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!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLet\u2019s go!\u201d Ruchika, my cousin squeals. We have just arrived at the beach and I can\u2019t wait to lounge in one of the chairs with a book, calmly watching the waves. \u201cUh uh!\u201d my mom, Amruta says. \u201cWe need to unpack our bags and settle into our beach house first. Then you all can go play.\u201d A collective sigh comes from us and we burst out laughing. I\u2019m here with my cousins, Aadya, Ruchika, and Kavya. It\u2019s been a long time since we\u2019ve 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! \u201cCome on now, let\u2019s go to our cabins\u201d my mom\u2019s 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\u2019d just come over to check if I was ready. \u201cI love your swimsuit!\u201d Kavya gushes, \u201cI love yours too!\u201d 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\u2019s mom, comes out just as we break apart. \u201cIt\u2019s like you girls haven\u2019t just seen each other!\u201d she observes. We burst into giggles and skip joyfully to the beach. Once we pick the perfect spot, Sriya Aunty, Kavya\u2019s mom, holds up her bag, filled to the top with unknown things. \u201cI have a surprise for you girls!\u201d\u00a0 she says. We glance at each other excitedly. What could it be? <\/em>\u00a0Sriya Aunty slowly pulls out a few objects. On first glance, we can\u2019t make them out, but I lean closer and finally I recognize it! My eyes grow as wide as saucers. \u201cAre we going snorkeling?\u201d I blurt out. Sriya Aunty smiles and nods. \u201c Since you, Ikshita already know how to snorkel, I figured that Kavya, Aadya, and Ruchika can learn from you!\u201d 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. \u201cDo you want to go into slightly deeper waters?\u201d 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. \u201cDid you see that?\u201d Kavya whispers. We nod, a bit excitedly and a bit nervously. \u201cWhat do you think we should do?\u201d asks Ruchika anxiously. They all look at me, since I love sharks and know as much as there is about them. \u201cWe should just back away slowly\u201d I say. \u201cThat way we won\u2019t provoke it\u201d. 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. \u201cThat was so cool!\u201d Aadya exclaims, \u201cI can\u2019t believe that we came face to face with a shark!\u201d I can\u2019t help myself, I start grinning too. We rush up to our towel and start telling our moms about the shark encounter we had. \u201cWell that certainly sounds like a lot of fun!\u201d says Chaaya Aunty, Aadya\u2019s mom, \u201cHow about you do some more research and maybe start a club at school?\u201d We nod enthusiastically and go back to our cabin, happily talking all the way there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I hope you enjoyed this. What would you do if you met a shark in the wild?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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! \u201cLet\u2019s go!\u201d Ruchika, my cousin squeals. We have just arrived at the beach and I can\u2019t wait to lounge in one of the chairs with a book, … Continue reading “Shark Encounter by The Mint Girl”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":441,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,172,1,93],"tags":[210,209,208,11,202,205,207,211],"class_list":["post-438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diverse-reads","category-imaginative","category-uncategorized","category-writing","tag-houston-public-library","tag-indian","tag-lemon-shark","tag-mint-girl","tag-realistic-fiction","tag-sharks","tag-story","tag-writing-prompt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":442,"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438\/revisions\/442"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}