The Mermaid's Turtle Friend

Marina, a cheerful mermaid with long wavy turquoise hair and a shimmering emerald-green tail, lives deep under the sparkling ocean. One sunny morning, her curiosity leads her beyond her usual coral reef, where she meets Shellby, an old sea turtle with a weathered olive-green shell and gentle amber eyes. Shellby's memory is full of the ocean's past, and the two quickly become friends. She shares stories of ancient reefs brighter than a rainbow and of a secret garden hidden in a cave beyond the reef, a place she can no longer reach on her own.

When Shellby admits she is too old to find the garden again, Marina offers to help, and together they set off through schools of silver fish, swaying sea grass, and tall kelp forests. Inside the cave, they find not the colorful place Shellby remembers but a tangle of dull, grey plants that have been forgotten. Marina feels nervous but brave, and the two friends begin to work, clearing away dead leaves, fanning fresh water over the roots, and carrying the surviving plants into a beam of sunlight. The tale, written by Jane MEADOW, can be read on Kids Tale Book.