I Belong To The Sea

• Reminy Holmes, Grade 5
• Short Story
• 2014

My name is Rose and I am ten years old. My mother says I belong to the sea, always have and always will. I smile as I race down with my surfboard to the crystal clear ocean sparkling and glinting in the sunlight. I duck my board under the last flurry of white bubbles and start paddling. The salty spray tickles my face and the wind plays with my hair. Looking up I see a giant Sea Eagle gliding on a scrap of air and I imagine how wonderful it would be to fly.
Then I see it, a fin, two fins, three fins, twelve fins. There is nobody on the beach but I am not scared, I am not even nervous. Slowly my fingers fumble with the leg rope and I push my board into shore, watching the splash of colour tossing and turning on the fingertips of the waves.
The dolphins have surrounded me now, chirping and squeaking. Laughing and playing, then all fourteen of them riding down the face of a wave. Without thinking I slowly reach out and grasp a slippery fin. Then up up up the dolphin shoots. It’s beautiful body in a perfect arch above the sea, and in that split second of wonder I remember the sea eagle. “This is a million times better than flying,” I laugh. The dolphin plunges back into the water and I think how lucky I am that there are no cameras, no microphones, no article in the newspaper it is just me and the dolphins. Slowly I float down to rest my head on the dolphin’s cheek and it feels like the most natural thing in the world
THE END