All Chapters of The Girl Who Smelled Like The Sea: Chapter 71 - Chapter 78

We were supposed to do nothing today.Chapter 70 said: no Book 10. Just nothing that breathes.But at 6:12 AM, before 6:13 AM, nothing breathed back.Inhale.All 1,203 piers inhaled. Literally. Blue wood creaked, glass school shook, road to Dagupan cracked.Exhale.All 1,203 piers exhaled and floated again. One inch. Just one inch off the sand.After a whole day of sitting and doing nothing in Chapter 70, the piers decided to float again by themselves.No shells. No gold shell. No ticks. Just nothing breathing.Mama woke up and said, "Amihan, the piers are floating again."I said, "I know. Nothing breathed."Pier, 7, now 8 today — it's his birthday, Chapter 71 is his birthday — said, "Is this Book 10?"Cora, 14, holding her baby who is 7 days old and 104 years old and is me, who is now also 31 today — because I had a birthday during Chapter 70 doing nothing — said, "If piers float again, there is Book 10."Ella, 16, came running from the road, from Dagupan, at 6:13 AM exactly, with he

At 6:13 AM today, 71 people built 71 piers.Not at 6:13 PM. At 6:13 AM. Because they didn't want to wait. They woke up on Barangay Amihan — slept on blue wood, glass school floor, road cement, fish-skin Pier 1204 — and at 6:13 AM, Chapter 73, they built.Pier 1205: Built by Mark, 17, bullied for stutter. Built from broken words. He hammered nails but stuttered the hammer — tok-tok-t-t-tok. The pier stutters too. It floats one inch, but tok-tok-t-t-tok every time wind hits it. He says, "Now my pier stutters, not me."Pier 1206: Built by Aya, 15, bullied for acne. Built from calamine lotion bottles, pink, empty. Pier pink, smells like calamine. Floats. She says, "My face is my pier now. It floats."Pier 1207: Built by Josh, 19, bakla, bullied for being bakla. Built from his Mama's old dresses, sequins, rainbow. Pier rainbow, floats, shines. He says, "They said I want to be girl. I built a pier that is girl and boy and float. What are you?"...and 68 more.I can't list all 71 because Jas

Pier 1206 is pink.Not blue wood. Not fish skin. Not paper. Pink. Calamine pink. The color of lotion Aya puts on her acne every night since Grade 6.Aya Santos. 15. Dagupan City. JHS. Bullied for acne. Called "pizza face," "strawberry," "crater." She wore mask even after pandemic, not for virus, for acne.She built Pier 1206 from empty calamine bottles — 200 bottles, 3 years of acne. She melted them? No. She tied them with rope, like blue wood, but pink plastic, empty, with dried pink inside. Pier that smells like calamine and teenage sweat and tears.At 6:13 AM today, Chapter 75, we sat on Pier 1206. Pink pier. Floats one foot now, not one inch, because 71 piers that smell like hurt are lighter every day.Aya didn't sit. She stood. Mask off. First time in 3 years, mask off in front of 1,284 people, on a pink pier made of her acne lotion bottles."I built my face as a pier," she said. "So you can walk on my face and it floats. Does your bullying float? My face floats now."Silence. 1,

Pier 1208 is black.Not dark blue. Black. Charcoal black. Uling.Built by Mara. 16. Dagupan. Bullied for being too dark. Called "negra," "uling," "sunog." She bleached skin at 13. Mama slapped her. She stopped bleaching at 15, but still wears long sleeves at noon.She built Pier 1208 from charcoal. Uling from her Lola's dirty kitchen in Bonuan Gueset, where they still cook with wood. She collected uling for 2 years, 100 sacks, black dust under nails.At 6:13 AM today, Chapter 77, we sat on black pier. Black pier that floats two feet, like rainbow dress pier. Because dark is also light when you build from it.Mara didn't speak at first. Just sat, black skin, black pier, black like night that we forgot.Because in 77 chapters, we had sea, sky, stars, time, gold, blue, pink, rainbow, fish-skin, paper, calamine, but never black. Never night. We always built at 6:13 AM, morning. Never at night."My pier is night," she said. 16, dark, long sleeves rolled up for first time in 3 years. Arms d