A Day At The Beach

• Blake Eager, Grade 7
• Poetry
• 2013

It was a Saturday morning and the sun was beaming! I was only 4, but unlike most normal days, mum didn’t have to wake me up this morning. My security blanket, disguised as my favourite toy and I were going to the beach and it was going to be splendid!
Fortunately, we were up early because mum wanted to pack the library and dad wanted to pack the television! Providentially, she remembered to pack me and I ALMOST forgot to pack my ‘favourite toy’.
The trip to the beach was extremely tedious, especially since dad tried to entertain us with his singing along to Elton John’s Greatest Hits. When I was that age, I would have preferred singing along with the Wiggles but dad said that they give him a headache! I should have said, “Well dad, these songs give me a headache!” After only five are we there yets… we were there.
To protect us from the sun, mum, not dad (as you can see I already had a grudge against him), organised the slip, slop, slap routine while dad started setting up the tent. Just as dad started boasting about his Boy Scout skills, a cyclonic gust of wind sent the tent flying and tumbling through the sand, causing a huge threat of impaling bikini clad sun worshipers! It was hilarious watching dad sprinting down the hill after the accelerating metal tumbleweed but mum gave me a look that said to keep these thoughts to myself!
I decided this would be a good time to leave this scene. As I headed for the surf, the little waves seemed to grow bigger and bigger! Suddenly, a HUMUNGOUS wave rose up like a nest of cobras, hissing and spitting as they collapsed to the beach in a head of froth and foam. What seemed hideously scary was suddenly reduced to a playful lapping of water around my feet.
After my super surf escapade, we decided to build a sand pool near the edge of the water. Mum, dad and Krissy (my sister) dug out the sand to create an extraordinary hole. My job was to fill the hole up with water by continually running backwards and forwards with my pail. Every time I came back and filled the hole with water, it disappeared into the sand like an iPod if you get caught playing it when you’re not allowed to. I was an angry monkey until a tsunami of water smashed into the sand and overflowed the pool leaving it perfect to play in.
While enjoying myself, something caught the corner of my eye. At first, I thought it was two long skinny fingers with black blisters on the tips (very similar to how my fingertips looked the time I decided to pick up the burnt log from the camp fire, but that’s another story!) Being inquisitive once again, I inched slowly and carefully towards the “fingers”. Suddenly, a crab which I now called Kenny jumped out of his hole and leapt towards me. All thought of courageousness had evaporated as I galloped to mum. “Up! Up!” I bawled as she salvaged me from the devil crab in the nick of time!
Suitably liberated, we all agreed this was an excellent time to call it a day. On arrival at home, my security blanket and I were both wet and sandy… I was directed to the bathroom whilst the blanket was ripped from my arms from the sobbing me to go to the laundry where I later witnessed her with my face squashed against the plastic going around and around and around, not my preferred way of her getting washed but mum said it was not negotiable. Before I knew it, my blanket and I were in bed dreaming of our next adventures at sea where we would become national heroes by rescuing unsuspecting children from Kenny and his friends.