Free The Monster of Shiversands Cove by Emma Fischel Page B

garden. It had a fence at the bottom with a gate on to the rocks above the cove, and the sand, and the sea.
    The sea was flat calm in the cove; not a breath of wind was ruffling the water. Further out at sea, the sun was dropping behind the island, a red setting sun.
    I blinked.
    Huge ripples were coming in from the sea, rippling into the cove and widening in circles across it.
    As if, well . . . as if there were a big fish somewhere out there: a
very
big fish indeed.
    Â 
    Chapter Two
    Princess Splishy-Splashy
    Next morning, the sun woke me, glinting in through a chink in the curtains. I sat up and looked out of the porthole. It was a bright sunny day and the sea was all sparkly. Then, just behind the island, out at sea:
    WHOOSH!
    All of a sudden, a huge jet of water, like a giant fountain, shot right up in the air.
    I leaned forward and clutched the edge of the porthole. Now
that
was interesting. I knew what it was straight away: a waterspout. And where there was a waterspout that size, there was a
whale.
There had to be. I stared hard. Brilliant! A whale, right out there, behind the island.
    Now, I am the number-one fan of whales, because whales are extremely interesting creatures. Not even fish, for a start, even though they swim in the sea. No, whales are mammals, long-living mammals. Some whales, especially the ones that swim about in the Arctic Ocean, can live to over one hundred and fifty years old. And whales are musical mammals, too. They like inventing tunes. Whales swim about, singing their tunes and when they get bored with singing one tune, which whales do in the end, they just invent a new one.
    Then, there are the waterspouts. All whales make waterspouts. A whale shoots water out of a blowhole, sometimes even two, on the top of its head, and that helps it breathe in the water.
    Dolphins and porpoises do waterspouts, too. But that waterspout was much too big to be a dolphin or porpoise. It was a whale. It had to be. And a whale expert could tell what sort of whale that was, just from the shape of the waterspout, but I couldn’t. I had no idea what sort of whale it was.
    All the same, the whale was a good start to the day. Then the day got better because Dad and Magnus woke up and, once Magnus had hiswater wings on, we all ran down the garden and across the beach, and swam before breakfast.
    We splashed about and chucked a beach ball around. Then, I did a bit of snorkelling around the rocks at the side while Dad helped Magnus with his swimming strokes.
    After that, Dad cooked a big breakfast: piles of pancakes and toast and bacon. We ate outside, at a table on the patio, with the cove glinting and sparkling in front of us.
    Then, we made a find: a shed full of interesting stuff at the bottom of the garden. There was a big folded bit of fishing net, the strong kind that fishing boats drag behind them, and there were coils of rope and tins with weird names on them like ‘Bloodworms’, which Dad said were fishing bait. There were also some old magazines and old flowerpots, beach balls, a Frisbee and a cricket set.
    I was starting to feel that maybe this holiday wasn’t doomed, that maybe it would be good, when we heard the sound of a car coming down the lane. A car loaded up with holiday stuff, and heading straight for the pale blue cottage.
    The car stopped and the doors opened. A mum got out, and a dad. And . . .
    Oh no.
    A girl. She was Magnus-sized, and was wearing a sticky-out princess dress, a tiara, and small stout shoes. She came thudding straight out of the car and down to the beach, bellowing, ‘Princess Splishy-Splashy! Where are you? It’s me, Claudia. I’m back!’
    She stood there bellowing for at least two minutes, and for someone so short, she had a very big bellow. Then, she folded her arms, turned, spotted me and Magnus in our garden, and came stomping over, frowning.
    â€˜Have
you
seen Princess Splishy-Splashy?’ she said.
    * * *
    Princess