You shake on it like grown people who are still kids.

After-storm shares: first honest boats after the storm’s ebb, smaller sets, Stack quiet, kelp heart left alone. Wren’s spare nets remain nets. Coin into the mend-box from anyone who watches the haul-out with manners. Kade buys bread because bread still costs money even when you have been brave.

The storm does what Pell’s clock promised: high, rude, a surge that licks the lower quay and then remembers the moon is not a servant. You stay off the bar. The foam-horse runs itself ragged on the hump and never learns your name.

When the water lies down, boats go. You show visitors belly-slides, whiskers, the spar you may not pass. You do not promise a person-seal on command. When Brine shows—borrowed coat, real eyes—the sound the visitors make is small and decent.

Wren, mending, nods at you once. That is a parade.

THE END

What you learned: people will pay to see a rare haul-out if you sell the seeing, not the skin. Waiting out a spring-storm is stock management. Estuaries and kelp beds are nurseries; extra nets in a panic close the pantry door.