Story part 1 of 8
At sunset, Wonder climbed into the highest pool on the reef.
The tide had left just enough water there to hold another sky.
Clouds floated beneath her arms. The sun trembled around her suckers. If she stayed very still, Wonder could almost believe she had found a small piece of ocean that had somehow learned to look upward.
Beside the pool stood a cormorant.
Her feathers were wet and untidy from diving. A moment earlier she had been standing with her wings stretched wide to the wind. Now she had folded them neatly against herself.
Wonder had been watching.
“Why were you making yourself so big?”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were much wider.”
“I was drying my feathers.”
“Oh.”
Wonder changed to the faint pink of mild disappointment.
“I thought perhaps birds could choose their size.”
The cormorant looked down at her.
“Can octopuses?”
“Sometimes.”
“When?”
“When we’re frightened.”
The cormorant waited.
“And occasionally,” Wonder admitted, “when we’re showing off.”
“That sounds useful.”
“It is surprisingly useful.”
Story part 2 of 8
They watched the sun lower itself towards the sea.
Far beneath them, little fish flickered between the rocks. Above them, several birds were already crossing the orange sky towards somewhere else.
“Where are they going?” Wonder asked.
“Somewhere to rest.”
“Where will you go?”
“Back to my nest.”
“Why?”
“I have eggs there.”
Wonder considered this.
“What is a nest?”
“A place you build.”
“Why?”
“For eggs.”
Wonder waited.
The cormorant knew by now that waiting was dangerous.
“And chicks,” she added.
“What does it do?”
“What does what do?”
“The nest.”
“It keeps things where they’re supposed to be.”
Wonder looked around at the sea.
Nothing in it appeared particularly interested in staying where it was supposed to be.
“How?”
“Seaweed. Grass. Sticks. Whatever I can find that will stay where I put it.”
“Why do you need it?”
“Eggs roll,” said the cormorant. “Wind blows. Chicks hatch without knowing anything useful.”
Wonder thought this was an excellent answer.
Story part 3 of 8
“My mother had eggs.”
“I assumed so.”
“She kept them inside a rocky den. She stayed with them and kept clean water moving over them.”
The cormorant looked towards the water.
“Why did she need a den?”
Wonder blinked.
“The ocean is already around you,” said the cormorant.
Wonder became the deep brown of serious thinking.
Story part 4 of 8
After a while she said, “The air is already around you.”
“Yes.”
“But you still make a nest.”
The cormorant looked at Wonder.
Wonder looked at the cormorant.
For some time, neither of them said anything.
Wonder waited.
The cormorant did not hurry to fill the silence.
Wonder liked that.
Story part 5 of 8
Above them, another flock crossed the sky.
Below them, a tiny fish disappeared into a crack no bigger than itself.
“Perhaps,” Wonder said eventually, “a nest is a den that trusts the air.”
The cormorant tilted her head.
“Perhaps a den is a nest that remembers the sea.”
Wonder became very still.
She liked that.
Story part 6 of 8
The last edge of the sun touched the horizon.
“Do you miss the ocean when you’re in your nest?” Wonder asked.
“Sometimes.”
“Even though you can come back?”
“Yes.”
Wonder looked down through the clear water.
“Do you miss the sky when you’re underwater?”
The cormorant looked up.
“Sometimes.”
Story part 7 of 8
The sun slipped away.
For a few moments the sea kept its colour, as though it had not yet noticed.
Wonder turned orange, then gold, then the soft violet of the evening around them.
Story part 8 of 8
A breeze moved over the reef.
The cormorant looked into the darkening sky.
Wonder looked into the darkening water.
And the question stayed beside them on the rock, half in the water and half out.