Manatee Blues Read Online Free Page B

the exhibit area. The long glass wall of the manatee tank is the star attraction.
    “Look at Violet!” I shout.
    Under the water, she looks almost graceful. Her tail flaps once and she glides in front of us, her snout quivering and her right flipper swaying. She’s not moving her left flipper, and the bandage covering her cuts looks weird in the water, but what counts is that it’s still on and in the right place.
    “Couldn’t you just stay here all day and watch her?” I ask.
    Gretchen grins. “Sometimes I do. I never get tired of looking at manatees.”
    There is a long bench in front of the glass wall for people to sit on, and lots of extra room to handle a crowd—but we’re still the only visitors. There is a clear plastic donation box by the door. It has an inch of pennies, dimes, and nickels in it, along with some gum wrappers.
    “I thought this was supposed to be a big tourist place,” I say.
    Gretchen looks over at the donation box. “We don’t get many visitors,” she says with a sigh. “The center needs more money for advertising. The center needs more money, period. Come on. I want to show you some other friends.”
    She leads us down the hall. “Although manatees are a big part of the work here, we take in all kinds of creatures.” She opens a door. “Here’s the hospital ward.”
    It looks like the recovery room back at Dr. Mac’s Place, but bigger, and with a curious collection of critters. Various-size cages line two walls, a couple of refrigerators and some medical equipment run along the third, and sinks, cupboards, and a long counter fill the wall right next to the door. An examining table is in the middle of the room. Music plays from a speaker mounted near the refrigerator—country-and-western. Not my favorite, but maybe the animals like it. We’re in the South, after all.
    “Wow!” Maggie gasps. “Look at these guys.”
    These are not your average animal clinic patients. There are lizards, snakes, turtles, giant birds, and a couple of opossums.
    “Aren’t they great?” Gretchen says. She walks over to a large glass cage where a long red snake has coiled itself over and around rocks and branches. We all kneel down to get a good look. The snake flicks his tongue out at us.
    “This is Ralph,” Gretchen says. “He’s a red rat snake.”
    “What’s wrong with him?” Zoe asks.
    “He was soaking up some sun on the highway and was run over by a truck. The truck driver felt awful and brought the snake in to us,” Gretchen explains. “He fractured several vertebrae. It has taken a couple of months, but Ralph should be ready for release soon.”
    “He’s sort of beautiful, don’t you think?” Zoe says. She brings her face close to the glass. “I never thought about a snake being pretty before.”
    I’m impressed. I always figured Zoe for a snake hater. I guess you never can tell how people are going to respond to animals.
    “What’s wrong with this turtle?” I ask, moving to a smaller cage.
    “Francis here will never be released.” Gretchen lifts out a three-legged turtle almost the size of a lunch box. “He’s a gopher tortoise.”
    That’s right—a tortoise, not a turtle. Tortoises live on land, turtles live in the water. Duh.
    “Gopher tortoises dig long burrows with their strong legs,” Gretchen continues. “More than three hundred other species use gopher tortoise burrows for shelter, so they are an umbrella species. If they disappear, the other species will be hurt, too. Gopher tortoises were just designated a Species of Special Concern. That’s what the government calls animals that aren’t endangered yet but are dying out fast enough for us to be worried.”
    “What happened to his leg?” I ask.
    Gretchen strokes the tortoise’s shell. “A dog bit it off,” she says. “We were able to save his life, but we can’t release him. He can’t dig burrows anymore.”
    “That’s so sad,” Maggie says.
    “He’s making the best of it,” Gretchen