Watching the ocean wash rhythmically upon the shore, Toby digs his toes deeper in the sand, refusing the urge to wade into the water. He envies them all: the surfers bobbing behind the break, the swimmers diving under the waves, and the children squealing as the foam washes over their toes. He wonders what it is like for them, to be touching the water without being overwhelmed by its chatter and shrieks.
Toby has always heard the ocean. For him, the surprise was that everyone else did not. When he was eleven, his mother held a shell to his ear so he could listen to the waves but he only heard a hollow crashing sound. He told his mother it was too quiet to be the ocean. She sighed, disappointed, and his father scolded him for being difficult. Only Jen asked him - later, as they lay in the darkness of their shared room - what the ocean sounded like to him.
"It sounds like people playing and splashing and laughing," he told her.
"But that's just the sound of the people around you at the beach," she explained.
"That's all I hear at first, when I'm at the edge, but the deeper I go, the more I hear." He wondered why she didn't already know this.
"Like what?"
"You know. Like seagulls bombing in to catch fish, and boat motors, and how happy the surfers are when the dolphins catch a wave with them, and how happy the dolphins are when surfers catch a wave with them, and the squeal of whales, and how sad people cry sometimes when they think no one can see, and how people are sometimes frightened when they get dumped by a big wave, and, I don't know, just everything. The longer I'm in, the more I hear."
"Really? You can hear all that? That's amazing. If I could hear all that, I'd never come out."
"What, you don't hear it?"
"Nah, the ocean just sounds to me like the shell. You must have super powers."
Jen was twelve and an expert on superpowers. "They can run in families, you know. Next weekend, I'm staying in longer, maybe I'll hear something too."
Toby was surprised Jen couldn't hear the ocean when she was swimming, but he was more chuffed at his potential superhero status. They plotted to keep his powers a secret while conducting further research. Over the summer, Toby and Jen swam and paddled and jumped waves and held their breath underwater. Toby told Jen what he could hear, and she'd strain her ears like that might actually help, and never heard any more than the people above the water, near them at the shoreline. She was bitterly disappointed, and increasingly determined.
Toby was always exhausted after spending a day at the beach. In addition to the physical exertion, listening to everyone's feelings was draining. Jen wanted to spend more and more time in the water. Despite her best efforts, Jen's investigations and experiments were inconclusive. She spent hours in the water, and the ocean still sounded to her like the inside of the shell. Like the tides on opposite shores, her enthusiasm grew as Toby's waned.
On a sunny Sunday morning near the end of summer, Toby and his family were again at the beach. Jen was hassling Toby to go for a swim, but the waves were crashing close to shore and he wasn't keen on listening to everyone's panic as they were dumped. She sulked next to him until he acquiesced, in the way all big sisters know how to annoy their siblings into compliance.
"Ten minutes," Toby grumbled.
"Fifteen?" Jen countered.
''Kay."
Jen skipped toward the waves, Toby wandering in her wake.
Twenty-five minutes later, Toby had had enough. Seven people had been dumped, one backpacker had to be rescued by lifeguards and Toby hadn't heard a dolphin the whole time. He would have settled for a seagull, but they were all circling the kiosk, preferring hot chips to fresh fish.
"I'm going back to mum and dad," he yelled to Jen.
"Aww, c'mon, stay a bit longer. I think I heard something."
"Nope, I've been here way longer than fifteen minutes, I'm going to lie on the sand," he replied.
"Suit yourself" said Jen, bobbing her head back under. Toby walked back up the beach to his parents.
"Where's Jen?" his mother asked. "She wanted to stay in," Toby replied.
"I can't see her."
His father rolled over and sat up. "I can't see her either. Where were you?" he asked.
"Over there." Toby gestured to the left of the flags. His father stood up, scanned the shore, and started walking toward the water. Toby sat up a little straighter and squinted at the waves. When he couldn't spot Jen he followed his father.
Toby splashed through the waves on the shoreline and let the voices wash over him. He listened for Jen, for the focus and frustration that he'd been trying to block out all summer. He waded in further, letting the noise in, trying to find his sister. Her voice was a whisper when it came to him.
"I was so frightened, Tobes, I got dumped and couldn't find the surface. I called out, but knew you couldn't hear me if you weren't in the water. I knew you'd come. And I can hear them now, Tobes, I hear it all."
Toby hasn't been back in the ocean since the day Jen drowned. He wants to hear the whales and the dolphins and the seabirds diving, he wants to hear the joy of surfers and the delight of people floating in the swell. But if he goes in he might never come out. He might miss a cry for help, like he missed his sister. Better to never go in, than bear the burden of another person never coming out.
He picks up his shoes and trudges back to the car.
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