Silence Ink

The tide is turning.

Terence clatters down the cliff steps.

He places the chocolate box on the sand, and sits down beside it.

Wake up, slug! says Terence.

The slug remains torpid.

Maybe Gaius is right, says Terence. I'll look for another one. You wait here.

He follows the narrow stretch of sand between the rocks and the waves, which are receding.

But only on average.

Wuuuush! That was a big one.

There is froth in a lacy line showing where the wave had got up to.

But Terence doesn't think to look back.

So he doesn't see the sea slug floating off on its journey.

At some point the sea slug will wake up, hungry for algae.

Realise its circumstances.

And despair.

Gaius comes down the steps, unaware of what's happened.

Terence! calls Gaius.

Look! cries Terence. Froth slippers!

He has gathered heaps of froth on his toes.

Very nice, says Gaius. Where is the sea slug?

I put it down on the sand, says Terence. I'm looking for another one.

Where? asks Gaius. 

Everywhere, says Terence.

Gaius scans the near environs.

No chocolate box. No sleeping sea slug.

He looks out to sea.

Is it or isn't it?

A speck in the distance. 

It may have floated away, says Gaius. Most unfortunate.

Yay! says Terence.

Not yay, says Gaius. I blame myself however. Now, let us look for the right kind of sea slug. And no nonsense about sending it off with a message.

Okay, says Terence.

He kicks off his froth slippers, and starts poking in crevices.

Here's one! It's spotty! 

Gaius hurries over, hoping the spots might be copepods, and the slug an elysia.

But no, Terence has found an aplysia fasciata.

Dark brown. Mottled. Two oral tentacles and two rhinopores in the front of the neck. Eyes in front of the rhinopores. A mantle covering its gills and internal organs. Under the mantle, a delicate shell, inside which is the ink gland

Gaius resolves not to tell Terence about the ink gland.