It was a lovely sunny day and the beach was full of people enjoying themselves. Granny and Grandad were relaxing out at sea in a boat. Grandad was looking through his binoculars when he thought he saw a mermaid on a rock in the middle of the sea. Grandad was very worried about the mermaid. He didn’t want her tail to shrivel up on such a hot day so he decided to try to help her. He jumped out of the boat and swam to the big rock. He climbed right to the top of it and carefully rolled the beautiful mermaid into the sea but then something very puzzling happened. Instead of saying ‘thank you very much’ and swimming away, she started waving her arms in the air and shouting. She couldn't swim!

Before long, all the people on the beach had noticed what was happening. From out of nowhere came three very handsome and very muscly lifeguards. The lifeguards rescued her and brought her back to the beach. Everybody clapped and cheered. And then Grandad realised he had made a dreadful mistake. It wasn’t a mermaid at all…just a beautiful lady in a sparkly skirt. Oh dear! She wasn’t very happy at all.

There was a big argument on the beach. The lifeguards were cross with the lady for going in the water when she couldn’t swim. The lady was cross with Grandad for pushing her in the water. Granny was cross with the lady because Grandad was only trying to help.  Then they heard a noise - it was the ice-cream van. Grandad offered to buy the lady an ice-cream to make up for his mistake. It seemed to work. Before long the lady had forgotten all about what had happened and was tucking into a very big strawberry ice-cream. Good idea, Grandad!