Adventures in Nature by Dawn Nelson

Author:Dawn Nelson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The History Press

A New Home for Herman

There once was a little hermit crab whose dreams were big. Each year, he moved to a new shell but each year, he wanted something a little bigger; a little more luxurious and a little more in keeping with his station in life, which he believed was well above that of your average hermit crab. Or at least, that’s what Herman thought. No winkle, whelk or top shell, however painted, was good enough for Herman. He dreamed of the conch shells his cousins enjoyed in the Caribbean. The problem was Herman was never going to find one of those on his beach.

On a particularly sunny day, Herman was wandering the beach looking for a new home. ‘Something with status,’ he thought. ‘Something grand!’ And then he saw it.

Haloed in the sun’s rays, the most glorious palace he had ever seen.

‘That’s it!’ Herman announced, and scuttled over to it. It was a castle in the sand, edged with scallops and cockles. The turrets were perfection and the crenulations exquisite.

‘This shall be my new home,’ he said, and moved in immediately, discarding his old shell by the front door.

The sun arced across the sky and the tide began to turn, moving slowly across the beach. It edged closer and closer to Herman’s new home. Herman was sleeping soundly inside and did not hear the crashing waves or the rush of the water as it pooled around the sand castle, washing away the foundations.

Within hours, Herman’s new house was surrounded, and he awoke to find his claws in salty water and the walls of his house full of holes. Time wore on and so did the sea. By midnight, Herman’s magnificent castle was underwater.

Sighing, Herman turned to find his old house, the whelk shell he’d left by the front door of the castle, but it had been washed away. All he could find was a winkle shell. Herman crawled in and waited for the tide to turn.

Finally, when the sun rose again and the sand was once more exposed, Herman started his hunt for a new house. The winkle shell was nowhere near as comfortable as his dog whelk shell and Herman was miserable. He had been silly to give up his shell so easily and this time, as he searched, he remembered that castles aren’t always what they appear to be.

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