Smith held tight against the breaking surf as the sun rose over the third foamy wave he and Stratus conquered at Playa Norte. He shuddered off the last of the crisp air and greeted the dawn with an aqua-eyed grin. Stratus climbed up on the toasted sand, happy to blink his salted eyes clear, homesick for the freshwater beaches they left behind on the South Coast.
Four distant figures approached; two animated youths nearly Smith's age, and two tall, motionless figures travelling between their smaller companions, similar to Stratus in size except much thinner, and standing erect in a peculiar fashion.
As the party neared, Smith noticed that though the boys were similar to himself in height and build, their hair fell far down to their shoulders and more resembled the shadows that lined the edges of the horizon than the bleached sand that mirrored his own. He watched them head straight for the surf, and as they ran past he found that their companions seemed even more lifeless up close, as though carved out of fallen trees, and, as they plunged into the water, were entirely guided by the boys on top and the waves below.
"How can they possibly ride a decent wave," Smith wondered aloud, "just floating there like logs?" Stratus wuffled some sand from his nose in agreement. "No harm in getting a better look, boy," Smith coaxed, guiding an exhausted but eager Stratus back into the waves. Stratus floated out of the shallow, rocky water in to the fluffy surf. Smith followed but after a moment splashed hard backwards into the water with a sharp pain in the side of his neck. When he resurfaced, a second rock, slamming him in the chest this time was accompanied by chilly peals of laughter nearly indistinguishable from the hungry seagulls overhead.
"You aren't going to...RIDE...that...thing?" gasped the smaller of the boys, choking on his own laughter and coughing seawater out of his nose.
"Thing!" cried Smith, resting a protective arm on the massive green shell and wiping a wisp of seaweed from the dark grey lashes. "I have two South Cape championships thanks to Stratus!" The creature's grateful gaze was met only with more laugher and a hearty conch which neatly grazed his beak. Smith, stunned, examined the boys' flat, wooden boards, apparently used up here instead of turtles for surfing. It must be lonely, he thought, to skim around the water with one of those. He couldn't imagine facing these waves without the strong heart and sturdy flippers below him, his ultimate trust in a wild thing of the sea, himself a creature no more tame for the moment.
The beach began to fill and soon a dozen dark-haired boys surrounded the turtle and his rider, taunting and terrorizing one then the other, by any means their minds could dream up.
After being dunked red-eyed first into the salty water for the fifth time, Smith used the last of his strength to shove one boy off of Stratus's back and climb on himself. More trusting of animals than his own kind, he allowed a battered one-eyed seagull to rest on his shoulder while he whispered earnestly to his beaten ride. "I am so sorry, old friend. I sought only fame and fortune, for you as well as myself. It looks like we're famous now, but as freaks and phonies. If you trust me, I will find a way to make this right," he promised as the seagull launched into the air, winking his goodbye to the desperate pair below. "That's very touching, freak!" laughed the shorter boy, "but you invaded my shore with this pathetic, oversized seashell and I'm afraid you're only leaving here on--"
Looking back, Smith was sure his mind must have embellished the size of the clear, black wave that carried him safely on Stratus's back to shore. Or how such a wave could have come from even all eight tentacles of the soft mollusk that fell from the sky. Or how a seagull could have hit such a small, animated target from such a high distance, especially with only one functioning eye.
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