Lees Reef: The Message

By Lee Porter

LEES REEF – The Message

Lees Reef is set in the year 102,021 off the east coast of Australia, which is predominately covered in water due to climate change and the rising of sea levels. The oceans are acidic, with massive rubbish rafts that float in the currents and eddy back towards what land is left exposed.

Land and sea animals have hybridised and live in a pristine environment called Lees Reef. These unique animals live in symbiosis, all with important tasks to protect their world, while Rogues, aggressive creatures that roam the ocean currents, constantly attack the reef in order to live there.

The reef occupants battle to decipher a mysterious human message that keeps getting sent to them as well as constant attacks by Rogues.

Willy Womtle and his friends set out to decipher the message with the help of Rogues who use advanced human technology. Willy wants a few Rogues to come and live at Lees Reef, as they can decipher the human messages, but will his father the Mayor and the other residents allow this to happen?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Sep 24, 2021
• ISBN: 9780228866213

Lee Porter

Lee Porter has spent many hours underwater and has a love for both land and sea animals, understanding the symbiosis that makes these unique hybridized animals come alive. Lee has a Masters of Creative Arts and an imagination that can take readers on a journey to the future.

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Lees Reef

The Message

Lee Porter

Lees Reef

Copyright © 2021 by Lee Porter

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Tellwell Talent

www.tellwell.ca

ISBN

978-0-2288-6622-0 (Hardcover)

978-0-2288-6623-7 (Paperback)

978-0-2288-6621-3 (eBook)

Willy Womtle 1.jpg

WILLY WOMTLE

Thank you to:

Daniel Collins for believing in Lees Reef like it existed.

Khalia Chan for the inspiration for the Trougle calls.

Ross & Carol Pilcher, Russell Nunn, Stacey Colhoun, Benni Collins and Gloria & Ann Porter.

And all my friends that I have taken the liberty to name the animals after.

Edited by Pam Wood

"When we try to pick out anything by itself,

we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe."

-John Muir-

Prologue

100,000 years in the future, Earth has seen dramatic changes in the climate through global warming. As the South and North Pole ice melts, sea levels rise to over 100 metres drowning most land masses, sinking cities and leaving humans and animals very little land to survive on.

Tons of rubbish from buildings and human waste now floats in great rubbish rafts that circumnavigate the world on currents that are acidic and polluted. Humans have long left the earth, living on nearby planets with only a few remaining and facing evolutionary changes like web toes and fingers as they adapt to living in the watery environment.

Land animals also become victims of climate change and have to adapt and hybridise with sea animals to survive. This is a story about these animals that live in a dormant volcano situated approximately 50 kilometres from what was once known as Sydney Harbour on the east coast of Australia. Clear fresh water flows from the melting Poles and mixes with the acidic water along the east coast to provide a pristine environment that animals have worked in symbiosis to create.

Rogues are streamlined fierce animals that live comfortably in the polluted waters and travel along rubbish rafts looking for food and opportunites for survival. The Rogues on the east coast are determined to live at this pristine reef system and use might and brains to become a part of Lees Reef.

Australia in the year 102,021

Meet The Animals Of Lees Reef

Table of Contents

Chapter One: The first message

Chapter Two: Willy’s gang

Chapter Three: The second attack with Willy’s gang watching

Chapter Four: File Hoppers and cleaning station

Chapter Five: Willy and his dad, the Mayor

Chapter Six: Doogle’s secret call

Chapter Seven: Rhonda Racudda and her Sydney Harbour gang of Rogues

Chapter Eight: Daniel Dingadile teaches Josh some human lessons

Chapter Nine: Jill Jeledna travels to Shark Bay Rogue territory

Chapter Ten: Willy’s gang meet Jill and Josh Jeledna

Chapter Eleven: News from all locations

Chapter Twelve: Willy’s idea to have the Rogues decipher the message

Chapter Thirteen: Russell Racudda visits Rhonda in Sydney Harbour

Chapter Fourteen: Another trip to the top of the reef

Chapter Fifteen: Russell Racudda overhears Rhonda’s plans

Chapter Sixteen: Rhonda Racudda’s message to Walter Womtle

Chapter Seventeen: Walter Womtle’s reply

Chapter Eighteen: Reef inhabitants plans to meet Rhonda Racudda

Chapter Nineteen: Russell Racudda’s plans to attack the reef

Chapter Twenty: What happens to Russell Racudda?

Chapter Twenty-One: Rhonda Racudda’s new message

Chapter Twenty-Two: Who is writing the message in human language?

