Michael roared with laughter; the dogs, however, did not reveal any displeasure. It appeared he had stuck some soft sticky candies on the dogs’ posterior teeth. It was incomprehensible how they allowed him to do that.
This silent concert made everybody else laugh, too. Michael suggested:
«Let’s walk the dogs down the street to frighten passersby – nobody will understand what’s happened to them. The candies will take five minutes to melt, and then we’ll stick in some more…»
Nobody agreed, however, and the answer was unanimous – to leave the dogs in peace.
Breakfast was ready. The dining room was waiting for guests, and the company started eating up homemade buns and rolls, baked in advance by farsighted parents.
The sun burst free of the mountains’ grip, and began its visible stalking along the dome of the sky. Morning coolness was gradually transforming into daytime heat. It was better to go to the sea before the sun rose high.
From the mountain one could watch dozens of boats that combined leisure and morning fishing. They were one to two miles off-shore. One could even see rods, and caught fish, which sparkled in the sun near some fishers.
Chapter 3
Walking through the town, the friends dropped in a shop and bought lots of useful and necessary things – beach mats to lie on the sand, hats, water and fruit. In expectation of swimming in the sea, rest and sunbathing, they went to a far beach at the cape edge of the «Crocodile» mountain.
The trip was not long, and soon they came to the beach. Linda went first into the sea, splashing water on herself.
Michael couldn’t keep from sprinkling her wet back with sand. The sand clung to her body, and she plunged into the sea to wash it off. Having bathed, she began to splash water on her friends, who were cautiously coming into the sea. Wet from Linda’s splashes, the friends all at once plunged into the water. Then they all pounced on Linda and shoved her into the water. Linda, who did not want to get her hair wet, was quite wet now.
After long racing and diving for awhile, the friends decided to play beach volleyball. Their ball was well pumped, and, from time to time, after somebody’s heavy hit, it went into the sea. One of the friends, nearest to the water, had to swim to catch the ball not to allow it to be taken away by the current.
After playing and another long swim in the sea, the friends decided to get a tan. They put straw hats on, lay on their mats, closed their eyes, and let the sun work on them.
The sea was still. Only lightly breaking waves stroked the sand, filling the air with the sounds of splashing water and everlasting sand rustling.
Julia looked at her friends, sprawling on their mats, and decided to swim alone. She missed the sea so much, that she couldn’t lie on the beach for a long time.
Having taken snorkeling equipment out of the bag, Julia went into the sea, put on flippers, mask and snorkel, and swam along a man-made levee, built of big boulders and protruding into the sea for a short distance.
Clean cool morning water made it possible to examine the underwater world in detail. Small crabs and fish were fussing near their shelters, and immediately disappeared at the least danger. Larger specimens were there in deeper waters, and Julia fearlessly swam farther from the shore.
On the rock bottom, covered with swinging drift weeds almost everywhere, Julia could see small clearings of pebbles and sand.
Here, at this depth, crabs were larger, and Julia attempted to catch one of them with her hands. The crab was faster, however, and, in a sideways manner, quickly ran away and hid under a big stone.
Thanks to flippers, mask and snorkel she could not only swim at the distance of ten feet from the bottom, but also have a good look at the underwater world, surrounding her. Fish of every kind, swimming next to her and not in the least afraid of a human being, were iridescent. Colors were bright and rich in comparison with those in the air and, on the land, where they seemed to be their poor copies.
Clean shells, slightly rubbed with drift weeds and sea sand, were real masterpieces, created by nature – the greatest master.
Julia decided to collect some for her friends. Having filled her lungs with air as she was used to, Julia dived to get each shell that took her fancy and put it into the net, fixed to her waistband. Soon her net was full with shells.
Julia felt a bit tired and had already decided to swim back to the shore, when some unfamiliar voice called her:
«Come to us!»
Julia looked around, but saw nobody nearby. She thought she was hearing things and swam fast to the shore.
Swimming was becoming more and more difficult for Julia; her arms and legs became heavy. Julia thought that she spent too much time in the water for the first time and got tired. She wasn’t by the sea for a long time – she studied in another town, far from her home.
Julia turned over on her back to rest on the water.
The shore was not far, only about five hundred feet. She spread out her arms, slightly threw back her head into the water, and relaxed to gather strength.
At first the rest was pleasant. Julia closed her eyes to protect them from the bright sun, and enjoyed bobbing slowly on the small waves.
Suddenly, her body started slowly sinking into the sea, against her will. She could not cry – the water had already covered her face. Her friends were baking in the sun behind the man-made levee, and nobody saw her. Soon she heard the same voice. It calmed her:
«Don’t worry, you’ll be OK!»
Her sinking was gradually quickening. The sun turned into a small spot, hardly seen through the water above her, and, in an instant, disappeared at all. Her body was swung around and dragged into the depths at a great pace.
Julia was rushing along under the water with the speed of an express train. Fish, like fearful birds, scattered different ways. Larger fish and sea animals swerved to avoid collision.
Her travel was going on above a steep slope, ending abruptly into a fathomless pit. She was sweeping past ship and plane wrecks, which caught hold of the eroded rocky surface of the slope. Julia had no time to descry smaller details of the constructions on the slope.
Her physical state was very strange – she could see, but her body did not feel anything. Moving was fast and painless.
The first fear ceased, and Julia could already examine her surroundings more attentively. The slope ended, but her fall into a fathomless pit was going on.
Lower, the walls of the pit were upright and smooth, with rare bushes of underwater plants, which, by a miracle, caught hold of small hollows or cracks to survive.
Fish and sea animals she met on her way seemed to be brought here from some fantasy novel.
A huge squid, of the size of a carriage, was also plunging into the depth nearby. It was a slow and grand plunging – at least so it seemed to Julia. A sheet of water it let out sharply speeded its motion, tentacles stretched along its body, and the squid was plunging, in splendid solitude, until its motion was slowed down again. Then the whole process was repeated.
Some fish glowed in the darkness; others had only one or several lights, which twinkled in bottomless depths. It would seem amusing to Julia if she weren’t carried past one such visible light. It appeared the light was over a huge large-toothed mouth with prodigious lower jaw, decorated with several rows of sharp large teeth, which stuck out every way. The monster’s body was so long that Julia didn’t see its end. It was lost in the terrifying darkness of this underwater bottomless abyss.
Light did not filter through the water any more, and she was moving in full darkness. At last, the dragging down was over. It was the bottom of the abyss. Suddenly,