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The Gathering on the Skerries

Grey seals are hauling out on the low rocks before the pupping season, and the questions Polly has been taught to ask about families turn out to be the wrong shape for them.

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The boat to the rocks is short. The rocks are low and wet. Grey seals lay all over them. They were not doing anything.

Polly chose a big seal. "How many are there in your family?" she asked. He thought for a long time. Everyone on this rock, he said. And everyone on the next one.

"Do you have any brothers or sisters?" Almost certainly, he said. He did not know which ones. Orkney has about twenty-two thousand seal pups every year.

Polly tried a phrase. "I want to spend time with my family today." It sounded strange here. Then she tried, "Even though we live far apart, we always keep in touch with each other." That is closer, the seal said.