Name: Donna L Sadd
Genre: Middle Grade Adventure/Fantasy
Title: OCEAN'S EDGE- The Mystical Underwater Adventures of Katie Stone
"Finny! Flop Man!" Katie Stone called out to the sea. She splashed water on her tanning arms and pouted. It was only a matter of time before those pesky freckles, everybody else thought were cute, reared their ugly heads across the bridge of her nose.
With each outgoing wave, she stood still and let her feet sink further into the wet, foamy sand at the shoreline of her home, East Ashley Avenue, Folly Beach, South Carolina. Wow! Would the rest of the summer be as fab as this beautiful morning?" Content to see her best friend standing waist deep in the surf, she smiled remembering all the summer days they shared growing up. "Woot, woot, the seventh grade is history and we have all summer in front of us, Paulie! The kids should be here any sec, now," said Katie.
Paulie's midsection lifted, then her back nudged forward, as cool waves of the Atlantic Ocean came and went. "It's totally roasting out. It'll sure be 'cool' taking a ride on your dolphins...get it- cool, wet?" joked Paulie who let out a wry chuckle, squinting at Katie back on the shore. Look how nice the sun reflects off her shiny, short red hair. "Any day now guys."
Katie let Paulie's usual lame joke go in one ear and out the other, as she trailed her toe in the sand along the shoreline. "Have you ever wondered about these bubbles left along the ocean's edge when the waves break on the shore and then leave? Can air go under the sea? Could creatures breathe under the surface?"
"You're weird; they're just stupid bubbles. Creatures breathing under the surface, MEH. Fish do it every day," replied Paulie.
"No, I meant people, like from another worl..."
"Hey, here they come!" Paulie interrupted.
Signaled by the glistening silhouettes of two bottlenose dolphins whose beak-like snouts jutted in the air and beckoned, the girls quickly dove and swam out to meet them. Quick to duck behind Finny, as Flopman performed his signature spin and a flop move where, with a splash of his tail, he still managed to swamp the girls with a torrent of sea water. They laughed and choked and choked and laughed until they got their bearings again.
"I call Finny!" Paulie shouted as she grabbed Finny's smooth rubber-like dorsal fin with both hands and hung on and as the dolphin aimed towards the horizon. KAK, Paulie spit the salty sea from her mouth as she adjusted her grip to keep her head above water on the large, grey dolphin. "I swear this girl could pull a ship; she's so strong."
Giggles erupted when salty sprays of water rhythmically hit Katie's face as the dolphins sailed through the shimmering waves. She scanned the waters for a resident friend and beamed a bright smile when the familiar round shadow approached.
Hi, Caretta!" said Katie as she greeted the large Loggerhead turtle. "Flipper still flipping okay, Baby?" Caretta popped her head up and nodded, displaying a born-with sweet smile. Katie took the three-foot round turtle's flipper in her hand and examined it. "Just checking, though you'd never know that you were ever injured as a baby at all."
Finny and Flopman slowed their paced to accommodate the slower Caretta, as the girls chatted in tow.
"Do you miss your dad yet?" Katie asked as her hand smoothed across Finny's slick back.
"Are you kidding?" Paulie frowned and swatted at a wave. "Why would I miss him; he's never around anyway."
"Well, he's still your dad−"
"Let him stay at New York headquarters; Mom's a pushover when he's not around." Paulie's frown deepened. "Though it does suck not getting to go somewhere cool this summer. I had my heart set on Nepal this time around because Dad's UNICEF mission was to work to empower girls. Anyway, you've got me all summer, mi mejor amiga."
"Drop us off at the beach now, guys," said Katie. Finny and Flopman instantly pointed towards shore. "Let's pick up where we left off with the shell collecting; I'm tired of Mrs. Ziffleman winning. What do you say we bring home the "Folly Beach Sea Shell Collector of the Year" trophy this summer?"
"I say, let's hope our summer will have more excitement in it than just beating Old Lady Ziffleman. I want to have an adventure! Can't we just have one cool summer?" Paulie whined as she kicked at the water walking back up to shore.
