The Borderland is the sea shore, and all the stories in this illustrated book tell of the adventures of the creatures that live in a rock pool. Meet Constance Crab who cares for everyone, Clute the racing sea urchin, Fra Lippo Limpet the painter, Hercules Starfish champion wrestler and Lady Henrietta Hippo-campus who teaches History and Philosophy. And more.
Originally these stories were performed on Radio New Zealand. The book we are now preparing will contain not only the written text and illustrations, but the stories will be told on a CD with specially written music.
Text by Phillip Mann. Illustration by ?? Music by Michelle Scullion
Tales from the Borderland
We are the creatures that live in the rock pools between the tides, at the place where the sea meets the land. And these are our tales, tales from The Borderland.
A CRAB’S LUCK
Hello I’m Constance. I’m a crab. You’ve probably seen me, or one of my brothers or sisters when you turn a stone in a rock pool. Come on. Hands up which of you have gone looking for crabs in a rock pool?
There you are you see. A lot of you. Well what you don’t know but I’m about to tell you is that we can hear you coming. Oh yes we can. We can hear the vi-bra-tions made by your feet. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. You’d be surprised how noisy you humans are. You can’t hear us can you? No of course you can’t. But we can be pretty noisy too if we want to be…. In our own quiet way.
Anyway, when we hear one of you coming or see your shadow fall darkly over our rock pool, we try to keep out of sight. I have a favourite trick. I try to burrow. There’s always sand and grit under a stone and I try to burrow into it. Then you see, if you grab my stone – the stone I’m under – and turn it over, I tuck my legs in tight, shut my eyes and try to pretend I’m a pebble.
I say very quickly “I’m a pebble, I’m a pebble, I’m a pebble.” And I keep very still.
And it works. Well nine times out of ten it works. It works so long as I don’t move or do something silly like waving a pincer or blowing out bubbles. I did that once… blew a big bubble. Never again. You see I’d been holding my breath when suddenly I felt something nudge me. It was the edge of a yellow plastic spade. Well I was so surprised that I let out a great big bubble and I heard this voice say. “Hey Dad. Look at this. I’ve found a crab.”
I knew then it was time to depart. So I ran. Sideways. Like I always do.
There was a fissure on the other side of my rock pool and I knew that if I could just get to it, I could squeeze through into the darkness and… Well I ran as fast as I could and I had my pincers advanced just to show that I was serious, but then… just when I was almost safe… I felt myself seized from above and lifted up. There was a big thumb on my back… and though I scrabbled with my legs and tried to pinch, there was nothing I could do.
I became resigned to my fate. I imagined life in an aquarium with shrimps and spotties. Or worse, to be left in the bottom of a bucket along with some mussels and a bit of sea weed while the water got warmer and warmer. Or worse still, to be dumped in the sand dunes, up beyond the borderland where the seagulls with quick hungry eyes would spot me and dive… Aaaagh.
One bite. CRUNCH. A quick crack of my shell. CRACK. And GULP… Good bye Constance.
But no. I was carried along and then this voice said, “Hey. Where are you taking that crab? It won’t survive out of water. Throw it back in the sea before it drowns in the air.” Do you get that. Drowns in the air. _
I thought that was pretty clever and I tried to laugh and wave a claw to show my appreciation but then the thumb pressing down on my back tightened and all I could do was gulp.
Moments later I was thrown up in the air and the world went upside down as I went flying out over the sea, turning somersaults. “So this is what it’s like to be a sea gull,” I thought. “Interesting. Ye-es. But give me a nice rock pool and the slosh of the tide on a moonlit night when the wind’s from the north, any day. I mean, if crabs had bean meant to fly they’d have been given feathers, wouldn’t they?”
And then suddenly, splash, there I was, back in a rock pool. In this rock pool actually. Actually, this rock pool is a bit of a step up for me socially, compared to my other rock pool. This pool never gets cut off from the sea. There’s a channel right down to the sea where the big fish swim. And it’s deep too so it never gets too warm even on a sunny day.
And as for the neighbours… You see over there. That black ball with spikes. That’s Clute. He’s a sea-urchin, ve-ry athletic. Would you like to meet him?
You would. OK.
Clute come here and say hello. We’ve got some visitors to the rock pool.
CLUTE SPEAKS. Hello Constance, how’re you going? Keepin’ your claws clean?
CONSTANCE. Not bad. I’m telling these boys and girls about our rockpool. What are you doing?
CLUTE Me? I’m training for the big race. Tell them this is the best rock-pool on the whole coast. See you soon. May it rain on you. I’ll talk to you the next time you come out here.
CONSTANCE There he goes, getting a speed up. We get on very well, Clute and me. I like him because he’s very polite too. “May it rain on you,” is a very polite thing to say to us. Can you guess why?
Oh! There… did you hear that? That sound like a distant trumpet call? You didn’t? Oh dear. Well you’ll just have to listen very carefully next time. That sound tells us that the tide is changing. Perhaps you can’t hear it, but we do, four times a day, twice at high tide and twice at low tide. Now the tide is coming in. Soon the big waves will come crashing up over the rocks, bringing new visitors, bringing food and a change of water.
You’d better go now. The tide comes in quickly here. Be careful on the rocks. Don’t tread on the green weed, very slippery. Keep to the dry rocks. OK? See you again.
Here comes the first big wave. Wheeeeee….. I’m going for a scuttle.
***
THE BIG RACE
CLUTE Pleased to meet you all. I’m Clute, “Galloping Clute” to my friends. I’m a big black sea urchin or kina. And do you remember where we are?
