seals #1

The cave stood before them. Ellen and Billy had reached it first and sat down on some rocks at its open mouth. Ellen shouted for Danny to hurry and come and see. They looked over at Danny in the distance with his head down slowly making his way towards them. He stopped and threw some stones at the sea. He was in no hurry to reach them.

Earlier it had been all they could do to keep him from running too far ahead where they couldn’t see him. They had come for the seals. "Millions of them!", Billy promised. Danny had wanted to be the first to see or hear them and Ellen struggled to keep him in view. Gulping anxiety overtook her anytime Danny was too far out of her protective reach.
They had walked for hours down the cliff and along the shoreline and when they rounded a headland all they saw was more of the same stretching into the distance. No seals.

Now, sitting at the mouth of the cave she felt a boulder-weight where her stomach should be as she watched Danny throw stones at the waves and sink back into his own wee world. She fretted he was seen as an odd little boy by others. People never seemed to be sure how to act around him, either because he wouldn’t say anything or that horrifying destructive rage that would burst from him from nowhere.
This trip had brought out a side to him that she had never seen before in all his five years, a quivering questing interest that he was barely able to contain. How she loved Billy for giving her this side to Danny, her own wee boy suddenly emerging into the world around him at last.
Like anything, she feared it was too good to be true. And now this empty shoreline. A sploosh came, as Danny threw a hefty stone at the water and it was gulped down by the incoming tide.