‘I was walking on the beach in the late afternoon when it happened,’ Maggie said. ‘A lovely February day, sunny, warm. Skylarks were singing over the sand dunes, above the pine trees.’

‘You were alone?’ Peter asked.

The two walked along the water’s edge, towards the setting sun, and kicked at the warm water which sparkled in the sunset. Peter swung the hand holding the manta wheel thing like a discus, but it was too precious to throw. He needed a way to carry it now he had lost the carry bag T-shirt he had given to Maggie to wear.

‘My brothers were playing near some old tree trunk washed up amongst the…’ Maggie paused. ‘Anyway — on the beach. Just us, with Mum back at the campsite.’

‘Sounds nice.’

‘Heavenly. We loved going there for the hols. We had a regular spot pegged out, and came every time we could. The street was even named for our family.’

‘What. There were streets?’

‘Not really. More like spaces between the pegged out sections. It was easier to have street names so you could find other families. The signs were put up each year. They changed.’

‘Wow. So you went there every year.’

‘But it was never boring.’

‘Especially this year,’ said Peter. He sighed and shaded his eyes. The horizon was aglow with high clouds tinted orange, the sun just peeked below them.

‘And you lived in tents,’ Peter asked.

‘Yes, we have a big square tent, and an awning for cooking in with a wooden floor. A place for the icebox, and the safe.’

‘The safe? You keep money there?’

‘A food safe silly.’

‘Sounds pretty primitive.’

‘That’s the point isn’t it? But here is much more caveman don’t you think?’

Peter laughed, and thumped his chest. ‘Me Tarzan, you…’

‘Jane.’ Maggie smiled. ‘I love the Tarzan movies, but I have to sneak in with my older brother. Mother doesn’t approve.’

‘What? Too much manly chest?’ Peter grinned.

‘Something like that. But I’m used to seeing you half naked. I have brothers.’

Maggie fell silent then and walked on. Peter kicked himself for reminding her of home. But he could not help it. With this place all so different, it made it hard to have a conversation without asking about things they might have in common. He caught up with her as they rounded the sharp turn in the beach.

Maggie sighed. ‘My favorite time of day was when the milkman came with the pony and trap.’ She kicked at an old coconut shell half buried in the sand.

‘The what?’

‘Milkman. He sold milk. And eggs. I guess he was someone who worked on a local farm.’

‘No, I mean. What’s a trap?’

‘A cart pulled by a horse. It has two wheels…’

‘Like a chariot?’

‘I suppose. Anyway… he would always ask if we wanted any top-milk. And we would always say yes. Because of the rationing during the war. We couldn’t get cream in town. So it was a special treat to get the top milk… which was in fact just cream… but he couldn’t call it that.’

‘Cream rises to the top…’

‘Yes. The milkman had skimmed it off the top of the milk. Mum would whip it up with some honey. I liked to break ANZAC biscuits into it to make this marvelous sludgy dessert. Heaven.’

‘Too much. I’m so hungry. I’ve only eaten sushi and baked clams for the past two days. And it’s getting dark…’

‘Through here.’

Maggie led him away from the lagoon, across a low sandy rise where the barrier island was narrowest. Beyond lay an expanse of shallow water about a hundred meters wide and three hundred long. The booming surf raged on the reef just beyond. To the left and right spread the narrow barrier island set with palms and low vegetation. But here the island was no more than fifty meters wide.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Over here.’

They walked with the sun at their back. The far side of the barrier island was a jumble of large coral boulders. Fragments of coral heads broken from the reef in storms.

‘See there.’ Maggie pointed. A black rock rose like the bow of a ship from the sand and forest. ‘Race you…’ And she took off.

She was fast and out-distanced Peter at first, especially since had the disk to carry. But by the time they had reached the black rock he could almost reach out and tag her. They stood hands on their knees and panted to get their breath back. Then Maggie led him behind the rock, where a blue pool glowed in the waning light. It was a shade almost bluer than blue against the white sand and the black rock. Everything blushed red as the day faded.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

The pool connected to the seaward lagoon. A deep channel cut in the coral wound serpentine towards the breaking rollers at the reef.

‘I think the deep part leads right to the edge,’ said Maggie. ‘I walked out there before, towards the reef. So scary with the huge storm waves. And I don’t have strong enough shoes.’

‘It’s beautiful,’ said Peter. ‘The pool I mean. But why does it glow so blue?’

Maggie smiled. She slipped into the water and dived down. Her body was a spark that flashed through the water leaving a trail. When she emerged she held a round ball that seemed to have an inner light of its own.

‘What is it?’ He squatted. He had still carried the disk, now he placed it across his thighs.

‘This is dinner,’ Maggie said.

‘No way.’

Maggie passed the ball to him and dived again. The object was the size of a large orange, and almost egg shaped. It had a sort of spongy, rubbery texture. He thought of a memory foam cushion, but smoother.

‘Is it a sea tulip or something?’ Peter asked when Maggie appeared with another. ‘I learned in school that sea tulip and sea squirts look like plants, but are animals… and are close relatives to us, more than most other creatures like insects or starfish.’

He averted his eyes from the wet clinging T-Shirt that was all too revealing. Maggie just grinned. She turned her back to him and squeezed out the water. It helped. A little bit. And it was dark.

The ball, or egg, or whatever… glowed in the shadow of the black rock.

‘Wow! This thing… Looks radioactive.’

‘I’m not going to even ask…’ Maggie seemed excited to show him her new trick. ‘Watch.’ She puckered a corner of the ball and bit through the skin. She sucked at the contents, but a little escaped and the blue glowed in beads on her chin.

