Sea Magic by Kate Forsyth

CHAPTER ONE
    â€˜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!’
    â€˜I want mermaid too!’ Ella said.
    â€˜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!’
    â€˜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.
    â€˜Want mermaid tail,’ Ella said. ‘
Need
mermaid tail.’
    â€˜You don’t need it, darling. You need swimmers and a hat.’
    â€˜But we want to play mermaids at Mermaid Rocks,’ Meg argued.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜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!’
    â€˜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?’
    â€˜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.
    â€˜So are there really mermaids at Mermaid Rocks?’ Tim said.
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜They mustn’t have got up very close to them, though!’ Mum said. ‘Dugongs don’t look much like mermaids.’

    â€˜My dad used to call them sea cows,’ Aunty Vic said. ‘I guess Mermaid Rocks sounded better than Sea Cow Rocks.’
    Everyone laughed. They were walking together along the edge of a sparkling lagoon, on crisp white sand that squeaked under their feet. At least, the two mothers were walking. The six cousins were chasing each other with handfuls of wet seaweed, turning lopsided cartwheels and splashing through the warm water, with Jessie bounding joyfully at their heels.
    â€˜Normally we see dolphins playing here in thelagoon,’ Aunty Vic said. ‘What a shame there are none today.’

    â€˜Last year we saw turtles too,’ Thomas said. ‘Lots of them, digging in the sand.’
    â€˜They were digging their nests,’ Aunty Vic said. ‘At this time of year they lay their eggs, hundreds of them. It’s rather odd that we haven’t seen any. I think this is the first year since I was a little girl that I haven’t seen a single turtle.’
    Aunty Vic had been coming up to Mermaid Rocksall her life, and so she knew all the best places to go fishing and swimming and snorkelling. This was the first time Ben and Tim had come to stay at their cousins’ holiday house, and so they were eager to see all the things their cousins kept describing – like the witch’s cauldron and the fairy pool and Lookout