In this section of the novel starts very dramatically with Phelps almost being drowned having become stuck in the mud as the tide comes in and unable to extricate himself from his waders. Only Miles’s quick thinking saves Phelps’s life. There is another dramatic incident in Chapter Sixteen when an earthquake hits the bay and the surrounding area. This earthquake fulfils a prophecy made many years previously by Florence, claiming that a new development of apartments would one day be destroyed by an earthquake. The media pick up on Florence’s prediction and write about it. Miles’s relationship with Angie progresses in a way: in Chapter Sixteen the Judge Stenger seems to be telling Miles that his daughter suffers from bi-polar manic depression; Miles offers to help her. In Chapter Nineteen Miles and Phelps manage to evade security and get into a club with live music. It is not a very pleasant experience for Miles: he is too short and the club is too busy. He slowly becomes aware that Angie is the lead singer of the band that are on stage and, as he and Phelps are ejected for being under age, he takes pleasure in hearing Angie sing a phrase he had given her abck in Chapter Twelve – “So what’s the hurry?” (143)
On a more public level, Chapter Fifteen tells us of Miles watching the television documentary that is finally aired. His knowledge of the sea prompts congratulatory calls from family members and his parents seem suddenly to realize his intelligence and potential: his father seems astonished; his mother wants to know what they can do to help. Miles pointedly tells them: “Just stick together... and don’t move out of this house.” (110) Miles has realized that if his parents divorce he may have to move house away from his beloved bay. The television documentary also draws attention to two invasive species that have appeared recently in the area and which Miles alerted the television reporter to: Chinese mitten crabs which burrow into cliffs and destroy them; and a seaweed called Caulerpa – which is dangerous to other marine life. The bay and its environs seem heading towards ecological disaster.
Miles attracts the interest of a local cult, led, according to his mother, by a convincing con-artist. They are interested in Miles because of his knowledge of the sea and sea-life, and because it seems that he has a gift for finding significant things: the giant squid, the ragfish and, at the end of Chapter Eighteen, a Japanese street sign. Carolyn, a member of the cult, says to Miles, “ You found it for a reason, Miles, didn’t you? Just as you found the squid and those other discoveries. You’ve been selected, haven’t you?” (135)
