        With time to kill before the creature and its kin arrived, she began to scratch out the alphabet on the beach.  She had a small chalkboard with chalk in a mouth-holder, as well as parchment, quills, and ink, but she couldn’t fit the whole alphabet on the chalkboard, and didn’t want to use up the paper for such a mundane purpose.  It would give them a starting point.  Perhaps the creature would recognize it for what it was, which would mean it used a similar type.  As she did, she was glad they had decided to go with the common alphabet, since it only had fourteen characters.