Oil-Soaked Wings Page 3

  “There!” I pointed. A large pelican, coated with oil, was bobbing on the surface of the water.

  “OK, I’ll maneuver the boat close, and you reach out and drop the net over his head,” Mr. Hauser told us. “Don’t worry, it won’t hurt him. He can’t go very far, since he can’t fly. We’ll guide him closer to the boat and bring him aboard.”

  Mr. Hauser carefully motored the boat closer to the pelican. I leaned over the edge, holding the long-handled net. The metal dug into my stomach a little, but, holding my breath, I managed to drop the net down on the pelican. He only thrashed a little, which told me how sick he was.

  “Great work!” Mr. Hauser said. He let the boat idle and reached over the edge. Together he and Olivia managed to haul the pelican up and bundle him into a crate.

  “I know you’re scared,” Olivia said to the bird, trying to soothe it through the metal bars of the door. “But you’re going to feel a lot better soon. Trust us.”

  We pulled two more pelicans from the water, both coated with oil. Mr. Hauser had just maneuvered the boat back to the beach when we saw a bird standing in the surf, looking around as if he couldn’t quite believe where he was.

  “Aha!” Mr. Hauser said. “Let’s pick up this guy. Our workers said they thought they’d gotten all the oiled birds off the beach itself, but they must have missed him.”

  I handed Olivia the net so she could have a turn, and she hurried forward as Mr. Hauser instructed, holding the net up as if she were catching a butterfly. The move never would have worked with a healthy bird—it would have flown away immediately.

  This pelican did spread his wings and try to fly away, but covered in oil, he was stuck. All he could do was run down the beach. Pelicans don’t run quickly, even when they’re healthy, though, so Olivia easily trapped him with the net. Mr. Hauser and I ran forward with the empty crate.

  Bouncing around in the front seat of the van on the way home, I couldn’t get the sight of the ruined beach out of my mind. Coastal Oil should have been out there cleaning up, and they weren’t. Someone needed to do something.

  I looked in the back, where the birds were relatively quiet, clearly too sick to make any real noise. Then I looked over at Olivia. We needed to do something. I wasn’t sure what yet. But I was going to figure it out.

  Chapter 6

  “OK, we have to think,” I said to Olivia for what felt like the tenth time. We were sitting in my room, cross-legged on the bed, paper and pens at the ready. “We need to get Coastal Oil to take responsibility and clean up the spill. But they don’t seem to care.”

  “And it’s not that they don’t know what’s happening with the oil,” Olivia said, gnawing at the end of her pen. “Mr. Hauser said they do know. So I don’t think telling them what’s happening is the answer.”

  “Besides, why would they listen to a couple of kids when they won’t listen to the state of South Carolina?” I flopped back on the bed and stared at the ceiling, studying the poster of a bunch of kids clustered around a dolphin that I’d taped up there a few months ago. Suddenly it hit me. “That’s it! Kids!”

  Olivia looked startled. “Yeah, I know we’re kids,” she said carefully, as if I’d gone just a little insane.

  “No! We need kids!” I was so excited I leapt off the bed and almost launched myself into the wall by accident. “We can get a whole bunch to come out and clean up the beach with us. And we’ll ask the media to come and do an article on us. We’ll be cleaning up the beach, and we’ll put pressure on Coastal Oil at the same time. Maybe they’ll be so embarrassed that a bunch of kids are cleaning up their mess that they’ll actually do something about it.”

  Olivia nodded thoughtfully. “That’s a good idea. But how are we going to get the word out about the cleanup?” The words were barely out of her mouth before she snapped her fingers. “Wait, don’t answer that.” She opened her laptop and clicked around for a minute. Then she turned the screen toward me.

  South Carolina Students’ Environmental Action Network, the heading on the screen read. I scanned the page. It was a social media group. The newsfeed was filled with tons of comments and posts. The last one, about a road across a coyote habitat, was just a few minutes old.

  “‘Speak truth to power. Let your voice be heard. Stand up for South Carolina’s natural environment, whether you’re eight or eighteen,’” I said, reading the group’s mission statement aloud. “This is perfect!”

