Sea Magic

Kate Forsyth lives with a black cat called Shadow, a rambunctious puppy called Jessie, her husband Greg, and her three beautiful children in a seaside suburb of Sydney.
Sea Magic
is the third of Ben and Tim's magical misadventures.

Visit Kate's website at
www.kateforsyth.com.au

Mitch Vane has had a long career working as an illustrator and artist. She uses a variety of mediums, but is happiest drawing funny wonky pictures with an old-fashioned dip pen and messy Indian ink. Mitch works from her home studio in Melbourne and often does projects with her husband, who is a writer. They have two children who have been a constant source of inspiration for them both.

Visit Mitch's website at
www.mitchvane.com

ALSO BY KATE FORSYTH
AND ILLUSTRATED BY MITCH VANE

Dragon Gold

Wishing for Trouble

ALSO BY KATE FORSYTH

The Starthorn Tree

The Chain of Charms series:

The Gypsy Crown

The Silver Horse

The Herb of Grace

The Cat's Eye Shell

The Lightning Bolt

The Butterfly in Amber

ALSO BY MITCH VANE

Little Lunch
(series)

Just Like Me

The Magic Wand

Kev & Borax

Big Bad Bunnies

The Patch

BEN AND TIM'S MAGICAL MISADVENTURES

Kate Forsyth

ILLUSTRATED BY MITCH VANE

First published 2008 in Pan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited
1 Market Street, Sydney

Text copyright © Kate Forsyth 2008
Illustrations copyright © Mitch Vane 2008

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Forsyth, Kate, 1966– .
Sea magic.

For children aged 6–11 years.
ISBN 978 0 330 42396 0 (pbk.)

I. Vane, Mitch. II. Title.

A823.3

Typeset in 12/17 pt Janson Text by Liz Seymour, Seymour Designs
Printed in Australia by McPherson's Printing Group

Papers used by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

 

 

These electronic editions published in 2008 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
1 Market Street, Sydney 2000

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

Sea Magic

Kate Forsyth

Adobe eReader format: 978-1-74198-617-4
Online format: 978-1-74198-561-0
EPUB format: 978-1-74198-729-4

Macmillan Digital Australia
www.macmillandigital.com.au

Visit
www.panmacmillan.com.au
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Cover

Title Page

About Kate Forsyth and Mitch Vane

Also by Kate Forsyth

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

For Ben and Tim, as always, and for their
darling Humphrey cousins – may your lives be full
of happy endings
– KF

For Jordie and all his mates
– MV

‘Just wait till you see Mermaid Rocks,' Meg said, pulling on her green sparkly mermaid tail. ‘It's my favouritest place in the whole world!'

‘I want mermaid too!' Ella said.

‘Lucky we gave you a mermaid outfit for Chrissy,' Meg said, helping Ella take off her shorts and put on a blue sparkly tail. ‘We can both be mermaids!'

‘Darling, you can't wear your new mermaid tail to the beach, it'll get wrecked!' Mum said, putting her head in the door. She was looking rather harassed, her arms piled high with towels, beach bags and a huge umbrella. Jessie the puppy had seized hold of one end of a towel and was playing tug of war.

‘Want mermaid tail,' Ella said. ‘
Need
mermaid tail.'

‘You don't need it, darling. You need swimmers and a hat.'

‘But we want to play mermaids at Mermaid Rocks,' Meg argued.

‘You can play mermaids in your swimmers,' Aunty Vic said. ‘Come on, Meg. If we don't get a move along, the tide'll be in and the rock pools will be covered.'

Meg sighed dramatically. ‘Oh, all right.' She went back into her room and started putting together her third outfit for the day – a Hawaiian print swimsuit with matching floppy hat, a pink plastic hula skirt and some flowery leis.

‘Can't we go?' Ben cried, hopping from foot to foot impatiently. He and Tim had been dressed and ready for hours.

Ella sat down, her arms crossed, her bottom lip thrust out. ‘Wear mermaid tail.'

Thomas said impatiently, ‘You're not wearing your mermaid tail, Ella. Come on, let's go!'

‘Mermaid . . . tail . . .' Ella wailed.

Ben squatted down beside her. ‘Come on, Ella. Let's put on your new pink swimmers and then we can go and see if we can find a real mermaid.'

Ella's tears dried up at once. ‘See mermaid?'

‘Only if you get into your swimmers now.' Ben helped Ella, who was only two and a half, get changed, found her bucket and spade, and then, at last, they all set out.

‘So are there really mermaids at Mermaid Rocks?' Tim said.

‘It was probably named for the dugongs that sun themselves there,' Aunty Vic said. ‘Sailors in the olden days used to think they were mermaids, because they bob around upright in the water just like people do.'

‘They mustn't have got up very close to them, though!' Mum said. ‘Dugongs don't look much like mermaids.'