Pearl Gets Schooled. By Fish.

The year the movie Jaws came out, my brother and I saw it seven times.

Frankly, I've never gotten over the repeated viewings of that shark. I can't see a boat in dark water without thinking a disembodied head will make an appearance.

I am a nervous, almost superstitious person near open water.

So of course I found myself up to my armpits in the Gulf waters off of Florida on Monday.

Florida! Blue waters, white sands, dark brown senior citizens. You come for the weather, but you stay for the Bingo.

"Come further out," T shouts at me. There are three fluffy clouds on the horizon. A pair of tourists are pulled, kite-like, behind a motorboat just past the buoys. It is postcard beautiful.

I shake my head vigorously, as someone who has just spent Shark Week, in front of a television, mouth agape, would.

"Did you know," I shout, "that bull sharks have been known to swim up fresh water rivers into suburban neighborhoods to eat our pets?"

T cocks his head at me, frowns.

"Their teeth just keep growing, you know," I holler.

A strange look passes over T's face. I've seen it before -- it's the look that he gets just before he decides to teach me something...

"Hey," I yell.

He raises his arms up over his head.

"Cut it out!" I shriek.

Smiling, he arms raised in watery benediction, T wails theatrically into the wind, "Hear me, O Minion! You are summoned!"

"No, no, no!" I bawl. "There's no summoning!"

"Arise!"

And the surface of the water is covered with tiny silver splashings. Imagine invisible fingers flicking water. Imagine invisible rain drops striking the surface.

Imagine my eyes bugging out of my head.

I fall backwards in my attempt to get away, get closer to the beach. "What did you do?! What are those?"

I look down to see a three-foot wide swath of tiny, glittering fiddies fill the space between T and I. I watch, mouth open, as they pass by with precision movements, almost imperceptible adjustments in direction. Hundreds, maybe thousands of finger-long fish swim between us and are gone.

I look up. "How did you do that?"

T shrugs, laughing. "Sometimes they just show up."

I imagine punching him, but lay back, float on my back.

There are so many things I know nothing about.

"Pearl."

I open my eyes. My name has been whispered.

I stand up. T is pointing at a very large dark spot in the water, and he's not smiling. He looks awestruck.

"Manatee."

He said "manatee".

But what I heard was not "manatee" but "sting ray". I stagger, a quick two steps back, my hands clutched at chin level.

And then I hear what he's really said.

Manatee.

I move forward.

She hasn't moved. Six, maybe seven feet long, she hovers perhaps three feet from me.

"You can't touch them," T says. "It's against the law."

I drop down into the water, open my eyes, but she is already moving away, slowly, so slowly, a lumpy gray ghost moving into the deeper blue.

And she is gone.

T and I look at each other. "That is, by far," he whispers, "the closest I've ever been to a manatee."

I am speechless.

I lay back, float on the water.

There are so many things I know nothing about.