Wednesday's Words on a Friday

 The original Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and eventually taken over by a moveable feast of participants when Delores had computer troubles. Sadly, Delores has now closed her blog forever due to other problems.

The aim of the words is to encourage us to write. A story, a poem, whatever comes to mind.

If you are posting an entry on your own blog, please let us know so we can come along to read it and add a few encouraging words.

This month the words/prompts are supplied by messymimi and can be found here

Charlotte's colour of the month is Sea Green

This week's words/prompts are:

1.shell  2.deck  3.chest  4.proof  5.dawn  6.effective

and/or:

1. brabble: a loud, dumb argument

2. izzard: the letter Z

3. picaroon: a scoundrel

Here is my story:

When dawn was still just a shell pink smudge on the horizon Nathan rose from his chair on the deck and made his way over the side via a very effective rope ladder to the dinghy waiting below.

Keeping the pink behind him as a guide he rowed towards the island until he could easily see the rift between the palms where a plane had crashed many years ago. Some palms had regrown, but the path between was still clear enough to follow.

The previous evening, Nathan had studied the map left behind by that thieving picaroon for probably the thousandth time since finding it. It was etched into his memory like a brand.

He drew near to the shallows and stepped out of the dinghy, attaching a long chain to the bow and then to one of the palm trees with a heavy padlock. The key was on a smaller chain around his neck.

After counting past the fifteen palms noted, Nathan looked around for the rock that didn’t belong. After all these years he hoped it hadn’t been sanded over by too many hurricanes.

 Glancing back towards the beach, he saw the sun was almost above the waves now and would soon light the way through the tallest of the palms and show the position of the rock.

And there it was! The sun glanced off the rugged edge of it and Nathan pulled the folding shovel from his pocket and began to dig. One foot down, then two and halfway to three feet he felt the shovel hit wood.

He used his hands to scoop out more sand and gently removed the old jewellery chest, which still should contain not only his grandmother’s pearls and diamonds, but also the papers that were Nathan’s proof of ownership to the family mansion.

He wrapped it tightly in his old sea green shirt and retraced his steps beck to the dinghy. The chest wouldn’t be opened until he was safely back on board and in his cabin.