Published Authors

A place for budding and experienced authors to share ideas about publishing and marketing books
 
HomeHome  GalleryGallery  Latest imagesLatest images  RegisterRegister  Log in  Featured MembersFeatured Members  ArticlesArticles  

 

 Retishella and the Pocket Shell

Go down 
AuthorMessage
labond

labond


Number of posts : 7
Registration date : 2010-10-12
Age : 62
Location : Burnham on Sea, UK

Retishella and the Pocket Shell Empty
PostSubject: Retishella and the Pocket Shell   Retishella and the Pocket Shell EmptyTue Oct 12, 2010 7:03 am

The second adventure featuring Retishella mermaid, available on amazon.

Retishella mermaid realised with a start that she had sat for too long on the storm-making rock. It had been such fun moulding and guiding the storm on to the rocky shore, brewing up walls of spraying seawater and making towers of angry black cloud with her mermaid song. With a loud throaty note she sent a tall, powerful wave pounding on to the shore and the after-shock splashed back over her, washing her with a squeaky giggle of excitement in to the foamy sea. It was then that she caught sight of the dials in her crystal time reader.
“Oh no!” she cried in panic, “Mother, not again, I promised and I forgot!” She stopped abruptly when she crashed into something round and hard.
“Ow!” she cried out, rubbing her torn tail fin, which was stinging with pain.
“Stupid rock!” she cried and bent down to find the rock that had caused the problem. But no sooner had her angry words left her lips than her eyes saw a flash of brilliant orange and she stopped in her tracks, hair and eyes yellow with curiosity. She slowly reached out and picked up the thing that she had tripped on.
It was a bright orange shell, unlike any shell she had ever seen before. It twinkled and sparkled fiery orange like sunset on the surface of the sea. She couldn’t resist stroking its smooth surface with a caressing hand, noting that it was quite a big shell; her two palms together with stretched fingers couldn’t reach from one edge to the other. She followed the silky spiral round from a dimple in the centre no bigger than a fingernail out to a finish that reminded her of a trumpet where the spiral ended suddenly at the edge of the shell in a large round hole. She peered inside the hole, but could make out nothing in its dark hollows.
“Oh!” Retishella crooned though there was no one nearby to hear her; “It is so lovely.” She looked around to see if the owner of the shell was near, but the only creature she could see was a tiny black dartfish that took one look at Retishella and scuttled off into the distance leaving a trail of tiny bubbles.
“Finders keepers losers weepers,” she sang to herself and decided to take it home.
“I need something to brighten up the shelf next to my hammock,” she told herself, “and this will do nicely.” She imagined the shell taking pride of place among her collection of rocks and crystals shaped like dolphins. She closed her eyes and with a giggle of excitement pictured the envy on the faces of all her friends if she took it to school to show them. She had never seen anyone bring a shell like this to school before. She’d be the most popular mermaid in her class; no, the most popular mermaid in the whole school.
First of all though, she had to get it home. She placed her hands one on each side of the shell and started to lift.
“Must be made of something special to be so heavy,” she thought as she stumbled under the weight of the shell, which slipped out of her grasp. She caught hold of it just before it smashed on to the seabed.
“That’s funny,” she thought to herself, shaking the shell, “feels like there’s something in there, something rattling about.”
She put her hand in the hole on the spiral edge of the shell and timidly pushed it in as far as it would go, but all she could feel was the hard silkiness of the inside of the shell.
She tucked the shell under her arm where it rested against her body, stretching from her armpit to halfway down her tail. After a bit of jiggling about Retishella managed to clamp her fingers along the edge of the shell and with a push of her strong tail she lopsidedly lolloped in the direction of her family cave.
