Mangrove Sands: The Enchanted Sea World

Relinquished

About The Author

Born in 1962, Melbourne, Victoria, the author has lived on a small island in South East Queensland, Australia, since 2007. She lived and worked in Sweden for five years and graduated from Utah, USA. A qualified counsellor and life coach, the author worked with young school students from diverse backgrounds and specialised conditions. Her own life struggles with epilepsy, anxiety, and PTSD led to many challenges and many achievements, including learning Swedish fluently, competing in a five-day car rally, winning a university scholarship, developing a mental health app, raising two sons, working for charity and with children for the past 25 years.

Illustrator, Sallie-Anne Swift, is an Australian artist living in Long Beach, California and sister of the author.

A creative collaboration of two sisters.

Dedication

Mangrove Sands is dedicated to the students of Russell Island State School, QLD, Australia, many of whom I worked with extensively over a period of eight years.

May you always face adversity with a strength of mind and never allow anything to stand in your way of reaching your dreams. There is always a rainbow shining for you somewhere. You are all amazing.

Copyright Information ©

L. J. Nilsson and Sallie-Anne Swift (2020)

The right of L. J. Nilsson and Sallie-Anne Swift to be identified as the Author and Illustrator respectively of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781528945912 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781528971522 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published (2020)

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd

25 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5LQ

Acknowledgement

Thank you to my two sons, Nils and Karl, who have been my inspiration. You have always followed your passion in life, sometimes through adversity but always with dedication, perseverance, determination and pride to achieve your goals.

In memory of our brother, Robert G. Spry, an Australian pilot, who died aged 25 doing what he loved. Your passion to pursue your goals lives on.

Introduction

On a remote island in South East Queensland lies Mangrove Sands.

You would think it is just another island, but something magical beneath Mangrove Sands makes this island very unique.

It is a very peaceful island, occupied by an abundance of beautiful native birds including cockatoos, lorikeets, sea eagles and curlews. Sea creatures such as dugongs, dolphins, mud crabs, stingrays, bull sharks, pufferfish and soldier crabs abound the ocean.

The island is covered in green-leafed gums, native trees and mangroves, surrounded by mountains, rocks and sand.

You don’t have to stop for traffic lights because there are no traffic lights and no traffic. The basic shops exist; including a grocery shop, bakery, take away, chemist, post office and coffee shop.

Many people don’t even know this island exists, it is by no means large, stretching only 12 km long and 4 km wide. Occupied by approximately 3,000 people with 160 children attending the island’s state school.

In their spare time, the children who live on the island enjoy playing sports such as rugby or soccer, riding bikes or simply going adventuring and fishing at Mangrove Sands, a lovely long stretch of coastline on the southern end of the island.

Islanders commute directly to the mainland via a 15-minute ferry ride or via a barge that carries cars and trucks.

Most of the island children come from happy homes although there are many children who come from unhappy homes.

Whatever lurks beneath Mangrove Sands will change the lives of four unhappy children forever.

Chapter 1

The Island

Tommy was 11 years old and in grade 5. He was a rather frail boy, shorter than most for his age. He had short, thick hair; it was as black as night. He combed it perfectly to one side every day. He was a very energetic boy but forever getting into trouble at school and always behind in his schoolwork.

Tommy didn’t like school and was unhappy at home after his mum and dad were killed in a car crash when he was two years old. Left homeless, he went to live with his grandfather on the island.

Tommy’s grandfather was very old and slow, he was in and out of the hospital and always visiting the doctor. His grandfather constantly had to come to school to pick up Tommy who had been in trouble again and sent home.

Every night Tommy would lie in bed and cry, wishing he were taller, stronger, better at school and with a real family.

Tommy had three close friends on the island, Maria who was 11 years old and in grade 5. She also struggled with schoolwork. She loved to sing, it made her happy. She would dream that she was a beautiful princess in a magical castle far, far away, especially when she was yelled at and hit by her father at home.

Maria had beautiful, long, blonde, shiny, silky hair that she would plait every day. She was a little plump and a little clumsy, tripping over anything in her path and always hurting herself.

Maria and Tommy had another friend, Jake. Jake was ten years old, in grade four and very small for his age. He also managed to get into trouble constantly at school. He didn’t like school or many people, he also lived with his grandfather after his parents were taken away for not feeding him. Jake found it very difficult to follow rules.

Jake was very unhappy, he also used to dream of a happy place with a big happy family and he too would cry himself to sleep. He would bury his face deep into his pillow so no one would hear and sob until he fell asleep and his pillow saturated from his tears.

Tommy, Maria and Jake had another close friend, Dino. Dino was 12 years old, the eldest of the friends and in grade 6. He had dyslexia, meaning he read words backwards and couldn’t see letters properly. Dino hated school, he couldn’t read or write properly, but he knew everything about the bushes, birds and sea creatures.

This was Dino’s escape, every day after school he would go on adventures either crabbing or fishing at Mangrove Sands or hiking in the bush. He knew all the names of the flora and fauna on the island and would take days off school to go adventuring.

Dino’s dad was sick and didn’t live on the island. His mum was also sick and he was the only child so he would cook, clean and look after his mum. Many nights, Dino wished his life was easier, that he could read like other kids and have a family who would look after him.

The four friends had lived on the island and knew each other since grade one and often played or went on adventures together to Mangrove Sands talking about how they wished they had a better home life. They all loved Mangrove Sands, where at low tide, there was a lot of soft mud and millions of stingray holes that left hundreds of little muddy pools all over the beach from the flapping of their winged flaps.

Quite often, the four friends would try catching the large, brown mud crabs hiding in the stingray pools or chase the millions of little blue and purple soldier crabs, scampering in hundreds across the sand then burrowing themselves quickly under the sand or mud so as not to be caught.

It was always warm on the island and in summer, the four friends would swim in the cool seawater at Mangrove Sands, sometimes taking a tent and camping on the weekend so they could get up early and go fishing or crabbing, laying crab pots out in the ocean. Maria didn’t like fishing much, she used to sit with the pelicans and feed them the bait, much to the disgust of the three boys who were always telling her not to feed the pelicans their bait.

Quite often, they would spot a big, old dugong in the water, it wasn’t a very pretty sea creature but it was gentle like a whale. Some of the birdlife kept them