It was a beautiful day. Patricia and Olive were swimming in the river.
“Let’s see who can stay underwater the longest,” said Patricia. Olive knew she could not win, but they both dived in, nevertheless.
A little while later, Olive came up to breathe in air. ‘Where is Patricia?’ she wondered, when she did not see her friend come up for air. Olive searched everywhere, where they had been swimming, but Patricia was nowhere to be seen!
Just then, something tugged at Olive’s feet under water. And suddenly, she got pulled in with great speed! She knew that the river was deep, but this was just too deep. She could feel herself being pulled under water, down and down.
Suddenly, everything stopped, and Olive was standing on her feet, on the floor of the river, surrounded by beautiful plants and fish. She was surprised that she could breathe without difficulty!
Patricia was right in front of her, but she was tied up with water plants. And just behind her sat the biggest, fattest monster that looked like an octopus with the head of a crocodile! Its mouth had long sharp teeth and its tentacles ended in crooked nails.
“Let my friend go!” cried Olive.
“Not before you get me the most valuable thing in the world,” roared the crocodile-octopus! “It has to be something that I will love,” he added.
Olive had no idea what he wanted. But she had to find out a way to save her friend. She swam to the shore thinking hard. ‘What can that monster love?’ The monster had given her only five hours before he would eat Patricia.
Pearls, jewellery, video games, shoes, phone… Olive took whatever she could find. She could not decide what the monster would love.
She went back quickly and threw all the things in front of the monster. “No! No! Not these ones,” he kept rejecting everything one by one. Olive’s heart sank!
“What’s this?” suddenly asked the monster. He was holding Olive’s crystal ball. When the ball was shaken, the tiny fairy sang and danced, while small snowflakes floated around in the globe.
The monster got so busy shaking it and watching the snowflakes that he never realised when Olive quietly freed Patricia and both swam away to safety!
On a quiet night, one can still hear the tiny fairy singing from deep under the river!
