The Little Merman

Surface

On a tiny island, Scuttle the seagull hums a song and looks through his telescope.

Fourteen hundred and ninety-two, dah-de-dum dee-do-do, rum-dim-dim, dee-do-dee-do.

Scuttle sticks his telescope on his head, bouncing the object on his featherly head.

"Scuttle!"

Scuttle looked through the telescope the wrong way, making Ariel appear farther away, "Whoa! Mermaid off the port bow! Ariel, how you doin' kid?" Scuttle enthusiastically welcomed Ariel.

Scuttle lowers the telescope to reveal Ariel at wing's length, revealing Ariel was much closer.

"Whoa, what a swim!"

"Scuttle - look what we found!" Ariel pulled up his bag smiling, handing it to the seagull.

"Yeah - we were in this sunken ship - it was really creepy." Flounder added.

"Human stuff, huh? Hey, lemme see." Scuttle drops an anchor. It catches on his foot and knocks him off his perch. He ignored it, jumping towards Ariel, stepping on Flounders head, which earned him a dirty look. Rummaging through Ariel's bag, he takes out the fork.

"Oh! Oh! Look at this. Wow - this is special - this is very, very unusual." Scuttle "smartly" said, examining the pronged utensil.

"What? What is it?" Ariel exclaimed, Happily waiting for Scuttle to answer him.

"It's a dinglehopper! Humans use these little babies... to straighten their hair out." Scuttle observed.

Scuttle twirls the fork around his feathers, harshly yanking and pulling the feathers on his head.

"See - just a little twirl here an' a yank there and - voila!" Scuttles feathers go up in a poof.

"You got an aesthetically pleasing configuration of hair that humans go nuts over." Scuttle plays with the feathers, using his head to push up the feathers.

Scuttle hands the fork back to Ariel.

"A dinglehopper!" Ariel said quietly, staring at the sparkling fork.

Flounder lifted a fin, "What about that one?" He pointed to the curved object from before.

"Ah - this I haven't seen in years. This is wonderful! A banded, bulbous - snarfblatt." Scuttle twirled the pipe in his feathery fingers.

Ariel and Flounder turned to each other, "Ohhh,"

"Now, the snarfblat dates back to prehistoric times, when humans used to sit around, and stare at each other all day. Got very boring," Scuttle got close to Ariel, their eyes too close for comfort.

"So, they invented the snarfblat to make fine music. Allow me." Scuttle blows into the pipe. Seaweed pops out the other end, Scuttle coughs.

"It's stuck!" Scuttle gasped, coughing.

"Music? Oh, the concert! Oh my gosh, my father's gonna kill me!" Ariel remembered, hastily grabbing the items and shoving them in his bag.

"The concert was today?" Flounder asked, equally as shocked as Ariel.

"Maybe you could make a little planter out of it or somethin'." Scuttle was unaware of Ariel and Flounder panicking.

Ariel quickly snatched his new pipe, "Uh, I'm sorry, I've gotta go. Thank you Scuttle." Ariel waves, smiling gratefully at the seagull.

"Anytime sweetie, anytime." Scuttle waves back.

Ariel and Flounder swim down, trying to get to the castle as fast as possible. Eels, Flotsam and Jetsam, slither out from under a rock ledge, placing their golden eyes together.

The reflection of Ariel and Flounder swimming in the bright yellow eyes of the pair merge together, forming a projection on Ursula's magical bubble. Back in her lair, Ursula watches the little mermaid swim with his friend.

"Yes, hurry home, prince. We wouldn't want to miss old daddy's celebration, now, would we? Ha! Celebration indeed. Bah! In my day, we had fantastical feasts when I lived in the palace." Ursula picks up a scared little shrimp and eats him, chewing and slurping loudly.

"And now, look at me - wasted away to practically nothing - banished and exiled and practically starving, while he and his flimsy fish-folk celebrate." Ursula hangs her human part of her body out of the small hole in her lair.

Ursula extends her tentacles and floats down to the bottom.

"Well, I'll give 'em something to celebrate soon enough. Flotsam! Jetsam!" Ursula ordered, scaring her two eels

The two eels, who can magically hear Ursula, hit their heads on the top of the rock they were hiding under.

"I want you to keep an extra close watch on this pretty little son of his. He may be the key to Triton's undoing..."