The hidden depths of the sea

The day Lance found a creature in his own backyard turned his once normal life upside down. It was a spring morning, the Daffodils in the garden were in bloom. His mother Joan liked to bake early in the day which released a sweet aroma throughout the house.

The smell would wake Lance early on the weekends. On weekdays his mother would place tarts on the kitchen table before school, and often placed treats in his lunch box. Sometimes he shared them with his friends.

His mother liked to encourage him to share with his friends especially the ones that looked like they were less fortunate them him. Lance didn’t like to share with some of those kids, they looked strange to him, some even a little intimidating.

Lance dragged his feet as he walked towards the backdoor, his mother pleasantly tells him

“Pick up those feet Lance, I don’t want you to trip over”.

“Sure”.

He notices his shoelaces are undone and quickly ties them up while he’s rushing out the door, his mother was right, he almost trips over the back step. Luckily, he gains his balance before it is too late.

He sits on the swing and pulls out a mini muffin that he had stashed in his pocket. It was slightly squashed but he didn’t mind, he takes a small bite out of the side, it tastes like blueberries he thinks while he investigates the outer layer of the muffin.

He hears a rustling noise behind him. He twists the swing right around to have a look. There are a few bushes in his backyard as well as some tall trees. The orange hammock hangs freely, looking a little bit shabby.

Lance shrugs it off as a bird, the swing flings back around, he smiles. He hears the same rustling noise but louder than before. He jumps off the swing securing the muffin in his pocket. He sneaks over to the bushes pretending to be David Attenborough, he loves watching his shows.

“What will we find here… behind these bushes…maybe a new bird species”.

He creates an opening with both hands “There is …”

He sees something strange hidden behind the leaves, he loses his footing as he steps backward causing him to fall down, he let’s out a scream. His mother runs frantically out the back door.

“Are you okay?” she calls

“I’m okay, I just fell over, that’s all”

Lance stands up brushing his clothes off, his mother races over grabbing his arms checking him all over.

“I’m okay” he smiles “I didn’t hurt myself”.

“Well... okay but maybe you should come inside soon”

“I will, in a minute”.

He stands there for a moment or two. He is curious, you know what they say curious minds make amazing discoveries, that’s what Lance says anyway. He discovers that he has dropped his muffin in all the commotion, he places his hand in his pocket as if he had to double check.

He tiptoes closer to the bush; he attempts to open it one-handed to ensure a quick getaway but it doesn’t go as planned. He pulls up his pants just in case he needs to run, they were a tripping hazard.

He opens the bush, clenching his eyes closed for a few seconds to gain some courage. He opens them to find a strange looking creature. His initial thought was this thing was going to bite him if he got any closer.

He kept his distance and stared. It was the ugliest thing he had ever seen, he thought. He leaned in and could see it was injured; its leg looked like it was bleeding but he wasn’t sure because the blood resembled more of a purple colour.

The creature was like nothing he had seen before. It looked up at him. Lance flinched but remained brave. This creature had scales covering its body, the head had several miniature horns. Although it is ugly, something about its face drew Lance in.

Maybe it is the small eyes or wrinkly nose. What worried him was its button mouth with a fang hanging out the side. It could be dangerous he thought. He reaches over for the muffin. He breaks a small piece off, slowly moving his hand towards the creature.

He hesitates momentarily, moving even slower. The creature stretches out its little arm, at the end of its arm, it had what resembled fingers, three of them. It grabs at the muffin with its fingers like pincers, sniffing the muffin with its wrinkly nose.

Lance is cautiously but quietly observing the creature. It places the muffin in its mouth eating it almost as quickly as Lance could blink his eyes. The creature reaches for more, Lances gives him what is left of the Muffin. The creature eats the entirety of it in one bite.

Lance is amused. He moves his hand closer to the creature, it doesn’t react. The closer Lance moved toward it, the more it seemed to cower away. It’s not so scary, Lance thought. When he got close enough, he managed to lift it up. It was a slight struggle; he almost fell into the bush doing so but he got the little creature out.

He turned around to face his mother standing there. How did she appear without him noticing, he thought clenching his teeth, holding this creature in plain sight.

“What is that!!” She yelled “Get it away” She panicked running inside

“It’s okay mum” He yelled

He could see her through the window carrying a bat, Lance ran as fast as he could out the back gate towards a nearby paddock. He knows of a quiet area with some great hidden spots, he would play there sometimes. He maneuvered through the long grass.

