The little mermaid story - Part 1

Once upon a time, on a far away sea, a grand old ship came rolling through the thick mists. This ship belonged to the handsome Prince Eric, who was out sailing with his butler, Grimsby, all his best sailors, and his hairy pet dog, Max. 

  “It’s good weather for sailing today,” said one of the sailors. “King Triton must be feeling friendly.”
“Who is King Triton?” asked Prince Eric.
“He’s the ruler of the merpeople, who live down at the bottom of the ocean,” said the sailor.
“Nonsense,” said Grimsby. “There are no such thing as mermen and mermaids.” 

 It’s true that most grown-ups don’t believe in King Triton, and his underwater kingdom. But sailors, handsome princes and children know better… 

 Way, way down at the bottom of the sea, King Triton’s merpeople were very excited. They chattered to each other as they swam towards the palace. There was going to be a special musical concert today, and everyone in the kingdom was invited. They all wanted to see King Triton’s seven daughters sing their songs. 

King Triton and Sebastian, a very musical crab, entered to a blast of trumpets. “I can’t wait to see my youngest daughter, Ariel,” said King Triton. “It will be her first concert.”
Sebastian smiled, and swam over to the stage. He raised his baton, and the band began to play. 

 One by one, the mermaid princesses popped out of huge seashells and began to sing. King Triton smiled at his daughters. When it came to the turn of the youngest princess, Ariel, the seashell opened – but there was nobody inside!
The princesses all stopped singing, and gasped. King Triton was furious. “Ariel!” he thundered. 

 Ariel was far away, swimming inside a sunken ship with her fish friend, Flounder. “Look at that!” she cried, pointing to a fork. “And that!” She picked up a smoking pipe. She had never seen anything like these things before. She put them carefully into her bag. She wanted to take them to Scuttle, the seagull, to find out what they were. 

 Just then, a shark burst through a window behind Flounder. Flounder screamed, and he and Ariel both swam for their lives as the shark chased them around the ship. “Shark! We’re going to die!” shouted Flounder. But Flounder and Ariel both escaped safely when the shark got stuck in an anchor. Then they swam up to the surface of the water to find Scuttle the seagull. 

 Scuttle was sitting in his nest on a tiny rocky island. “Look at the human things we found, Scuttle!” said Ariel, showing him the fork and the pipe. Scuttle pretended to know what they were, because he wanted to sound clever. He told Ariel that the fork was called a dinglehopper, and that humans used it to brush their hair. Then he called the pipe a snarfblatt, and said that humans played music on it. 

“Oh no!” said Ariel. “Music! That reminds me – I was meant to be at the concert today!” She quickly put the fork and the pipe back inside her bag and said goodbye to Scuttle. Then Ariel and Flounder swam away in a hurry.