Answer:
“I hope you find one today, Alexa,” Dad says, as if reading my thoughts.
“Me, too,” my brother, Jonah, says. “I want to see one, too!”
I lift my head up, turn toward Jonah, and glare. Why, why, why does he always insist on following me everywhere, doing everything I do? Make your own friends, I want to scream at him. Find your own green sea turtle!
But I don’t say it. I don’t say anything. Ever since Jonah was a little kid and they discovered the reason he acts so different is because he has autism, I’ve been trained to make allowances for him. Trained to put up with a lot.
Like, for instance, having to go to the airport weeks before this vacation to “practice” taking a trip on an airplane. My family, and other families with kids like Jonah, had to go through the whole drill—carry luggage (empty, of course), stand in lines (waiting for what, exactly?)—all to board a plane that would never leave the ground.
“Alexa,” my mother had said while I sighed and groaned throughout the entire pointless exercise, “if we ever hope to take that six-hour flight to the Virgin Islands, we have to get Jonah used to the idea. Otherwise, the trip could go very badly.”
The practice must have worked because we all survived the real flight two weeks later, even though Jonah acted totally embarrassingly. He did a lot of hand flapping and looking over his seat to ask the man behind us a million weird questions over and over again, like had he ever ridden a camel. At least Jonah didn’t scream.
But since we’ve been here, “badly” just about sums up how the entire vacation has gone. Jonah freaked out about the feel of the hot sand on his skin. He’ll never get the idea about not yelling at the top of his lungs in restaurants. And he can’t even try to understand that maybe I’d like to do some things on my own. He’s attached himself to me like a barnacle. It’s even worse than it is at home. At least there, my friends and I can go into my room and lock the door when Jonah won’t leave us alone, which is often. I try to go to my friends’ houses as much as possible, so we don’t have to put up with Jonah saying weird things, like asking a friend “Is that your shirt?” over and over when it’s obviously hers—she’s wearing it!—or doing weird things, like lining up all the spoons in the house down the hallway and screeching at us if we accidentally move one.
“We’ll anchor here,” the captain calls out as the catamaran putters to a stop in the middle of Turtle Cove.
Ever since Mom told us she won this trip to St. Thomas for being the top producer at work, all I’ve been able to think about is seeing at least one green sea turtle, hopefully even swimming with one green sea turtle. I’ve watched videos online of people swimming with the turtles, and that’s the main reason I wanted to go on this trip.
“Dad,” I say as the captain drops the anchor, “could you and Jonah please swim off that side of the boat, so I can go in the opposite direction?”
Explanation:
