The creature’s name, etched into its brass nameplate, was Mechus Carcharias —but the local children called him “Jaws of Junk.”
The shark shook its head slowly. “THE OCEAN IS MY HOME NOW. BUT I WILL REMEMBER. I WAS A MONSTER OF SCRAP. YOU MADE ME A HERO.”
The peach floated like a sunset made fruit. Aboard it, James Henry Trotter, Spider, Silkworm, Centipede (in his bottle-green velvet suit), Ladybird, Glowworm, and the Old-Green-Grasshopper were bailing water from a leak in the peach’s stem.
With a final, gentle nudge of its snout, it pushed the peach into the harbor, then turned and sank beneath the waves. James watched the last glow of its quartz eyes disappear into the green deep.
Then came the Peach.