BOOK ONE: A LITTLE TURTLE AND A MONSTER
Once upon a time, there lived a turtle and a monster. I am the turtle, and my name is Laylay. The monster comes every spring and scares our village. It is a huge, navy blue octopus and tries to eat the turtles by scooping us up. When the octopus comes, we hide down in the sand by the water.
It’s spring now, so I am hiding with everybody and our fish friends. We are afraid and shaking. We are all quiet. Today is Tuesday, and we know the monster is coming today.
It’s here right now. When the octopus comes, he tries to find us. He usually can’t, but sometimes he finds one turtle. Then I see it. The octopus is in my friend’s sleeping area. He is trying to get her with his tentacles. My friend is screaming as loud as fireworks.
What shall I do? “Help! Help!” I call out. “The monster has my friend!” I’m running and I wish I were faster.
All of the turtles and fish come. We make a plan to get her back. We are going to sneak right up on the octopus and tie a rope around it. Then we will get my friend back. But I am too scared to go. I stay back while everybody else goes to where the octopus is, one by one. While they are gone, I think about my friend, and the monster attacking her. I wish that the monster wasn’t there. I wish I were braver.
The turtles and fish are gone for ten minutes. When they come back, everyone looks fine, and they have brought my friend back. I feel happy again. I hug my friend.
She says, “Guess what! The monster went away.” My friend smiles.
I say, “Good morning! I’m really happy to see you.”
“You, too,” she says.
We start to play hide-n-go-seek.
BOOK TWO: A TURTLE RAN AWAY
Once upon a time a little turtle named Fancy lived in a rock house. She wanted to swim across the ocean because one of her other friends did it. One day she woke up early and she went around the sea, but she didn’t get to go all the way because she was too small and the ocean was so large. She saw nothing but the blue water around her and the beige sand. She felt sad and started crying because the other turtles were not with her.
The next day all of the turtles woke up and they knocked on the wooden door of her house made of rocks. No one answered the door. They thought Fancy was asleep so they opened it. They swam in and looked at the bed and Fancy wasn’t there. They thought she ran away so they started looking for her in the coral, but they couldn’t find her. The turtles started to quietly cry. Then they set off to travel around the ocean. They finally found her. Fancy was sitting on the sand not that far away. They hadn’t seen her before because they didn’t look outside of the coral.
“I’m so happy to see you!” Fancy said.
“Us too,” the turtles replied. “Let’s go back!”
Then they all swam back and had a party in the middle of the rock houses. The turtles danced, ate, and started to make a book about the time Fancy ran away.
THE END