“I don’t know about you honey, but if I would’ve known this was going to happen to our home, I wouldn’t have considered living here in the coral reef.” said Henry the crab to his beloved sea horse, Lisa, while they both felt defeated. Lisa sighed and looked down at her baby starfish, Jack.
“All I wanted was us to start our lives in this beautiful environment and raise our kids around other sea creatures, but this garbage can potentially harm us along with the others. When will humans start to realize what this does to creatures like us?”
Henry and Lisa lived in a small crowded two bedroom home in a small rock cave. Lisa was still on maternity leave and Henry worked at a local kelp farm. Henry came home from a hard day of work, he pushed the rock back in place to close the hole to their home and looked at Lisa holding Jack.
“What is it honey?” questioned Lisa with a slight concerned look on her face. “Did something bad happen at work?”
“No.” he answered “Do you ever want more in life? More for us and for our children?” Lisa is now pregnant with their second child.
“Of course, but what would we do? Where else would we go?”
Henry had a smirk on his face and trembled with excitement. “The Coral Reef! They have great educational school systems for the kids, they have more job opportunities, and how could I forget about the variety of magnificent colors of the coral reef that contrast with the perfect shade of the aqua blue water! Honey, it’s our dream. Don’t tell me I’m crazy for having this idea.”
Lisa’s eyes grew wider from both puzzlement and excitement. She floated towards Henry, her eyes were warm and welcoming, with a new sparkle in her eye, “Let’s do it.”
One thousand and seventy six sand dollars later, they had acquired enough money to have their dream home. The rocks looked beautiful and natural, with a touch of history from several years of tides rushing in and out of the ocean; the sunlight made every rock, sand particle and plant glisten. They swam up to the For Sale sign, slapped their “sold” sticker on, and held each other in awe of their new beautiful place.
“Henry, this is perfect. I never thought that this was going to happen” Lisa said while planting a kiss on his cheek.
As they looked around the neighborhood, families were playing in the front yard, enjoying the glorious day. They knew they picked the right time for this move. When they went inside their new home, there were four bedrooms, two baths, an upper loft and breath taking skylights. They both sat there and day dreamed the rest of their lives in this very home; growing old together and seeing their children progress in life. 
After they were fully moved into their incredible new home, they notice something odd. “Lisa, do you notice something a little off? Where did the Belugas go? Along with the Rays? There’s no sign of life on our street. It’s a little depressing.” Henry said with sadness across his face. “Do you think it’s because of us?” Lisa looked up and smirked at him.
“No honey, look outside. Don’t you see the plastic laying around their lawns, including ours?” Henry scanned the area and noticed all the little specs of plastic, the caps off of water bottles, and plastic wrappers stuck on the plants, along with some of them piled on top of the other homes.
“Oh.” Henry paused, “I’ll go out right now and try to clean things up, just start packing our things, including Jacks for our small trip. I’m glad we can finally have a fun Fourth of July. ”
Two days later, they arrived back from their short weekend trip. They had never been so disappointed. Tears started to roll down Lisa’s face. “Why? Why do humans do this? Do they not seem to understand what this does to creatures like us?”
Their home was buried underneath plastic bags, bottles, caps, and much more. The coral was losing its bright colors of blues, greens, reds, and yellows; the reflection from the sun couldn’t even make the beautiful aquatic environment look remotely better. Henry hugged Lisa tight.
“I’m sorry, honey this is all my fault. All I wanted was for us to live somewhere beautiful with a lot of fascinated history. I wanted our children to be given more opportunities for success and have a beautiful life here. If only small creatures like us could make a difference, find a way to teach humans a lesson.” He let go of Lisa and she had a look of disappointment.
“We may not be able to make a difference just the two of us, but if we had a large group, we could find a way.”
Jack went to sleep while Henry and Lisa took out the phone books from the bottom shelf of the pantry and dialed every number in the area. All night long, the same phrases were said enthusiastically, “Hello there, would you be interested in teaching humans lessons on what pollution in the ocean does to creatures like us?” By the end of the long and dreadful night, they had created a group of twenty volunteers; both big and small.
