Excerpt: The Undershoal Journal

I’m writing this sitting on the precipice of Miss Underhill’s Ledge. I know this is not the wisest place to sit—after all, it was named for the schoolteacher who liked to sit here, and who was washed into the sea by a rogue wave because of it.
But the best view on Star Island is right here, because you can’t see the land at all. If not for the feel of cold rock and dry seaweed under your thighs, you’d think you were hovering about fifteen feet above the thrashing gray water. There’s a peculiarly literary air here, too. Miss Underhill came here to read in the first place, you know. I thought maybe the ancient vibrations of learning might help me write better. It sounded quite grandiose when I thought of it, but now I think maybe it was just a little stupid. A lot of my ideas develop that way, I guess.
Alright, I’ve definitely gotten off to a false start as far as recording my scientific observations go. That’s why I learned short hand after all! But, I’ll admit that in my very inside insides, I want this to be a classic account. Like the journals of those men who traveled the Arctic for the first time, even though of course that was a long time before I was born. I want this account to sound honorable and beautiful and brave, too, and of course the things I have to write down are so much more amazing than walking across a new piece of ice for the first time, or seeing a narwhal for the first time of anyone in the history of the world.
Well, maybe it’s a little like seeing the first narwhal…in fact, you all in the future will probably think that’s exactly what it’s like. Or the first giant squid, though to compare that with my discovery…actually, even calling them ‘my discovery’ feels offensive. That’s why this can’t be just a scientific account. I have to get my feelings, myself into it too…not the easiest thing for a twenty-first century teenage male, you’re probably thinking. I know. But I have to try, with my limited resources and even more limited talent, to get you to understand. I feel very, very desperate about that.
That’s why I’m putting in Mara’s story, too. You’ll see. I mean, how long has she known English? And already you get a better sense of the wonder of the thing from her—or at least, I do. There are obvious reasons for that, I know, but you’ll see what I mean.
But first I need to tell you a few things about myself. I’m dreading this part—I really just want to talk / write about them, about Mara, about the Isles of Shoals. But I’m a part of the story now, and I can’t help that. Really, I’m grateful for it. I just hope—kind of futilely, I know—to be worthy of the telling.