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."Hear—"Ethan shushed her before I could."You heard it too, didn’t you?" I said to Ethan, who nodded his assent.We all stopped talking until we heard the cry again."Over here," Mac called, and the four of us ran to the back of the ship.The boat was finally slowing down and the walrus was swimming fast to catch up.Ethan turned on Jill’s camcorder and zoomed in, while Joe and Patti took turns peering through their camera’s telephoto lens."You want to borrow these?" Mac asked, holding out his binoculars."No, I just want someone to do something so he’ll stop crying." The whimpering was even louder now and more insistent."What do you suggest?" Ethan asked."What do I suggest? How about one of you geniuses devise a plan to rescue him!" Geez, was this not obvious? "Unless you’d rather stand around taking pictures while the poor calf drowns.""How do you know he’s drowning?" Mac asked."Well, gee, he’s alone, which he’s not supposed to be, in deep water, where he shouldn’t be, and he’s crying.Call me crazy, but I’m not taking that as a sign that he’s A-O-K.""I think you’ve been working for this guy too long," Mac said, nodding at Ethan."You’re starting to pick up the attitude.""Sorry, Mac, I didn’t mean to be rude," I replied, before turning back to Ethan."I just don’t understand why no one’s doing anything!" The calf had finally caught up with us, and the incessant crying was almost unbearable."Because there’s nothing we can do," Ethan said, raising his voice too."How do you think he made it out this far?" Patti asked, while Joe continued to snap pictures."We have to be at least a hundred miles from shore."Ethan shrugged."I don’t know.It could’ve gotten separated from its mother in a storm.""We haven’t had any serious storms around here in weeks," Mac said."Maybe the ice melted over the shallower water and the herd had to swim farther out," Ethan continued."Its mother could’ve—""But there’s no ice around here either," I said."Not now," Ethan replied."But a few days ago there might’ve been.If it melted quickly, the calf could’ve gotten separated from the herd, and now it’s stranded.""But wouldn’t the mother come back?" Patti asked."A cow would never just abandon her calf this way."Ethan shook his head."Who knows? She could be hundreds of miles away by now.She can’t swim forever, not without ice.""So Brutus is an orphan?" It was like Bambi, only worse because this was real.Ethan spun around."Who’s Brutus?""Him," I said, pointing at the whimpering pup."We can’t keep calling him the calf.He needs a name.""Why?""Ethan, when you rescue an animal you get to name it." I thought everyone knew that."Sydney, this isn’t a rescue mission.""But you just said you don’t think Brutus’s mother is coming back.Are you telling me a calf this young can survive without its mother?" I knew the answer was no because he’d told me that the other day."No," he said."Then what’s going to happen to Brutus if we do nothing?""It’ll likely drown or starve to death.""First of all, Brutus isn’t an ‘it.’ He’s a ‘he’ or possibly a ‘she,’ but definitely not an ‘it.’ So we need to bring him or her on board until we can find him or her a new home.""And where would that be?" Ethan asked."I don’t know.You’re the expert.Can’t we just take him with us and drop him off with the next herd? Look how cute he is.Cuter than all the other walruses.Surely one of the cows will adopt him.""Sydney, we can’t," Patti piped in."It’s illegal to remove marine mammals from U.S.waters.""I’m not suggesting we keep him.We’ll put him back as soon as we find the next herd."Joe finally lowered his camera and turned around."Sydney, it doesn’t work that way.""Okay, even if we’re technically breaking the law, honestly, who’s going to know? Mac, you’re not going to turn us in, are you?"Mac looked up when I called his name."I’ll go along with whatever you all decide.""See? We’re in the clear.Now we just have to figure out how to get him on board the ship." As soon as I caught sight of the dinghy it gave me an idea."Do you think if we lowered one of the boats into the water he’d hop in? Or we could get some food from the galley and use it as bait.Like you said, he’s probably starving.You could lower the boat down and—""Enough!" Ethan shouted."Sydney, this is not a rescue mission.The sooner you accept that, the better.""Then what do you suggest?""The captain will restart the engine, you’ll go back to doing whatever the hell it is you do around here, and the rest of us will get back to work.""And what about Brutus?""The calf will either find a way to survive or it won’t.""He has a name!""No, Sydney, it doesn’t.It’s not a pet.It’s a wild animal.And in the real world the cute baby animals don’t always survive." Then he turned to Mac."Go tell the captain we’re ready to leave."Mac nodded and started toward the bridge, but I grabbed his arm."We’re not leaving without Brutus.""Sydney," Patti said softly, "Ethan’s right."I couldn’t believe she was siding with him.I thought she was nicer than that."You want to leave him here to die? You know he can’t survive without his mother.Even I know that."Brutus must’ve realized we were talking about him because his crying morphed into high-pitched barks interspersed with occasional whimpers."Sydney, even if we brought him—""Patti, don’t," Ethan said, his tone matching his flinty gaze.She nodded at him but continued."Even if we dropped the calf off with another herd, odds are he wouldn’t survive.He’s still nursing, which means another cow would have to adopt him.Walruses generally don’t do that.""You said generally, which means there’s a chance one could." I bent down next to the guard rail where Brutus was barking a few feet below."Look at him," I said, reaching out to touch him, but he was too far away."If there’s even a chance we could save him, shouldn’t we at least try?""Enough, Sydney," Ethan said, but without the yelling this time."We don’t have a choice.We have to leave him behind.""Oh really? Is that what you said when Marcus was the one about to drown?" My hand unconsciously rushed to my mouth, but it was two seconds too late.The words were out and I couldn’t pull them back, no matter how much I wanted to.I could hardly believe I’d uttered them.I wouldn’t have been surprised if God struck me down on the spot.I almost wished he would.No one spoke after that, not even Ethan.He didn’t have to.The grief-stricken expression on his face was far worse than any cruel retort he could’ve hurled at me
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