For someone like me who reads neuroscience journals like beach novels, kids make for unexpectedly fascinating side studies. In the first few years of life, their brains make more neural connections than at any other time, mapping patterns for taste, sound, sight, touch—all of it. But once they hit a certain age, they start pruning. Synapse by synapse, the brain starts trimming the extras, streamlining its system. The problem is that for a while, everything competes for top priority—candy, sea stars, gravity, pirates. It’s chaos in there. Brilliant chaos. And I love watching them go.
The next couple hours fall into a rhythm: waves of kids rotating through the booths, each with varying levels of interest. Some are clearly here because their parents didn’t want them glued to a screen all day. Others remind me of myself at that age—completely enamored with anything that lives in saltwater.
Like the girl standing in front of my booth now, staring down at the oyster tank with an intense little frown. She’s got two messy ponytails held with neon elastics and a pair of orange overalls that look straight out of a picture book. She plants her hands on the table and squints down into the oyster’s home for the day, expression somewhere between awe and skepticism.
“These are clams, right?” she asks, leaning so far forward her nose nearly touches the plexiglass.
“Oysters, actually. Good guess, though—they’re in the same family.”
Her brow furrows. “Bivalves?”
I blink, surprised. “Exactly.”
She hums thoughtfully, gaze still locked on the tank. “They don’t move much. Is their life boring?”
I glance down at the cluster of closed shells at the bottom, motionless and unbothered. “Not to them. They’re constantly filtering water, cleaning it. We call themfoundation species. A lot of marine life depends on them to survive—even if they don’t look flashy doing it.”
She looks back up at me, eyes narrowed like she’s weighing whether I’m a reliable source. Then she points at the water. “So that’s why this tank’s clearer than the others?”
My smile breaks before I can stop it. “That’s a great observation.”
She climbs off the little step stool and circles to the next two tanks, the one with hermit crabs and the one with the cluster of starfish spread along the floor like sleepy pinwheels. Her face twists into a frown.
“You don’t have any mollusks.”
I try not to laugh. “Well, actually, oysters are mollusks.”
“I mean the smart ones.”
“I wish,” I say, sighing dramatically. “But some animals don’t love crowds. Octopuses, for example, are really sensitive—they get stressed when too much is going on around them.”
“I love octopuses,” she says, very seriously.
Now we’re talking.
“Me too,” I say, crouching beside her and pulling my phone from my pocket to show her something. “This is Damon. He’s a Day octopus I work with sometimes in one of the university’s tanks.”
Her eyes light up as she takes the device carefully and stares at the photo—Damon in full display mode, skin pulsing in pale lavender and coppery red.
“Wicked,” she whispers.
Yes. Wicked indeed.
“My uncle sometimes tells me about octopuses and other cephaclopedes.”
“Cephalopods,” I correct with a grin. “Your uncle sounds cool. What did he teach you?”
“That they’re smart and tricky. And that they can get mad. And they change colors. And they have many brains. Sort of.”
“All correct,” I say, only mildly impressed. “And their arms can operate independently from their central brain. That’s how they multitask so well.”
“Do you think they have feelings?”
I pause at that. “I think they have something like them. Some octopuses form bonds with the people who feed or train them. Others throw stuff when they’re annoyed. I don’t know if that’s feelings in the way we think of them, but… it’s definitely something.”
She smiles so wide it nearly knocks me over. “I want to be a marine biologist.”
I put a hand over my heart. “Then I hope I get to work with you someday.”