  “The group has more than three thousand members,” Olivia said. She jabbed her finger at the screen. “If we put the word out here, people will see how horrible it is. We can document Pellie and take pictures of the beach. And we can call out Coastal Oil by name and tag local news stations. That way it’ll show up on their feeds.”

  “And when we have enough interest, we’ll put the word out about the cleanup day,” I said. “You’re brilliant!”

  “OK, first of all, when are we doing this?” Olivia asked, grabbing her notebook.

  “Saturday?” I suggested. “Does that work? Kids will be free on the weekend. It’s only two days away, but we have to get out there. Every day the oil sits, it’s poisoning more plants and animals.”

  “Agreed,” Olivia said. “Saturday it is. What should we tell people to bring? What’s our method going to be?” She poised her pen.

  I frowned. “I think we need Mr. Hauser for this one.”

  We found him in the office, the landline pressed to one ear, a stack of papers on his lap, and a cell phone dinging in front of him. But when he saw us, he paused. “What’s up, girls?” he asked.

  Briefly, we explained our cleanup plan—or what we had of it so far.

  “Lead a cleanup yourselves?” Mr. Hause nodded. “I like how you think, girls.”

  “We need a couple things from you,” I said. “Can you help us come up with the cleanup method? Like tell us what supplies we’d need? And can you supervise on Saturday?”

  Mr. Hauser grinned. “Yes and yes. First of all, the method.” He thought for a minute. “There’s a lot of ways to clean up an oil spill, but because you guys want to do this on your own, we’d better go basic: shovels and garbage bags. That works just as well as some of the more high-tech solutions, anyway. Here, write down these supplies.”

  I grabbed a blank intake form from the desk and turned it over.

  “Fifty shovels, fifty rakes, five hundred industrial-strength garbage bags, rubber gloves, and coveralls,” Mr. Hauser dictated. “Oh, and two big cases of granola bars and water. Ask people to bring their own boots, hand sanitizer, and lunches. I’ll get the rest of the supplies from my department.”

  “Let’s do it!” Olivia shot out of her chair like it had been rigged with an ejector seat.

  We spent the next few hours running around the sanctuary, taking pictures of everything we thought people might be interested in: volunteers lifting soapy birds from the baths, the oiled birds in their cages, the clean birds, and even the pile of birds that hadn’t survived the spill.

  I had to force myself to photograph the dead pelicans, lying with their beaks ajar and their eyes sunken and shriveled. It broke my heart, but that was reality. People needed to see it.

  Then we convinced Dad to give us a ride out to the beach, where he was going to check water levels. As we drove, Olivia and I brought him up to date on the action plan. He pledged his full support.

  “Your mom and I will be happy to donate the water and granola bars,” he offered. “I’ll pick that stuff up this afternoon.”

  Out at the beach, we photographed as much of the stringy, tarry muck as we could, then moved on to the oily, brown-tinged water lapping at the sand. Olivia volunteered to stand in the gross water, and I photographed her legs to show how the oil was coating everything.

  “Got everything you need, girls?” Dad called.

  We nodded and ran toward the truck. As Dad guided it over the rough
beach road, heading back to the sanctuary, he said, “Can I just say how proud I am of you girls for taking initiative? You’ve really taken this crisis into your own hands. Some people think that because you’re kids, you can’t produce any kind of change. But that’s not right. Kids can have a huge influence on real-world problems. They just need to gather and organize. And that’s exactly what you’re doing.”

  His words spread through me, warming me like Mr. Hauser’s sassafras tea had. “Thanks, Dad.” I squeezed his rough hand where it lay on the gearstick.

  “And I’m going to do my part too,” he continued. “After I drop you girls at home, I’m heading to the store to get the rest of the things you need.”

  Olivia and I jumped down from the truck and waved as he drove off. “Love you, Dad!” I shouted after him. He beeped the truck horn in response.

  We wandered toward the pens, brainstorming what to write for our first Environmental Action Network post, when we almost bumped into Katie. She had a bucket in her hand and a grim look on her face.

