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I wrote this story for the Houston Public Library’s writing prompt, “If you met a shark in the wild, what would you do?” I hope you like it!

“Let’s go!” Ruchika, my cousin squeals. We have just arrived at the beach and I can’t wait to lounge in one of the chairs with a book, calmly watching the waves. “Uh uh!” my mom, Amruta says. “We need to unpack our bags and settle into our beach house first. Then you all can go play.” A collective sigh comes from us and we burst out laughing. I’m here with my cousins, Aadya, Ruchika, and Kavya. It’s been a long time since we’ve last been together, so when we met at the first hotel, we hugged each other and jumped with joy. Our journey has been long, but so so fun! “Come on now, let’s go to our cabins” my mom’s voice comes, jolting me out of my memory. I hurry after her, but before I go, I make sure to look behind my shoulder and make our sign. I look back just in time to catch my 3 cousins joining their ring finger to their thumb cleanly. We share an excited grin before we go. After changing into my favorite swimsuit, the one with a penguin on it, I hurry out of the cabin as soon as I can and run into Kavya, who’d just come over to check if I was ready. “I love your swimsuit!” Kavya gushes, “I love yours too!” I reply, just as excitedly. Kavya is wearing a light blue swimsuit, with a beautiful peacock on the front. I turn just in time to see Aadya and Ruchika exiting their cabins. Aadya wears a flamingo swimsuit and Ruchika wears a turtle one. We do a group hug. Tara Aunty, Ruchika’s mom, comes out just as we break apart. “It’s like you girls haven’t just seen each other!” she observes. We burst into giggles and skip joyfully to the beach. Once we pick the perfect spot, Sriya Aunty, Kavya’s mom, holds up her bag, filled to the top with unknown things. “I have a surprise for you girls!”  she says. We glance at each other excitedly. What could it be?  Sriya Aunty slowly pulls out a few objects. On first glance, we can’t make them out, but I lean closer and finally I recognize it! My eyes grow as wide as saucers. “Are we going snorkeling?” I blurt out. Sriya Aunty smiles and nods. “ Since you, Ikshita already know how to snorkel, I figured that Kavya, Aadya, and Ruchika can learn from you!” she says brightly. We grab our snorkeling gear and race to the ocean. My cousins catch on quickly and are wowed by the marvelous scenery underwater. When we come up to catch our breaths, I make a suggestion. “Do you want to go into slightly deeper waters?” I ask. Everyone is excited and we decide to do it. We keep our goggles facing down and marvel at the magical underwater background as we swim deeper and deeper in. Suddenly Ruchika nudges me and I look up, a bit annoyed. My annoyance drains away as I see what she saw. We are face to face with a sleeping lemon shark! I pop up out of the water. “Did you see that?” Kavya whispers. We nod, a bit excitedly and a bit nervously. “What do you think we should do?” asks Ruchika anxiously. They all look at me, since I love sharks and know as much as there is about them. “We should just back away slowly” I say. “That way we won’t provoke it”. Making a silent agreement, we dive back underwater and swim back to the beach. When I come out of the water, I see my cousins grinning ear to ear. “That was so cool!” Aadya exclaims, “I can’t believe that we came face to face with a shark!” I can’t help myself, I start grinning too. We rush up to our towel and start telling our moms about the shark encounter we had. “Well that certainly sounds like a lot of fun!” says Chaaya Aunty, Aadya’s mom, “How about you do some more research and maybe start a club at school?” We nod enthusiastically and go back to our cabin, happily talking all the way there.

I hope you enjoyed this. What would you do if you met a shark in the wild?