The Rock Pool

Rosie found the rock pool at the end of the afternoon, when the tide had gone out as far as it was going to go, and the beach was all wet sand and rocks and the smell of seaweed.

It was about the size of a bath, tucked between two rocks, and it was so still and so clear that at first she thought it was empty.

It was not empty.

She knelt on the rock at the edge. It was warm from the sun. She put her hands on either side and leaned over and looked, and the pool looked back.

There was weed at the bottom, red and green, moving slightly, though nothing was moving it. There was a fish. A tiny brown one, no longer than her little finger, so still she thought it was a stick, until it had gone from one side of the pool to the other without seeming to move at all.

And there was a crab.

He was under a ledge of rock, in the shadow, and only a bit of him showed. One claw. A bit of shell, greenish brown, like a wet pebble. Two eyes on stalks, which were looking at her.

“Hello,” said Rosie.

The crab did not come out.

Her mum was up the beach, on the towel, with her hat over her face. Her dad was somewhere with the bucket. Out in the bay the fishing boats sat, small and red and blue, hardly moving. There was nowhere Rosie needed to be.

So she waited.

The fish came back across the pool. The sun was lower now, and it came in sideways and made the whole pool gold, so that the weed was gold, and the sand was gold, and the little fish, going by again, was a gold fish for a moment, and then brown.

And the crab came out.

Sideways, the way crabs do, one leg at a time, with a small pause between each one, as if he was thinking about it. He was bigger than she had thought. Not big. But bigger. His shell had a bit of weed growing on it, like a hat. His eyes went up on their stalks and looked at her, and she kept perfectly still.

He went across the bottom of the pool to a stone, and put a claw on it, and thought about it, and took the claw off again.

Then he went back to the middle, and stopped, and settled himself into the sand with a small wriggle, as if he was getting comfortable, and stayed there, in the gold, with his eyes up, looking at nothing.

Rosie let out her breath. She had not known she was holding it.

“Rosie!” That was Dad, from further up. “Tide’s turning!”

The water at the edge of the sand had crept up while she was not watching, and the first wave that came in went further than the one before. In an hour the rocks would be under, and the pool would be part of the sea again, and the crab, and the fish, and the gold.

“Bye,” she said to the crab.

The crab did not say anything. But one eye turned, on its stalk, and followed her as she got up.

She walked back up the sand with her shadow going out long in front of her. Dad had the bucket, which had nothing in it, which was the right amount. The boats had lights on now, tiny ones, and the sky behind them was pink at the bottom.

That night the bed in the holiday house had sand in it. Just a bit, down by her feet.

She did not mind. She lay and listened to the sea, which was in the room, somehow, through the open window, coming and going, coming and going.

Somewhere out there the tide was over the rocks. The pool was gone. The crab was under his ledge, in the dark, with the whole sea over him, going about his business.

He would be there tomorrow. The pool would come back. The tide always gave it back.

Coming and going. Coming and going.

Rosie slept.