A true story about a record-breaking starfish

When ella and i were about five and seven we found a starfish halfin the sea. She took two legs and i struggled with rest; one rough barnacled tentacle stuck by my ear, right through my hair. with solemn faces we carried our treasure, limping and hopping, our young feet hurting against the sharp stones of brodick beach. we passed many who put down paperbacks or fumbled for glasses to stare. our parents, in the distance, watched aghast from the tartan blanket we kept in the car for picnics. We felt uneasy; perhaps we should have left it in the sea. But we thought all starfish were five foot wide. Flushed and breathless we reached the spot and mother and father stood up, shiny eyes and awestuck smiles. We patiently arranged our offering with a mixture of pride and anxiety, gently unfurling the creature's rough legs. its sensitive whisker tips paleorange and bloodlessfistwhite across the amethysts and agates that make up the shingle. mother kneeled and tentatively placed her fingers over the seathing's quickly parching, briny feet. A slowgasping movement. "it's alive," she announced, smiling at daddy. we shrieked but then my cityfolk parents tenderly-awkwardly picked up our crazy giant starfish and carried it back to the sea from whence it came.