The Lost Seashell

“Allahu akbar...” 

The call for prayer echoed from the three mosques around Ahmed’s house in the city of Muscat. It was a lovely winter morning and Ahmed was very excited. After prayers, he pushed aside the curtains and saw that it was still dark.

Soon after breakfast, his mother packed their picnic basket with rice, spiced meat, khubz, kahwa, water, fruits and dried dates. 

“Yalla, yalla!” said Ahmed urging everyone to hurry up as he put on his kumma. They were going to have a picnic on the beach because Ahmed loved collecting seashells. In the pink glow of the sunrise, they zoomed along the city roads in their family car. 

They went to a little beach between two rocky hills which jutted out into the sea. There was no road leading to the beach so they had to climb over one of the hills. It was easy to go uphill but going downhill was a little tricky. Ahmed held his father’s hand with his right hand and in his left hand he carried his little wicker basket he used to collect shells. 

That morning, the sea was a brilliant blue and the early sun shone on the shiny white sand. The waves had scattered around a treasure of shells of different shapes, sizes and colours. The glossy red and green crabs which walked sideways amused Ahmed. In some parts the sand was smooth and in some parts it was grainy. He found interesting stones in various colours that shone more brightly as soon as a wave washed over them. 

Not many people came to this beach so Ahmed called it ‘The Hidden Treasure Beach’. He gave names to the various types of shells he found. There were ‘purple cones’ – smooth and shaped like ice-cream cones with purple stripes around them. There were ‘bulldogs’ which had bumpy surfaces and looked rather rough with their plain white colour and black dots. There were ‘Japanese fans’ which looked like the paper fans Ahmed had learnt to make at school, and even ‘Sultan’s turbans’ which had circular shapes with folds in them. Ahmed collected so many different types of shells till his basket was full.

Ahmed’s family enjoyed their picnic on the beach watching people canoeing and the rainbow colours of the sailboats passing by, but they always returned home in the afternoon before the sun became too hot.

At home, Ahmed rinsed his shells with water and laid them out to dry on a newspaper in his bedroom. When they were dry, he would arrange them in a glass jar shaped like a circular column. There were many shell columns lining their living room. Ahmed had arranged the shells in layers in each column and they looked wonderful.

It had been a long day and Ahmed soon fell asleep. After some time he woke up to hear a strange sound…..

Tok-tok...tok-tok.. 

It was still dark. He thought he must be dreaming and went off to sleep again.

Tok-tok...tok-tok...

There it was again. He wondered whether it was someone at the front door.

Tok-tok...tok-tok...

NO, the sound was definitely coming from his room. 

Tok-tok...tok-tok...

Ahmed switched the light on and looked around. 

Tok-tok...tok-tok...

He carefully moved the curtains and there it was! 

It was one of his bulldog shells.

It had a tiny creature inside it.

It was taking a walk!

Its bumpy white shell was making the sound as it walked on the floor. Ahmed picked it up gently, put it back on the newspaper with the other shells, and went back to bed. 

Tok-tok...tok-tok...

There it was again in his room. Ahmed woke up his parents and they told him to put the bulldog shell it in a mug of salty water until morning.

The next morning, Ahmed and his father went to the beach again to return the bulldog shell to its home. Ahmed could not remember exactly where he had picked up this shell from so he did not know where to put it back. The bulldog shell, however, knew where to go. 

As soon as it sensed the salty sea, it quickly jumped out of Ahmed’s hand and dashed towards the water! There were so many other bulldog shells playing hide-and-seek with the waves that once Ahmed’s shell joined them he couldn’t make out which shell had been his anymore. He quietly said goodbye to his shell and wished that it would be happy with its friends again. 

It made Ahmed happy to return the seashell to its home again. 

As Ahmed looked around the beach he saw many other unusual shells scattered around. He immediately regretted that he had not brought along his wicker basket to collect them. So he removed his kumma and used it like a basket to collect some shells, but this time he made sure there were no tiny creatures living inside the shells.

(An Original story by Aashoo. Protected by Copyright, 2014. Previously published by Al Roya Publications, Oman, with an Arabic translation.)