This is a "Once Upon A Time" story of a time-worn, overlooked, broken shell and the magic (or was it really magic?) that it had on the life of a child. A child who felt imperfect, much like the broken shell and imperfect much like many of us. This is a story that will set you on a path to something so wonderful that only you will be able to imagine what it will be. Your dreams, your desires, and your wishes can be fulfilled.

The message in The Magic Shell can change and enhance your life forever . . .

This story is a gift that will last forever . . .

"The Magic Shell" is indeed a book that is an ideal keepsake for yourself or a wonderful gift for the daughters, granddaughters, sisters, nieces and special friends in your life.

The opening page offers the gift To... and From... page

with a generous area for your sentiments.

The Magic Shell

By Mare Bowman

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2011 Mare Bowman
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4520-5113-0

Chapter One

Once upon a time ... there was a lonely little girl with no one to play with. She had no brothers or sisters. Her mother and father worked many long hours every day just to make ends meet. They rented an apartment. Her parents had never owned a home of their own. However, the little girl was happy that she lived near a beach.

She longed every day for someone to play with. But no one wanted to play with her. No one wanted to be her friend. She wasn't very pretty either, or so she thought. She felt that she looked scrawny and thin and her hair was always stringy.

She never liked having her mother brush her hair because it hurt so much just to get the tangles and knots out. It was always a painful or deal that would end with her crying and her mother mad at her. She didn't seem to pay very much attention to herself-inside or out!

She rarely remembered even laughing very much. She didn't seem to remember why she felt so alone and sad, but she knew she did.

It was awful being alone and looking out from her window, watching all the other children playing and laughing together and not inviting her to play with them. When she would go out to play with them, sometimes they would let her join in, but usually they would make fun of her and make her feel that she was not included.

Then she would go home alone, crying and sad. She always seemed to feel differently and wondered why.

She often found herself wandering around the neighborhood streets, the apartments and houses where the other children lived, hoping just to see them and maybe have one of them see her, and ask her to play with them.

Or maybe even invite her into their home to join them for dinner. Oh my, wouldn't that be great, she thought, to be together with them and having dinner with them and their families.

It was cold after the sun went down and she was usually very hungry, too, but she wouldn't go home yet. She was just so lonely that she kept looking through their windows, watching them and their families having dinner together and missed having dinners like that with her parents at her home.

Oh, don't misunderstand, her mother and father were good parents, and loved her very much. It's just that they were always so busy working, that they probably didn't even realize how lonely she was feeling and how often.

Actually, even she didn't understand her feelings and so she really didn't know how to tell her parents about them, either.

Her mother and father managed a restaurant together and worked all day in it, until it closed very late at night. The apartment where she lived was right above the restaurant so her parents were never very far from her. But still the little girl was alone most of the time.

She knew her parents really loved her, but she still felt very lonely and sad. In fact, she never really wanted for anything like dolls, toys or clothes. She had their television and her parents bought her just about anything she wanted. But when the newness wore off, she felt lonely and sad again.

Her mother and father would take turns bringing her food upstairs from the restaurant for dinner, but would leave the little girl alone again to eat by herself, while they would go back to work. It wasn't any fun eating alone. In fact it was very sad being alone a lot. The loneliness felt like a crying inside but not really crying.

Then one day, the most wonderful day of her life, she went to play on the beach by herself. She began looking for shells to collect. She always made sure she didn't take a shell that had a living critter inside, like a hermit crab or a snail. She knew it would die if she did. She never wanted to hurt anything or anybody, so she couldn't understand why nobody wanted to be her friend.

But on this day, this very special day, like all her days since, the lonely little girl found what would turn out to be one of the most sought-after, desired, and most wonderful gifts in the entire world.

As she searched the beach, she came upon a damaged shell. It wasn't very pretty and so she didn't want it. It had apparently been on the beach alone for a very long, long time. It had survived many storms and tides, many summers and winters. It had been tossed and thrown, beaten and broken.

Over the years, all the perfect shells would be picked up readily by the many children and shell-seekers for their collections.

But this shell's fate was to remain by itself, picked up and discarded time and time again, year after year.

And, again on this day the little shell, alone, awaiting its fate.

As she started to lay it back in the sand, something about it caught her attention. She didn't know what could be so special about this shell, why it would hold her attention like this, being imperfect and all. But something about it did intrigue her.

At that moment, she became flooded with all the same feelings of being alone and not having anyone who would play with her. She began to realize what the broken shell would feel like if she, like all the others in the past, discarded it again.

With that in mind, she decided to keep the shell and do something special with it. Make it pretty. In fact, she wanted to make it beautiful. Although the little shell was broken and not like all the whole and pretty shells she could have picked, there was something very interesting about it. She didn't know yet what it was.

She also noticed a very small hole in the top of the shell and she thought, In the meantime, while I'm making you more desirable and pretty, I can put some string through you and make a necklace for myself. Then I could keep you with me always.

She started to get very excited and feeling happy about finding this unusual broken shell. She liked what she was feeling. She then made what would be the most important decision of her life. She decided, at that moment, she wanted to feel like this every day from then on, rather than feeling lonely and unhappy like she has known because she had no friends.

You see, now she had her shell, something other than herself to think about, and it was all she thought she needed to feel happy from then on.

"What shall I do for you today to make you more beautiful?" she said to the shell. "Instead of a piece of string, someday I'll find a way to display you on a strand of gold. The sparkle of it will shimmer and glisten around you like the light of the sun. Perhaps I can trim you in gold, too."

The shell was so happy to have been found and kept by this wonderful little girl, who truly saw the beauty in the imperfect shell, the shell decided, "Since I am a gift of the sea, I must somehow find a way to be a gift to this little girl."

So as the girl decided to make the shell more beautiful and happy, the shell decided to make the girl more beautiful and happy.

This then was the beginning of their quest together. They each had a purpose in life now. They each began to wake up every morning full of passion and excitement: The girl desiring to find a way to earn the strand of gold from which to hang the shell and the shell desiring to make the girl more beautiful and happy.

Something wonderful was beginning to happen, for as each day began with a quest, a passion, a purpose in their lives, each day became more interesting for both the girl and the shell.

Each day they grew with anticipation and wonder. They grew with learning.

For it was truly the purpose that began to make each more beautiful and happy. The girl, focusing on her want of a...