Mei Makes a Door for the Sea

"Plip." A small silver drop fell into the round pool and made a perfect ring. Mei leaned over the edge with her nose twitching. Mei was a fox cub with rust-red fur, four quick paws, and a question for everything she saw. The sand was still warm from the day, and the moon was up early, thin and silver.

This was her pool, the little round one the sea left behind when it went out. Mina called it a tide pool. "The sea leaves a pocket of itself behind," Mina said, "and the pocket waits for the sea to come back."

In the pocket lived a small pink anemone. Mei liked to say the word out loud, slowly: a-NEM-o-nee. It was a flower that had decided a garden was too dull, so it grew in the sea instead. When the pool was happy, the anemone opened into soft pink petals that waved in the water. When the pool was not happy, it pulled itself in tight as a button.

It was a small pool, her pool. A fox could jump across it in one jump. Usually it smelled of salt and warm seaweed, and little silver fish went zip-zip between the stones. Mei lay on the warm sand and told the pool about her day, and sometimes she whispered, "Little pool, little pool, keep your shine."

Tonight the anemone was a tight pink button. Mei's tail went still. She felt wobbly inside. "Mina," she called. "Mina, my flower has gone small."

Mina came padding over the sand, tall and warm, her tail sweeping a smooth line behind her. "The tide hasn't visited for two nights," she said. "Look. Seaweed has drifted over the pool like a wet green scarf."

It was true. Long ribbons of brown seaweed lay across the water, heavy and salty, hiding the anemone from the moon. "Can I help it?" Mei asked. "Can I make it open?" Mina nuzzled her ear. "You can try," she said. "I'll sit right here."

So Mei tried the first thing. She hooked her paws into the seaweed and pulled. It came up in one long slippery ribbon and flopped right back down with a splat, on top of the pool. "Sploosh," said the water. The anemone stayed a button. Mei's ears went flat.

"Little pool, little pool, keep your shine," she whispered, and she tried the next thing.

The pool must need more water, she thought. Foxes can't carry buckets, so Mei filled her mouth at the edge of the sea and trotted back along the sand. But her mouth was small and the path was long, and by the time she got there she had swallowed nearly all of it. "Pfft," she said, and one sad drop landed in the pool. Mina hid her smile behind her tail.

So Mei tried the third thing. She would dig a little path, a channel, so the sea could walk in by itself. Her front paws went fast and scritchy, flinging sand out behind her. But the sea was far away, and the sand kept sliding back, softly and kindly, filling her ditch as fast as she dug it. Mei sat down.

Her paws were sandy, her mouth was salty, and her flower was still a button. "I'm too little," she said. "The pool is too big, and I'm too little."

Mina sat down beside her and tucked her warm side up against Mei's. "Let's listen," she said. So they listened.

The sand was cool now. The light was turning blue and soft, the way it does when the day lets go and the night takes over.

Out past the moon path, deep and round, a hum rolled over the water. It sounded like someone humming with their mouth closed, one slow note after another. It was the whale, humming the tide along.

"What's it saying?" Mei whispered. "It's saying the water is turning," said Mina. "It's saying the sea is coming in. Feel the wind?"

Mei lifted her nose. The wind had changed. It came from the sea now, cool and briny, which is a word for salty like the sea, and it smelled of salt and warm seaweed and lifted the fur along her back. Then she saw something. A thin silver line at the low edge of the pool, sliding in, stopping, sliding in again. The sea was trying to find its way. The seaweed was in the way.

"Oh!" said Mei. "It doesn't need more water. It needs a door."

So she stopped pulling and started rolling. She rolled the seaweed up like a wet green rug and pushed it onto the warm sand, out of the way. It made a soft flumph, flumph. Then she nudged the pebbles from the low edge, one by one, with her nose. Plink. Plonk. Plink.

"Little pool, little pool, keep your shine," she whispered.

The water came. It slipped through the little gap she had cleared, thin as a ribbon, then wider, then wider still, silver and shining with moonlight all over it. It filled the pool right up to the brim and spilled over the edge, and the pool made a happy sound. Glug, glug, hush.

And the anemone opened. One petal, then five, then a whole soft pink flower, waving in the new water. Mei put her nose down close, so close her whiskers got wet. The anemone waved back at her. She was almost sure of it. "A-NEM-o-nee," she said, slowly, the way she liked to. "Hello again."

A small silver fish zipped back into the pool, and another after it. A shrimp walked carefully over a stone on its little feet. Then a crab came scuttling sideways to see what all the splashing was about. One of its claws was bigger than the other, so it couldn't walk straight. It walked in a circle. Then it walked in another circle. Mei giggled so much her tail went wobbly.

"You did it," said Mina. "You didn't make the sea come. You made a door for it." Mei looked at her little pool, round and silver and full, with a pink flower waving in the middle of it.

"It's small," said Mei. "Yes," said Mina. "And look at it shine."

The whale hummed again, further away now, slower and softer. The waves folded onto the sand, shhh, shhh, shhh, hushing the whole long shore.

Mina curled her warm tail around Mei, and they watched the moon lay its silver path all the way out to the humming. The breeze smelled of salt, the sand was still warm, and everything felt soft and slow. Far off, the whale hummed once more, so low it was more like a feeling than a sound.

"Little pool, little pool, keep your shine," Mei whispered one last time. It came out mostly as breathing.

The tide stayed, and the anemone swayed, and the seaweed slept on the warm sand. Mei's eyes grew heavy. The moon shone down on one small round pool, and it shone like a bright button right in the middle of the dark.