He arrived at his destination, hidden between rocks and shrubbery. He placed the little creature on the dirt. He rips a heap of leaves off the bushes and anything else he could find to provide comfort, he comes across a used bird nest on the ground, this will work well as a base, he thought. He picked up the creature and plopped it on top.

He gestures to the creature to stay put with his hand while telling it to stay there, hoping it might understand him. The rocks provided it shelter, so Lance felt it was a great place to hide it.

He runs home like he has never ran before. His mum is walking around the backyard with a bat.

“Where have you been Mister?” “You need to tell me if you are going somewhere, you know that”.

“I know…”

“Where is it?” She interrupts

“It ran away, you scared it”

“Well good, if it comes back, so god help me” She relaxes the bat “Inside Lance, Now”

Lance hurries inside.

“What’s the hurry?” She questions

“Nothing” He slows his pace

His mum places the bat next to the backdoor, she walks into the living room picking up her cup of hot Chamomile tea shakenly. It helps her relax she says often. As soon as her guard is down, Lance rushes to the bathroom, inside the medicine cabinet he grabs ointment and bandages.

He makes his way to his bedroom and grabs his school backpack from under his bed. Inside his cupboard he pulls out his sleeping bag that he used at camp this year, next to it is his torch. He throws the torch in. He opens his draws, the clothes are all messed up, he shoves a handful of clothing into the backpack, pushing it down.

He feels he should do whatever it takes to help the injured little creature, especially after judging it so harshly. On the way past the linen cupboard he shoves in a purple towel, it reminded him he was doing the right thing. He knew he would be in so much trouble for this.

He crept around the kitchen so his mum wouldn’t hear. He opened the fridge so slowly to ensure the seal wouldn’t make a suction sound. He took out two bottles of water placing them in his bag. In the cupboard he grabbed the first thing he could see, a big bag of potato chips.

On the counter were some freshly baked Muffins, he knew creature liked them so he took the whole lot, his bag was overflowing but he managed to zip it halfway. As soon as he was outside, he ran without looking back.

He forced his way through the bushes and over the rocks, he was glad to see the little creature had not moved from where he left it. It looks up at him. He drops his backpack on the dirt and sits next to it. The creature rises, sitting up like Lance. Lance shuffles back because he is still unsure of what it is capable of.

The creature stands on its legs, Lance opens his eyes wider. It takes a step, Lance is still, he doesn’t want to scare it, he feared it could overreact and attack him. It limped towards him. It pulled Lance’s bag over to it, reaching in the opening. It snatches a Muffin out and holds it up like it is showing Lance, or maybe it is asking for permission.

“Yes, you can have it” Lance nods

He mimics the action of eating to encourage the creature. It works, the creature guzzles it down in a few seconds and reaches in for another, Lance gestures for it to eat more and it does. It is really hungry, he thought or just plain greedy.

Lance tells the creature “no more” he zips up the bag, the creature limps back. Lance realizes the creature is harmless, he picks it up and places it gently on the leaves. He unzips his backpack and pulls out the ointment and a bandage.

He attempts to rub the ointment on the creature’s leg but the creature pulls back.

“It is okay” He tells him in a gentle tone

The creature submits, allowing him to do it. After he rubs on the ointment, he wraps its leg in a bandage. He then yanks the purple towel out of his bag, a muffin falls out. The creature’s small eyes dilated. Lance hands it the Muffin.

The creature guzzles it down, Lance picks up the creature and places the towel underneath him.

“Hopefully that’ll keep you warm” He says “I will call you… Muffin, because you like them so much”

Lance pulls out his sleeping bag and sits on top. He grabs out a Muffin to eat, he is hungry after all that. He takes a bite, he hears a weird humming sound, his eyes shift to the creature. He notices the horns on his head shake, the noise seems to be coming out of the horns.

It was a soft hum, his jaw drops. The Muffin slips out of his hand hitting the dirt. Is this how it communicates, he thought and passes the creature the muffin.

“A Muffin for Muffin” He giggles

The creature lets out a short hum from his horns. As nightfall arrives upon them, Lance makes himself as comfortable as possible, he uses the clothes he has for a pillow. He closes his eyes, he dreamed of the creature that night.

In the morning, he awoke to the creature sitting on the dirt eating muffins. Lance rubbed his eyes and laughed. I wonder if Muffin wants a drink after all those muffins. He opens the water bottle while muffin watches and has a drink.

