"Sharks don't have bones," I tell him, caressing the photograph of what I know is a blue shark. “And they have six senses. Not five. They can sort of sense electricity in the atmosphere. The electricity of life! They can also smell blood from miles away." Their senses are sometimes overpowering. Too loud, too strong, too much of everything. I turn the page to a large photograph of a solitary Greenland shark, swimming alone in the ice-cold water. "People don't understand them." I touch the shark's fin. "They hate them, actually. A lot of people. They're afraid of them and don't understand them. So, they try to hurt them." Mr Allison doesn't say anything for a while, as I read the first page. "You take that home with you for as long as you would like, Addie." I look up at him. He is smiling, but his eyes don't match his mouth. "Thank you!" I make sure to put all the glad that I am feeling into my voice so that he knows I really mean it. He moves back to his desk and I become engrossed in the book. Reading is the most calming thing after an overly loud and unkind classroom. I can take my time. There is no one rushing me or barking at me. The words all follow rules. The pictures are bright and alive. But they do not overpower me. When I am trying to sleep at night, I like to imagine diving beneath the cold waves of the ocean and swimming with a shark. We explore abandoned shipwrecks, underwater caves and coral reefs. All of the colour, but in a wide-open space. No crowds, no pushing and no taking. I would not grab their dorsal fin. We would swim alongside one another. And we would not have to speak a word. We could just be. #книги