Flamingo dances

Day four of The Ultimate Blogging Challenge and Inktober. The prompt for today is exotic.

The boy picked up his backpack. His parents smiled at him. But the boy was watching Baby Bear, who went into a wooded area near the beach.

“I wonder what’s there,” the boy said.

“You have a lot of curiosity,” said the boy’s dad. “I was like that as a boy, too. I wonder where it went.”

“It didn’t go anywhere,” said the boy’s mom. “I’m going to stay here and collect seashells. Why don’t the two of you go see what’s in the woods?”

She walked toward the sea. She sang a sea shanty as she began to put seashells into a bag. The boy’s dad recalled how he had been attracted to this mysterious girl by the sound of her voice. She had a very pure voice. She still had that very pure voice after the couple married and had their son. Sometimes, the father worried that his wife was a selkie and that she would leave him one day. He knew how much she loved the sea. But she just walked on the beach and happily collected shells as he and his son walked into the woods.

There in the woods, was the baby bear sitting up with his back to the trunk of an ancient tree watching a flamingo dance. It stood on one leg, and then it ran back and forth. It was an odd sight because there was only one flamingo.

“Shouldn’t the bird have another bird to dance with?” asked the boy.

“Yes,” said his father. “But I have never seen a flamingo here. It’s too cold of a place for flamingos.”

Baby Bear walked toward the flamingo and bowed to the bird and imitated the bird’s dance.

The two danced for a few hours as the boy and his father watched.

“The bear would be a good friend for me,” said the boy.

“Should we take him out to sea on our boat?” asked the father.

“Maybe, we should,” said the boy. Just then, he tripped over some tree roots and…