Daisy Dawson at the Beach (3 page)

“Like a cloud,” said Raberta.

“Well . . . yes, I guess so,” agreed Daisy. “But clouds live up in the sky, and this one’s going back to my campsite.”

“Won’t it mind not being up with all the others?” asked Rabsy.

“I don’t think so,” said Daisy. Then, an idea struck her. She took her camera from her pocket and snapped a picture of the sky. She turned the camera around and showed the picture to the rabbits.

“She caught them!” squeaked Raberta, hopping about with excitement. “She caught the clouds in her magical cloud catcher!”

“Shake them out so we can have a better look,” said Rabsy.

“They’re not really in there,” Daisy explained. “They’re just pictures so you can see them again when you get home.”

“Like Rabsy, you mean?” asked Raberta. “I always see him again when I get home. Usually holding a carrot.”

Rabsy nodded. “I like carrots,” he said.

At that moment, Daisy heard her mother calling.

“I think I’d better be getting back,” she said. “We’re going surfing.”

“Surfing?” asked Raberta. “What’s that?”

“Oh it’s a lot of fun,” said Daisy. “You lie on a surfboard, and the waves take you all the way to the beach.”

“What’s a beach?” asked Raberta.

“That brown crumbly thing at the bottom of the cliff,” said Rabsy.

“Oh,” said Raberta. “And what are waves?”

“The blue uppy-downy things.”

“And what’s a surfboard?”

“A foam floaty thing,” said Daisy.

“Oh, right.” Raberta thought for a moment. “So you lie on the foam floaty thing and look at the white cloudy things until a blue uppy-downy thing takes you to the brown crumbly thing?”

“Sounds about right,” said Daisy.

“Wow!” said Raberta. “Can Rabsy and I try?”

“I don’t know,” said Daisy. “It’s not the kind of thing rabbits usually do.”

“That’s why we should do it,” said Raberta. “I want to be the first rabbit to ride on a foam floaty thing!”

“Me, too!” said Rabsy. “I want to be first, too! Oh, can we? Please, Daisy, puh-
lease
?”

Daisy was about to say she really didn’t think it would be a good idea, when she remembered how sad Flapperton the sparrow had been about the things he couldn’t do. She didn’t have the heart to make the rabbits sad, too.

“I tell you what,” she said. “If you come down to the beach tomorrow, I’ll see what I can do.”

“Oh, thank you,” said Raberta, hugging Daisy’s leg and planting rabbity kisses all over it.
“Mwah, mwah, mwah!”

Daisy smiled. “See you tomorrow,” she said. “By the blue uppy-downy things.”

“Look,” said Dad as they were enjoying their tea. “Aren’t those rabbits over there?”

Daisy turned to see Rabsy and Raberta standing by the bushes, gazing up at the sky.

“I could have sworn I just saw one of them point up at the clouds,” he said.

“That’s probably because they think I put them up there,” said Daisy. “They’ve got amazing imaginations, those rabbits.”

Dad smiled.

“They’re not the only ones,” he said.

“Did you know,” said Dad, staring out at the waves, “that more than half of our bodies are made up of water?”

“Mine isn’t,” said Daisy, taking another bite of her sandwich. “At the moment, mine’s mostly made up of peanut butter.” She stood up and looked around to see if there was any sign of the rabbits. She hadn’t seen them for a couple of days and wondered if they had changed their minds about learning to surf. “Can I go swimming now?”

“You’d better finish your sandwich first,” said Mom. “Why don’t you go and look in the tide pools? You never know what you might find.”

As Daisy wandered across the sand, two seagulls landed nearby and stared at her.

“I-think-she’s-got-some-food!” squawked the first one. “I-think-she’s-got-some-food-I-bet-she’s-got-some-food-I saw-her-with-some-food-where-did-she-put-her-food?”

“I-think-I-see-her-food!” squawked the second one. “I-think-I-see-her-food-I-do-I-see-her-food-I-want-to-have-her-food-and-you-can’t-have-her-food!”

“You can both have some,” said Daisy, tearing the crusts off the sandwich. “But first you have to calm down or you might choke, and I don’t have any soda left.”

“Eek!”
said the first seagull.

“Ulp!”
said the second one, shutting his beak with a loud clack.

“That’s better,” said Daisy, throwing them half a crust each.

“You’re a funny-looking seagull,” said the first one when he had finished off his bread. “Did your feathers fall off or something?”

“I’m not a seagull,” said Daisy. “I just know how to talk to animals, that’s all.”

“You talk funny,” said the first one. “You should use the back of your throat more.
Ark! Ark!
Like that.”

“Ark! Ark!”
said Daisy.

“Not bad. But you need to work on it.” The seagull waddled closer. “I don’t suppose you can talk to fish, can you?”

“I don’t know,” replied Daisy. “I’ve never tried.”

“Well, you
should
try.”

“She should try, shouldn’t she?” said the other seagull.

“When you get down to the water, ask them all to swim up to the surface.”

“Swim up to the surface,” echoed the other seagull.

“So you can eat them, you mean?” said Daisy.

“Ark! Ark!”
shouted the seagulls together. “Eat-the-fish! Eat-the-fish!”

“I don’t think I will, thank you,” said Daisy. “But it was nice to meet you!”

“I said that to a fish once,” said the first seagull. “Nice to eat you!
Ark! Ark!
”

“Ark! Ark!”
The other seagull laughed. “Nice-to-eat-you! Nice-to-eat-you!”

They both flew up into the air squawking, “Eat-the-fish! Eat-the-fish! Eat-the-fish! Eat-the-fish!”

“Honestly!” said Daisy, folding her arms. She thought about Flapperton and was glad that at least
some
birds had been brought up to have good manners.

Daisy sat on a rock next to a long, deep pool and dangled her feet in the water. She loved the way the tide went out and left its treasures hidden among the rocks: glassy shrimps tiptoeing across silver sand, bright fish darting beneath the weeds, and the tiny tentacles of sea anemones waving like mermaids’ hair in the watery breeze.

“Ow!” she said suddenly. “Owchy, ow, ow, ow!”

Pulling her foot from the water, she saw a small crab hanging from her toe by one of its claws. Carefully, she lowered her foot onto the rock, and the crab scuttled sideways.

“HA-HA!” it said, waving its claws at her. “PINCHY, PINCHY, PINCHY!”

“That’s not very nice,” said Daisy, rubbing her toe.

“What?” said the crab.

“I said it’s not very nice, going around pinching people like that.”

“Pinchy, pinchy, pinchy,” said the crab again, sidling up to Daisy’s toe. “Pinchy, pinchy, pinchy!”

“Now,
stop
it,” said Daisy firmly, pulling her toe away. “How would you like it if I started pinching you?”

The crab stared at her. “You don’t have claws,” he said.

“So?” replied Daisy. She began tapping her fingers and thumbs together, then moved them toward the crab. “Pinchy, pinchy, pinchy. Pinchy, pinchy, pinchy!”

“¡Ay, caramba!”
cried the crab, putting his claws over his head. “Stop, stop!”