  “Hi, Katie! What’s wrong?” I asked.

  She looked down, as if she didn’t want to say. “Hi, girls. I was almost hoping I wouldn’t see you, so I wouldn’t have to tell you the bad news.”

  Fear gripped my heart. “Oh, no. What?”

  “I’m afraid Pellie isn’t eating. We’ve tried dead fish, live fish, all types. He ignores them all,” she said.

  “Oh,” Olivia said faintly. “That’s not good.”

  “No, it’s not.” Katie spoke briskly now. “He may have swallowed more oil than we thought, in which case, he can’t recover. But we’ll see.” Her voice caught as if she were going to cry. She turned and walked away abruptly, leaving us standing in the path.

  Olivia and I exchanged a glance, then ran toward Pellie’s pen and pressed our faces to the chain-link. He was there, standing calmly on the Astroturf-covered edge of his pool. Two other pelicans were waddling around, and one was in the water.

  Pellie looked perfectly normal except for the fact that he wasn’t moving as much as the others. He wasn’t moving at all, I realized after a minute. He just stood still and blinked at us.

  “He looks OK,” Olivia said. She glanced around nervously. “I think we’re supposed to be behind the curtain.”

  “Just one more minute.” I stared at Pellie as if he could give me some answers. “Why won’t you eat, boy?” I asked him. “Please eat! You can’t be released until you can eat.” That’s what I wanted most for Pellie: to be free, flying above the water, not trapped in a cage surrounded by cement and fake grass.

  Olivia and I stared at Pellie a long time, but he remained still. Only his eyes blinked, and occasionally he would slowly bob his head up and down.

  Finally Olivia drew away from the chain-link. “This is hard to say, but there’s nothing we can do for Pellie. Not right now. Either he’s going to get better or he isn’t.”

  Hearing that, I couldn’t help letting out a little sob.

  She put her arm around my shoulders. “You know what we can do? Help all those other birds and animals floating around in that oily water at the beach. There’s still time to save them. So let’s get started on those posts.”

  I nodded and wiped my eyes. “You’re right. If we can’t save Pellie, we can at least save some of his buddies. Let’s go.”

  * * *

  I could barely sit through dinner. Baked chicken had never seemed so boring. I was dying to get back upstairs and check on the response to our Sullivan’s Beach Coastal Oil-Spill Cleanup. Olivia and I had just posted our photos and the cleanup info on the group’s feed when Mom called me down to dinner and sent Olivia home to have dinner with Abby.

  I fidgeted and pushed broccoli around on my plate until Mom announced dessert and brought out dishes of canned peaches. “Can I be excused?” I asked.

  “Well, sure, if you don’t want any—”

  But I already had my chair pushed back and was halfway to the stairs. I took the steps two at a time and launched myself across my room to grab my laptop.

  I flipped the computer open, hit refresh on the Internet browser, and stared hungrily at the screen as the page loaded. Two hundred likes! Fifty comments! I scrolled down rapidly, reading as I went:

  Anonymous 2 minutes ago

  I’m totally grossed out by this disgusting act by Coastal Oil, and I will gladly be there on Saturday to clean up the beach.

  Road_warrior721 5 minutes ago

  I’ll be there on Saturday, and I’ll be bringing my biking club for extra hands.

  Coastal_Crew 12 minutes ago

  Coastal Oil, are you out there? We’re cleaning up your mess.

  And, best of all:

  Z.Davis_KQTD 30 minutes ago

  Hi, Elsa and Olivia. I’m Zannie Davis with KQTD TV. I’d like to bring a camera crew out to film your cleanup day and interview you, if that’s OK.

  It was working! I immediately called Olivia. “Have you seen the post yet?” I asked as soon as she picked up.

  “Not yet, we just finished eating. Any word from Coastal Oil? We did tag them, so they should have seen in it.”

  “Nothing. Radio silence from them, but we’ve gotten amazing responses from everyone else,” I said.

  Olivia sighed. “Maybe they just need more shaming—oops, I mean time. In the meanwhile, what do we need for the cleanup?”

