Coral and the Christmas Lights Under the Sea

It was Christmas Eve under the sea, and nobody on the reef could sit still.

Clawdius the crab had been decorating since lunchtime.

He’d hung shells on the big branch of coral in the middle of the reef. Then pearls. Then a bottle cap. Then something that might once have been a spoon.

“Behold,” he said, waving both claws at it. “The finest tree in the ocean. Possibly the world.”

“It’s got a spoon on it,” said Spike.

“It’s got CHARACTER,” said Clawdius.

Mimsy was swimming loops around the top, singing a song she’d heard drifting down from a fishing boat that morning. She didn’t know the words, so she made some up. Most of them were about seaweed.

And Coral just floated in front of the tree with her mouth open, because the little lantern fish had come to sit in its branches, and the whole thing was twinkling.

“Tomorrow’s Christmas,” Clawdius announced. “I’m not sleeping. Not one bit. I’m staying up all night to guard my tree.”

“Me too,” said Mimsy.

Spike puffed up a little, the way he did when he was excited. “Me three.”

So nobody slept.

For a while, it was wonderful.

Then it was a lot.

The bubbles started popping faster. Pop. Pop. Pop-pop-pop.

Clawdius couldn’t stop clicking his claws. Click-clack. Click-click-clack.

Mimsy’s seaweed song got faster and louder until it was mostly squeaks.

The lantern fish got so excited they started flashing on and off, on and off, until the whole reef looked like it had the hiccups.

Coral yawned. A big one.

Her fins felt heavy. But her head felt fizzy, like a shaken-up bubble.

“I want to go to sleep now,” she said, “but my insides are still decorating.”

Clawdius flopped onto the sand. “My claws won’t stop. Look at them. They’re clicking all by themselves.”

“Um,” said Spike. “Help?”

He was so puffed up that he was floating upward, slowly, like a balloon somebody had let go of.

Coral grabbed his fin and pulled him back down. “Right,” she said. “We’re going to see Tera.”

Tera was the oldest turtle on the reef. Nobody knew exactly how old. Older than the shipwreck, Mimsy thought. Maybe older than the moon.

Tera was dozing in the quiet lagoon, with tiny green plants glowing softly on the old shell.

One eye opened.

Then the other.

The old turtle looked at the four of them. Coral yawning. Clawdius clicking. Mimsy humming at top speed. Spike bobbing like a cork.

“Ah,” said Tera. “Christmas Eve.”

“We can’t sleep,” said Coral.

“No,” said Tera. “I can see that.”

Tera didn’t say anything else for a moment. Turtles are never in a hurry.

“Do you know when Christmas magic comes?”

They shook their heads.

“When it’s quiet. When everyone is fast asleep. It’s a bit shy, that’s all. It won’t come while the whole reef is jumping about.”

Clawdius stopped clicking. “So if we stay up…”

“…it’ll wait,” said Tera. “And wait. And wait.”

Well. That changed things.

“Show us,” said Coral. “Show us how to get quiet.”

So Tera did.

One big flipper swished through the water, very slowly, as if there was all the time in the world.

Coral copied it. Swish. Slower. Swish.

The water around them went still and smooth.

“Now your claws,” Tera said to Clawdius. “Don’t stop them. Just slow them down.”

Clawdius frowned and concentrated very hard. Tap… tap.

“Oh,” he said, surprised. “That’s actually nice.”

Spike breathed in as slowly as he could… and let it all out even slower.

With every breath he got a little less round, until he settled on the sand like a leaf.

Mimsy sang her seaweed song again.

Only this time she sang it as slowly as Tera had swished, and so quietly that you had to lean in to hear it. It sounded like snow landing on the sea.

One by one, the lantern fish in the tree stopped flashing.

Glow.

Glow.

Off.

Until only the star at the very top was still lit, a soft gold.

Clawdius yawned the biggest crab yawn anybody had ever seen.

Then he did something nobody expected.

He shuffled over to the tree, took off his very best pearl, the shiny one he never let anyone touch, and laid it underneath.

“That’s for all of you,” he mumbled. “Don’t make a fuss.”

Nobody made a fuss. They were much too sleepy.

They curled up together under the coral tree, fin to fin to claw.

“Calm is catching,” Tera whispered. “One of you rests, and the others follow.”

Coral wanted to say something back.

But her eyes were already closed.

High above them, the moon lay on top of the waves.

And under it, the whole sea slept.