All twenty of them gathered around and shot ideas out in the open about what should be done. Stanley the Shark was the first one with an idea.
“We could scare them the next time the dive down to see us! Show them our big strong teeth, swarm around them, and get rough with them a little bit.” He said with enthusiasm and several hand gestures.
“Um, I don’t think that would be beneficial; not only would they be terrified but they wouldn’t understand why we are trying to frighten them in the first place.” Henry said with reassurance.
“Darn it, I just spent a lot of sand dollars to get these mean frightening teeth cleaned and sharpened.”
“Does anyone else have a better idea of what we should do?” Henry said desperately. “We need a good thought out plan. Some of you have children of your own, wouldn’t you want to get this situation taken care of before something harms them?”
Shelly the Sting Ray swam up the front of the group both shy and determined.
“What if we collect the garbage and carry it to shore as close as we can. Then put the trash by the boats, swimming beaches, and any other public areas we can find. They will have no choice but to take care of it since they could possibly lose their business.”
“That’s a great idea!” Lisa said ecstatically. “Raise your fins or tails if you agree!”
They all agreed and were ready to show humans whose boss. The sharks, sting rays, manatees and sea turtles took the larger items, coasted to the top of the water, and had the sea turtles be on the lookout for any humans that could see them. Tanner, the turtle was nervous about getting caught.
“Guys, are we sure about this? What if they catch and grab us then try to cook us up! I’m not okay with that! I just got my shell polished!” he said frantically.
“Would you quit saying we are going to get caught!” Macy the manatee yelled in a whisper. “We need to stay quite so then we don’t get caught.”
“Human! There’s a human on the dock! Get under the water!” said Stanley the shark.
They all scurried under the water until they weren’t seen. “Don’t make any sound or movement, we are in fishing territory. Do not get near any hooks.” said Macy in a whisper.
“Ooo! Look at this one! Its bright pink with little sparkles, it’s so cute I want to touch it!” Stacy shrieked with excitement.
“Don’t you dare touch that. The plan will be ruined and with one less member! C’mon guys, take this seriously; I have three little girls at home and I want them away from this trash that humans keep throwing in here like a giant waste pile.” said Macy.
“I’m going to surface and see where the guy is now. If I move my tail fast, it means the coast is clear.” said Stanley.
Stanley surfaced and saw the human was still on the dock. The human was cleaning out the trash from his boat. The guy walked over to the garbage can at the end of the dock and noticed that it was full. He scanned the area and noticed that no one was around, so he walked back on the dock, and threw the trash underneath the dock by his boat; then walked away. Stanley’s tail signaled the others. They surfaced as well.
“Guys, I might have an idea of how we can teach that guy a lesson. He won’t see this coming.” Stanley had an evil smile on his face.
They threw the bottles first, along with the caps. “Take that humans!” said Macy. They all continued to take turns throwing the trash towards shore. Now it was time for the revenge. Stanley took the wrappers, chip bags, and bottles of pop, shoved them into water pump on the back of the boat so it would plug up, then put the wrappers inside the boat motor and added some scratches to the sides of the boat with his teeth.
“I knew these would come in handy someday.” Stanley said while laughing; rubbing his fins on his front teeth. 
“C’mon guys, it’s time to go back.” Said Macy
The sun started to rise and the sky became clear; people were starting to arrive at the different beaches. Henry and Lisa were on standby and wanted to see how the humans will react.
“Lisa, look! Time for some action.”
A young mom and her two kids looked at the beach in disgust. Her kids tried running to the water. The mom grabbed on to the back of their shirts and put them to a complete stop.
“You guys are NOT swimming in there! Do you want to swim with trash? I don’t think so.” The mom said with complete disgust.
Lisa and Henry started to chuckle. “Henry, I think our plan is going to work! Oh my goodness, look! She’s yelling at one of the life guards now.”
