Hello again Story Club members. I'm Ivy, your ghostly host with the most and keeper of the strangest,

spookiest tales on earth. Today is another Ivy's chilling tale.

This splashy tale story club members might make you stay out of the ocean forever.

It's one I call stillness in the water.

The shark fin doesn't knife through the water until an hour after I'm adrift.

The sun set hours ago, and the moon now dwells high and bright.

The sea remains calm and cold, except for that fin.

It cuts the water about 40 feet from me. The shark, for the moment,

doesn't slice in my direction. Don't panic, I think. If you panic, you're dead. Sharks can sense

fear and agitation. He'll turn, hit you, and clamp you in his powerful razor-sharp jaws if you freak out.

No, Christy, don't panic, I tell myself.

But thinking about panicking makes my heart race even more.

Oh, relax, relax, relax, go with the flow.

Literally.

This isn't how today was supposed to turn out, with me alone, lost at sea,

with a shark circling me, and perhaps sizing me up for dinner.

Belay did Christi. No. It started when my parents and I decided to go on a sunset cruise.

Down at Florida's New Smyrna Beach for a week on vacation, we were shopping, snorkeling, eating

out with me scarfing down all kinds of seafood.

Now it's starting to look like my turn to be the seafood.

Oh!

Mom thought it would be a thrill for us to go sightseeing along the coast. There were just

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