She called a cheery “Hi” and waved to her father as she passed him tending the breakwaterweed beds outside the cave. He waved back at her without looking up from his work.
As she bustled in through the front door of her home, her brothers Jofin and Tomlid were throwing her sister Seeley’s junkball to each other over Seeley’s head.
“That’s my junkball, give it back!” shouted Seeley, standing piggy in the middle and flinging herself after the sponge junkball as it passed from one brother to the other.
“Did you hear something Jofin?” teased Tomlid, pushing the junkball high above Seeley’s head.
“No,” replied Jofin catching the junkball neatly and sending it back in one smooth movement, “just some little sound like a mewler crab squeaking!” They both laughed at Seeley’s expense.
“You two, stop teasing Seeley,” interrupted Retishella. The boys took no notice. Retishella sat herself down and made a great fuss of placing the shell on the rock lounger next to her. After a couple of moments, the merboy giggling stopped and they turned their attention to their other sister.
“Whoa, Retishella, where did you get that?” asked Jofin, dropping Seeley’s junkball.
Seeley quickly snatched back her toy and joined the others, their hair glowing yellow with curiosity. Tomlid was holding the shell, huffing and puffing under the weight.
“Here let me have a go,” said Jofin laughing at the struggles of his younger brother. “I’ve never seen a hollow shell as big as this one before!” Jofin picked the shell out of Tomlid’s wobbly grasp easily and with a swoop of his strong hands turned it as he studied it from the light of the glowfish tank. “It is pretty Retishella, very you!”
“Yeah,” laughed Tomlid, looking up at the shell his older brother held, “too sparkly for me, yuk!”
Jofin passed the shell back to Retishella. “Come on Tomlid; let’s go tell Mother and Father!” Jofin playfully pushed his brother with a flap of his shiny tail and the merboys raced off in a noisy tussle.
Seeley was more thoughtful.
“Can I hold it?” she asked, unable to take her eyes off the mesmerising shell. She lifted it out of Retishella’s hands and staggered under the weight.
“Oh Seeley,” giggled Retishella, putting her hands under the bottom of the shell in case her sister let go, “It’s past your middle, far too big for you to carry!” Seeley frowned at Retishella’s words; sometimes she hated being the youngest. She turned her attention back to the shell and with a chubby finger traced the spiral pattern round and round.
They were interrupted by the sound of their mother’s voice behind them.
“There you are girls,” she said putting down the basket of sea vegetables she had collected. “I’ve been looking for you. I need someone to pick some more breakwater weed to cook for dinner. Be a couple of dears and do it for me, will you?”
But Seeley and Retishella were staring dreamily at the shell and hardly heard their mother’s words.
“Mother, look what Retishella’s found, isn’t it fine?” Seeley whispered, still hardly able to take her eyes off the sparkling orange sphere.
Their mother was not so impressed.
“It is not like the shells we normally get round here, Retishella,” she warned, flashes of light blue in her hair and eyes showing her suspicions about this strange shell.
“Oh Mother,” said Retishella wistfully, “I think it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Can I keep it? Please!”
“Hm I don’t know, I’ve got a funny feeling about it. Why would anyone leave such a valuable-looking shell on the middle of the seabed? I’m not so sure.”
Retishella gathered up the shell and started to slouch off, her crestfallen face a picture of misery. “Oh Retishella my maid,” her mother sympathised, putting a comforting arm around her daughter’s shoulders. “How about if we take it to Mersia tomorrow?”
Mersia was their merrow, a wise and powerful mermaid. “If she says it’s OK,” continued Retishella’s mother, “you can keep it.” Reluctantly Retishella agreed and handed the shell to her mother who put it away in a cupboard.
Back to top Go down
http://www.freewebs.com/lindabond
 
Retishella and the Pocket Shell
Back to top 
Page 1 of 1
 Similar topics
-
» Retishella and the Dolphins
» E.P.A. STOPS SHELL FROM DRILLING OFF ALASKA 27 B BARRELS !

Permissions in this forum:You cannot reply to topics in this forum
Published Authors :: Authors and Books :: First Chapters-
Jump to: