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[h3]Shell Sorting is Serious Business[/h3]
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The latent hummed groan that came from beneath a pile of patchwork quilt as Penelope stretched her tender legs was the first indication the pilot was waking. When between ports, she operated more like clock-work, keeping to a set schedule that mostly left her in the flight deck. But, when the ship she was piloting was docked, she was one to fully embrace shore-leave and off-duty life unless the captain called on her for something or another.

A sigh escaped her lips as she pulled the blanket off her head, her eyes staring up at the curved ceiling of her quarters. When she’d made it back in the late hours of the night, Penelope had been ready for sleep. It had been a good day, everything was good with the captain, she’d made a new set of local friends, and the shore supplied her with a very good haul. Though her legs were sore from all the walking, she couldn’t be sore herself. Besides, as her smile returned, it was a good sort of pull in her calves. Once she got up the ladder, a little walk around would stretch it right out.

But first - the treasure! The young woman’s head turned on her pillow to the backpack she’d placed down carefully in the corner of the room, out of foot traffic if she got up in the middle of the night. Again she stretched out, the blanket still covering her bare legs, and carefully dragged the pack over by the just captured strap. Lifting it up and placing it on her covered lap, she unclasped the flap that secured the largest part first and began to pull out her findings.

Penelope had been mindful to take some cloth with her to wrap up the more fragile pieces and a few small plastic bottles for smaller prizes. Among the scraps of burlap and cotton were cowries, winkles, whelks, scallops, lettered olives, augers, and conkles and many more. They all had nice color splashes or patterns, separating them from the many that had littered the stretch of sand she’d walked on. A circular dish with a twisted lid secured small sand dollars, and a large one as big as her hand was safely tucked in the front pocket so it wouldn’t get broken on the journey back. Inside a tiny corked bottle was a star-shaped white remnant she’d found inside the center of a broken one. There was a chance to get a large starfish, but she saw its little tendrils moving and instead returned it to the sea just in case it was still alive. Later on, she’d found a few small dried out ones and decided to give them a new purpose so pocketed them in the other front pocket. 

Admittedly, her favorite thing to find was sea glass and the local friends she had made had not steered her wrong at all. That beach had an abundance of it. Recycling recycled goods brought a smile to her face, and the pouch she had pulled out had her positively beaming. That was for later though, she knew, so she set it aside in the circular spread of sea forming around her atop the quilt.

The task at hand was to make a decision she couldn’t make last night: which one of the shells said ‘Abby’? The backpack now returned to the floor empty, her hazel eyes studied the contestants all laid out before her. First, there was a perfect pair forming the angel wings that gave the shell its name - half a foot long and still connected while flat open. It was an incredible find. The matching zebra ark shell seemed a better fit for Abby, looking more like the wings of a fiery little sprite. But her eyes kept straying over to the conches. 

Like the sand dollars, she’d collected a variety of sizes, but there were also different designs to these lovely shells. As she was hunting, she found more than a few that had a little critter still living inside. Nearly all, she’d returned to where they were, but one… she picked up the shell she’d carried in her hand the entire way back. It was a little thing, white and spiraled with tan. Inside, her new little friend peeked out at her from his shell at being lifted from the circular tray filled with sand that she’d left him on while she slept. 

“What do ya say, Herbert? A conch for Abbs?” She grinned, tilting him to look at the choices. He started to creep out of his shell a little, getting a laugh from her. “No, we’re not looking for new real estate, mister. But… that is a nice one.”

After setting Herbert the hermit crab back in his temporary lodging, she carefully crawled out from her sea bed so as to not disturb the strayed items and went through the motions of getting dressed. Trading her long jersey knit sleeping gown for a loose cotton top and pair of wide-legged cloth capris that she tied at the waist before tying back her mussed hair, Penelope gave a gentle brush of her finger to Herbert before leaving with the shell that she had no idea what it was aside from knowing it was Abby’s.