Young Storykeeper Volume III

268 | STORYKEEPERS VOLUME III AGE TWELVE | 269
BENEATH THE SURFACE
The family arrived at Hook lighthouse in
Wexford, Ireland to see that it was closed
for the summer. Sophie and Lucas were ten
year old twins and arrived with their mum,
Jenny. The sun had not yet set so Jenny
looked around and found a secret, hidden
way to get in. Sophie wasn’t keen but gave
in after a lot of convincing.
They walked to the top of the lighthouse,
which took a very long time. Jenny at the
front, Lucas in the middle and Sophie, who
still felt uncomfortable, coming up the rear.
It was dark at the top of the tower. Jenny
turned on the torch to reveal a large man
with a beard dangling from his chin. He was
wearing oversized overalls and standing at
the other side of the lantern. They all knew
they shouldn’t be there, so they ran.
Tumbling down the staircase, Jenny
pushed the children out of the way to save
herself. At the exit, Sophie tripped and fell
into the water. She fell unconscious with
the sudden cold. When she woke, Lucas,
dripping with water, stood over her and
when she looked over her shoulder, there
was another head bobbing out of the water.
Lucas introduced Sophie to Milly. Milly
was a mermaid and also the princess of the
mermaid kingdom below the lighthouse. Milly
had the most gorgeous purple fluorescent tail
that sparkled in the sun. She really wanted
to introduce them to her family, so she gave
them a special plant to help them breathe
underwater. The palace was grand, with a
path of shells leading to it and tall bushes of
seaweed and coral. It was made from parts
of the many shipwrecks that had been found
nearby.
Jack was the king of the kingdom and the
father of Milly and her sister Olivia. His wife
had died years before. She was human and
it hurt Jack dreadfully to see anything that
reminded him of her. Sophie looked just like
her - he couldn’t stand to even look at her.
The twins were banished to the dungeon
beneath the palace.
The mermaid sisters helped them
escape by shoveling their way through the
sand. They couldn’t understand why their
father had done this, as they were never told
about their mother, so they confronted him.
At first, he was angry, but then broke down.
He knew it was time to tell the truth. He told
his daughters all about their mother and how
she died of a terrible illness.
Jack still looked as though he was
hiding something. The king kept apologising
to Sophie and Lucas, but they were still
confused. Jack had some more explaining
to do. He admitted that he was the man in
the lighthouse and that he also owned it. He
chased them away because it was such a
private place to him and his wife.
The mermaid royal family decided
that it was only fair to let the children stay
with them since their mother wasn’t very
responsible and seemed like she never ever
wanted to come back to the place where
she had almost been caught and could have
been arrested.
It was now Sophie and Lucas’s job to
control and organize the tours and visits to
Hook Lighthouse. You may think that they
are too young, but you would be surprised at
how mature they are. The twins still visit the
mer-kingdom regularly and are far happier
with their new friends than they ever were
with their mother.
Emma Brown
Co Antrim
HIDDEN
“Finally.”
Sophie had thought of this moment for
years, her brown hair blowing in the wind.
She thought she had been orphaned when
she was a baby and had been brought up
miles away from this place.
Sophie had received an address to the
lighthouse a few years before, but hadn’t
wanted to go, until now. She had brought
a backpack filled with some supplies and
for some unknown reason, a UV light. She
stared at the dull grey lighthouse to find
it surrounded by overgrown flowers and
weeds. She had to crawl through them to
get to the door. She slowly knocked on it,
doubting that anyone lived there. The door
was unlocked so it creaked open when
she knocked. Behind the door revealed a
small rundown room, covered in cobwebs
and dust. She was about to leave, thinking
it was the wrong place, when a huge gust
of wind swept her body into the room and
slammed the door behind her. She decided
to carry on surveying the room and spied a
stone staircase. Sophie crept up the stairs
and found an old study that looked in better
shape than the floor below.
Sophie spotted some journals and
went to take a look. She flicked through the
pages of a hardback, finding a page on a
plan of getting rid of plastic by 2032. “It is
2032,” she whispered. “How long have they
been gone?” She searched through another
journal and found it was a diary they kept for
their studies as marine biologists.
The last entry was four years ago, it
read:
Today Larry and I are going out near the
kelp to find animals that might be injured.
We have to go out the back way as we have
a creaking issue with our front door. It’s
getting quite bad, so I think we’ll need to call
Uma and Vex to help with that big problem.
I’ll have to make a note of that.
Sophie found it weird that the entry was
not the same font but then after ignoring it
for a bit, she worked out what it secretly said,
Look at back a secret use UV light.
Sophie searched the back of the diary
and got out her UV light. What she found
was an address and a note.
We’re moving, people are acting
violently around us, here’s an address to
where we live now: 202 Grosvenor Road,
Dublin 10.
A week later Sophie stared at the
house her birth parents were now living in.
The door was yellow and the house was a
nice beige. When she stepped on the porch
she sighed and thought, This is it. She rang
the doorbell and heard soft footsteps. A
lady in her sixties was at the door and she
had the same green eyes as Sophie. Soon
a man around the same age as the woman
came into view.
“Mum, Dad - is it you?”
Keira Ho
Co Dublin
NINE
When I was nine, I walked the cliff path with
my gran.
Eight Friesian cows chewed the cud and
munched the grass.
Seven mermaids watched us as we made
our way along the winding path.
Six in the morning, the beach, the waves,
the periwinkles belonged to us.
Five gulls flew above our heads as we
explored the rocks and pools.
Four crabs were the beginning of a story I
told of the mighty Crab King defending his
empire.
Three sets of footprints on the sand, Gran,
my sister and I.
Two juicy oranges were our feast as we sat
on rocks spotting pirate ships on the horizon.
One watchful lighthouse guided us back to
our cottage in Ballycotton.
No more summer days with gran, but our
adventures together help me sleep.
Róisín Martin
Co. Cork