“I don’t want to go to bed.”
“And why is that? The day has passed. You are tired, surely. Your fins need rest.”
“That’s true, but… I’m scared of dark,” confided red mullet.
“Oh, I see. It’s normal to be scared of something, but you have to find a way of coping. Follow me.”
Sea fox waved his fins, slipped out of the mink and settled down nearby.
“What do you see?” Asked Rombik.
Iskorka looked around. Was getting dark; seaweed began to cast strange longish shadows and she didn’t like it.
Rombik bend his fin wave-like.
“Now, look upstairs.”
Iskorka did it heavily – and froze… She didn’t expect to see there such amazing things. And how it was possible for her, living under the surface, not to guess of it earlier? Above them, in the layer on the very surface, was drifting plankton. Tiny plants and animals were mixing up and all this mass was swaying on light evening waves phosphorescing. White, light blue, pink… Real sea sky!
Red mullet settled down beside the sea fox on the sand and they were watching, and watching, and watching… Since then she hadn’t thought the dark so tight and scary.
Before falling asleep in her bed, Iskorka made a little window in her seaweed-cell (with a curtain of course) so that she could look at the stars while on her pillow every evening.
Chapter 4. Don’t take what’s not yours
That day at the other end of The sands (further away from where Iskorka used to swim) were giggling sea flowers. Their tentacles were swaying from underset and the fry were darting between them. Sea flowers were carefree, happy and bright because that day was special: it was time for Ms Seabed to be chosen, and all that year everyone would call The-very-best the creature who would get the title.
Little starfish named Luchik was in a hurry for the competition. Nevertheless she was spiky, grey-green whitebait and could not display the same elegance as those sea flowers, she had been dreaming them to call her even once The-very-best. She was shifting her fingers in a hurry, burying herself under The sands’ surface and running to get better place in front of these beauties. Finally she stretched out on the small hillock, that was emphasizing her, and didn’t move anymore.
Iskorka was speeding there too but not as a participant: she swam to cheer up a friend – starfish that had little faith in herself but owned the kindest heart ever.