Crescent Cove

Chapter Three: Frangipani

I flick my scaly tail and dive to the sandy sea-floor. Seaweed wraps around my silver scales, like it's hugging my tail, and fish nudge my cheeks as they swim past. My bleched hair has turned back to it's original chestnut colour, only now it's streaked with silver,and is floating behind me like a brown cloud. I barrel-roll and sigh; sigh for my love of this ocean, of this life, of this world. Even though I would like to spend the rest of my life in this turqoise paradise, I know that it's utterly out of the question.

I head to the surface and blink the droplets of water off of my eyelids. I feel fantastic, with my wet hair sticking to my cheeks and neck, and the cool breeze caressing my face and bare arms. I tread water wth my tail (a suprisingly difficult feat) and stare at the flat ocean,stretching for miles and miles.

I frown at the sky, and, even though it's the most perfect shade of blue, it doesn't look normal. It looks unusual. A drop of icy-cold water falls from the strange sky and my frown grows. The soft wind picks up speed, and I realise with fear that this is the same thing that happened before, when I was at the cave with the kids. Panic enlodges itself in my throat; there must be a storm coming!

I head back to shore and, despite my worry, I can't help but feel elated and graceful, as I zoom through the otherwise undisterbed ocean bed. My powerful strkes make sure that I reach my beach quickly, though I was miles out at sea.

I dry off my tail, and my legs return with pins and needles. I pull on my clothes, and head to my dad's hut. My hair has turned back to blonde, and the gills hidden under my swimsuit have gone like the tide.

"Dad!" I shout, heroically bursting into his cabin. Though small, maybe a few steps across each way, it's still bigger than any of the other houses on the island. He's got the umbrella I found earlier in his rough hands, examining it to see if it could be useful to the island's families. The kids obviously gave him our "treasures." 

"Dad?" I whisper tentatively, wondering how to break the news to him.

"Oh, hey Frange!" he greets me, wondering why I'm being quiet.

"Dad," I cringe, "there's a storm coming." His face flickers from dumbfounded, to leaderly, in the space of 30 seconds. He scrapes his 3 legged chair across the sandy floor, and stands up abruptly. He's making his way to the exit, when he asks the question I've been dreading.

"How'd you know this?' he asks, and I wince.

"I, um, climbed, um, an, um, a tree?" I say, though it sounds more like a question than an answer. Lets just say that I'm not such a hot lier. Dad shrugs his muscular shoulders and heads out of the hole in the wall. While Daizee, my younger sister, and I warn the others, dad packs up our most important things and carries them to a large cave.

We help other's pack up and move, and soon we are all packed like sardines into Pearl's Cave. You can see why we don't live there all of the time; though it's safer, we'd probably all suffocate. I  place myself near the door, just in case an opportunity to swim arises. I glare through the hole in the bark door, at the dolphins dancing in the sunset, wishing that I could be out there, swimming with them. 

I lie on the hard stone floor for hours, my only entertainment being the rythmic sound of rain on the roof, and counting the seconds between the lightening and thunder. The adults chat about boring things, like the weather, and how strange it is, or how low the tide was today, or, woman to woman, how to do a french plait.

Eventually the only sounds inside of the Cave are the low, even breaths of my island family, and the snores coming from my dad and his best mate, Clint. I move the bark door and am welcomed by a surprisingly strong gust of wind. 

The storm is now in full swing now. The thunder is so loud that you'd think that I was right in the midst of it. The lightning is reflecting off of the churning ocean. And the waves are crashing, loudly, strongly, against anything and everything in their way.

Dangerous, I think, staring at the violent ocean. Even though I know I shouldn't, I'm sooo tempted to just dive into the thrashing waves and swim, riding the waves like the roller coasters my dad's told me about. Without telling my body to, it climbs out of the mouth of the cave and wades into the water.

My tail forms strangely this time; quickly, and without the usual pain. I start swimming immediately,  and, with a few dozen flicks of my tail, I'm so far out that the island is out of sight. I ride a wave on my stomach like a penguin, surfing the watery mountain for a few seconds before wiping out. Then I ride another. And another. And another, and another, and another. The waves get bigger, and bigger, until I am riding waves the size of a large palm tree! I am enjoying this, but completely unprepared for what comes next. Because the next wave, is big. Bigger than big. Larger than bigger than big. It's a Tsunami, and I don't need my dad to tell me that. But before I have a chance to swim back, it swallows me whole, and I am washed away.

I finally gain some powerover my body as the biggest wave I hav ever seen roars through the ocean like a steam train. I ride on top of the wave, with the white spray spitting in my face. I can't help but let out a laugh, as I experience the thrill of free-falling; but in the ocean .My ocean. I get to swim, but rest my aching tail at the same time, something I would never have thought possible. 

The harsh rain has simmered down to a little shower, and the loud rumbling thunder has dissipated with the lightning. The night sky is cloudy, but I can still see a few stars, and the yellow moon. I flip onto my back and let out another giggle. Then, suddenly, the stars seem to dim, and I roll back onto my stomach. In front of me, in the distance, I see lights. Not torches, not bonfires, not stars, or any of the lights I might find at home, but city lights. In front of me, is a city! An actual, real life, city!

Tall buildings pierce the sky and the sound of cars (real cars!) can be heard from even as far away from the city as I am! But, I realise, that I am moving closer, and closer, and closer, to the large, grey, concrete wall that protects some rich person's private beach from flooding or, in cases like this, tsunamis. 

I struggle, trying to get the wave to release me from it's strong grasp. I flick my tail, and use my arms, and every ounce of strength in my surprisingly strong body. But it's no use; the only thing I can do is prepare myself for the blow I'm going to recieve. Suddenly the wave that I was having the time of my life upon just a few minutes earlier, is my worst nightmare. 

I wrap my boney arms around my face and head, and close my eyes. And suddenly, with a sickening crash, I bang into the wall. The tsunami was such a big one, that I get washed over the wall completely, and land on the sand, which is nowhere near as soft as the sand back home. After a couple of seconds of full-body numbness, the pain registers. It starts at my toes, (my tail seems to have disappeared during the crash) and works it's way up my bruised body. I try to raise my body up onto my elbows, but fall back down with a little cry of pain.

I force my eyes open and, at first, I see stars. My head pounds, and my grey vision slowly, painfully, clears. I examine my broken toes, my bruised feet, my bleeding legs. I grimace at the sight of my stomach, grazed so badly, and I reckon a couple of broken ribs are the reason behind the throbbing on my side. My arms are so bruised and grazed that I can't even see my tanned skin.Tears sting the cuts and grazes on my cheeks and I yelp out in pain again as a small earthquake jarrs my body.

Bu do I stay on that stupid fake beach feeling sorry for myself? No. Instead, I grit my teeth, and force myself to stand up. I notice for the first time the house, if you could call it that it's more like a palace!, behind me. I hobble over to the mansion to the front door, and ring the expensive looking doorbell, trying to ignore the pain in my finger.

The door is opened a second later, by a girl about my age. 

And that's the last thing I see before I faint, right onto this spoiled girl's front doorstep.