Topsey

What would Topsey do? How could he survive? The precious gift of sight had been stripped away from him.

While Topsey was healing, his friends had come to visit. Mermaid would come with her healing oils and heal his skin but she could not heal his eyes! This had made Topsey very sad and he thought, “How can I live without my eyesight? How can I explore and have fun? And how can I teach in the Turtle School?”

All he did was lay on his seaweed bed and feel very depressed and awful. This had gone on for many days, and his friends didn’t know what to do. Topsey didn’t even feel like getting in the water to go swimming. One day Octopus had a bright idea! He scooted out into the ocean and gathered many shells from the ocean. He gathered clam shells, oyster shells, abalone shells, and many others. He brought the shells back into Topsey’s cave and began stacking them against the wall behind Topsey’s bed. There was one very large abalone shell which he put at the very bottom of the sculpture. The shells gathered water as it ran down the wall, and it trickled into the large shell at the bottom of the sculpture. Then the water ran in a stream right onto Topsey’s back!

When Topsey wanted to turn the water off, he would just move the shell to the side a little bit. The shell wall was very beautiful! All Topsey’s friends were in awe of the job Octopus had done. They were amazed at how Octopus had stacked the shells so that the little ones fit right in with the big ones. Also, he had placed some of the abalone shells so that light was reflected from the beautiful lining in the shells into the cave. The cave turned into a fairy land when the light reflected onto the water.

Mermaid came every week to check on Topsey. She saw that Topsey’s body had healed, although there were some scars. She helped Topsey get into the water and exercise his flippers. Unfortunately, Topsey’s eyes did not heal, so he had lost his vision.