A strange day for little Finn, the mudskipper.

One day, Little Finn woke up from his muddy bed with a funny feeling that he was going to see something exciting that day. He went to say morning to his parents and to eat his breakfast. After that, he asked his parents for permission to go out and play with his friends. His parents gave him permission since it wasn’t a school day.When Little Finn and his friends were playing mud ball, he told his friend: "Hey Tom, today when I woke up I had a funny feeling that we were going to have an adventure ."  " Gee, I hope you are right. It would be fun to have an adventure" said Tom. Little Finn was feeling very cheerful and was having a nice time playing with his friends in the mud when his mother called him to return home for lunch.

When he was eating his usual delicious meal of mud pie made out of insects, he heard noises from outside his house. Little Finn and his parents went out of their house and saw some VERY large creatures. He knew these creatures were humans. His parents and the older folk in his village constantly reminded him and the other young mudskippers to stay as far away from them as possible. He had been told since he first learnt to walk on his fins that the humans were dangerous. He had seen only a few humans in his life. Usually they were smaller and did not venture very far into the mudskippers’ territory.

The humans he now saw were different. They were bigger in size and there was a lot of them. The noise they were making was thunderous. They were falling about and sinking into the mud. One of the giant creatures even sank into the mud up to about his head. The other creatures pointed at him and made thunderous “Ho Ho Ho” sounds. He did not know what it meant but he was very scared.

Soon everyone from his village were out of their homes. The giant human creatures almost squashed Tom's house. Tom and his family began to panic. They just skipped round and round in circles."Tom, get into the mangroves, quick!" little Finn shouted. Tom and some other neighbours then skipped deeper into the mangroves and stared at the humans.Soon all the mudskippers were skipping away in terror. Little Finn and his parents too went deeper into the mangroves to watch what was happening.

The humans continued to stomp around the mudskippers’ village. The ground shook every time the humans’ gigantic limbs pounded the mud. Bits of mud flew into the air and towards the mudskippers like meteors or missiles. There were mini explosions when these bits of mud hit the ground.

What happened next was very surprising. The humans began to plant small mangrove trees! The mangrove trees were like guardians of the territory.  LittleFin had heard the old stories about how the trees had protected the mudskippers for hundreds of years. They blocked the giant waves from destroying everything in the territory. But over the years, the old mangrove trees had begun dying. Some parts of the mudskippers’ territory didn’t even have mangrove trees anymore.

The humans made huge holes in the ground and with their huge hands, planted the trees and then covered the holes again. Was this how the mangrove trees first appeared in the mudskippers’ world? Little Finn and his parents had always thought that the humans were bad because they had seen humans cut down the forest and the trees. But here they were doing the opposite! He thought that maybe the humans were not as bad or dangerous as the older mudskippers said.

Soon, all of the humans departed, creating earth-shaking vibrations. But some of them left behind strange artifacts – big black structures shaped like an “L” but with an entrance at one end. Were they spaceships or vehicles? After all, the humans moved around in them.  Some of Little Finn’s neighbors explored them and when nothing bad happened, used them as their homes.

It had been a really exciting but also a frightening experience for Little Finn. He had woken up that morning expecting an adventure. But he hadn’t expected to see something as strange as the humans started stomping and falling around causing much chaos just because they wanted to plant the mangrove trees.Even though the humans were nice enough to plant the mangrove trees, their clumsiness created havoc in little Finn's village. Little Finn hoped that there wouldn't be any more humans tomorrow to cause more chaos........



                                         The End



Here are some pictures of a mudskipper:

http://badmanstropicalfish.com/brackish/mudskipper.html

http://wildshores.blogspot.com/2009/12/mudskippers-leaping-at-chek-jawa.html