like regular dog crates, but each one held one or two or three oiled pelicans.

  Dad had been glued to his phone the whole time we were talking to Mr. Hauser, and now I realized why—already people were pulling up in the parking lot. I recognized some of our regular volunteers in the crowd, but there were new people too.

  “Volunteers! Inside the washing tent, please!” Mom shouted from the doorway of the temporary building. She was juggling a stack of papers, her hair flying in her face, and seemed flustered. “Abby will lead a training on washing techniques.” She turned to the workers unloading the crates. “Put the pelican crates in a line by the admission pens,” she said. “Mr. Hauser, I need you in here, please.”

  With that, she disappeared into t
he building. Olivia and I looked at each other, then rushed after her. We found her inside, muttering to herself, her face flushed.

  Mom looked up as we entered. “We really cannot do this all ourselves. The Department of Wildlife and Fisheries said they’ll send more volunteers in the morning—trained in bird-washing—but in the meantime, we’ll have to make do with this first batch. Girls, I want you to help transfer the oiled birds into the holding pens.”

  Olivia nodded. I swallowed hard. I hated to see sick animals, and these birds were very, very sick. Still, I had to be brave—we both did. These pelicans had no one else to depend on.

  We opened the door to the first cage. A pelican sat toward the back, blinking at us in the sudden light. He was brown all over, just like the pelican on the beach. He didn’t move as I reached in and gently scooped him toward me. A healthy bird would be squawking and flapping all over the place, trying to get away. It seemed like he was being gentle, but his quietness was a sign of how sick he really was.

  Suddenly I stopped. The pelican had a chunk missing from the web of his right foot. “Olivia! It’s the pelican from the beach—the one we first saw!”

  Olivia gasped and looked at him more closely. “You’re right. I’m so glad they picked him up.”

  “You’re going to be OK, buddy,” I murmured to him.

  Olivia helped me carry the bird to the holding pens. We sometimes had pelicans at Seaside Sanctuary, so we knew how to hold one. Adults could carry the birds by themselves, but we were smaller, so we had to do it together. One of us gently held his beak closed, so he wouldn’t snap at us, and the other held him firmly under one arm, his wings folded against his body. We didn’t want him flapping around and hurting himself—or us.

  We carried him to the row of admission pens. I could smell the oil on him. Normally pelicans mostly smell like fish, but this guy smelled sharp and chemical—like no animal should smell.

  We placed him in the pen, where he waddled to the back and then just stood there, looking miserable. Gently, I closed the door behind him and latched it.