Fiction: Group 2
New Tales of the Pearl River Delta
SKH Chu Oi Primary School, Choi, Sandra - 11, Fiction: Group 2
ello, my name is Sandra and I have a story to tell you about the Pearl River. I lived in a boat with
my grandfather, grandmother and my three brothers because my grandparents and brothers were
fishermen. My parents didn’t know how to swim and didn’t want to be fishermen so they worked
in a factory in another province. We seldom visit them on the land. My brothers learned how to fish from
my grandfather, and they were all really good at it. The strange thing is that all three of my brothers could
only catch a certain kind of fish. My oldest brother Jack could only catch squid, my second brother
Chandler could only catch crabs, and my youngest brother Zack could only catch clams. It was really strange
and my grandfather always scratched his head because he didn’t know why this happened.
Even though my brothers were strange, I have an even stranger secret to tell you. I have a mermaid
friend that lives in the river! Her name was Ariel. Because the river was usually very smelly because of the
factories nearby, we were the only family still living here. Ariel was my only friend because there weren’t
any other families living nearby. The story of how I met Ariel was a funny one. I am actually a good
swimmer in my family. My brothers are not very good at swimming at all. So, one day I wanted to find out
why my brothers were only catching squid, crab, and clams. I swam underwater and followed their fishing
line to their fish. I saw that there was someone taking the sea creatures and putting them onto my brothers’
fishing line. It was a mermaid! She swam up to a rock and started singing and brushed her hair when I swam
to her. We talked a lot that day and became good friends. She was a pretty and adorable girl. She had long
black hair and green tail. Everyday, we fished together and this helped our family when I took the fish I
caught and sold them on the road nearby our house. Although my life and family were poor at this time, we
all felt happy.
One day, this changed. We couldn’t catch fish anymore because the river was too polluted from
the factories. Our boathouse was starting to sink because of the chemicals they were putting on the water.
The water burned my skin a little, and Ariel started to swim further and further away from my home. I had
to stop swimming because the bluish green water was making my skin turn green. We started to become
hungrier because we couldn’t catch any fish to eat. Our grandfather talked about moving the boat house
down the river, but there were many big boats in this part of the river. Our house could be hit by a big ship
and we may all die. My youngest brother Zack cried for the whole day and my grandfather and brothers
didn’t smile anymore.
I went out to Ariel on our fishing boat after that and I told her about our problems. She said “I was
once a girl like you Sandra. I lived on this river and there were many families here. Because of the chemicals
that the people on land are putting into the water, my skin turned green and my legs turned into fins. My
family was so scared that they were turning into mermaids that they swam out to the ocean and tried to hide
from the other people. I was the only person that stayed in my boat village.” When she told me her story I
felt happy. I said: “But that’s good! I can be a mermaid too!” But, Ariel started crying. She told me that even
though she became a mermaid, she felt sad that she couldn’t see her family anymore. “This village is our
home, but we became something that we didn’t want to be. It is not a good thing because our old life is
gone. I sometimes dream about playing in the sun and flying a kite in the air. But this life is gone to me
now. Please don’t be a mermaid, Sandra.” “Oh! Yeah. I did not think about it. What can we do?’ I felt
anxious and upset. And I started to cry. Ariel saw that so she asked me to swim with her. I stopped crying
and said, ‘However, my skin will turn green and I will become a mermaid.’
So how could we stop my family and I from turning into mermaids? Ariel said there was a way and told me
a story: “When I became a mermaid, I was sad and I swam all day. When I saw some beautiful fishes, I felt
better. One day, I swam to a sunken ship. Then, I saw an ugly witch. She used to be a beautiful girl that
lived on this sunken ship. One day she made fun of a beggar but this beggar was a powerful wizard, so he
cursed her and she became an ugly witch. She said that she could help me but couldn’t turn me into a
human again. She said, ‘You can only turn human when the pollution is gone from the river.’”
After that we swim to sunken ship to find the witch. However, we couldn’t find the witch. We
found a note that told us about a powerful spell. It was a spell that created a storm that would destroy all the
factories in near the river. We collected all the ingredients and then poured the potion into the sea. The
factories were destroyed and the pollution was stopped. Ariel became a human again and lived with us. We
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