The Creeping Kelp Read Online Free Page A

on a different beach and frying.
    But that’s not the point!
    If they’d gone to Lanzarote she’d have been able to spend days telling the others in the Hair Salon about the trip—about the toned waiters and the tight butts in swimsuits, about the posh nights out in expensive lounges. Now what was she going to say?
    He took me to Dorset and all I got was this lousy tan?
    “Denise Shaw is in Mallorca. Have you any idea how affronted I’m going to be when she asks where we went? Have you any idea how much of her crap I’m going to have to put up with?”
    He’d stopped listening; his newspaper raised like a bulwark between them. But she wasn’t ready to stop venting yet—she might not be for quite some time. She turned her ire towards the sea, looking for their children.
    They’ll be doing something I can shout at them for. I need a good shout.
    Their youngest, Mary, paddled around in the shallows some twenty yards away, splashing merrily and singing a song that was almost recognisable as something she’d recently heard on the radio. Zane was further out, pretending to swim, hanging around at the fringe of a group of older boys and trying to get noticed. She sighed as she realised there was nothing to find fault with.
    Well that’s just no fun at all.
    She looked along the length of the beach. Although it was a warm, indeed very warm day, and the beach was golden, there were relatively few people around; some thirty in total on the beach itself, and the same number again, mostly children, in the water trying to get away from the heat. Further out, two small yachts tacked and veered in what little breeze they could grab, but here on the sand it was almost oppressively calm and balmy. If she hadn’t been quite so keen on a shouting match, she might even start enjoying herself. But the thought of Denise Shaw crowing about Mallorca from now until Christmas was just too much to bear.
    Once again, she found her thoughts straying to exotic shores, places where the beaches were packed and there were many more opportunities to pick up brownie points back at the salon. She was so lost in reverie that she didn’t notice when the splashing from nearby took on a frantic tone, and she only looked up when a young voice rose in a high scream.
    Out on the horizon one of the yachts she’d watched earlier upended, the prow pointing straight up before it vanished without a splash. The other seemed to be covered in writhing black snakes. Even as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing, the small vessel imploded, crushed to kindling and torn canvas within seconds.
    Another scream brought her attention closer to shore.
    The sea... it’s alive.  
    The surface frothed and swelled in a patch the size of a football field, as if something pushed the water upwards from below. She saw Mary standing just at the water’s edge, pointing at a spot further out. Where there had been a group of boys a minute before, now there was only a foaming patch of water. Something dark surged just below the surface.
    Shark? Can’t be.
    As quickly as it had started, the sea fell calm. A sudden quiet fell all around them. Maggie realised there were fewer children in the water now—a lot fewer children. All along the shore, concerned parents started to head for the waterline.
    Zane?
    Maggie stood, knocking over her chair, almost falling into Dave’s arms as he too rose awkwardly from the depths of the chair.  His newspaper fell to the sand unnoticed as they both looked out onto the calm patch of sea.
    “Zane!” she shouted. Then the two of them were running headlong down the beach, kicking sand behind them, shouting at the top of their voices. “Zane Welsh,” she yelled. “You get out of that water this instant.”
    But she already knew something bad had happened. There was no sign of Zane... of any of the boys. As they got closer she saw that Mary stood, wide-eyed, thumb in her mouth, looking down at something the waves had washed in. She