The shimmer of the Spanish sun casts my small, seven-year-old shadow across the bright blue bucket wedged in the sand. An awning of sorts. Crouching on my haunches, knees at my ears, I peer into the sea scooped world that has become a rock pool in miniature. Stolen sand carpets the bottom, water to the ridge, threatening to overflow. My brother has just captured a crab and dropped it with a splash into this dolls house version of the ocean.
He is off back to the brimming rocks in the distance looking for more treasure. His store-bought fishing net over his brown shoulder, like a holidaying Dick Whittington. I am the homemaker. Stirring the sand until it resembles the seabed, I arrange the rocks and tuck the seaweed in a pretty, fish tank formation. I am unafraid of the crab as it has hunkered deeply into its spiral shell. Anyway, it is tiny, and I am curious, big and strong. I drop in a final white pebble and some empty shells saved in my pocket and the stage is set. I tip myself onto my knees and peer over the bucket, my long, salty, red hair creating a sheer curtain framing the rim.
Nothing happens for a while. I can feel the sun burning my exposed neck, but I am seven and I do not think of the pink damage it will do. I am superbly still. My eyes never leave the shell that will become a crab again. Finally I am rewarded by a tiny, hairy red leg and a wisp of antenna creeping from the safety of the shell. Waving delicately it feels the water for vibrations. I have seen pictures of Hermit crabs in my Ladybird Book of the Sea, and, with a thrill, I realise this is one. I wait patiently for the other legs, and eyes on stalks, to appear. The crab unfurls like a magician’s hand, one finger at a time. It sways slightly in the water feeling its way. It’s pincered front legs embed in the sand and suddenly the shell is alive and moving. Hoisted up, it forms a peculiar backpack that seems of the crab, yet not. It seems confident in its new environment. I congratulate myself on creating a proper home from home that has convinced the crab it is back in the sea.
It starts to explore and leaves trails as it scutters across the bucket’s sandy floor. The gap of inches to me must seem like a mile to such a tiny creature. It rolls itself over the white pebble, circles the seaweed and comes to rest at the small collection of perfect, empty molluscs I have spent the week collecting. It hovers above the largest shell. A whelk type structure ridged and grey-white. It is nearly twice the size of its current one and I marvel that such a small thing can pull something this large with such an easy tug. Breathless, I realise what is about to happen.
I fling my hair up and look around me to share the anticipation. My parents are too far away on towels, their faces angled at the sun. My brother is still a huntsman dot in the distance. A cut of disappointment that I have a treasure but no one to share it with, is quickly replaced by the thrill of privilege. This show is just for me.
I shade the pail again and watch the tiny red crab. No bigger than the end of a thumb, it pushes its own shell away from itself. Weaving this way and that it expertly unwinds itself. The delicate, striking front legs soon reveal a soft pink whorl that looks vulnerable and like a sweet. Two halves that don’t match. In a trice it swings its body round, covering the space in seconds and places itself in its new home. It retreats fully for good measure, resurfaces to shed some sand debris, and finally settles on the mock seabed looking to all the world as if it has been there all along.
I do not know this memory will return to me over the years. Every time I move house. Renting. The relief of getting through my own front door returning late from a night out. That feeling of tucking in tightly. Safe passage. At university, the first to go in my family. Making new friends. Leaning on the door jambs of our given rooms that open behind us, our backs to our newly chosen bigger shell we chat with our best face forward, antennae waving. All this is to come, but here at seven I have no real sense of the human need for shelter and refuge that is writ large in this blue bucket on a Benidorm beach.
JAYNE STEAD has just completed an MFA in Creative Writing at York St John University. She previously worked as an English and Drama teacher. She was placed in the winning categories in the Paracoombe Prize Short Story Anthology 2023 and chosen for the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award 2024.