“Young man, do you see the trash here? Do you think this is safe for any kids?! Start doing your job. Get rid of that trash before someone gets injured.” The woman walked away, and watched the life guard carefully. The life guard had a sincere look on his face.
“Sorry ma’am, I’ll get right on it.” He went to his chair and grabbed a plastic bag to get rid of the garbage. He walked to the shoreline and started to pick up the trash.
“Lisa, wait here. I have another idea. Just stay put. I’ll be ok.” Henry walked closer to shore and put a piece of plastic in his mouth and got closer to the life guards hand.
“Oh my goodness! Here, I’ll help ya out little guy.” The life guard picked Henry up, and pulled the plastic out of this mouth. He rubbed his shell and apologized while putting him back in the water. Henry swam back to Lisa. Her mouth was wide open.
“Henry! I can’t believe you did that! It was kind of genius. Good job honey.” She gave Henry a peck on the top of his head. They then swam to the marina on the other side of the beach.
Henry and Lisa were in awe of what their groups had accomplished, but was embarrassing for the marina. A young man walked out of the small building towards the boats and hurried to pick the trash up. Another man followed and helped him. The young scrawny man looked at the other man in embarrassment.
“Is this really what we do? Can you imagine how many animals this could affect? Those cute little shrimp and horseshoe crabs. We need to get this situation taken care of. Not only for our business, but for the animals. It’s our fault.” The man with him had a look of guilt.
“I never thought of it that way. A couple days ago, the trash bin was full so I just threw mine under the dock. I didn’t think about what it could do to the animals. I think we should step up or recycling and garbage bin game so this doesn’t happen again.”
Henry and Lisa turned and looked at each other. “Not all humans are bad.” said Lisa, “it’s just that some don’t understand. But those fellows up there seem to care about not only their business, but us.” Smiles spread across both of their faces. “We need to gather everyone in the next couple of days and tell them about the work we have accomplished.”
All of the volunteers were jumping with joy. “We did it!” they all chanted.
“See, no matter how big or small we are, we can all make a difference! We should all swim up to the surface and see what the local businesses have done with the trash collection.” said Henry with thrills of joy in his voice.
They all surfaced and noticed a, “No Littering” sign placed in two different locations on the beach. There were large garbage bins placed in the parking lot and at some of the picnic tables. They saw kids swimming around having fun, and parents trying to keep track of their items so none of them landed in the ocean. They went to the marina next. There were also signs stating, “No littering” but also signs to watch out for animals that might be surrounded by plastic. There were some images to enhance the awareness.
“Wow!” said Tanner the sea turtle. “This is amazing!”
“Yes Tanner, it sure is. We should all be proud of ourselves because of our hard work. If we all work together, not just us creatures, but humans too, everything would be much cleaner and safe.” said Henry, gazing into Lisa’s eyes while touching her belly. “I want to make sure everyone is safe and that all of our children will grow up in a clean environment.”
A couple months have passed and the Coral Reef had never looked better. New plants were starting to grow, the bright vibrant colors of the coral were back in full force, and new families were starting to move back to this area. Lisa and Henry had their new born child, and Jack had started preschool. Occasionally they surfaced back to the shoreline to see if the humans had been keeping up on their garbage situation. There seems to be more humans that keep track of the trash in the public areas and there hasn’t been any more problems. If someone were to litter on public property, they would be fined. Henry and Lisa’s volunteer group still continued to help keep not only the Coral Reef clean, but other local areas.
One day Lisa and Henry were sitting around the house and Jack came walking in the front door. He swam to Lisa, threw his backpack on the floor and he had a look of excitement.
“Mommy, I saw your face on the poster at school! I told all my friends and teachers that it was you! They want you to come and speak in my class!”
Lisa and Henry were surprised. “Sure honey, it’s important to teach the younger generation the importance of keeping their environment clean.”
“Lisa, I think we’ve done a great thing.”
Lisa gazed into Henry’s eyes, “Me too honey, me too.”