The Little Mermaid.

There was once a marvellous world at the bottom of the Ocean, where King Tritón lived with his daughters.

The youngest daughter had fair skin,her eyes as blue as the sea, and long red hair, and also a long fishtail with golden scales. There was no doubt that Ariel was the prettiest and happiest of all her mermaid sisters. Only one thing troubled the king: Ariel´s foundness for anything tha had to do with humans.

For this reason, King Neptune entrusted a small hermit crab, Sebastian, with the task of waching over her.

One night, Ariel and her friend Sebastian, a small goldfish, heard a loud explosion on the ocean's surface and swam to the surface, where they saw a great many fireworks shooting up into the sky. A group of sailors was on board a vessel, singing and dancing to celebrate birthday on prince Eric.

Ariel, fascinated by those strange beings they had never seen before, was filled with awe.

"How handsome he is", sighed the Little Mermaid, who had not taken her eyes of the prince for one moment.

Suddenly, the sky was overcast with black clouds and a strong wind started to blow. The vessel was rocked to and fro by gigant waves and in a few seconds a ray of lightening crossed the sky and split the ship in two.

"The ship is sinking! Grab the life boys and head for the lifeboats!", shouted the sailors.

The entire crew managed to get to safety, with the exception of the prince who fell into the water, after being hit by a wave.

When she saw him sink below the surface, the little mermaid quickly swam towards him, and managed to take him to the shore, so that he could recover. Ariel remained at his side, singing to him sweetly until she heard the sound of humans coming and returned to the sea.

Just then, Sebastian, the small crab, arrived on the scene.

"What were you doing with that human?". "I think I am in love", replied Ariel.

But that´s imposible! You´re a mermaid and you belong here, under the sea, cried Sebastian.

From that day on, Ariel was no longer the happy mermaid that everyone knew, and her father realised that someting was wrong. Sebastian, in fear, finally confessed to the king what had happened, and the king sent for his daughter. "I forbade you to have anuthing to do with humans", shouted the King. Why did you disobey me?. The King was furious and told Ariel she deserved to be punished, and that she should never again go up to the surface.

Ariel, weeping, told her friend Sebastian she would pay a visit to the sea witch totry and find a solution. The witch, an enormous jellyfish called Ursula, had magic powers like King Triton, but she always used them to do evil. So when she saw the little mermaid coming into her house, she rubbed her hands together in glee at the thought of all the mischief she could cause. Ariel told her all about prince Eric and asked her to tourn her into a human, but Ursula said she would only do so on two conditions:

I will make your wish come true, but in return I will take your voice and if you are unable to get prince to give you a kiss in token of his love with in two days, I will turn you into sea spray.

After accepting the proposition, Ariel drank the potion that the witch had prepared ad fell asleep. Shortly afterwards, she woke up on the beach, and found she had turned into a pretty human.

Sebastian didn´t stop complaining about what the king would say if he found out what she haddone, but Ariel was very happy to have two legs.

Suddenly she heard a noise. It was the prince who was taking a walk with his dog along the beach, When he saw her, he thought she had been shipwrecked and took her to the palace.

There in the palace, Ariel spent a few memorable days with the prince, buy just when she about to get him to kiss her, Ursula appeared, converted into a beautiful girl, singing with the sweet voice she had stolen from Ariel. On hearing the voice, the prince recognised it as the voice he had heard whem the mermaid had saved his life, and inmediately left Ariel and went to Ursla.

The powers of the witch made the prince fall in love with her, and their wedding was hastily planned.

But what Ursula did not know was that the little mermaid´s friend were getting ready to help her and in the middle of the wedding ceremony, they all turned up and organised a great uproar.

Sebastian finally managed to find Ariel´s voice with was licked away in a chest and return it ti her. Now, with her voice back, Ariel was able to explain everything to prince Eric who filled with fury, had the witch locked away in a cage at the botton of the sea.

King Triton finally agreed to make his daughter happy and let her stay with the humans and from that on Ariel and the prince lived happily ever after in the palace.

The End.