FAMOUS SHIPWRECK
Chapter Two
"What do you suppose that
means?" asked Ariel.
"I’m not sure. Is it
supposed to mean anything?" asked Flounder.
"I think so."
"Perhaps a message that it
is dangerous to be here," said Sebastian.
Ariel rolled her eyes. She swam
up onto the deck.
"It doesn’t look like it had
those white clouds," said Ariel. "At least, not like the other
ones."
She swam to the top deck, where
she saw a hole on the very top. She swam down, with Sebastian and Flounder
following behind her.
"It’s dark in here,
Ariel," said Flounder.
Ariel tapped the wall. She heard
a hollow metal sound.
"They feel hard, not like
the other ships we’ve explored," she said excitedly.
She kept on swimming, not knowing
that she was swimming into the very bowels of the ship. Several coils and
twists appeared, some very large, some small, that she could barely squeeze
herself through. They came to a large room. The room was completely sealed. The
only opening was on the side, where apparently the ship itself had been gashed.
However, it was buried in mud.
"What do you suppose this
room was for?" she asked her two sidekicks, looking around the floor for
souvenirs to take with her.
She found a heavy shovel.
"I don’t think we’re going
to be able to take this with us today," she said sadly.
"Perhaps we should get out
of here," Sebastian suggested.
"I guess so," said
Ariel sadly. "We have to explore the other parts of the ship. There’s
nothing here."
They swam up the way they came.
Ariel scanned the deck. Nothing.
Mostly pieces of rusted metal that had fallen off the ship. The tall masts had
fallen, crushing some of the top decks. She went into the first promenade deck.
She saw a line of wooden chairs.
"How nice. What do you
suppose this would have been for?"
She tried to pick one up, but it
came apart. In some parts of the deck, she found shoes, or jewelry, even. On
the way back, it seemed, the ship had split apart.
"That was certainly one big
ship," said Flounder.
"Whew. Well, at least now
we’ve explored it. Now, I think it’s time to go," said Sebastian.
"No. How come it just
stops?" asked Ariel. "Most of the time, the ships sort of...form
another point, never just like this."
She swam down the length of the
ship.
"It’s all open," she
commented. "We have to find the back part. But first, we have to take a
close look at this one."
She went eagerly into what was
one of the first class staterooms. Most of the time, the ships she had seen
were cargo ships. She had seen very few passenger ships, and especially none as
luxurious as the Titanic had been. She picked up a hairbrush from the floor,
then moved up to the bathroom.
"Do you suppose this is
where humans sleep?" she asked, looking at the bathtub. "It doesn’t
look very comfortable," she commented. "What do you suppose this is
for?" she asked, indicating the faucet.
"Uh…I don’t know,
Ariel."
Ariel began to look in the open
drawers. Mirrors, combs, hairbrushes, so many things. Soon she ran out of room
to carry them all.
"We’re going to have to
leave these things here and come back tomorrow," she said sadly.
On the floor, she noticed a pair
of shoes. She picked them up eagerly.
"Just look! They certainly
are strange-looking things. They’re identical."
"Of course they are not,
Ariel," said Sebastian. "They are backwards!" he exclaimed.
"What do you mean?"
asked Ariel.
Then, noticing that one had an
arch in one direction, and the other one in the opposite direction, she
realized what Sebastian meant. Of course, that was because one was for the
right foot, and the other the left, but not having feet, or having ever even
seen a pair of shoes, Ariel didn’t understand.
"What do you suppose they
were for?" she asked. "And why are they like that? Do you suppose
that it’s a mistake? We have to ask Scuttle."
They hurried away and swam
towards the surface. They found Scuttle on his rock.
"Just look, Scuttle!"
she exclaimed, throwing the contents of her bag on the rock. "Just look at
these," she said, holding out the shoes.
Scuttle examined them and shook
his head.
"What is it?" she
asked.
"Where did you find
these?" he asked.
"On a ship on the ocean
floor," she told him.
"That’s probably why. The
humans you see on the beaches, on the ships, they’re always wearing these. On
those feet of theirs. The only time I’ve seen humans without them is when they
put their feet in the water. They grow fins without them, you see," he
said.
"They do?" asked Ariel.
"Yup."