Chapter 1
‘Can you believe this?’ Millie thrusts her phone closer to my face.
‘Believe what?’ I ask, squinting at the screen, attempting to decipher the scientific garble she’s pulled up.
We’re sitting on my couch whileThe Bacheloris paused in the background.
‘Him!’ Millie exclaims with a huff. ‘Hugh Harris!’
‘Oh,’ I say, realisation dawning on me. Like Millie, Hugh Harris is a marine biologist, but he’s based out of Sydneyandhe happens to disagree with everything Millie publishes. He’s a know-it-all. Millie never shuts up about it.
She inches closer to me on the couch, as if bringing the phone as close to my face as physically possible will make me sympathise with her faster. I take the phone out of her grasp and zoom in on an article titled ‘Coral Bleaching Is No Longer the Biggest Problem Facing the Great Barrier Reef – and the Butterfly Wrasse Can Prove it’.
I haven’t readThe Marinistsince I studied marine biology in college, but I proofread all of Millie’s stuff, so I know this article. For the past two years, she’s been on the hunt for the butterfly wrasse, a little purple fish with a yellow stripe and a nubby fin on its belly. I thought it sounded cute at first – kind of like Millie’s ownFinding Nemo, but after listening to her drone on and on about how she thinks the species survived its supposed extinction, and what that means for coral regeneration in the Great Barrier Reef, I don’t think it’s cute anymore. If I have to hear her say one more time that fund-raising efforts to stop coral bleaching should be redirected to stop fertiliser runoff from banana farms, my head will explode.
Millie heaves an impatient sigh, tired of waiting for me to validate her annoyance, so I scroll to the problem area — the comments section.
@HughHarrisAs a marine biologist with a university degree from the top marine biology programme in the world, I do not agree with Millicent’s claims. Considering the rate at which staghorn corals were bleached, there is almost a zero per cent chance the butterfly wrasse has survived. Regardless, the severity of coral bleaching should not be dismissed. Also,@milliepaxton,you missed a comma in the second sentence.
@santabarbaraecowarriors21If biologists@millie-paxton @hughharriscan’t even agree on basic facts – like, let’s say, SPECIES EXTINCTION, how do they have the right to tell us what to fund-raise for?!
@greatbarrierreefscuba818They don’t. And
@millie-paxtonlives in Ohio. How would she know?
My mouth falls open. ‘I didn’t miss a com—’ I start to say, scrolling back up to the second sentence of the article. I stop short because, unfortunately, Hugh is right. There is not a comma where a comma should be.
‘That’s beside the point,’ Millie says sternly, swiping her phone back out of my hands. ‘He is undermining me in front ofeveryone. And touting his university degree likeI don’t have the same degree!’
‘You’re right,’ I agree, although it takes a herculean effort for me to shake off my wounded pride.
‘Not only did he call meMillicent, which he knows is not my name — we’ve been in the same Zoom meeting before — but he’s wrong! Coral bleachingisn’tthe biggest threat to marine wildlife — pollution is!’
‘He’s completely undermining you.’ I bob my head in agreement with her. ‘Which is a shame, considering you have equivalent degrees and the exact same job title.’
‘I know!’ Millie yelps, startling my dog, Murphy, who lazily raises his shaggy head off the couch and opens a big brown eye at Millie. ‘Sorry, Murph,’ she says, scratching him behind the ears. She settles back into her seat.
‘He also didn’t need to say he has a degree from a top marine biology programme,’ I snort. ‘What does he think you have? A certificate from www.makemeabiologist.com?’
Millie laughs and then starts typing furiously. ‘How about – when I find this fish you can kiss my wrasse,’ she mumbles under her breath, her fingers jabbing at her phone.
‘Millie!’ I cry, grabbing the phone out of her hands before she spontaneously presses ‘send’. ‘You can’t say that! Isn’t this something you wrote for work?’
‘Fine.’ Millie huffs. She crosses her arms across her chest. ‘You do it then. You’re better at this kind of stuff.’
I raise an eyebrow at her. ‘What kind of stuff?’
‘The boring stuff,’ she answers automatically. She flushes red when she sees the dismayed look on my face. ‘You’re better at being a professional. And you’re better at grammar,’ she corrects sheepishly.
‘Usually,’ I mutter under my breath, still smarting at Hugh’s comment about the comma. But Millie is right. I am a self-proclaimed grammar snob. And I happen to be excellent at being boring. I sigh and type out a draft of a respectably passive-aggressive comment.
@HughHarrisJust because the butterfly wrasse has not been spotted does not mean it is extinct. I’m not sure what you learned while at university, but I think we can both agree we should not engage in inaccurately creating quotable statistics with no proof to back them up.
Millie reads it, nodding viciously, and gives the OK to send. I feel a wave of pride.Take that, Hugh Harris!I think as I press play onThe Bachelor. We both turn our attention to my small TV, where we have been dutifully watching for the past five seasons. Tonight was the first night ever that we almost cancelled even though both of us were in town. I felt weird watching a reality show while we waited for Millie’s results, but she insisted.
We haven’t been watching for more than five minutes before Millie heaves a great sigh.
No, Millie,I think, panicked,don’t think about it.After a minute or two of silence, I get up the courage to pause the show and ask, ‘What are you thinking about?’ I hold my breath. I don’t think I want to hear her answer.
