His mom looked at him pitifully and smiled. "Silly you," she told him, "those are not your fingers, they are just little sea shells, the homes of some small hermit crabs."

Matthew sat pensively for a moment and asked, "Mom, am I ugly?"

"Why, sweetheart?" His mom said smilingly but didn’t look him at the eyes. "Of course not, you are as charming as a prince." She tried to divert his attention, "Why don’t you build yourself a castle on the sand?"

For that, Matthew started to work diligently. His mind was full of imagination, he quickly build up a sand castle on the beach, with towers and high walls and imagine a noble prince was living in the castle. And he put the little seashells around the castle like canons.

"And it will protect you from the dog." He told his imagine prince.

Matthew rested beside his castle and started to dream that he was the prince of the ocean, his luxury undersea palace, the beautiful mermaids, the lobster guards, the dolphin scouts. The reality was not far from his fantasy, for the sea was covered with a darkened blue, like the surreal color in a fairy tale. But then he noticed something. There was a small fin raised above the water.

"Dolphin!" He shouted to his mom.

His mom simply smiled at him and went back to her needlework.

He walked closer to the water. The fin was plowing in the morning sea, inviting him to come closer, to play with it. Matthew couldn’t resist the temptation. He walked closer, first slowly, cautiously. But when he saw the fin began to swim away, he started to ran, and jumped into the water. His heart was too excited to notice the voice of his mom.

"Matthew! Where are you going?" his mom shouted. "Matthew come back!" She was running after him.

But Matthew could swim. That’s one thing he was good at. He swam closer and closer to the fin. And the fin slowed down, seemingly waiting for Matthew to catch up. And then it decided to make a small U-turn and swam towards Matthew, first slowly than faster.