This short story was originally a paper for English on a Choices and Consequences Unit. I chose to write a short story in which the characters face a choice they must make and thus suffer the consequences. The two characters I picked, Skip and Adalyn, are two minor characters in one of my novels, and Ginger is the one who lands on their shores and meets them. I decided for their choice to be sailing by themselves. As for the consequences, well, you need to figure them out for yourself.
A small shaft of
sparkling sunshine gleamed into Adalyn�s tired, hazel eyes through a slight
space between the wooden planks of the treehouse as she changed position on her
fur-covered cot. She thoughtfully opened her eyes then sat up with a start. She
racked her brain until realizing the importance of the
day.
Gracefully she leaped out of bed and threw on a
summery, sun-bleached dress made of animal skins. She pushed aside the
grass-woven curtain that had been slicing the room in half. "Skip!" she gently
called to her still-sleeping brother. "Wake up! Get ready to go
sailing!"
Skip turned onto his side until he
understood what his sister had told him, then he immediately sat upright. "Hurry
up, Addy. What are you waiting for?" he teased. Adalyn left Skip to dress as she
made her way out the door and down the winding staircase coiled around the
enormous tree trunk.
The soft, smooth sand on the
shore was a welcome mat for the bright, clear ocean looming ahead. Strands of
chestnut hair whipped into her eyes as she dashed across the beach. "Father!"
she cried as she greeted him with a broad smile and a warm hug. "Is the boat
ready to set sail?"
"Almost," her father said as she
admired the glossy wooden ship behind him. His smile turned serious. "Now, this
is the first time your mother and I are letting you and your brother sail by
yourselves. Are you sure you will be alright?"
"I�m
absolutely positive," she confidently declared. "Just trust us, father. It�s
only a little ways to the island. I need to go see which herbs mother needs us
to purchase from the witch doctor now."
"Here, then,
before you run off. Take a few kappalas to buy the herbs. I�m sure your mother
is already out of money." He dropped into her delicate hands a small bag filled
with the rare, specially painted acorn tops.
Adalyn
hung the bag around her wrist and said goodbye to her father as she continued
down the shore. She poked her head into the long, straw
hut.
"Mother?" she asked until a distant voice
answered her.
"Over here, sweetie," her mother
called from the far side of the hut. The tall, slender woman was helping an
Elder swallow a cup of medicine.
"Which type of herb
do you need us to get from that witch doctor?"
"�That witch doctor�s name is Bushkabba, and I expect you to address him as
such. Let�s see." Adalyn�s mother had walked over to a small, wooden cabinet and
was searching through a variety of bottles.
"I need
more crushed omwood leaves," her mother said until she found a specific bottle.
"Take this." She placed a short, irregularly shaped bottle into Adalyn�s hand.
"Could you do a quick favor for me?"
"Of course,"
Adalyn replied while she stuffed the bottle into the
handbag.
"Take that jug, and fill it with water.
Remember to go to the creek this time."
"Oh, I won�t
dare give Elder Rapshul any more saltwater," Adalyn called over her shoulder
after she retrieved the brown, earthen jug. She followed a sandy path into the
Enchanted Forest. Low shrubs and overgrown moss grazed her feet as she treaded
beneath a maze of bridges and treehouses.
"Addy!" a
voice shouted from among the maze. "Wait for me!" Skip was jogging across a
bridge and down a circular staircase after his sister. She slowed her pace for
him to catch up.
"Here," he said once he was walking
beside her. He handed her half of a juicy pineapple. She had been in such a
hurry to prepare for the journey that she had completely ignored the sound of
her own tummy rumbling.
"Thanks," Adalyn mumbled
while chewing.
"Where are you going?" Skip
questioned as he wiped the sweet juice off his chin.
"I have to take this jug,"� she held it up for him to see �"and get mother water
from the creek. Do you know if she�s packed our lunch
yet?"
"I�m not sure, but I�ll go find out!" Skip
said, and he jogged back to the shore.
Adalyn
maintained her usual pace as she finished off the last of her half. A glimmer of
light flickered in her eye, and she knew she was close to the creek. Sunlight
danced on the ripples of the lucid water. She knelt on the cool, damp grass on
the shallow bank as she set down the jug, handbag, and pineapple rinds. She
splashed the refreshing water on her face and dried it on the ends of her
dress.
