Clownfish3

They swim around the rock and come to the mouth
of a big cave. They swim past the entrance and look in.

“It is very big and scary. What do you think
is in there?” The little clownfish look at each other. A rush of current
comes from within the cave. It is so strong that it pushes them backwards.
Out of the blackness of the cave comes the biggest and most horrible and
most frightening fish head they have ever seen! The head of a gigantic
moray-eel, so big that it almost fills the cave entrance, rushes forward,
its big mouth wide open showing the
razor sharp teeth. The clownfish dash into a small cave, just as the vast
jaws snap shut behind them.

It is very dark inside the cave. They can’t se
a thing, and for a long time they are too frightened to move or to do anything.
“”I am so scared”, “so am I”, they whisper, “are
you alright, did he get you, have a look at my tail.”

Now that their eyes are getting used to the dark,
they see that they are in a vast cavern that seems to go on for ever. All
around them on the walls of the cave they can see lots of little eyes.

“Who is there?” says one of the little
clownfish bravely. Instead of an answer, a chorus of little voices all
around them says “he, he, he”.

They
can see now that the little eyes belong to giggling pink, striped prawns.

“Please help us, we have just escaped from
the biggest monster you have ever seen. It is just outside. What is it?”

“Oh, you don’t want to be frightened of him!
That is the moray eel. He lives deep in the cave next door. He cannot see
very well, he really needs glasses. When you move in front of his cave
he thinks you want to attack him and then he pounces. If you keep perfectly
still he does not even know you are there”, the prawns tell them.

“But we have to get out of this cave, we
have to go and look for our anemone. We can’t stay here. How can we get
out?” the clownfish say. This is a difficult problem, and for the
moment nobody seems to know the answer.

“If you try to get out in the daytime he
will gobble you up!”

“Perhaps you can go out at night?” says
one of the prawns.

“But we can’t see in the dark”, says
the clownfish.

“If you can’t see in the dark you will surely
get lost” answers the prawn.

“We are already lost” protest the clownfish.

“Maybe so, then you will get more lost”
says the prawn. This is clearly getting nowhere. They realise they are
trapped. But then one of the prawns takes pity on them, and tells them
there is a way out if they follow the tunnel right to the end. They will
then be at the other side of the rock. If they have trouble seeing in the
dark the prawn will come with them to show them the way. Helped by the
prawn, they go all the way through the tunnel until they come to the other
end. Here the prawn returns to his friends and the little clownfish go
out of the dark tunnel into the blue water.

Now their eyes have to get used to the bright
light and so they do not see the strange creatures that they bump into.

“Watch where you are going will you! Where
are you going, do you know?” The creature that has just spoken is
so startled by the clownfish suddenly coming out of the cave, and bumping
into it, that it slowly changes colour from an almost invisible sandy colour
to a bright red. It seems to be all arms, but it has very kind eyes, at
least the clownfish thought so, and anyway the creature seems
to be more afraid of them than they are of it, so they tell the creature
all about their adventure, ending with: “We want to go home to our
mummy and daddy, but we can’t find them, and who are you?”

“I am Oswald the octopus. I live around this
rock and I know everybody and everything here. You got hopelessly lost
because you took the wrong turning.”

“How do you know that?” ask the clownfish.

“Well if you had swum straight up, to the
top of the rock, instead of all around it, you would have found your parents
and the anemone a long time ago. Is your anemone green and purple, and
has it long waving arms and sits on top of a rock, and are there little
clownfish living in it?”

“Why yes, do you know where it is?”

As answer the octopus points one of his many arms
lazily to the sky. “What is that up there then?” Oswald asks.

When
the clownfish look up they can clearly see a wonderful anemone and two
yellow fish with white stripes that look exactly like their mummy and daddy.
They are so delighted and excited that they forget to thank the octopus.
As quick as they can, they swim up to their parents.

That evening, after all the stories have been
told the family go to sleep happily in their anemone. The little clownfish
have not slept so well in a long time!

At the bottom of the big rock that stands in the
middle of a sandy patch in a warm, clear sea, far away from here, there
were a few eyes that saw a happy ending!