‘No. Damn. Way. That’s the freakiest thing.’

‘It’s good. Try yours.’

Peter shook his head. ‘Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to eat blue things? Glowing blue things?’

‘When I first ate one, it was daytime. It just looked like a big egg. We used to blow eggs and paint them, for Easter I mean.’ Maggie sighed. ‘I guess this is pretty weird. But not that much different to you eating raw fish. Yuck.’

‘I love sushi, and sashimi. But… I guess I like salmon egg sushi too.’

‘No I idea what you’re talking about. But cold raw fish sounds positively ghastly.’

Peter laughed. ‘Yeah when you put it that way. But this is unreal… how do you know it’s good to eat?’

‘Anything that tastes so great has to be good for you. Or unreal, like you say.’

‘Why did you even try it in the first place? And how did you find it?’

‘Moby.’ Just then the manta slipped into the pool as if summoned by her voice. It must have swum around the barrier and up the channel. Now the manta flipped upright and washed its wings back and forth. It seemed to watch them for a time, then dipped down into the pool to emerge with a glow-ball-egg-thing in its mouth. It proffered the egg to Maggie who held the egg-thing ready, and then tossed it back towards the water. Moby flipped its body up and snapped it from the air. A wash of warm water roiled against Peter and then drained away.

‘Moby was eating them, and offered one to me. I was starving… so I tried. You remember the top milk I told you about? Well. This is like top milk-cream flavored with custard and… I don’t know…’ Maggie laughed and pushed his shoulder. ’Try. Heavenly.’

Peter lifted the egg-thing to his face and pressed his teeth to the surface. It was warm, and he tasted salt from the water it had been lying in.

‘How bad can it be?’ he muttered around the spongey thing.

His fingers pressed at the memory-foam-surface to form a fold, and then he bit down. The skin broke like biting into a hard boiled egg, and then the custard-like fluid slipped out and into his mouth. At first he took just a little. The explosion of flavor caused an almost painful jolt in his jaw as his long dormant saliva glands started work.

‘Okay,’ Peter said. ‘Wow.’

The flavor was like warm ice cream, smooth and creamy in texture. And egg-like. Custard was about right, but salty sweet too, with a hint of some fruit. Like banana or even rose.

‘Believe me now?’

‘Ah yeah! This is the strangest, bestest, weirdest… thing I’ve ever eaten. And this is the whackiest place to eat it. With a furry dolphin manta thing, and a crazy sixteen year old granny.’

‘Hey. I said not to call me that. Baby cheeks.’

As they laughed a warmth grew in him, as if a fire had ignited. They sipped at the balls to savor them now. With each mouthful the taste seemed a little different, with subtle changes each moment — almost as if his tongue learned how best to experience it. When finished he felt full enough not to want another, but not stuffed as if he had eaten too much. He knew from experience that too much hokey pokey ice cream was possible, and even nauseous.

‘Okay. So it’s good to eat. But that does not tell us what it is.’

‘It’s food for Moby. And he shares it with me.’

‘And where does Moby get it from?’

‘At the bottom of the pool, there’s a sort of pile where they grow. I can’t see too well when I dive down, but they’re inside something like a big purse. The eggs are like peas in the pod. You press one end and an egg comes out.’

‘Okay. I have to check it out. Even more bonkers.’ He licked at his fingers where some of the glowing liquid clung to the skin.

‘I didn’t know they glowed until a just now. This must be a dream. Too strange to be real.’

‘Like this wheel thing I found.’ Peter held it in his hand now. ‘Look. It’s really glowing for it now it’s dark.’

Peter peered closer. The liquid on his fingers had slipped into the holes and crevices of the disk. In those places the glow had intensified. On impulse he squeezed a last few drips from the ball onto the surface. The beads of liquid slid and moved over the surface and then flowed into the pores. That portion of the disk glowed brighter, with a sparkle lacking elsewhere.

‘Now that’s very strange.’

In the deepening evening specks of light glowed brighter within the overall glow of the liquid. And flecks had gathered in the creases of his hand. Maggie’s mouth was the same. The reflected blueness made her eyes white, and her wide grin dazzled. It was like at a party where the purple lighting made everything that was white extra bright.

‘It’s all connected somehow isn’t it?’ said Peter. ‘I mean. The eggs given by Moby. The disk from a dead Manta…’

‘Perhaps not so dead.’

‘Yeah. It looks alive the way it still glows.’

His head spun. It was all too much. This newness. With no one to tell him what the right thing to do was. Maggie was older, but it must be all the same for her too.

She sat on the warm black rock, and shifted along so she was next to him. Together they stared at the pulsating patterns across the disk.

‘Peter?’

‘Uh ha?’

‘This is a nicer dream with you here. I didn’t like being alone — too much like a nightmare. I’m just a girl…’

‘Don’t say that. The strongest people I know are women. We have Prime Ministers who were women. Don’t ever say you’re just a girl.’

‘No. I mean. It was a little scary on my own.’

‘Sure. I’m glad we met too.’

‘Now I don’t want this dream to end. It can go on and on. And it was Moby who did it.’

The manta had eaten its fill and had drifted off. Peter could see the glow of its passage like a trail through the channel. All the water seemed alive with glowing threads and sparks.

‘Come on. Show me your camp,’ Peter said. ‘We need to put up a sign for the street names. Peter Road and Maggie Street.’

‘Sure. We can be neighbors,’ Maggie said.

‘And we even have a visiting milkman.’