Chapter 3

Chapter THREE I awoke very early the next morning and swooshed out of bed. Another whole day lay ahead of me in which to play with my new tiny friends! I swam over to my doll's house and peeped through the bedroom window. There they were! Cuddled up together beneath the frilly seaweed blanket, snoozing away. I smiled at them,

thinking about how it would be nice to surprise them with a yummy breakfast. I knew all about the foods that are good for sea sprites from my book. They like sea biscuits but also it's important for them to eat lots of a special type of ruby- red seaweed. There would probably be some in the palace gardens! I could go and pick some to serve on the tiny plates in the doll's house dining room!

I turned and swam towards my door, just as there came the gentle sound of knocking on it from the other side. 'Delphina!' I whispered, pulling the door open. 'I couldn't sleep,' Delphina replied. I kept thinking of the sea sprites. Can I look at them again?' 'They're asleep,' I said. 'But I was just going down to fetch them some breakfast.

Do you want to help?' 'Of course!' said Delphina. We swam through the silent hallways of the palace and out into the palace gardens where the plants looked like they were glowing in the early morning shafts of watery sunlight.

'We have to find some ruby-red seaweed,' I said. 'It's really good for sea sprites!' 'There's some over by the royal statue,' said Delphina. Together we swam among the waving fronds to the centre of the gardens where a huge gold statue of King Auster stood. Just below it, beautiful flowers of ruby-red seaweed fluttered in the underwater current. 'Perfect!' I cried, snatching up a few petals.

Delphina and I raced back up to my bedroom, then we carefully cut the seaweed petals into teeny heart shapes and sprinkled them into a bowl. 'It looks like fancy cereal!' exclaimed Delphina. It wasn't long before the sea sprites began to wake up, stretching and yawning. They wriggled out of bed and waved at us. 'Good morning! We made you breakfast,' I said, showing the sea sprites to the dining room. 'Is it just me,' whispered Delphina as we watched one of the sea sprites sniff one of the red petal hearts, 'or do they all look a little less... sparkly today?'