“She can’t panic,” Leilani muttered. “She needs to stay calm. She can’t panic now.”
“I think it’s too late for that,” Tilly said. “Look at her hands. She’s gone into full marionette mode.”
Out on the water, Mrs. Mulroney turned, the board jittering as she nearly toppled twice.
“What is it?!” she shouted. “Is it a jellyfish? Please tell me it’s a jellyfish!”
She stared into the water…
Saw the dorsal fin cutting a line through the water straight toward her…
And screamed so loud several seagulls fell out of the sky, startled.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake! It’s a shark! It’s a fucking shark! Sweet Jesus, I need a bigger boat!”
Kimo and Cal were already sprint-paddling through the water.
“She’s panicking alright,” Rashida said. “That board is starting to pitch like a booze cruise in a hurricane.”
I bolted into the surf, desperate to try and save her but knowing Cal and Kimo would get there before me. “Mrs. Mulroney, try to stay calm! Just stay calm!”
“That’s easy for you to say!” she exclaimed. “You’re not the one standing on something that looks like a six-foot-long seafood platter while something with three rows of teeth sizes you up for lunch!”
“Just stay still,” Cal called from his board. “We’re coming!”
“So is the bloody shark!”
Tilly tried to help. “You’re okay, Mrs. Mulroney. The span from the dorsal fin to the tail fin is only a few feet. From what I can tell it’s just a reef shark.”
“It’sjusta reef shark?” she yelled back. “That’s like saying to someone ‘It’s just a bus’ before it knocks them clean out of their shoes!”
Suddenly the shark was circling her.
Suddenly her board rocked violently.
“Try lowering your center of gravity,” Kimo shouted.
“Where do you suggest I lower it to?” she called out. “I’m already at sea level.”
And then—before Cal and Kimo could reach her—the board pitched sideways.
Mrs. Mulroney’s feet danced wildly, her body teetered this way, flailed that way, and then—in one dramatic, arm-flapping, leg-sprawling motion—she fell…
Straight on top of the shark!
Everyone on shore gasped in unison.
There was an almighty splash in the water.
We saw fins and arms and legs thrashing about.
And in the next instant, the shark that had come to investigate what was on the paddleboard hightailed it back out to sea so fast I think it began to question its place on the food chain.
A second later, Mrs. Mulroney came up coughing and spluttering and gasping for air, screaming—“It touched me! It attacked me! It tried to kill me!”
On shore, Rashida said quietly—“Am I dreaming? Or did Mrs. Mulroney just fall on top of a shark.”
I nodded, kind of numb. “No, it was real alright. Mrs. Mulroney just fell on top of a shark.”