Barely audible footsteps tread lightly near
her. Before Adalyn could look to see who it was, a pair of hands slipped over
her eyes.
"Guess who," a female voice
spoke.
"Kala!" Adalyn answered. The hands lost their
grip, and she turned to her smiling friend. "I am so glad to see
you!"
Radiant, black eyes returned Adalyn�s joy.
"I�m delighted to see you, too! Are you all ready for your big
excursion?"
"Not quite," Adalyn admitted. "Skip went
to see if mother has packed our lunch yet."
Silence
overcame them. Those glowing coals eyed Adalyn with merriment, yet also with
jealousy.
"You are blessed with such understandable
parents," Kala told her.
Adalyn bashfully smiled
while she filled the water jug. She gathered the jug, handbag, and pineapple
rinds and stood to face Kala. "Come on. I need to go to the vegetable gardens to
put these pineapple rinds in the compost."
"I�ll
race you," Kala cried as she sped towards the bridge extending to the other side
of the creek.
Adalyn eagerly rushed to catch up with her best friend.
The blazing morning sun scalded
the sandy shore. Laughing so hard their sides hurt, Kala and Adalyn both fell
into the shade of a massive tree on the edge of the
Forest.
"Addy, come here!" Skip shouted from the
shade of a tree farther down the shore. Adalyn�s father lounged in the cool
shade beside him.
Kala and Adalyn laughed their way
to them.
"Calm down, you two," her father playfully
told them.
"Did you take the water to mother?" Skip
inquired.
Adalyn struggled to stifle a giggle. "Yes.
Has she packed our lunch?"
"Yep," Skip replied.
"It�s already in the boat."
Adalyn diverted her gaze
past Skip at a figure approaching them.
"I am glad I
made it," Adalyn�s mother declared. "I was afraid you would have left
already."
"Not without saying �goodbye,�" Skip said
while he gave her an enormous hug. Hugs and farewells soon became plentiful all
around.
"Now remember to go around the coral reef,"
their father warned them. "And take these puku nuts in case you may run into
trouble." He handed them each a small nut that had been cut in half and put back
together.
"If you throw it into the water, the
powder inside will cause a flash," he explained. "We have told the merpeople to
keep an eye out for you, in case you may be in any type of danger. That will be
their signal to help you."
Skip and Adalyn thanked
him and headed to the boat. The bold, black name "Poseidon�s Pride" gleamed
firmly on the side.
They clambered up the Jacobs
ladder on the starboard side. A large bundle rested in the corner, and they set
their puku nuts on top of it.
"Hoist the sails,"
Skip cried. Adalyn pulled the ropes in the bow to lift the sails while Skip
pulled the ropes in the stern. The sheets flapped wildly in the
breeze.
Father, mother, and Kala heaved the sailboat
into the ocean. It bobbed in the transparent saltwater until the sails caught
the right amount of wind.
As everyone gave final
waves and good-byes, Poseidon�s Pride swiftly glided farther out to
sea.
Skip turned the sail so that the boat cruised
between a break in the reef. Adalyn cautiously leaned over the railing. Lively
fish swam on every side of the underwater rainbow. Waves crashing against the
bottom of the boat sent sprays of water in all
directions.
She stood upright and listened to the
whistling of the wind as it hit her face. The open ocean was finally theirs. She
gave a sigh of relief.
"I cannot believe this day
has finally come," Skip proclaimed.
"Me neither," Adalyn said, "but
I am so glad it has."
As their shadows gradually
diminished, Skip and Adalyn craved the contents of the parcel in the
corner.
Adalyn set aside the puku nuts, untied the
cloths, and laid out the insides: two loaves of bread, four bananas, four
carrots, a bowl full of strawberries and chunks of pineapple, slices of cheese,
a container of berry juice, two clay plates, and two wooden
cups.
"Mother sure doesn�t let us go hungry," she
commented as she piled scraps of various foods onto a
plate.
Skip strolled over to the smorgasbord. "Does
she ever?" He stuck a carrot into his mouth and heaped a huge amount
of strawberries onto a plate.
"Some of us need
some manners," Adalyn scolded him.
He took the
carrot out of his mouth and shrugged his shoulders. "I have a big appetite. What
is wrong with that?"
"Nothing. I
just�"
"Shhh!" he said as he put a finger to his
lips. Skip set down his plate and perked up his
ears.
