Ocean Shadows

• Kaidon Anderson, Grade 4, Biggera Waters State School
• Short Story
• 2004

3rd in the 'Write On 2004' competition

"In late December, on a sultry day, three teenage friends were getting ready for a scuba dive. The friends were Kenny, a tall muscular boy with brown hair and sapphire eyes, Brian a skinny ginger haired boy with emerald eyes and Lizza, a tall girl with black hair and dark brown eyes. The three of them were diving for juvenile painted crayfish in The Whitsundays.
Putting on their stinger suites and scuba gear, they fell backwards off the dinghy into the warm ocean. As soon as they splashed into the water it looked like a disco due to all the wavy lights the glistening water had made. When they were able to focus, they saw shimmering puce-coloured anemones with orange coloured clownfish, the colour of ripe mangoes, swimming crazily between their tentacles, to their left. To their right they saw crimson feather stars anchored onto bright white staghorn coral. Within about four minutes they found a juvenile painted crayfish and chased it around for ages until they saw a dark shadow looming above them. “Oh no!” thought Lizza as she signalled to the other divers. Kenny started floundering around on the bottom and cut his leg on a piece of coral, which only drew the shadow closer. So close, in fact, that they could see it was a tiger shark! Suddenly ten more sharks swam out of rocky grooves and the children became deathly silent.
The tiger shark swam at them aggressively but then stopped, turned around and swam upwards. The friends soon saw why. Above them the tiger shark was attacking a large ‘winged’ shape. The large shape swam down to a larger hunk of pale green staghorn coral, throwing the gnawing shark off onto it. Suddenly, several more winged figures appeared and scared the sharks away. At once the friends saw the huge shapes were mantra rays.
The trio then made their escape. Quickly they swam to the surface towards the boat, climbed over the side and lay down breathing heavily. When they regained their breath, Brian bandaged Kenny'’ leg while Lizza pulled up the anchor and started the motor. On the way home the teenagers remembered that they hadn’t caught any juvenile painted crayfish, so planned to come back another day.
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