A snake’s head rested on the top of a lily pad, its split red tongue darted in and out like a party blower at something unseen. Its length curled around stems in two feet of water. Yellow stripes ran its full length of three feet providing the camouflage necessary for survival.

Markie approached fumbling with a string hanging from a swimming suit with a bundle of beach items. He did not see the eyes of a red-cheeked head watching him intensely. Tearing the thread from the hem of his suit, he sat down at the water’s edge and removed his thongs and T-shirt. Slowly he stepped into the water searching for the bottom. The snake saw the boy’s face contort with the abrupt change of temperature as his legs went deeper into the pool. The snake changed position.

In a half-sized lounge chair, Markie submerged himself up to his neck in the shaded coolness of a water garden. He pulled his feet up and waved his toes and giggled at himself. Yellow and pink blossoms floated gently to the ripples generated by the action.

Across the pool, like bubbles of a scuba diver, he saw something approaching by the line of movement of floating plants. He intensely searched for a frog hopping from lily pad to lily pad, but could see nothing. He lowered himself into his chair until the bottom of his chin was under the water line like a submarine decks awash. The lily pads stopped moving and the floating Duckweed became still again. Water skippers again darted on the surface as the boy sat like a statue. He wondered if sharks lived in his family’s water garden.

Drawing courage, he slowly reached with both hands up to his forehead and lowered a diving mask over his eyes and nose and placed the snorkel into his mouth. He dropped down even lower so he could see half land and half sea. The difference was striking.

In the mask’s upper view, small birds hopped about in the shadows of a dark pink tree mallow that loomed in the background obscuring a gentle waterfall. In the lower half, he saw underwater plants wave in the clear filtered water. The gurgling bubbles of air and water cascaded into the pool where a salamander tumbled slowly in the soft current of the falls. The boy observed the frolic for many moments but was distracted by something that was just out of sight. Was it an insect diving deeper and deeper to a potted planter? He couldn’t tell.

The boy rotated his head sharply to the left. Scrolling his eyes, he saw nothing. Then, on the opposite side of the pool, he noticed a flash of color moving near a stack of rocks. He decided to investigate. The snorkel tower moved through the expanse of floating plant life as he approached the underwater cave; a perfect place to hide a treasure.