Sea Change

Monsters/ Part One

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CHAPTER ONE

Monsters

The waiting ferry boat~~ ivory-coloured and two tiered ~~ resembled a slice of cake. Or maybe I was just hungry, I reasoned as I hurried across the dock, my duffel bag bumping my hip. The name princess of the Deep was

Stamped across the boat's side, and the American flag hanging from it's now whipped and snapped in the salty wind.

I took a deep breath. I was really going. As I joined the boarding line, I wished I'd covered my head, like the other, wiser travellers in their Atlanta Braves caps and floppy straw hats. Sweat slid down my back, and my vintage round sunglasses were no match for the glare off the ocean. I hadn't had much time to prepare for this trip.

"Next!" called the ticket taker, a large, sliver-bearded man in a white T-shirt. He motioned to me and I stepped forward, the dock's wooden slats hot beneath my sneakers. When I handed him my ticket, his bushy eyebrows shot up so high the sailer hat on his head wobbled. "You're headed to Selklie?" he asked.

In his thick Georgia drawl, he pronounced the word Sayl~kee-- all long syllables. "Selklie Island? you sure about that, darlin'?" I hesitated. I certainly hadn't planned on traveling to Selklie Island, a place I knew next to nothing about. My summer, like most things in my life, I was to start my dream internship at the Museum of Natural History in New York City.

But the. The grandmother I'd never known passed away, setting in motion a chain of events that brought me to where I was on this late June afternoon. For a second, disorientation swept over me, and then I shook it off. "Positive," I relied, lifting my chin.

I was eager to complete the last leg of my draining journey; that morning's flight from New York City to Savannah had been delayed, and the cab driver who'd taken me to the harbor had meandered through the shades streets at a speed that matched his speech.

"All right," sailor hat sighed in an unmistakable it's-your-funeral tone. As he tore my ticket in two, he gave me a look that was equal parts amused and worried. "It's the last stop, sugar snap."

"I know," I said tartly, to show how little sugar there was in me.

I'd seen in the map inside the ferry terminal that princess if the Deep made stops at several if the Sea Islands~~which shimmer like small gems in the Atlantic, draping all the way from the coasts of South Carolina to Florida~~ before reaching Selklie.

"And it's Miranda," I added, marching around him and toward the boat. Unfortunately, Miranda isn't too far removed from sugar snap on the sweet, Girly Name List. I've never felt it suited me. "Well Miranda," the Sailor Hat called after me as I followed the passengers clanking up the gangplank.

"You must be plenty brave, a young thing like you setting off got Selklie all by her lonesome." I had no idea what Sailor Hat was talking about, and I didn't really care. Still, his words struck at one chord of truth: I couldn't wait to meet my mother at the Selklie dock. During the past four days I'd spent by myself back home, I'd missed her steady presence.

The bottom level of the ferry was dark, and packed with howling children. Orange life vests were fastened to the low ceiling, and though still tethered to the dock, the boat rocked roughly on the waves. I figured it would be pleasanter to stand in the open air, so I climbed the metal staircase to the top deck, where the breeze toyed with my ponytail, and view was a dazzling blues weeping water and sky.

Most people stood at the railing, but I remained by the stairs, near a group of golden-haired girls who looked to be about my age. The girls were huddled together, laughing, and I felt a pang. They all wore tiny shirts and platform flip-flops, the better to show off their long, bronze legs and perfectly formed toes.

I pictured myself beside them~~ a pale, thin, dark-haired girl in a red- striped shirt, jeans and black converse~~ and smiled wryly. We may as well have been different species. Growing up, I had zero interest in lip gloss or slumber parties. My idea of fun had been mixing Mr.Clean and baking powder in water glasses and writing down the results.

"Miranda's concocting her potions," my friend would tease, and I would correct them: I was doing experiments. My weirdness made sense; both my parents are surgeons, so I was born with science in my blood. It was no surprise that, at fourteen, I got accepted into the Bronx High School of Science, where I'd just finished up my junior year, earning A's I'm Advanced Placement and Chemistry (but eking out C's in English and History).

With a great, unladylike belch, Princess of the Deep loosened herself from the dock and lurched out to sea. Immediately, my knees buckled and, unthinking, I reached out to grab the arm of a girl nearest me. "You okay, hon?" She asks. Her eyes were hidden behind wraparound sunglasses but I could sense the judgement in her stare.

"Bless her heart," she said, turning to her friends. "She hasn't gotten her sea legs yet!" The other girls explode into giggles, a pack of pretty piranhas. I drew my hand back, my cheeks scalded with embarrassment. Sea legs. Such a strange expression, as if human could sprout find to adapt to life on water.

True, I'd forgotten how tricky it was to stay balanced in a ship. I'd grown up not quite landlocked, but close; home was Riverdale, a small, serene pocket of the Bronx, which, of New York City's five boroughs, is the only one that that is part of the mainland. The last time is been in a ferry, I was nine.

It was right before my parents divorce, and my father, perhaps warding off his impending guilt it acknowledging his impending freedom, had taken me and my older brother, Wade, to the Statue of Liberty. The ride to Liberty Island had been choppy, and I'd fought back my seasickness by leaning over the raining in search of marine life.

Which, at the moment, once again seemed like an appealing activity. Carefully, I maneuvered away from the Southern princesses, who were now squealing over someone's purchase of a new bikini. When I reached the railing, I positioned myself beside a blonde boy, who must have been seven, and his tired looking parents. The spray cooled my flushed face, I placed my duffel bad between my feet.

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Hey guys it's me Celene!!

So if you guys liked the first chapter please vote if it was boring then I'm sorry but I promise you it gets good!

~Celene~

I will post part Two Tomorrow!!