Deep at the bottom of the ocean, inside a sunken wooden ship, lived Plesi the plesiosaur. Her neck was so long she could peek out the porthole and the captain's window at the same time. Every morning she dove down to the sandy floor to collect lost treasures, and every night she tucked them safely away.
Tonight, Plesi swam home with something special — a gold coin so bright it buzzed with light between her teeth. She nudged open the big wooden chest with her nose, ready to drop it in. But the chest was empty. Every last treasure, gone.
She stared into the hollow dark. No crab claw. No glittery shell. No smooth green bottle-glass. Just the smell of old wood and nothing. Plesi blinked slowly at the chest. Then she tucked the gold coin safely behind her ear, and she set off into the deep dark water.
*Swish, swish, swish.* Her long neck swept side to side like a lighthouse beam, searching. The current had scattered everything while she slept. Somewhere out there in the dark, her treasures were waiting. She was going to find every single one.
*Swish, swish, swish.* The water got colder as she went deeper. A lanternfish blinked past her left eye. Something small and silver tumbled by — a fish scale, spinning like a coin. Plesi kept going, neck swinging, eyes wide.
Then she heard it. A low, strained groaning sound, like a balloon that wanted very badly to pop. She followed the noise around a tall black rock and found Zeb the pufferfish — enormous and perfectly round, wedged tight between two boulders, his spines pointing every direction, his tiny eyes furious.
Zeb had puffed himself up so big — on purpose, he was very clear about this — that he had accidentally rolled right over the crab claw and now absolutely could not deflate. He glared at Plesi with great dignity. Plesi pressed her lips together very carefully and did not laugh even once.
She leaned in close and tickled him, ever so gently, with the very tip of her long neck — right under his left fin. Zeb let out an enormous *WHOOOOOSH.* Water rushed past Plesi's face like a gust of wind. And there was Zeb, small and flat and extremely embarrassed, holding out the crab claw with a tiny, stiff bow.
"Thank you, Zeb," said Plesi, very seriously. And she swam on. *Swish, swish, swish.*
She found the glittery shell caught in a sea fan, its edges clicking in the current. She found the green bottle-glass resting in a forest of tall pale coral, glowing faintly. One by one, the treasures came home. But the last one — the small round pearl — was nestled inside a clam no bigger than Plesi's nostril.
Plesi leaned down until her chin rested on the cold sand. She looked very carefully. The clam was a baby. And this was its very first pearl, still soft, still faintly pink, still belonging to someone else. Plesi held her breath. Then she lifted the pearl in the tip of her nose and set it back inside the shell, gently, gently — like tucking something precious in for the night.
She swam home with her chest of treasures, and she dropped the glowing gold coin in last. It landed with a *clink* at the bottom — and then the whole chest lit up, warm and gold, shining through the cracks in the old wood, lighting the portholes, lighting the barnacles, lighting the dark water all around the sunken ship.
Plesi curled her long neck slowly down, down, down, and rested her chin on the lid of the glowing chest. The light rippled out in quiet rings across the ocean floor. Above her, a small crab walked sideways through the gold.
