Today was such a nice day… to be meters underwater, submerged in an abundance of blue. As much as Cleo enjoyed the company of her best friends, Rikki and Emma, there was just something great about swimming alone. It was just her and the sea creatures. She could think about life, and make lots of thinking-type faces, without anyone asking her what she was thinking about. That's one thing she disliked the most in life. Having people constantly poking into her thoughts, wondering what they were. If mind readers existed, she would probably be living alone on a small, barren island by now.
A glimmer of light glistened, breaking Cleo out of her thoughts. It wasn't any ordinary glimmer, not a shiny fish or a ray of sunlight forcing its way through the sea. No, it was something big. Rather, it was a bunch of tiny, shiny stones in a big pile on the ocean floor. Cleo swam down to them to get a closer look.
The stones were something Cleo had never seen before. Each one was a different color… there were about 30 of them. Cleo didn't even know stones came in so many colors. She knew picking them up would just separate them, and it would take forever to take them all ashore. Cleo picked one up, and much to her surprise, they were all attached. It made Cleo think of ice cubes… how they all stick together in a giant clump. Much like ice cubes, the stones were cold, and slippery. Cleo barely made it back to the beach without losing them.
One thing that crossed Cleo's mind a few times during the trip back was how the stones would react when they were taken to dry land. What if they were only beautiful underwater? Contrary to Cleo's worries, the stones looked exactly as they did in dry air as they did underwater. Only this time, they were suddenly very warm. Not hot, but also not like ice cubes. This caused them to begin to separate.
"Oh no," Cleo said to herself as she mentally tried to speed up her drying process. She counted the stones, finding out that there were actually 25 of them. If she carried five in each hand, she could get them all to her house in just three trips. Her biggest concern was the fact that someone might see the beautiful stones and take them for themselves. Cleo hid them behind a rock, where, hopefully, no one could see them.
Unfortunately, when Cleo tried taking the first ten rocks away, she couldn't budge. Something was holding her back. Cleo shook her head, confused, and set the rocks back down with the others. She walked away, and found herself able to walk away easily. It was as if the rocks could not be separated. Cleo suddenly realized what had to be done. She ran to the Juicenet, ignoring Rikki's comment about the stressed look on her face, and went straight to the metal trays that are usually used by the waitress to carry drinks.
"Hi Emma, just taking this tray, I'll bring it back in a few minutes, bye," Cleo said quickly, sprinting out of the Juicenet without letting Emma reply. She ran straight to the stones, and much to her delight, all 25 of them were still there. She placed each one on the tray carefully, then speed-walked in the direction of her house. She had to get home, fast, before anyone saw her with the magical stones and started asking questions. Or before Lewis saw them and tried to do a handful of unnecessary tests and experiments on them. Cleo needed to figure these things out on her own.