Lily,Lily,Lily
After waking up and finding Jimmy in the oats, Lily rode on his back to go to the house where Sandy lived. Shortly after she had breakfast at Sandy’s the reporter came. He was stunned after hearing the story told by Sandy, so he turned to Lily.
“What were you thinking after Sandy picked you up and rolled you into the waves?”
“I could not really think. I just looked at all the water and the fish swimming with me. I did imagine what it would be like to swim there forever, and then it occurred to me that I would like to see Sandy again. So I returned to the beach, hoping to find Sandy.”
“So, you found Sandy, then what?”
“We walked on the beach, I had to learn walking with legs, I had a tail before, and then I touched the sand elephant that the boy had made the day before. I like to meet this boy. Do you know him?”
“Wait, wait. Where is the elephant?”
Lily got up and called Jimmy. He came lumbering around the corner of the cottage, saw the reporter and gave one of his trumpet sounds to him.
The reporter, his name was Bob, swallowed hard and got up as well. Bob had never reported on something like this, so he was a little confused and could not believe what his eyes told him. He took his camera and shot some pictures. And he wrote frantically into his note book what he was witnessing.
“I need to call the TV station. I work for them sometimes, but they have their own ideas. I have to see if they want a report as well.”
Sandy chuckled: “Sure Bob, you do that. We are here. My vacation is not over until next month, so we have plenty of time.”
The reporters from the TV station wanted to come out to the beach.
“Ok.”
“Sandy, can I go now to the castle?”
“Would you be so kind and wait a little bit, Lily? The TV people want to talk to us. And maybe we can get that little boy who built you as well. You wanted to get to know him, right?”
“Oh, that would be so nice.”
So Sandy called his friends all over the island until he found the little boy, or he thought that it might be the boy who created Lily.
A knock on the door. Sandy opened it and there stood this boy who was almost a man, not a little boy. He grinned and came onto the porch, looked at Lily and Lily looked back at him. They both blushed and he said: “ Hi, I am Michael. Who are you?”
And so she told him, he could hardly believe it. He just stared at her and wondered. He had imagined this girl while he was building her out of sand. It was an impulse when he did it. But this girl had no tail, so he could not be sure.
“I do not know how you got those legs, Lily. I made you with a tail.”
“Well, Sandy took me out of the water and then I had this sensation shooting through me, legs grew where my tail was before. Don’t you like it?”
“I like it a lot. You turned out beautiful, Lily. I think I have never seen a more beautiful girl before!”
Lily jumped up and embraced Michael. She hugged him and it appeared as if they had known each other for the longest time. And in a way they had. She had sprung from his imagination, so she was a girl that he should like. And Lily felt oddly familiar with him as well. Now the TV people knocked on the door and they all greeted them. They sat on the sofa and chairs, all talked and filmed and laughed in their stunned disbelief. It all felt like a party. A beach party, and Lily and Michael were behaving like a young couple in love. The were shy and held hands. Michael could not get enough of her, he drank in her innocent beauty and her giggles and her freshness. She was unlike all the girls that he had met before. There was a girl he had dreamt of, he had imagined her just the way she turned out to be. She still had her sea weed hair, but it looked charming. He turned to her and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
“Oh,” she said, “I like that. What do you call that?”
“A kiss.”
“Can I give you a kiss?”
“Yes, you may,” and so she did. All people laughed and were generally taken by the two of them. How lovely it turned out to be. Michael thought that Lily was the girl of his dreams, Lily thought that Michael was a beautiful man.
The TV crew left and Lily and her friends were sitting there and discussing the next day. Michael also stayed. Sandy knew what Lily and Michael were going through, he knew the signs of first love all to well. So he invited them for a dinner at the beach restaurant a little bit down the beach. He found a dress in his closet, a garment that somebody had left. It fit Lily perfectly. And all of them went off along the edge of the water to go to the restaurant. Jimmy lumbered back to the castle. He could not sit with them anyhow.
Lily looked wonderful in the flowery dress, Michael beamed with his new girl friend on his arm. They laughed and ate with gusto, then the music started and Michael convinced Lily to dance with him. But Lily refused at first, she liked the music but did not know how to dance. So he showed her and she liked it. They became a couple on the dance floor, they looked like made from one piece. And so they danced, swaying to the music, getting used to each other in those moments.
He kissed her, now on the mouth, and she kissed him back. Oh how heavenly it felt. The sweet taste of young love. Lily did not quite grasp what it all meant, but she really liked Michael. When they returned to the table, Sandy looked at both and said: “You two are wonderful to watch, I remember being in love like you are. My girl is no longer with me, but I remember very well.”
Michael said: “May I come over tomorrow and see you again, Lily?”
“Of course you can, Michael.”
So they said good night and Sandy took Lily home to the sand castle where Jimmy waited. He bid her a good night and went back to his cottage.
Lily looked at Jimmy and sighed. “Jimmy, do you know what love is? I think that I am in love with Michael, the boy who built us. I think that he is wonderful, I like to be with him forever.”
And so she had made up her mind about her future. Jimmy nodded and gave her a knowing look, even though he was not sure what had happened.
The next morning Sandy knocked on the castle door. He reported on the TV show that he had just seen. “They were talking about you, Lily, as if you were some kind of miracle.” He sat down and just looked at her and Jimmy. They were that? were they not?
“It is so unusual that I will write a story about you. I will read it to my children in class, they will think that I made it all up. Now, can we go out to the beach again?”
So they did. People were still looking at the castle. But they had gotten used to that. Michael came down the beach and they all hugged and greeted each other. Jimmy looked at Michael and gave his approval.
And so the days went by and Sandy needed to fly home to his children. His vacation was over. They had a tearful good bye.
Lily had gotten used to Michael’s presence. He had a dog whom he brought to the castle one day. The dog’s name was Spotty. Spotty made quick friends with Jimmy and both of them liked to chase each other down the beach. Lily and Michael talked about their future together and decided to get married some day in the future. So they dreamed and built all sorts of future castles. Michael was deciding what to do professionally at the same time having thoughts about Lily and her strangeness. She still had the sea weed hair, and so she was still not quite a human being. He argued to himself about that, but he could not let her go for that reason. He decided to become an architect. It seemed the right thing for him. And so he went to school for that, he studied hard and always had Lily on his mind. Lily in the meantime had found her creativity. She liked decorating the castle and felt that she could do that to make a living. It was hard for her to get used to a regular schedule, but she made it work, After a while there was no difference between her and her fellow class mates. Not one person could tell where she came from. She had not lost her approach to life, her wonderful innocence, her way of making people smile. Her favorite colors were sea foam and turquoise, lavender, purple and deep green. The colors of the Florida sea. She became quite sought after, she got known for her clever color choices.
And then, the day of their wedding came. The event was filled with much joy and trepidation as well. His parents were very skeptical about her, but he ensured them to trust his judgement. And so they did. The wedding became a beautiful event, where all people came barefoot to the beach. Sandy and his new girl friend were the brides maid and the man of honor, to be witnesses for the marriage. The event lasted till the hours of morning the next day. Michael and Lily were unbelievably happy and continued to be way into the future. He built them a home, a real castle, she decorated the home and they were forever happy. The little boy on the beach had dreamt his girl. Who would have thought that that was possible. And at the last hour of the event, Jimmy blasted his trumpet in a full sound.
