The Starfish Stamp Club — By the flat stretch where the sand held tiny bubbles, Junie pressed wet scallop shells into neat rows. Read the full story →
By the flat stretch where the sand held tiny bubbles, Junie pressed wet scallop shells into neat rows. She wanted enough patterns for her handmade stamp club: fan marks, spiral marks, pebble dots, and one proud star shape made by arranging five skinny shells. The beach smelled salty and sun-warm, and each press made a soft plup. Junie wiped sand from her elbows and grinned at her work.
More prints appeared beside hers—eight wiggly scallops in a circle, a perfect pebble comma, then a star with extra fancy arms. From under a strip of driftwood slid a small purple octopus wearing Junie’s missing shell cap like a hat. “Your club needs a secretary,” it squeaked, stamping three dots with one tentacle and looking extremely official.
Junie laughed so hard a gull hopped closer to see. Together they made membership cards from flat shells, and the octopus filed them under a scallop as if running the busiest office in the sea. If you search the sandy crowd of shells, maybe you can spot the sort of star stamp Junie was proudest to make by hand.