Chapter Twenty-Three: Willy gives a sample of the human word to Josh Jeledna

Chapter Twenty-Four: Willy’s punishment

Chapter Twenty-Five: Hiphales attack Sydney Harbour

Chapter Twenty-Six: The Message

Chapter One

The first message

Stacey Sugaray spots Jill Jeledna moving to the front of the rubbish raft that is heading around Lees Reef. Stacey, a beautiful bird-like creature with a wing span of three metres covered in fine fur, has been patrolling the outer northern boundary on the lookout for Rogues, fierce animals that scavenge the oceans, and rubbish rafts that are on a collision course with the reef surface.

Stacey can make out Jill and Josh, her son, behind her, moving along the edge of the rubbish raft that is one of many that circumnavigate the earth’s waters, made from refuse from towns and cities as the water levels rose. The rubbish rafts look like old rubbish dumps that have floated to the surface and are full of timber, plastic and an array of indecipherable junk that is combined into a metre deep (in some places) slimy mess.

On the far side of the raft, behind Jill and Josh, Stacey also sees a glimpse of movement darting around. Stacey with her excellent eye sight in the murky waters, racing by in the polluted currents, can spot Rogues and loose debris over long distances. Her role at Lees Reef is to patrol the northern edge of the crater where giant Anemone live, and cover the entire outer walls of the reef. These anemones sit quietly, bending like giant soft tree trunks, in the currents, but they have deadly venom in their long tentacles that can paralyse any animals that come into reach and rise up to the surface to grab rubbish if it comes too close to the reef.

sugaray sm1.jpg

Stacey Sugaray

Although Stacey wants to head out to see Jill and Josh, she knows her job is to let her friend Tony Trougle know if trouble is around or rubbish rafts get too close to the reef. She can just make out the Rogues behind Jill and sends a long, high-pitched warning call to Tony.

Tony, like all the Trougles, is half trout and half eagle with beautiful red spots and a large wing span, they are the only ones that can communicate with the giant Anemone by making a shrilling call to get them to rise up from the depths along the sea wall to the surface to poison and grab anything they can reach. Stacey’s warning call puts Tony on alert, so then he waits for her to venture further out and confirm the danger with another signal.

As Stacey swims towards the rubbish raft she can see movement still darting around and recognises the shapes as Rogues, Peliarks and Racuddas, the most notorious stream lined Rogues in all the oceans, with sharp Barracuda-like teeth. Stacey can outswim any Rogue and her powerful wings can create a lot of turbulence, so she is not afraid to approach the raft.

Stacey lets out a melodic call to confirm to Tony about the Rogues, then swims closer and glides up to Jill and Josh Jeledna. Jill and her son Josh are unique creatures that float around from one rubbish raft to the next, holding their spiny upper bodies out of the water to deter attack from above. They have long graceful tentacles that flow beneath them, collecting any scraps from the raft. Jelednas evolved from Echidnas and Jellyfish, formidable animals on both the surface and in the water. Keeping a watchful eye around her, Stacey greets Jill and Josh and asks if they know about the Rogues on the other side of the raft.

Jill, still out of breath from clinging and pulling herself along with her long tentacles, plus Josh who is hitching a free ride by wrapping his tentacles around his mother, says Hello Stacey. We were trying to get near the front of the raft to warn you that some Rogues joined the raft a few hours ago and I think they are the Shark Bay Rogues back again.

The Shark Bay Rogues, who live down the southern end of Australia, travel up and down the east coast amongst rubbish rafts and are notorious for plotting takeovers of Lees Reef.

Are you both alright out here, as I should get back before Tony calls for the giant Anemone to rise up? Stacey asks.

Oh yes, Says Jill with a less laboured breath. You know the Rogues won’t come near us; our tentacles have a bad taste and our deadly spikes along our backs deter even the best of them.

OK, sorry to rush but I’ll see you a bit later, Stacey replies as she scratches under Josh’s chin with her fine nails and delicate yet strong hands.

Oh I nearly forgot, continues Jill, bringing up to the surface a piece of coral that she has one of her tentacles wrapped around. This is a message for the Mayor of Lees Reef from a human. She then passes it to Stacey.

Stacey and Jill.jpg

Stacey Sugaray with Jill Jeledna carrying a message.

Thanks Jill, I had better get going, Stacey says as she takes the coral and heads back towards the reef, calling to Tony Trougle to let him know that the Rogues of Shark Bay are under the rubbish raft and will most likely follow her back and attack.

Stacey pumps her powerful wings and heads across the kilometre to home. By the time Stacey reaches the reef edge the Rogues, mainly Peliarks, large shark-like creatures with a huge mouth like a Pelican, are about to enter the outer boundary area of the reef.

As soon as Stacey is safely within the inner reef, Tony sticks