"I don't think there's too much adventure to find, but we could still have fun," said Katie as she bent down in the water's wake, grabbed a handful of sand, and inspected it for shells. "We can go to the library and do some follow-up research on the Atlantis myth that we studied."
Paulie rolled her eyes and flopped in the sand, "Oh, come on Katie. We just got out of school and you want to stick your head in books again? You're not hiding out in books this summer, Girlfriend!"
Katie winced. She can read me like a book, but I'm, I'm just not the adventurous type. Katie turned her back, knelt in the sand and made like she had found an interesting shell to stop the conversation.
Rabat, Morocco- Africa
Standing at the bow of one of his father's small sardine boats, off the coast of Gozo, a small fishing village, Adisa worked to pull his net from the magnificent clear, blue waters of the Mediterranean. "It's snagged," he mumbled in Arabic, then kicked off his sandals, looked at his watch, and dove into the sea.
Mindful of barracudas, Adisa worked to free the net from a small formation of rough fossil coral, as tiny seahorses danced by him. Captivated by a meandering octopus, his eyes followed it to discover something glimmering on the white sandy bed. Feeling a sudden sharp stabbing pain in his chest, he scooped up the object and net and rushed to the surface.
He popped his head out of the water with a huge gush of breath, and immediately looked at his watch. "New record! I held my breath down there for three minutes this time!" he exclaimed as he climbed back on the boat and collapsed on deck.
He held out the rounded chunk of red rock, and as he examined it, the rock warmed in his hand. This rock is special.
Bolivia, South America
As Katie and Paulie searched for shells, and Adisa sat mesmerized by his peculiar red rock, a girl in Bolivia dug for relics for her father's tourist business.
Pilar unearthed a peculiar smooth and shiny black rock from the ground near the ancient ruins of Tiwanaku. "What a beautiful, shiny rock! Mama told me this type of crystal offers protection and is powerful in contacting spirits," she said in Spanish.
"I'm keeping it! Papa would laugh at me if I brought him back a rock as a relic anyway." She shook her head and laughed at the thought of her father trying to sell a rock. "Even stupid tourists wouldn't be that stupid!"
Pilar's eyes bulged when her brilliant black rock glowed in her hand.
Folly Beach, South Carolina
Katie shook the shell strainer as she lifted it from the water that rushed in then eased out over her outstretched legs. Sopping wet sand plopped into the water and splashed her cheeks, then dripped to a stop until all that remained were bulkier occupants of the sea. She checked each piece and skip-tossed the rejects.
"Throw it all back, Katie; it's just a bunch of rocks," griped Paulie, who took to scrutinizing Katie's catch because she was not having much luck finding prized olive shells, or any other shells worth keeping for that matter.
Katie lifted the strainer to toss the contents. "Hey, take a look at this," she said as she took something out of it and waved Paulie closer.
She held a bright white rectangular rock, no bigger than an inch wide, half an inch tall, and about a quarter of an inch thick, whose rounded edges Katie naturally surmised had been worn down from centuries of the ebb and flow of the sea.
"This looks like a carving of an ancient structure, like something I've seen in a book somewhere," Katie said, as she zeroed in to notice several huge columns that stood at what seemed to be the entrance of a grand edifice. "It's like something waits inside, but it's all shadowy," she said as she tried to peer deeper.
Katie's heart beat faster as her stomach fluttered. This is no ordinary rock.
Just then, Paulie exclaimed, "OMG, Katie, look the rock is glowing!"
Katie, Paulie, Adisa and Pilar all gasped simultaneously as their stones glowed in their hands.
Katie and Paulie stood transfixed as white light streamed from the stone and exploded in the space before them. They rubbed their eyes as two figures appeared in the light. A tall brown boy stood on the deck of a small, blue wooden boat, and stared at something red and glowing in his hand, and a petite tan girl wearing colorful clothing and a brimmed hat, stared at a shimmering black object.
Images of Katie and Paulie were held in Pilar's and Adisa's light beams, along with the other.
"What's happening here?" asked Katie as she turned to see Paulie fall faint in the sand.