"What is it?" whispered
Adalyn.
Skip began to tiptoe around the hull of the
boat and look in the water. "I�m not sure. I thought I heard
a�"
The boat suddenly rocked unevenly. The waves
became fiercer.
"It�s not a storm, is it?" Adalyn
asked as she surveyed the clouds. Only a few white, puffy clouds scattered the
sky.
"Look," pointed Skip, unaware of what his
sister had said. An immense patch of gray ocean bubbled intensely. Adalyn had
already backed up against the far side of the boat.
"Skip," she started, "I�d advise you to step over
here."
He stepped back. "What is
it?"
"That�s a�" A gigantic creature rose out of the
water. Strands of seaweed clung to its bumpy, slimy skin. Its savage, raging
eyes stared at them intently. "Kraken!" she shrieked. "Skip, jump
overboard!"
Adalyn grabbed her brother�s hand and
plunged into the salty sea just as the kraken slapped a mucky tentacle where
they had been standing. The underwater quiet could not erase the turbulence
strangling Adalyn�s thoughts.
She and Skip emerged
from underwater and gasped for valuable air. Only several yards away the kraken
floated, munching the sailboat.
"There goes our
lunch," Skip remarked.
"Don�t make jokes now,"
Adalyn harshly told him in the process of swimming farther away from it. "You
should be swimming for your life right now."
"How
could I forget?"
Adalyn�s eyes bulged as she
remembered. "It will eat our puku nuts! We need to get water into its
mouth!"
Skip eyed her skeptically. "How? We can�t
just splash water at it."
Adalyn fumbled for her
handbag, still dangling on her wrist. She removed the empty bottle and filled it
with water. "I could throw this into its mouth,
and�"
"You?" Skip asked. "You have bad aim.I�llthrow it into its
mouth."
She reluctantly handed him the bottle. "Okay, but throw the bottle only after the kraken has eaten them. That would cause the explosioninsideit."
"Are you insane?" Skip argued. "The puku nuts
have slid to the far end of the boat, so it will have closed his mouth before we
have a chance to throw the bottle into it."
Adalyn
understood his point. "The only chance we have is to throw the bottle at the
puku nuts when the kraken has almost finished the boat
off."
"Then it�s decided. We wait."
And wait they did, though very
impatiently. The kraken�s waving tentacles crammed the sailboat into its
enlarged mouth. It only had a few feet more to
devour.
"Ready, Skip?"
"Ready!" he confirmed. "Here goes." He drew his arm back and pitched the bottle
forward with all his strength. It broke on the stern of the boat, right on top
of the puku nuts.
The colossal blast enveloped the
kraken in a cloud of smoke. A layer of filthy gunk landed in the ocean, as well
as on Skip and Adalyn. As the fumes cleared, only a few tentacles remained,
still quivering.
"Great aim, Skip!" Adalyn cheered,
goop dripping from her hair.
He blushed. "Thanks, but I don�t deserve all the credit. Webothdefeated
it." He put a promising, yet slimy, arm around her shoulder. "Now, where can I
sit down? My legs are starting to ache!"
Adalyn
laughed until she saw a small head bobbing in the water in the distance. "Look.
A merperson." The head sunk into the water again, but it reappeared closer in a
few moments.
"Skip? Adalyn?" a male voice asked.
"What happened?"
"A kraken came and swallowed our
ship, but we killed it with our puku nuts," Adalyn
explained.
The merman nodded his head. "That
creature has been plaguing this area for some time now. I thought that someone
would have told you."
Skip and Adalyn looked at each
other. "No, but I think we�ve solved your problem," Skip said. "Could we get
some help now? We can�t tread water for much
longer."
"Certainly. Akuti! Asha!" Two dolphins soon
came leaping through the water. When they arrived, the merman said, "Skip and
Adalyn need a ride to Bushkabba�s island. Do you know where it
is?"
The dolphins nodded their
heads.
"Good. I need to get back to my work. Have a
safe trip everyone!" The merman dived back down into the
ocean.
Adalyn mounted one of the dolphins and flung
her arms around its body. Skip did the same on the other. The dolphins, once
realizing that Skip and Adalyn were ready, slipped through the surface of the
water with great ease.
An island soon emerged from
the horizon. Once they approached it, they could see that thick forests covered
the sloping terrain.
