I swam close to the place where Abdullah could hear me and let go of the fin while still holding the string. The fin floated and it looked as if a real shark was under the water. Then I cried out loudly, “Help! Help!”

It was a nice sunny day and the beach was rather crowded. There were lots of children playing on the shore. I asked my brother, Abdullah to come for swimming with me.

“I don’t want to,” he said.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because there are sharks in the sea and I don’t really like the idea of being bitten by the sharks,” he said.

“What! Are you crazy? There are no sharks here,” I said. But he didn’t give an ear to what I said. This meant that I had to be alone if I wanted to swim. My brother, Abdullah, was a very good swimmer but he was too afraid of the sea and thought that sharks and other dangerous fish or sea creature could attack him.

I walked on the shore thinking how I could help my brother to get over his fear. I looked around for something to tempt my brother to come in the water. At a distance, I saw a small shop which was selling tools for building sand castles, goggles, umbrellas, etc. I went to the shop and searched for something interesting. Suddenly, my eyes fell on a plastic shark fin. ‘Great!’ I thought to myself!

I bought the shark fin with a string attached to it and went back in the waves, hiding the fin behind me. I swam close to the place where Abdullah could hear me and let go of the fin while still holding the string. The fin floated and it looked as if a real shark was under the water. Then I cried out loudly, “Help! Help!”

It was good that nobody except my brother heard me shouting. He stared me and at the fin behind me. He stood still in great shock. I acted as if my leg was stuck in something and I could not swim. It was evident from Abdullah’s face that he was confused as well as too scared to come in the water while the shark, his greatest fear, was also there.

On the other hand, he didn’t want to leave me at the mercy of that beast. He called out to dad, but thinking dad will take time to reach, he jumped and swam as fast as he could and approached me in no time. Abdullah realised my trick the very moment he grabbed me but said nothing. We swam together to the shore.

“You played the trick well…, bro!” Abdullah said while taking the shark fin from my hand. “But I admit, it surely was a great fun swimming in the waves…,” he said.

My prank worked! From that day onwards, Abdullah is not scared of going into the sea and we always enjoy a lot!