Chapter 1. Don’t bubble about your beauty
There is a red mullet named Iskorka in The Our sea. Little, reddish, with neat antennas – pretty red mullet. She lives with her mama-red mullet, papa-red mullet and siblings-red mullets and each has his own separate mink.
Once she decided to swim on her business to The Sand shaft. Usually citizens calls it The sands. It is not far and she’s allowed to swim by herself.
The weather was sunny – really, like she prefers for her swimmings (people walk and sea creatures swim). Iskorka looked in the mirror, buried the entry to her mink a little and hit the road.
Some shells were sunbathing at The sands, which was surrounded by lengthy kelp on the left and hard (and sharp!) colorful corals on the right. Shells were competing with each other in size, brightness and grace. But the white one seems spectacularly beautiful to Iskorka. It was Fifochka. Smooth, with ribby shucks. Rays of sunshine were highlighting the water and she was bathing in bright stains.
Iskorka so fell for looking at her that saw a big (just a moment!) hand that was reaching for that shell almost too late. The hand belongs to a boy in a diving mask, one of that big creatures that usually finds himself under the water in search of treasures. And there she was, a treasure, lying in front of him, and a bunch of bubbles floated to the surface from her smooth shucks.
Iskorka realized that she could never be friends with the shell if this boy took her to himself and started working hard with her fins rising silt and sand from the bed. The boy startled with surprise and white shell fell out of his hand. He noticed bright back of a red mullet in the center of this heap and stared at this little sea fire. Fifochka landed little further away; silt layer zoomed from under her and seaweed hid her top. Iskorka waged her tail fin, darted into the thicket and buried behind green bushes.
The boy had no choice as to break surface with his hands bare.
Red mullet waited a bit, shook the sand off herself and helped the shell to dig out.
“Thank you so much, little red mullet!” White shell bubbled with gratitude.
That is how whitebait and the shell became friends.
And holes at The sands, in one minute deserted, seemed to whisper Don’t bubble about your beauty.
Chapter 2. To learn something new
In the morning it is usually warm and quite in The Our sea. Zooplankton, which is a delicacy for red mullet, hangs in water thickness and swims, turning over and mixing up, as if in a slow dance.
That weekend Iskorka woke up early and was loosening the bed at The sands with all her might looking for sea worms. So different and mouth-watering, they often show quite a speed escaping from red mullet.
That time, with antennas under the sand, Iskorka noticed translucent whitish jellyfish dancing in higher layer. Over a thick cap a pinkish flower were gleaming and under the cap were flashing short tentacles. That was whitebait of a jellyfish and red mullet decided she didn’t afraid of her (ones say jellyfishes are poisonous and sting painfully, that is why little Iskorka haven’t swum too close yet).
“What is it you are doing?” Iskorka bubbles warily. She’d seen jellyfish in the kindergarten but they hadn’t spoken once.
“I’m rehearsing a dance for the matinee.”
“Could you teach me?”
“Why?”
“It is nice to learn something new.”
“Oh, I сould”.
“You won’t sting, will you?”
“Don’t worry. Aurelia aurea stings only while hunting and I don’t want to eat you one bit.”