Antoine looked out of the window of his new flat above the chip shop, staring at the sea and the beach and the mist and the sky with a feeling of ever so slight wistfulness. It was nice having running water and a kitchen and a fridge and a bed that wasn’t filled with sand, but sometimes he missed his old cave.
He missed the mermaid. He missed the sounds of the sea. He missed the campfire. He even missed the crabs occasionally, sometimes, maybe.
“Your new flat’s the best flat ever, Dad,” Claire said, eating her second portion of chips of the day already and the day wasn’t even finished yet by far. “So much nicer than that stinky old cave. There’s not even any gulls stealing our chips!”
“And it’s right next to an arcade!” Daniel said, as he counted out various 2 and 10 pence pieces from the pint glass filled with coins Antoine had forgotten to hide before they came round today.
“And right next to another, slightly more expensive, arcade!” said Ethel, as she counted out the 20s and 50s and pounds, piling them all up into nicely precarious towers all over the table. “We only need another 7,000 prize tickets and we can win something that almost looks like a pokemon but which isn’t a pokemon at all.”
“It’s something even better than a pokemon!” said Daniel, his eyes wide with absolutely astounded wonder that such a thing could exist.
“And it’s opposite the bookshop,” said Tina, running her fingers over the gold embossed lettering on the cover of the book she’d just bought. Not that gold embossed lettering was important, of course. Books were all about the content, and it was entirely coincidental that the book she’d really wanted for months just happened to have gold embossed lettering on the cover. But they felt so nice. And looked amazing.
“I do kind of miss all those naughty crabs, though,” Daniel said.
“Me too,” Antoine agreed.
“Yeah, those crabs were great,” said Ethel.
“The way they’d scuttle about all over everything,” Tina said.
“And pinch us with their claws!” Daniel said.
“I don’t miss them at all,” Claire said. “We all hated those horrible little crabs and you all know it! Don’t even try and pretend we didn’t because we did. All of us.”
“I didn’t,” said Antoine, weakly.
“You did, Dad,” Claire said. “You hated them the most out of any of us!”
And that was that. Claire was right and they knew it and they hated it. So no one ever mentioned the crabs ever again.
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Notes:
1. Written on August 17th, 2024
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