Shark Bay

There was an island in a faraway land. Around it, far and wide, only the sea. Its waves crashed against the rocks that rose on one side of the island. On the other was the beach. Under the rocks the water was very deep and in that depth there was a home of sharks.

In the depths of the sea and in the waves, they loved to swim around. They would hide in the rocks and swim between the waves. There were also a few people living on the island. They used to go swimming on the beach, but no one ever came near the other side of the island. All the islanders were afraid of sharks. But one day, something happened that changed their minds.

There was a boy who lived on the island. His name was Lukas. He loved to go swimming and would spend days on the beach. He had long hair that fell in his eyes, and because he lived on the island, he was very tanned. He had lived on the island since he was a little boy, so he knew very well where he could play and that he was not allowed to go near the shark cove. His parents always told him that sharks were dangerous.

One day the wind was blowing hard, so Lukas decided to fly a kite instead of swimming. He made it himself and glued it together with his dad. Lukas was running on the beach and enjoying the wind, which made his kite very fast. Suddenly the wind picked up and the kite started flying too high. The string he was tied to started to fray. Lukas tried to hold on to it, but the wind was stronger, the string slipped out of his hand and the kite was blown away by the wind.

Lukas ran after it. He didn’t look where he was running, he just followed his kite. He ran on and on until he stopped at the edge of a cliff. He stood on the rock and looked down. All he could see in the water below were the fins of sharks. He tried to keep his balance, but he couldn’t do it very well. He kept leaning over and the wind wasn’t helping. He turned to follow his kite, the wind blew hard, and Lukas leaned. He fell into the deep water among the sharks.

Lukas was a good swimmer, but when he saw those big fish with big fins swimming around him, he got scared. He started kicking his legs and flailing his arms as hard as he could, but the waves were strong and so was the current in the bay. Suddenly, the water swept him away from the shore.

Suddenly he felt pressure on his leg. Someone brushed against him. Then a moment later he felt the same thing around his waist. Someone swam past his side. It was a shark. They were so close they were touching him. Lukas started to call out: “Please don’t! Don’t hurt me!” And he tried to swim as much as he could. But then something incredible happened.

One of the sharks picked him up and slowly swam him to the rock. Another shark came to his rescue. Lukas felt himself being carefully carried along the surface and advanced with him towards the shore. Gently, the sharks nudged him out of the water to safety. Lukas wiped the water from his eyes and only now realised that the sharks had actually saved him. He was no longer afraid of them. They could have hurt him, but they didn’t.

He reached slowly into the water and waited to see if they would come and say goodbye. And they came. The same two who had helped him swam up. They approached cautiously and let Lukas stroke them. “You’re not bad, are you?” Lukas asked. The sharks staggered to the side as if to answer him. They kept showing him one side. They were showing him a fin that was oddly curved.

Once Lukas got home, he looked through all the books for what the sharks wanted to show him. Why did the sharks want him to see the fin? He finally found in one book that sharks with this fin were not dangerous. They’re even peaceful and, most importantly, smart. They wouldn’t hurt a man.

Lukas told his parents everything. They were worried at first. But then Lukas showed them what he’d learned from a book about the sharks in their bay. By then, the parents were no longer worried. They even went to the reefs with Lukas to swim with the sharks.

Lukas and his parents realised that before they judged someone to be bad, they had to find out what the truth was first. Nobody liked the sharks at first. People were afraid of them because they were just sharks. Lukas found out that even among sharks, there were peaceful ones. And he was very glad for that.