The Voice in the Rocks
intermediateadventure206 words
The tide is rising fast, Mira's phone has no signal, and someone below the cliff is calling for help.
Mira was halfway down the cliff path when she heard the voice.
'Help! Help me!'
She stopped. The tide was coming in fast, and the little beach below was already half underwater. While she was searching the rocks with her eyes, the voice called again, weaker this time. It seemed to come from a dark gap near the waterline.
That morning, while she was buying bread in the village, she had noticed a handwritten poster on the shop door. She hadn't read it. She was thinking about the beach, and the weather, and the sandwich in her bag.
Now she was climbing over wet stones while the waves were crashing around her ankles. Her phone had no signal. 'I'm coming!' she shouted. 'Keep talking!'
'Help! Help me!' the voice answered. Then, strangely: 'Who's a good boy?'
Mira froze. She was reaching into the gap when something grey burst out of it, flapped twice and landed on her shoulder. A parrot. A soaked, angry, very talkative parrot.
She was walking back into the village an hour later, wet to the knees, when she saw the poster again. LOST: GREY PARROT. NAME: PEPPER. SAYS 'HELP' WHEN BORED.
Pepper bit her ear, gently, as if to say thank you.