Surprise on the Jetty

The boulders of the jetty stretched out towards the sea. The ocean lapped against the rocks, and occasionally a large wave fell and crashed against it with a boom. Fortunately, the middle of the jetty stayed mostly dry. The boulders were not meant to be traversed, and Eric found himself hopping across gaps and climbing outcrops to stay dry. With the near constant wind and the sea spray he was glad he’d brought a jacket.

Eric hadn’t realized the seawall went out so far. At what felt like halfway he looked ahead and the end looked no closer than when he’d begun. He glanced behind him and saw his town, though the buildings were hardly large enough to notice. Eric rubbed his face, hefted his bag, and continued ahead. He didn’t have anything to tell him what time it was, but his stomach told him it was far past lunch.

By the time Eric reached the very end of the jetty his hands were cold, wet, and cut. His right ear felt frozen, and his knee hurt from when he’d slipped and banged it. But he stood proudly and turned around to look. He could hardly see his town at all against the shore. It might have been the furthest he’d ever gone away from town. That was; unless he went off to college.

An airplane flew high in the distance. Maybe if he chose a school on the coast he could sail there instead of fly. Was he afraid to fly, or was he scared to leave? Couldn’t he stay in the town that’d always been his home?

Eric slipped his backpack from his shoulders and sat down on a flat rock out of reach of the waves. He took off his shoes and let his bare feet get sprayed by the sea. He took from his bag his sandwich and chips and dug in. When half his sandwich was gone, he slowed so that he could savor it.

Eric was smiling to himself, pleased with his place to picnic, when a hand shot up out of the water by his feet.

Half screaming, half choking, Eric shot backwards and nearly bashed his head on a stone behind him. He coughed and spat out his food just so he could breathe, but when he sat up, he lost his breath again.

“What are you doing here?” Eric asked the girl, who held with both hands onto a rock and looked up at Eric just as confused. She had short red hair and a pretty face.

“Swimming,” she said with an accent Eric couldn’t place. “What are you doing here?”

“Eating,” he said holding out what was left of his sandwich. Then he turned red. “Sorry I screamed; I thought I was alone out here.”

“Well so did I,” the girl said. “Who would ever walk across all those rocks!”

“Who would swim all the way out here!”

“Well swimming’s easier, if you know how to. I’m sure I could go from the shore up and around faster then you could hop out here and back.”

“That’s…probably right. It was much further than I thought it would be.”

“Did you come out here just for the view?”

“Yeah, and to eat. I just…needed some space to think about stuff.”

Eric reached into his pack and pulled out a second bag of chips. He offered it to the girl, and she reached up and made a grabbing motion with her hand. Eric tossed it to her, and she caught it. She tore open the bag and for a long moment the two of them just munched, listening to the waves as they lapped against the rocks.

When the girl was done, she crumpled the bag and tossed it up to Eric, who caught it confidently. “Thank you very much for that,” she said.

“No problem. Are you going back to swimming?”

“Sure. It’s been a nice visit, but I can’t hold onto these rocks all day.”

“You could get out and dry off a bit. The ocean’s cold, and you know what people say about swimming after you eat.”

“No. I don’t, but I’m sure your people and my people have very different sayings.”

The girl flashed Eric a sly grin and pushed herself back from the rocks. She winked and rose into the air. She dove backwards, and Eric’s eyes widened at the purple-colored scales she had instead of skin around her waist. His mouth fell open when the tail crested the water, waved side to side, then slapped the water as it disappeared beneath the waves.