Seal With a Kiss

Jessica Andersen

ccThar she blows!"

Smitty glanced up at the crow's nest of the research vessel Streaker and grinned. Ishmael might
not be a cheeky intern any more, but the kid still
couldn't resist showing off when he pulled spyglass
duty. Knowing what was coming next, Smitty yelled,
"What do you see, Ishmael?"

"Globicephala melaena, sir!"

Smitty quickly ran through his spotty memory of
Miss Peach's Latin class. Shoot. It wasn't one of the
marine mammals commonly spotted off Cape Cod
by Streaker and the members of Dolphin Friendly.
The Latin was unfamiliar, and he was darned if he was going to let the kid win this time. Ishmael was
already ahead five to three on this voyage, having
stumped him on white-sided dolphins and a herring
gull.

He still thought the herring gull was cheating.

But this one ... he could just see three puffs of
white at the horizon, a sure sign of marine mammals.
Aware that the clock was ticking, he ran the words
through his mind again. Globicephala malaena. Cephala was easy-that was "head," and he figured
anything with "globe" in it had to be round. Okay.
Round-headed melaena. "What the heck kind of
Latin is melaena?" he muttered to himself.