He passes the bottle to him but Muffin does nothing, just watches. Lances nods at him, the creature takes the bottle of water looking at it from all angles with causes it to spill on his lag. Muffin then pours it all over himself. Lance laughs again.

Muffin hums quite loudly and drops the empty bottle. Lance was glad he brought a towel; he picks it up and starts to dry Muffin. He jumps up and down making it hard for Lance to dry it. He eventually gives up and puts the towel down.

Muffin sits on top of it. Lance lies on his sleeping bag listening to the birds chirping in the trees. He opens his eyes to what seemed like a minute and realizes it is night time. He had fallen asleep. The sound of crackling causing him to jolt; he quickly looks at Muffin and there it is with the bag of potato chips.

Lance slides over to Muffin slowly. He places his hand on Muffin’s leg near the bandage and begins to remove it so calmly, muffin is not phased by what he is doing, he continues to shove as many chips it can hold in its pincer grip into its mouth.

When Lance removes the bandage, he sees nothing. It is healed, not a mark is present. He drops the bandage and moves away, staring at its leg in confusion. That’s interesting, he thought. Muffin finishes all of the chips, throwing the bag on the ground.

Lance giggles. He is like a bottomless pit, he thinks. Lance takes out the other bottle of water, it was quite cold in his hands. He sculls it down. He is interrupted by distant yelling. Oh no, he thinks placing the lid on the bottle.

He peeks over the rocks, there is a gap in between the bushes which enables him to see. He couldn’t see anything but the yelling sounded like it was getting closer, he looks at Muffin with a slight frown. He packs up his bag in a hurry.

Muffin stands to attention and turns away. Lance tries to watch in both directions until he notices Muffin was climbing over the rocks.

“Where are you going Muffin?”

Lance hesitates but decides to chase after Muffin. The voices were really close by the time he jumped off the rock. Muffin was a bit ahead of him, it was quick, thought Lance racing to keep up. In the distant he heard

“Stop! Lance!”

It sounded like the voice of his mother. He turned to see her in the distance, but couldn’t stop chasing Muffin, he didn’t want to lose it. To the side of him he could see two policemen running at him, he kept chasing Muffin breathing very heavily.

Lance felt like he is running for so long, he is getting exhausted. The policeman are on his tail, calling for him to stop, but all he can think of is Muffin, he felt it was his duty to keep him safe, he has become quite attached to this creature.

He can hear waves crashing ahead, the beach is right there, he thinks puffing loudly. When he reaches the sand, it becomes harder to lift his legs, he pushes on. He sees Muffin standing by the water, he worries about the police behind him.

He reaches Muffin and gets down to his level “We have to get you out of here”

Muffin lets out a loud, long hum.

“Please don’t do that now” Says Lance frantically looking back

Muffin continues to Hum… Lance bites down on his lip. He looks at the water, then the policeman in the distance, he could also see his mum catching up to them. He doesn’t know what to do. He looks at the water again but this time he sees more of Muffin.

“There’s more of you?” He asks knowing he wouldn’t get an answer

They appear out of the water, three of them, heading towards the shore. Lance looks at Muffin.

“Is that where you come from”

He maintains eye contact with Muffin until Muffin looks at the water.

“I know… you have to go”

Lance stands, the police man yells

“Don’t move”

Pointing a handgun at Muffin

“Don’t shoot it” Yells Lance “Its harmless”

The police man aims the gun at Muffins little body

“Shoot it” Yells Lance’s mother when she arrives

The policeman shoots. Lance leaps out in front of Muffin landing on the sand.

“Go, Muffin” He screams

Muffin runs into the water, splashing with its little feet. It reaches the other creatures and they all dive into the sea. He is gone. Lance feels the warm sand in between his fingers. A warmth runs throughout his body, he lets out a sigh.

His mother rushes over to him, tears are streaming down her face, she yells at the police man frantically. The police man grabs his two-way radio to call for help.

“I’m so sorry” sobs his mother

Lance wakes up in a hospital bed, the suns warmth shines on his face from the window to his left, his mother is sitting in the chair with her head resting in her arms.

“Mum” He whispers

She grabs him into a tight squeeze

“Ouch”

She loosens her grip

“I’m sorry Lance, I should have trusted you” tears fall from her face

“It’s ok Mum, you didn’t know”

She lets him go, he looks at his arm all bandaged up, it reminds him of Muffin, he smiles.

“From now on, I’m going to share my treats with those kids” He looks at his Mum

“That’s not important” She says

“Oh, but it is” He answers looking out the window.