  We spent the next half hour planning, and by the time we hung up, I had a list of at least twenty things we needed. Saturday was two days away. The beach was covered with oil. Pellie was sick. We were taking on a multinational oil company and organizing an event for what could be hundreds of people.

  But I didn’t feel scared. For the first time since the spill, I felt hopeful.

  Chapter 7

  Saturday was clear and sunny—a rare Charleston day without humidity. The palmetto trees whipped in the brisk wind as Olivia and I rode in the cab of Mr. Hauser’s truck, leading the caravan of cars from Seaside Sanctuary out to Sullivan’s Beach.

  Mom and Dad had to stay behind at the sanctuary to oversee the washing tents, but Mr. Hauser had promised to take good care of us all. In the truck bed behind us were boxes and crates filled with all the supplies we’d need to salvage the shoreline.

  “What if no one comes?” Olivia murmured next to me. “Just us. That’s it.”

  I punched her gently in the arm. “Stop. We got like one million responses.”

  “That was yesterday. People forget. People flake out!” Her voice rose.

  “They’re not going to forget!” I insisted.

  Olivia and I leaned forward as we approached the turnoff for the beach road, and I sucked in my breath. The road was lined with cars and trucks, all pulled over on the shoulder, almost bumper to bumper. Car doors slammed, one after another, as kids jumped out, carrying lunchboxes and gloves and wearing hats and old ragged shorts.

  “People came!” Olivia breathed, her face bright with relief.

  I laughed. “I told you they would.”

  Mr. Hauser maneuvered carefully down the road to the beach and parked. I jumped out and climbed into the bed of the truck. “Hey, everyone!” I shouted.

  The kids started clustering around.

  “What are you doing?” Olivia hissed. Her cheeks were red. She hated talking in front of people.

  “Welcoming everyone!” I said loudly. Then I murmured to Olivia, “Just stand next to me. You don’t have to say anything.” I waved my arms to get everyone’s attention. “I’m Elsa Roth from Seaside Sanctuary!” I shouted so the group could hear me over the waves and the breeze. “My friend Olivia and I are the ones who posted about the cleanup. Thank you all for coming!”

  There was scattered applause, and someone cheered.

  “Mr. Hauser from the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries is here, and he’s going to tell us the plan
for today.” I waved to Mr. Hauser, who climbed up on the truck bed beside me.

  “Everyone, my name is Chris Hauser, and I’m a wildlife biologist with the state of South Carolina,” he said. “We have an important task ahead of us today—cleaning this beach. There are a lot of ways to clean up an oil spill, but we’re going to be using the old-fashioned method: shovels and garbage bags. It’s important to keep your bodies and hands covered when you’re securing the contaminated sand in the bags. This is untreated crude oil. You don’t want it on your skin any more than a marine animal does.”

  Around me I could see the volunteers nodding. “Please put coveralls and gloves on as soon as you’re given them,” Mr. Hauser finished. “Let’s get started!”

  The group cheered, and I felt a thrill run through me. We were doing this!

  We jumped down from the truck bed. “Lay the tools out in clean sand in rows,” Mr. Hauser said.

  “Need help?” a tall boy with wavy brown hair asked. I nodded, and soon an eager crowd was clustered around us, handing out supplies.

  Mr. Hauser handed several rolls of string and a handful of stakes to two girls. “I’ll help you two divide off sections of the beach with this string,” he said. “That will help us keep track of the area we need to clean. And, Olivia, can you and two others be in charge of the water and refreshment area? Please, everyone, wash your hands with the water we’ve brought and use hand sanitizer before you eat or drink.”

  At least fifty kids started climbing into the crackly white coveralls. “This is so disgusting,” a girl with freckles said beside me. She grimaced, looking at the oil-strewn sand.

  “That’s what we thought,” I said.

  “I’m Norah, by the way. From the South Carolina Students’ Environmental Action Network. I started the group.” She shook my hand. “I’m so glad you organized this. We had no idea it was so bad.”

  “Are all these kids part of your group?” I asked her, gesturing at the kids suiting up all around us.