Skip and Adalyn landed in a
waist-deep part of the ocean. They thanked the dolphins for the ride and trudged
up to the shore.
"I hope you know where Bushkabba�s
home is," Skip told her.
"Yes, I know. I�ve come
here with father before." Adalyn led him through the hot, sticky forest. Their
drenched hair and clothes eventually dried.
The
uphill path slithered among the trees. When it finally became level, a
multi-level hut creeped up among the branches.
Adalyn held aside the long strands of seashells at the front door. "Bushkabba,"
she called as she and Skip entered the bungalow.
"Up
here, my child," a scratchy voice said from the next level up. They made their
way up a sturdy, wooden ladder on the wall.
"You need for your mother a specific herb, a certainomwood leaf, sense I, " Bushkabba prophesized from the far side of the room. The
witch doctor�s long, scraggly hair reached the floor as he sat with his back
towards them.
"Be seated, please." With one of his
dirty, pointy fingernails, he gestured to two small mats beside him. They sat
cross-legged as he had told them.
"And the bottle
you do not have, see I. In luck are you today. One spare bottle left have I, but
kappalas you give me first."
Adalyn handed him the
handbag. Bushkabba emptied the bag out on the floor and handed the bag back to
Adalyn. Skeptically, he scrutinized the acorn tops after rearranging them
several times. He gathered a handful and deeply inhaled the fragrance of
them.
"In the ocean have you been, nonetheless by
yourselves. Great distress of which?"
Skip started,
"A kraken came and�"
"Destiny�s course it had. A
greater catastrophe if not it had. Shipwrecked, see I." He nodded his head. "My
help need you. Follow me."
Bushkabba pulled a
dangling rope above his head, and suddenly the floor beneath them gave
way.
They landed on a bed of straw a few floors
down. Bushkabba casually stood up and began walking across the room. "Carpets of
magic and flying contraptions have I." He pointed to several machines and rolled
up carpets. "You would like which?"
Skip and Adalyn
finally stood up and examined the different types of transportation. After
inspecting the magic carpets, they looked at each other and
nodded.
"We will ride on the magic carpet," Skip
said.
"Yours it is," Bushkabba agreed. "Outside come
you." He clapped his hands and disappeared.
Adalyn
looked around the room. Sure enough a door behind them had opened, complete with
a path leading into the forest. With no other apparent options, they followed
the trail through the forest.
The
path guided them to a large, open field where Bushkabba stood with the
magic carpet laid out on the ground beside him.
"�Go� say you; it goes. �Stop� say you; it stops. But �faster� say you, it goes
slower. �Slower� say you, it goes faster. Confused it
is."
Skip and Adalyn climbed aboard the magic carpet
and sat cross-legged on it.
"Before you leave,"
Bushkabba started. He produced a short, irregularly shaped bottle from nowhere
and gave it to Adalyn. It looked exactly like the other bottle, but it was
filled with a granular powder.
"Thank you for your
help," she said.
"Extremely welcome are you."
Bushkabba�s smile brightened his face so he looked a little less
mangy.
The carpet began to rise on its own. "Go,"
Skip told it. The magic carpet smoothly sailed through the
air.
"Come back again!" Bushkabba called after them.
"More help I will give you!"
Wind once again whipped
back Adalyn�s hair and whistled into her ears.
The
forest treetops were far below them by the time Skip and Adalyn reached the
ocean.
Skip was already leaning over the edge of the
carpet. Adalyn followed his gaze. Two dolphins and a merman gracefully leaped
through the sparkling waves. A little ways away, a few leftover tentacles
flapped in the water like the sails in a wild
breeze.
The afternoon sun hung low in the sky when
they arrived on the shore they were familiar with. Skip steered the carpet onto
the warm, soft sand.
"Mother!" they cried as they
ran into the hut.
"How was your trip?" she
questioned from the back of the room.
"It�s a long
story," Adalyn told her as she handed her mother the bottle of crushed omwood
leaves.
"It�s one I�d like to hear at dinner," their
father said from the doorway.
"Father!" They threw
their arms around him.
"Who�s up for some steaming
crab legs?" he asked.
"With baked potatoes?" Skip
inquired hungrily.
"Of
course."
Adalyn�s mother stood and stretched her
legs from the work she had been doing. "Let�s go eat." She met the other three at the doorway, and the family happily headed to their treehouse for a good, hearty meal.