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out into the ocean, and survived. This impressed him. It was a sign from the gods, he said, like Star. You know he’s always given me special allowances. I think he’s always seen himself in me. Plus, I’m more of a king than anyone on this island. I mean, would you rather Vixby, or Mutter...” He names the two maddest men on the island.
    Immediately guilt seeps in. “No. I mean, I know you can do it. But I just... I’ve known you forever. And I’ve never thought of you as a king.” I pause for a moment, squinting, imagining him sitting up on a throne above the formation in a brilliant pink robe, looking down upon us. I wonder if I won’t be allowed to look at him anymore. I guess that doesn’t matter. It might even make things easier, since I already have trouble looking at him without blushing. “Yeah. You would make a pretty good king.”
    “You think?” Now he seems doubtful.
    “Well, sure. You’re right. You’re the best choice there is.” I can tell there is something he isn’t telling me. “Why? What are you thinking?”
    “Not much. Just that there are a lot of things I would change.”
    “Like what?”
    “Like wearing those ridiculous pink robes and stuff.” We both laugh at that. “And the palace. It’s...well...it’s not right. It’s totally not fair that they get the best of the salvaged items. I’d have teams of people go into the royal stores and figure out if there is anything we can use. It’s not fair that only a select few get to go down there. And maybe we could build up the platform, make it higher, bigger....”
    “Maybe,” I say, trying to keep the doubt out of my voice because he sounds so adorably hopeful. But we both know they’ve tried to bolster the platform, make it bigger and wider and stronger. Every effort has failed. The materials that wash up on shore are inadequate, and on top of that, there’s only slightly more than half a day between high tides, which isn’t enough time to get anything in place. The ocean that surrounds us is blacker than night, except for the whitecaps that foam above it. It is always rough, always vile and menacing like poison, never smooth or glassy or pleasant to look at. There is a strong undertow only a few feet offshore, so we’ve lost just as many fishermen to the ocean’s pull as to the scribblers. When it came to bolstering the eroding platform, the builders would make progress, only to have it undone by the waves a tide later.
    “I think I can help us. As king, I mean. I think I can do good. Only...”
    He looks troubled.
    “Only?”
    “I’d hate to be the last king of Tides.” He pauses. “That’s what I’ll be, right?”
    “I don’t know.” But of course I do.
    “You know everything. You’re the smartest person in the world.”
    “My father is,” I say.
    We walk along the shore in a long moment of silence. There’s pity in his silence. I know he thinks, the way everyone else does, that I’m pathetic to believe Buck Kettlefish is still alive. But he, too, knew that we didn’t have much time. It was the reason he volunteered for the risky Explore. Once every one thousand tides or so, the builders put together a raft to be used during the Soft Season, when the ocean is slightly calmer, to be used for an Explore. They build it on the platform. Every tide the ship is kept safe in the dry center of the formation, and we in the spaces surrounding it will gaze upon it in its various stages of completion. Finally, when it’s done, one soul will be selected, usually by lottery, since it’s a death sentence. Nobody ever comes back from Explores. That is why everyone was shocked when my father volunteered.
    “Okay,” he says. “You’re the smartest person on the island, then.”
    Which isn’t saying much, I think. A truly smart person might have the answers, might be able to save us. I bite my lip. “Yes, I think you will be. The last king, I mean.”
    After a moment, he stops, picks up an oyster shell and pries