Cindy and Mike were best friends. One of their favorite things to do was to walk on the beach next to the lighthouse at low tide and collect seashells. But this beach was no ordinary beach. It was a dangerous place. There were alligators, stingrays, jellyfish, and worst of all, pluff mud. Pluff mud is like quicksand. It looks like gooey, wet sand, but it can suck you under in a matter of minutes. The more you move, the quicker you sink. You don’t want to get stuck in pluff mud. And if the water rises while you’re stuck, well, it wouldn’t be good.
The tide was out further than normal that day, and the wet sand went on as far as you could see. The further out you went, the better seashells you could find. But also, the further you went, the more dangerous it was.
“Look at this shell, Cindy,” Mike shouted as he held up a shell the size of his hand.
“Oh, and look at this one,” Cindy responded as she held one just as big in her hand. “There’s a whole pile of them over here.” Cindy was so caught up in collecting seashells that she didn’t realize how far out she had gone.
“Cindy, come back. You’re too far,” Mike shouted as he realized where Cindy was.
As Cindy lifted her head, she realized how far out she had gone. But before she walked back toward Mike, she bent over to rinse off one of her shells in the water. Just as she went to bend over, she noticed that her feet were starting to sink.
She froze. “Um, Mike…” she said with a quivery voice.
Cindy tried to pull her feet out of the sand, but it was too late. She was stuck in pluff mud.
“Mike, help!” she shouted.
“Oh, no,” Mike said as he ran toward her.
Cindy tried to pull herself out of the pluff mud, but she was sinking. The more she tried to pull herself out, the more she sank.
Mike tried to get close enough to Cindy to pull her out with a long stick, but the pluff mud was everywhere, and he couldn’t seem to get close enough without stepping in the mud himself. Now the water was starting to rise, and Cindy was in trouble.
“Mike, go get help,” Cindy cried out to Mike.
But Mike knew that they were at least an hour away from anyone who could help, and Cindy didn’t have that much time. She was sinking fast. The pluff mud was now up to her chest, and the river’s tide was coming in toward her.
Mike made another attempt to save her by crawling out towards her on his hands and knees. He reached out the stick as far as he could, but it was just too short.
“Cindy, I don’t know what else to do,” Mike shouted.
The sky grew darker as the sun fell below the horizon. Mike and Cindy were running out of time.
Mike looked around everywhere for another solution. He had an idea. He ran into the woods and gathered a pile of branches and shrubs to lay over the mud. As he spread the shrubs along the sand, he began crawling over them towards Cindy. But the tide had already reached her; and now, it was only a matter of minutes before the water would rise over her head.
Mike’s idea seemed to be working. He was crawling over the shrubs without sinking… at first. But then the water started to rise over his head, and Mike couldn’t swim. Once the water reached him, he panicked, and ran back to the shore.
“Mike, please help!” Cindy cried as the water came up to her neck.
Mike tried to muster up some more courage to rescue her, but he had tried everything he could do. If he got any closer, he would likely get stuck in the pluff mud, too, and then both of them would drown.
The water rose to Cindy’s face as she continued to sink below the surface.
“Help! Help!” Cindy cried.
Helplessly, Mike joined in as loudly as he could, “Help! Help! He–”
Just then, a bright light flashed from out of nowhere as a large shadow bolted past Mike and ran into the water.
Cindy took one last deep breath as she disappeared below the surface.
Mike couldn’t tell what had run into the water because it all happened so fast.
Just then, a hand reached down and pulled Cindy up out of the pluff mud and out of the water.
It was the lighthouse keeper. He rescued her in the nick of time. He carried her over to the shore and set her on a rock as she coughed up the water she had swallowed.
“Are you okay?” the lighthouse keeper asked calmly.
“Yes, I think so,” Cindy replied.
“Wow, you saved her life,” Mike said. “There was nothing we could do. She would have died if it weren’t for you.”
“Thank you so much, sir. But why would you risk your life to rescue me?” Cindy said with a trembling voice.
“I’m a lighthouse keeper,” he said as he wrapped a towel around Cindy. “Rescuing people is what I do.”