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“They need to eat the fish headfirst,” he goes on, “because if they eat them tail-first, the scales will scratch up their throats.” He’s working as he talks, pulling dead fish from the bucket, inspecting each one before tossing it into the bowl. “We also check each fish to make sure there aren’t any cuts on its body, which could introduce harmful bacteria to the animals. Then sort them by size. This bowl is going to Joy in pen four, who is pretty young still, so she gets small to medium fish, and the bigger fish will go to the more mature animals out in the yard.” He points to a label on the bowl, which does indeed read,Joy—Pen 4—5 lb.

“Seems easy enough,” I mutter.

Once the scale hits five pounds, Quint turns on the faucet and starts running each fish beneath the spray, using his gloved hands to clean off… whatever it is he’s cleaning off. Salt? Sand?Scales?

“Lastly, we rinse off the scales,” he says, and I cringe. I’d been hoping that wasn’t it. “Mostly just so they don’t clog the drains and dirty up the water. And that’s it. On to the next.” He sets Joy’s bowl down on the counter and reaches for another, this one labeled for Ladybug in pen five. “They get fed three to four times a day depending on their needs. You and I will prep the food for this morning, and the afternoon volunteers will handle the next batch.”

Once Ladybug’s bowl is ready, he pauses and looks at me. “You’re not going to throw up, are you?”

“No,” I say defiantly, though I suspect my face has taken on a greenish tinge.

“Then what are you waiting for? You said you wanted to help.”

“Yeah, but can’thelpingbe, like… I don’t know. Training some cute little seal to balance a ball on its nose or something?”

The look he gives me is so full of derision, I wilt a little.

“This isn’t a circus. We rescue animals that are half-dead, do our best to treat them, and then release them back to the wild. That’s what we do here. You do know that, right?”

“Yes?” I say, though I had only gotten a vague idea of all of this.

“So what use, exactly, would it serve to teach them circus tricks?”

“Relax, Quint. It was a joke.” I’m suddenly defensive. I hate how he’s talking to me, looking at me. Like I’m some prissy snob who is clearly only here to get a good quote for my paper and then I’ll be on my way. Like I’m the sort of person who doesn’t care about things.

I do care about things. I care about lots of things.

I’ve just never particularly cared about sea animals before.

But he does back off a little, and for a second I think he might even look a little guilty. He exhales sharply through his nose, then shakes his head. He closes his eyes and the tautness in his expression fades. “Wow,” he says, opening his eyes again. “Never thoughtyouwould be tellingmeto relax.”

“Yeah, well, you’re being kind of intense. They are just animals, you know.”

He cuts a look to me, and I can’t tell what he’s thinking. Whatever it is, it seems to pass. He gestures at the bucket. “Are you gonna help or not?”

I gulp. “Do I get gloves?”

He reaches into a box tacked to the wall and pulls out another pair of latex gloves. I take them greedily and pull them over my hands. It’s the first time I’veever worn latex gloves and I hate the way they cling to me, but when I go to reach into the bucket for my first dead fish, I’m beyond grateful to have them. Even so, I imagine I can feel the sliminess, the slick scales. I can’t ignore the bulbous dead eyes or the pudgy, lifeless fish lips. I can’t keep the disgust from my face, even when I feel Quint watching me, judging me, laughing at me.

“Amazing you don’t come to school smelling like fish every day,” I say, after we’ve gotten through the first bucket.

“Honestly, sometimes I worry about that,” he says, “so I’ll take it as a compliment. You’ll definitely want to take a shower after working here for a few hours. The smell will stay with you.”

“Do you ever get used to it?”

“Yeah, sort of,” he says. “But if I don’t come in for a few days, it hits me all over again when I come back.”

While we’re working, another volunteer comes and stacks the prepped bowls on a metal cart before wheeling it away down the hall. I watch, dismayed, as our hard work disappears.

“Hold on. We don’t get to feed them?”

“We’re on food prep duty, not feeding duty.”

I turn to him, aghast. “But how do I get to be that volunteer? The one that gets to see their cute little faces, all excited over food?”

“For starters, you volunteer for more than twenty minutes,” says Quint. “If you really stick this out for four weeks, you’ll get to feed them eventually.”

I frown. It’s clear he thinks this is a passing phase, and I can’t blame him. Despite our deal, I’m not sure I can imagine coming back to this place day after day. I feel like I’ve already seen enough to rope the center and its mission into my ecotourism plan. I can’t exactly expect tourists to pay for the pleasure of sorting stinky dead fish, butfeedingthe animals seems like it would hold some appeal.