Week 11 Story: The Urchin in the Ocean

Image Source

One day a group of fish was swimming about the ocean looking for a coral reef to stay in for the night. At night, the fish have to sleep in a coral reef because they are so small they have a risk of being an animal’s meal. In one particular reef, there was a sea urchin who lived there and waited for prey. The urchin was very scary and did not go outside of the reef as he was the local whale’s favorite snack. If any animal tried to stay in his reef, he would use one of his spikes to enable him from swimming away then he would eat them for his meal. The group of fish was swimming all day looking a reef to stay in when they all saw one insight. The reef was perfect, it was big enough for all of them to stay, and was dark in color so it would not attract as many animals to it. One brave fish decided he would go scope it out and swam swiftly over to the reef. He started going in towards the reef and disappeared. All of the fish were shocked that he was gone so quick. Another fish, worried for his friend, quickly followed after him. He slowly approached the reef and began to swim inside. The urchin spiked him and the fish was soon consumed by the urchin too. All of the fish began to panic and swim around the reef sad that two of their friends had disappeared. The fish started to think they would have nowhere to stay for the night and would all be eaten alive. A dolphin swam over and saw the fish looking worried and sad. He asked what was wrong and the fish told him that two of their friends had been taken in this reef. The smart dolphin knew it was an evil urchin. He remembered that all urchins had their spikes as weapons so he told the fish he would be back and hurriedly swam away. A few minutes later he came back with a handful of long, sticky seaweed. He told the fish to hold on to one side of it while he grasped the other side of the seaweed. They began to floss the coral reef. The local whale swam by to see what was going on, and at the same time the fish and the dolphin pulled up on the seaweed to see the mean urchin sticking to it able to get out. The local whale saw his favorite snack and immediately swam over to eat it. The fish were pleased and happy they had somewhere to stay for the night. They thanked the dolphin and the whale and settled down in the reef for the night.

Author’s Note: I was inspired by the jakata tale, The Goblin in the Pool and wanted to create my own story. In the Goblin story, the mean goblin stopped the monkeys from drinking the pool water until they figured out a way to trick him. I wanted the same idea behind my story, except with characters from the ocean. I thought using the school of fish would be a unique idea similar to the group of monkeys, and I wanted my hero at the end to be the smart dolphin. The dolphin was ultimately able to figure out how to trick the urchin into attaching to the sticky seaweed and pulling him out of the reef to be eaten. I really enjoyed writing this story, and hope it was interesting to read!

Bibliography:

Author: W.H.D Rouse

Title: The Goblin in the Pool

Link: Story