These few days in February are particularly filled with such
love in our house- Valentine’s Day yesterday and then Kyle’s birthday is on
Monday. Your Mimi and I will honor
Kyle with a letter on March 1- the anniversary of his death, when we choose to
celebrate and honor his life.
As for this past week, you have been such a happy girl as
Gigi and Pop came to visit. You
are enjoying being the center of attention, as they adore spending time with
you!
And now here is our final story (with many chapters to
write!) for you.
So as for our weekly guidelines: I write a piece one week in
regular font, and then your Mimi will write a piece in italics the next
week. The only things your Mimi
and I agreed on were the characters- Ellie and a magic teapot and the setting
(an aquarium). Anything else is
fair game and will make our adventure a new tale. We also need to figure out an illustration to go with our
part. Our goal Ellie is to have a
beloved bedtime story for you and future generations. And so we will continue our fourth piece of fiction.
Ellie and the Magic
Teapot: Off to the Aquarium- Part 7
Ellie and Lion zoomed away from the ship toward the crime
scene again. At that moment, she
could see what looked like a tornado of sand whirling up ahead. Luckily for Ellie and Lion, they had
their goggles on so they wouldn’t get sand in their eyes.
“Hey! What’s
going on here?” Ellie interrupted
loudly. The funnel cloud was dying
down and Ellie could see that an octopus was at its center. He was swirling. As he slowed, the cyclone did too. Ellie could see 6 stingrays underneath
the octopus mimicking the octopus’ moves.
“Can we help you?
Are you lost?” asked an out of breath octopus. “We’re very busy but if you need directions, I will do my
best to point you on the right track,” he said pointing his eight arms in all
different directions.
“Don’t you know that this is a crime scene?” Ellie said as
her eyes narrowed taking in the setting.
She nodded toward the yellow tape that they were obviously ignoring.
“Crime scene?
No dear, this is our rehearsal place. That yellow tape ropes off our arena. Now if you don’t mind, we have a lot of
work to get ready for the competition.
It is only a day away,” Octopus lifted one of his arms to direct the
stingrays to begin again as he counted backwards from three.
“Rehearsal for what?
Looks to me like a cover up!
I think you know something about the pirate’s chest and the missing gold
and jewels,” Lion alleged in an accusing manner interrupting the octopus.
“My name is Octavious the Octopus. I don’t suppose you have heard of me from where you are from,”
he said as he pointed up above, “but down here I am an ocean renowned
synchronized swim coach. I have
led eight teams to the Ocean Olympics and seven of those teams have
medaled. This team here has shown
more promise than other groups I’ve coached. Not only could they take home a gold, they could get a
perfect score too. Do you have any
idea of how difficult that is? But
in order to do so, they need to practice.
So if you don’t mind, we have work to do. And to answer your very forward question, we didn’t take the
pirate chest, as we have no need for it.
In fact, we earn our own gold in competitions,” and with that he turned
his back on Ellie and spoke softly to the stingrays. Ellie strained her neck to hear his words but only caught
him saying, “Don’t let them distract you.
Keep focused.”
Ellie blushed.
Was she a distraction? She
was only trying to be helpful and solve the mystery of the stolen treasure
chest.
“Come on Lion, I feel rather foolish. I think we owe these fish our
apologies. We went around accusing
people of stealing when they didn’t do anything wrong. That’s not very nice of us,” Ellie
wavered.
“Gosh Ellie, I didn’t think of it like that. I guess we haven’t been very friendly,”
Lion said sheepishly.
Ellie and Lion were about to interrupt Octavious the Octopus
one more time to apologize but he had already begun to lead the stingrays into
their swirling pattern again. This
time the team rose up in unison and descended quickly toward the sand. Impressively, the synchronized group
got within an inch of the ocean bottom without actually touching it all doing
the exact same move at the exact same time. Even though Ellie was almost blinded by the sand storm they
kicked up when they spun, Ellie caught a glimpse of gold shimmering on the
ocean tanks floor. Lion nudged her
clearly seeing the same thing.
“STOP!” Lion and Ellie cried out together.
“What now?” Octavious cried in annoyance as he squirted a
thick cloud of ink. He shook his
head in frustration. “I do this
when I get defensive,” he explained to the dark mess that now surrounded them.
“We saw something reflecting in the sand as you practiced,”
Ellie explained and continued, “We’re not accusing you. In fact, we wanted to say sorry for the
way we reacted before. And we were
just wondering if you could move your practice area over to that clear patch
while we investigate here a little further,” she motioned to a clearing between
coral beds.
Octavious the Octopus heaved a sigh and directed the
stingray to their new rehearsal site by pointing his arms in the direction of
the gap. “Let me know when you are
finished,” he said as he propelled away behind his team.
Ellie winked at Lion as she reached into her pocket and
pulled out two shovels and two soft bristled brushes.
“What are these for El?” Lion asked perplexed as Ellie
handed a shovel and brush to Lion.
“Dig Lion!” she instructed. “I don’t think the treasure was ever stolen,” Ellie
explained.
Lion followed Ellie’s lead and started digging. When his shovel hit something hard,
they used their brushes to clear off the remaining sand. Within minutes, they uncovered the pirate’s
chest still filled with all of the gold and jewels.
Lion and Ellie gasped in unison at their find, “It was an
illusion Ellie- just like Perseus the Pufferfish taught us. The treasure was here the whole
time. But how did it get under the
sand?”
“That’s easy Lion, the synchronized swim team swirled up so
much sand during their practices, they buried it without meaning to or even
noticing,” Ellie clarified.
“Well, I guess that’s it then. We can go home,” Lion said.
“Not quite Lion.
I think we owe all of the fish an apology and we need to tell them that
we found the treasure,” Ellie pointed out. “And I know just how to do it! Come on. Follow
me!”
Three hours later, Ellie and Lion were on stage in front of
the giant seashells, which became the seats for the underwater animals to sit
comfortably. In the audience, they
spotted Rita, Perseus, Pete, Octavious, and the stingray synchronized swim
team.
“Ahem,” Ellie called into the microphone, “May I have your
attention? Before I introduce the
very talented comedian and clown, Collywobbles, I have a few words.” Ellie glanced at Lion who held her
hand. She continued, “Lion and I
want to say that we are so very sorry that we assumed that some of you took the
treasure chest. We wanted to be
detectives and took it too far. We
hope that you can forgive us and that we can all be friends.” All of the fish
cheered and nodded. As the crowd
silenced, Ellie went on, “We also want to wish the synchronized swim team the
very best of luck tomorrow at your big competition. We saw how talented you are and we know you will do
great.” More cheers erupted from
the audience. Lion took over to
say, “And now, here is Collywobbles!”
Lion and Ellie stepped backstage as Collywobbles took the
spotlight. They could hear him
begin his skit, “Why do pirates always carry a bar of soap?... So if they get
shipwrecked, they can wash themselves ashore!” The crowd exploded in laughter.
“Well Lion, I think our job here is done,” Ellie said as she
reached into her pocket and pulled out her teapot and two teacups. “It’s time to go home. Are you ready for me to say the magical
words?”
“Yep,” Lion anxiously answered. And slowly Ellie began….
Until next week Ellie Bean!
Love,
Mom
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