Once by men and angels to be seen

Ethan was catapulted vertically into the air, brushing past the flapping sail, and then far above it as the boat skewed to one side. He twisted around desperately in the air, and saw the gaping mouth of the monster below him. His upward velocity spent, he dropped down towards it, his own mouth open in terror. He closed his eyes, anticipating the teeth stabbing into his soft body. He could feel the warmth of the creature's breath on the soles of his feet.

After everything he'd survived, was this it? Swallowed on a day trip to the beach?

Something thumped into his side, and he was knocked to the side, landing in the water with a smack. Opening his eyes, he found himself looking straight into Sarah's. She had her arms wrapped protectively around him.

"Did you…?" he asked.

She smiled. "Being able to fly does have its uses. That was a close run thing, though."

Ethan nodded gratefully, and then realised that he was in the water. Panic set in, and he started to flail about, tugging free of Sarah and swallowing water in the process.

"Ethan! Calm down!"

Spouting water, Ethan garbled a panicked response. "There's a monster with huge teeth – not to mention anything else which might be in the lake! This lake is over 80 metres deep! And –" (even while in serious danger of going under the water, Ethan couldn't help flushing with embarrassment) "– I can't swim! I don't think that there's much to be calm about, do you?"

With a sigh, and acting quickly to try and snap Ethan back to his senses, Sarah put her arms around his chest and lifted him out of the water into the air. Floating a few feet above the water, Ethan spat out water while kicking his legs feebly.

"Ethan. Everything is going to be OK. Just stop panicking. And remember to keep quiet."

Taking deep, slow breaths, Ethan gradually returned to normal, though he occasionally coughed up a little more water. "Thanks, Sarah," he whispered. He looked around. The monster was near the capsized boat, but seemed to have returned to its previously calm and unresponsive state. "Where's Benny?" he asked, worried.

Sarah flew towards the stricken boat, and they both scanned the area of the attack. Nothing. There wasn't a sign of him anywhere. Ethan began to fear the worst, and his throat started to thicken up. "B-Benny?" he mumbled into the indifferent air, stricken.

Just as Ethan lost hope, Sarah spotted an arm grab onto something on the underside of the tipped over boat. She grinned with relief and flew lower. With a cascade of water, the mast and sail rose from the water, twanging past them. Below, Benny hauled himself over the side of the boat and lay still for a while, panting from the unaccustomed effort. Looking up, he saw the pair of them and, incongruously, gave them a small wave from the bottom of the boat.

"You two look rather … intimate up there," he called. With an angry gesture at him to get him to keep quiet, Sarah dropped onto the boat, releasing a by now rather embarrassed Ethan. Benny just smiled with amusement as the pair of them gradually shifted further and further apart in the boat, with even Ethan's fear of sailing taking second place to it.

Glancing up at the apparently oblivious bulk of the monster, Benny leaned forwards. "OK, so, now we know not to attract its attention. What are we going to do about it? I mean, I tried some magic when it attacked, but it didn't have any effect. There's too much of it for the magic to work on. Maybe grandma would know what to do, but I don't."

Sarah looked at the creature nervously. "It's far too large for us to deal with from the boat. We were lucky this time, but next time…"

Ethan nodded, and looked at his feet and legs, imagining how close they had been to being shredded. He shuddered. This was not turning into the best day at the beach. Trying to take his mind off of the motion of the boat, he focused his eyes firmly on the bottom of the boat. Then he saw something that he had forgotten about – the bag.

Picking it up, he shook the sodden rucksack at his friends. "Maybe there's something in here that we can use? It's lucky that it didn't get washed out of the boat."

Sarah and Benny looked at it dubiously. "I don't know what there could be…" said Benny, sceptical.

Sarah shrugged. "Well, you did put enough junk in it, Ethan. Who knows, something might be useful."

Ethan opened it up. "A-ha!" He produced the crabbing net and showed it proudly to them.

"Er, yes? What about it?" asked Sarah.

"We can use it to trap the monster!" said Ethan, eagerly.

Benny put a sympathetic hand on Ethan's shoulder, and spoke to him in a kindly tone, as if to a child. "I'm sorry to have to break it to you, as I know you've had quite a shock, Ethan, and that might have messed up your spatial awareness, but that net is about the size of my hand, and the monster is many, many times larger than this boat."

Ethan gave him a withering look. "Yes, Benny, I understand that. Would it be possible to make it bigger, say, using magic?"

"Oh, I see what you mean!" said Benny with a grin.

Ethan looked at him hopefully. "Can you make it bigger?"

"No."

Ethan looked downcast. "Why not?"

"Because I can do magic, not work miracles. Making that net bigger falls into the latter camp."

"Why?" interjected Sarah. "I mean, in Harry Potter –"

Benny held up his hand in scorn, and shook his head. "Ah, Sarah, there you are once again confusing Harry Potter and real magic. They are not the same thing."

Seeing their blank expressions, he continued in a slow, patronising voice. "OK, well, Harry Potter is a character in a book which is a work of fiction –"

"Yes, Benny," snapped Sarah, "we know what books are – what we want to know is why it isn't possible for you to just magic the net bigger."

With an exasperated cry, Benny stood up and looked down at them, astonished. "Have neither of you ever been paying attention at any point when I've used magic?" He frowned briefly. "Sorry, that last emphasis didn't make any sense. But the point still stands!"

Ethan opened his mouth to volunteer the information that they usually had more pressing things to focus on at those times, but Benny just blazed on.

"When have I ever used magic to make something bigger? Never! Have you not noticed that magic is about potions? Almost always, things come from potions!" By now, Benny's temper was truly frayed, and he was apparently venting his frustration with the entire framework of magic at them.

"Whenever something has to be made bigger, I don't just snap my fingers, like Harry Potter might do, I make a potion – or do you not remember?"

"Er, Benny?" quavered Ethan.

Benny ignored him, and started to pace, gesturing more and more violently. "That's all I learn, all day! 'Make this', 'boil that', 'cut out the eye from that'. Magic is nowhere near as cool as most people think it is!"

"Benny?" said Sarah, her eyes fixed on something behind him.

"Not now, Sarah, I'm having a rant!" he growled. "All the flashes and lightning – they're just gimmicks around the edges, apparently! So what if I can blow up a spider, I can't do anything useful with it. People expect too much of magic. It's all just these stupid potions." Anger spent, he started to trail off and ramble. "I bet Harry Potter wouldn't have a clue…" he muttered.

"Benny!" said Ethan, with some determination.

"What?" he snapped, irritably. He followed the direction of their wide eyed stares, and looked over his shoulder. He paled.

"Oops… Not again!"

The three of them stared up at the gigantic head once more.

In a desperate attempt to stop the creature biting Benny's head off, Ethan thrust his hand into the bag and pulled out the first thing he put his hand on. Sunlight flashed off of the sheet of tinfoil, and that attracted the monster. Ethan rapidly realised that this meant that instead of eating Benny, it was now fixed on eating him instead. He gulped. That had been rather foolish. But if he was to be in danger rather than Benny, then it was OK. Mostly. Increasingly less willing. In fact…

It was not, however, the head that they had to worry about, as, quite suddenly, the huge tail, swung around from behind them, scything through the mast and knocking all of them into the water. As he fell, Benny unleashed a particularly potent arc of magic, which stung the creature into letting out a roar, and diving to the bottom of the lake.

Ethan clung tightly to the broken-off mast, dazed from when the scaly tail had struck him, and with his eyes clamped shut, but with the strangest feeling running through his head.

"Swim… Fish… Sore…" he muttered incoherently, as the bright blue light in his head was replaced with black.