Daisy Dawson at the Beach (5 page)

Daisy chewed her lip and looked out to the water. Although she was a strong swimmer, she could see that the waves were rough, and she didn’t want to put the little rabbits in any danger.

“Maybe we should leave it until tomorrow,” she said.

“Phew,” said Rabsy, lying on his back and staring up at the sky.

“Surf’s up tomorrow though, li’l brother,” said Raberta, grabbing his ears and pulling him to his feet. “What d’you think, Daisy? D’you think we’ll be ready to ride the blue uppy-downy things?”

Daisy smiled. “There’s only one way to find out,” she said.

The next morning, Daisy met Rabsy and Raberta by the tide pools.

“I’m feeding the fish,” said Rabsy, dropping bits of carrot into the water.

“I don’t think fish like carrots,” said Daisy.

“This one does,” said Rabsy. “It’s waving at me.”

Daisy smiled. “That’s not a fish,” she explained. “It’s a sea anemone. It’s waving its arms around because it’s trying to catch some food.”

“Good thing I was here, then,” said Rabsy. “Can we go surfing now?”

Daisy looked at the sea and saw that the water was much calmer than the day before. “All right,” she said. “But remember the safety procedures.”

“We will!” chorused the rabbits. “Surf and drop! Surf and drop!”

As Daisy pushed the surfboard through the shallow water, Rabsy and Raberta sat at the front and watched the waves gently rising and falling.

“Here comes another one!” called Rabsy, clapping his paws together as Raberta squealed with excitement. “And another! And another!”

Raberta began skipping around the surfboard, coming up with a little rap.

“Excellent, Raberta,” said Daisy, “but you’re a little close to the edge.”

“Oops, sorry,” said Raberta, skipping back toward the middle of the board. “Got carried away there.”

When Daisy was up to her waist in water, she turned to face the beach. Rabsy and Raberta stood at the end of the surfboard, lifting their paws just the way Daisy had shown them.

“Is this right?” squeaked Raberta. “Are we doing it right, Daisy?”

“That’s perfect,” said Daisy. “OK, ready? Here we go!”

As the ocean swelled behind her, Daisy lay on the surfboard until her arms were on either side of the two little rabbits, and then she launched herself forward. For a moment they hung on the crest of the wave, perfectly balanced between sea and sky. Then the wave broke, and they shot forward, bouncing and skimming across the water as it frothed and foamed beneath them.

“Wooooh!”
cried Rabsy.
“Wheeeee!”

“Drop, Rabsy, drop!” shouted Raberta, throwing herself forward and clinging on to Daisy’s arm. But Rabsy was having so much fun that he forgot to hang on, and when the board crashed down again, he was flung off into the waves.

“Rabsy fell off!” wailed Raberta as the wave took them up the beach. “We have to go back and rescue him!”

“You stay here,” said Daisy firmly. Racing back into the water, she searched frantically for the little rabbit, but all she could see was the white waves and the sunlight sparkling on the sea.

Daisy held her breath and put her face in the water, then opened her eyes, desperately searching for him. But the waves had stirred up the sand, and the salt water stung her eyes, making it impossible to see. She was about to lift her head out of the water when she thought she heard a faint voice calling, “Help me! Help me, please!”

But when she listened again, all she could hear was the sound of the sea.

“Rabsy!” she called as she raised her head. “Rabsy, where are you?”

“Right here,” said a little voice behind her. “Can you give me a lift, please?”

Daisy turned to see a bedraggled Rabsy paddling through the waves with wet fur plastered over his eyes.

“Rabsy!” she cried, scooping him up in her arms. “I thought I’d lost you!”

“I thought I’d lost me, too,” said Rabsy. “But it turns out I was here all the time.”

“I heard you calling for help,” said Daisy as she waded through the shallow water toward the beach.

“I didn’t call for help,” said Rabsy. “I knew you’d come and find me.” He shivered and then clapped his paws together. “That was fun! Can we do it again?”

“I think you should warm up first,” said Daisy, putting him down on the sand next to Raberta. Raberta squeaked, flung her arms around him, and hugged him tightly.

As the two rabbits scampered toward the dunes to dry off in the sun, Daisy walked back up the beach, wondering where the cries for help had come from.

“You looked as if you were enjoying surfing,” said Mom. “Although I could have sworn I saw something on the front of your surfboard.”

“That was the rabbits,” said Daisy. “They wanted to go surfing, but one of them fell off and I had to rescue him.”

Mom smiled. “You and your imagination,” she said.

Daisy grabbed her snorkel and mask and headed back to where she had heard the call for help. When she reached the spot, she lay on her tummy and peered down into the water. It was clearer now, and with the mask on she could see shoals of silver fish darting above the seabed. As she listened, she heard the voice again, echoing up from the depths of the ocean. “Help me,” it called. “Help me, please!”

As Daisy watched patterns of sunlight dancing on the sand beneath her, she noticed that the seabed fell away into deeper, darker water. And there, lying in the shadows, was a young dolphin. It had gotten caught in an old fishing net, and the more it struggled, the more it became entangled.

Daisy felt completely helpless. She knew that it was unsafe for her to swim out of her depth. But she also knew that she couldn’t just leave the poor dolphin there.

She was about to swim back and ask her parents for help when she heard a familiar sound.

Ha, cha, ha-cha-cha! Ha, cha, ha-cha-cha!
Scrrrrritch! Scrrrrratch! Scrrrrritch! Scrrrrratch!
Ha, cha, ha-cha-cha! Ha, cha, ha-cha-cha!

Turning around, Daisy swam as fast as she could toward the sound of clacking claws. In the shallow water, she saw a huge assortment of crabs gathered in a circle beneath the waves. There were crabs of all shapes and sizes, from the tiniest hermit crab to a red spider crab with a huge front claw and a barnacle-encrusted shell. All of them were dancing and singing and clacking their claws in time with the music. And there, conducting the others from the middle of the circle, was someone who looked very familiar.

“Pinchy!” she cried. “Pinchy, it’s me, Daisy!” Although because she had a snorkel in her mouth, it actually sounded more like, “Himp-shee! Mit’s me, Nayzee!”

But it didn’t matter, because as all the other crabs stopped dancing and turned to see what the ruckus was, Pinchy held up his claw and waved to her.

It was impossible to explain the situation with her snorkel in her mouth, so Daisy swam down to the seabed and held out her hand. Seeming to understand, Pinchy scuttled sideways until he was sitting on her palm, and Daisy swam to the surface again and took the snorkel out of her mouth.