Hannah on Holiday

 by

Jonathan Shipton

Hannah was always first onto the beach. She was that kind of girl.

Full speed ahead.   

Places to go.

Things to do.

Hannah’s big sister Amanda was reading in bed, her brother Dylan was watching TV and the Grown ups were lazing around finishing off their toast and marmalade.

There had been a big storm the night before. It had been so exciting - all those giant waves roaring up the beach and hurling themselves against the sea wall. Hannah and Amanda had got soaked!

Now the sea was calm and peaceful but there was sand and pebbles and seaweed all over the road and on the pavement. There was even a starfish lying in the gutter. Hannah picked it up, popped it in her bucket and hurried down the iron steps.

The tide was on its way out.

‘Good’ thought Hannah. ‘I think I’ll make a really good castle.’ She walked along looking for a good place to start digging.

Soon she found the perfect spot and she knelt down and began digging the moat and piling up the sand.

When it was high enough she began smoothing the rough mound into a castle  shape. Then it was time to build the towers. Hannah had discovered a clever way of getting handfuls of very wet sand and dribbling it down to make really tall and pointy towers.

Half an hour later she was finished. She stood back to admire her handiwork. There were inner walls and outer walls and doors and windows and six towers and a secret tunnel and a drawbridge. It was definitely the best castle she had made this holiday. She couldn’t wait to show her sister! All she needed to finish it off were a few shells.  She picked up her bucket and then she noticed the poor starfish. ‘Oh dear’, muttered Hannah. ‘I’d forgotten all about you! I’d better find you a new home.’ She walked over to the rocks and carefully tipped the starfish into a nice deep pool. Then she wandered off to look for shells.

Suddenly she heard a noise. It sounded like someone crying.

It sounded a bit like her baby brother. ‘Bother!’ thought Hannah, ‘the little pest must have followed me!’ She looked around but the beach was quite empty. ‘Must have been a seagull’; thought Hannah and she carried on looking for shells.

Then out of the corner of her eye she spotted something moving, It was right at the far end of the beach where she wasn’t supposed to go because part of the cliff was falling down. ‘Perhaps it’s a baby seal’ she thought excitedly and she started running.

Hannah had never seen anything like it. It was about the size of a small dog and the shape of a guinea pig . It had long green silky hair that trailed over the wet sand. Hannah watched as it shuffled it’s way slowly down the beach towards her.  Every so often it would stop and lift it’s little snout towards the sky  and the sound that it made was the saddest loneliest sound Hannah had ever heard in her life.

‘Owww. Owww.’

She waited as still as a statue until it was so close she could have reached out and touched it.

 ‘Hello?’  said Hannah.  The poor animal was so startled that it leapt up into the air, did a somersault and landed flat on its back.

For a few minutes the creature didn’t move. It just lay there breathing quietly. Then it rolled over and shook itself.  Suddenly two large round eyes and a pink nose popped out from behind the curtain of hair.

‘Hello?’ said Hannah in her softest, kindest voice. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you.’

The little pink nose twitched nervously.  Then the crying started again.

‘It’s alright’, said Hannah. ‘There’s no need to be frightened.’

She walked over to the unhappy animal and very gently laid her hand on its silky back.

‘I’m Hannah’, said Hannah. What’s your name?’

The creature muttered something that Hannah couldn’t hear.

So she bent down and carefully put her ear where she thought its mouth ought to be.

‘Bernie’ said the animal in a low breathy voice.

‘O’ said Hannah ‘That’s a nice name.’

Bernie  grunted happily. No one had ever told him he had a nice name before.

Then his head disappeared back into his hair and he started shuffling up the beach again.

Hannah walked along beside him.

‘What are you doing Bernie?’ she asked

“Sweeping and brushing.’ sighed Bernie ‘Trying to keep the place clean.’

‘Oh’ said Hannah admiringly ‘It looks.., very nice.’

‘No it doesn’t.’ said Bernie tearfully. ‘Look at all that mess.’

Hannah looked where Bernie was pointing and it was true. There were piles of  rubbish lying all over the sand - plastic bags, old tyres, rusty tins, lollipop sticks, sweet wrappers, hamburger boxes, empty cigarette packets, broken bottles.

‘It gets worse and worse every day ,’ Sighed Bernie. ‘I can’t keep up with it. What am I going to do? How am I going to finish in time?

‘Well’, said Hannah ‘Could I help?’

Bernie looked up. ‘You?’ he said.

Hannah nodded. ‘Yes. I could pick stuff up and put it in the rubbish bins.’ ‘Really?’ said Bernie delightedly. ‘Well let’s get going then!’

So they did.

Hannah raced over the sand scooping up rubbish in her bucket and emptying it into bins.  Bernie shuffled along behind her, sweeping the sand into nice wavy lines,

They worked very hard and at long last it was finished.

But only just in time.

Hannah had just thrown the last plastic bottle into the bin when they heard the

sound of approaching voices.

‘Time to go!’ said Bernie shaking the sand out of his fur. Thank you very much Hannah. You were brilliant!’

He turned away and started snuffling down towards the sea.

 Hannah felt a little bit sad.

She didn’t want her new friend to go away.

Bernie turned around for a last wave; but when he saw how unhappy she looked, he came scurrying back and gave her a quick furry hug.

She felt much better after that and when he said ‘See you another day?’ she felt quite cheerful.

She stood and watched as Bernie disappeared back into the water.

Then suddenly she remembered her castle. She picked up the bucket of shells and wandered back to the other end of the beach.

When she got there, Hannah couldn’t believe her eyes!

Her sandcastle had completely disappeared! There wasn’t a wall or a tower left standing.

Where the castle had been, all the sand had been swept into beautiful wavy lines...

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