The borderland. That’s right. The place where the sea comes in and goes out, twice a day, covering our rock-pools and then revealing them again, like now. This is my rock-pool… well not mine exactly. I share it with other creatures like Constance the Crab and Lippo the Limpet and Benzo the sea anemone… You’ll meet them all in due course. Oh, and Constance sends you best wishes, by the way….. Now where was I?
People don’t usually think of us sea urchins as being athletic. I suppose if you’re human, like you are, striding about on earth with great long legs… well I can see that you might not be too impressed with our Ol-ymp-ion efforts… So what I want you to think about is this. You’ve only got two feet to worry about. Me, I’ve got hundreds.
I mean, anyone can run fast if they’ve only got two feet to worry about. But me? When I run… well I have to push a foot out, grab a bit of rock and heave. You see, I’ve got little suckers on the end of my feet. That’s how I hold onto a rock. You get the idea?
So this is how I run. I’ve made it into a song.
Push-a-foot-out, grab-a-rock and he-ea-ve. Heh!
Push-a-foot-out, grab-a-rock and he-ea-ve. Heh!
Now imagine that happening hundreds of times, just to move a few centimetres!
And what’s more I can climb up vertical surfaces. Can you do that? No of course you can’t. You don’t have suckers.
Anyway, like I say most people don’t think we’re athletic. Most people think we’re just a ball covered in spikes, lazing about all day, rolling about in the rock pools, browsing, playing pool – that’s a joke – reading phi-lo-sophy, but if only you knew.
Look, I’ll show you something. Come over here. No, it doesn’t matter about getting your feet wet. Gotta get your feet wet if you want to learn something about the Borderland.
Now look down here, this is our race-track. We start from here, this smooth flat stone with a crack in it. That’s the starting line. Then we go straight down this rock, onto the floor of the pool… see all those pebbles? Pebble Flat we call it. Then we sprint round that bit of sea weed and over that big rock – that’s where Constance lives. Once we’re over the rock we go down again and past the deep channel where the sea comes in and that can be dangerous, especially when there’s a storm and the waves come up the channel like a tsu-na-mi. After the deep channel we come into the home straight. We go up that vertical smooth rock, past Shrimp Corner, down the other side and into Star-fish Crevice where Hercules lives. And that’s the finish.
So that’s our course. Quite long, eh? What – say about five metres? Well I hold the record. Yes I do. 6 hours, 17 minutes and 5.02 seconds. I set it last week. Now I’m not one to brag, but I’m in my prime at present.
I wish you could be here on race day. It’s fantastic, especially if we’re just coming up to high tide. All the sea-anemones open up and start waving. The crabs clear the race track. There’s limpets and mussels – they’re the officials and time keepers – and usually a few spotties come up to see the fun. I compete in every race, and I’ve had some frights, I can tell you.
Take last winter for instance, there’d been a big northerly gale for days and the water was cloudy with sand and weed. In fact the waves were coming right over here, right where you’re standing. I was raring to go. I’d been training hard all winter and knew I could win. Well the race started and I got away to a good start. By the time I went past Constance’s rock I’d opened up a lead of nearly seven centimetres.
I was just crossing the deep channel when disaster struck. Suddenly this big wave broke over me. I’ve never felt anything like it. It just knocked me over and sent me rolling. I ended up back at the starting line.
And then the next thing I knew the undertow was dragging me down and I was bouncing over the rocks. I couldn’t get a grip on any of them… ‘cos I was going too fast, you see. I was bowling down the deep channel which goes right out to sea. We never go down there – far too dangerous. But there was nothing I could do.
Finally, there I was, down in the dark and there were some big fish nosing about – blue cod and the like – I don’t trust big fish or big crabs. And I’d broken a lot of my spines. I’d no idea how I was going to get home – I didn’t even know which way to go. So I wandered about and eventually I came to this big round cage sort of thing, made of wood and wire and weighted down with a stone. There was a cray-fish living in it. Well, crayfish are supposed to be very clever so I decided to see if Old Man Crayfish could tell me how to get home. I started to climb up the side so that I could call to him. But then, suddenly there was this almighty pull, and the cage started to rise. Well Old Man Crayfish was as surprised as me. We shot up to the surface and the next thing I knew we’d been lifted out of the water and dumped in the bottom of a boat.
I don’t remember much else except that there was an old man rowing and another man with tattooed arms and wearing thick gloves who emptied the cage. Tattooed Arms grabbed Old Man Lobster and pulled him out of the cage laughing. Then he picked me up. “Hey look at this little fella,” he says. “Hitching a ride.” And he tossed me over the side of the boat like throwing a hand grenade, just as we were coming in to the shore.
And do you know, that must have been my lucky day because I came down back in this very pool. True!!! The water was swirling and I drifted round a bit but then I landed at Starfish Crevice just in time to win the race.
What do you mean you don’t believe me? It’s perfectly true. Ask Benzo, he’s a sea anemone, and sea anemones don’t tell lies. He was there, weren’t you Benzo?
BENZO Yes. I remember it well. You almost landed on top of me. Can you imagine a big spiky thing like Clute landing on you. You know you never know what to expect in a rock pool. They can be dangerous places. But I’ll tell you a story about that next time you come to the rockpool. So… Back to you Clute.
CLUTE The only sad thing is that after the race was over I was disqualified. The race officials – limpets most of them – said I’d had assistance. Assistance !!! I ask you.
Anyway, that was then… and I’m still the fastest kina in the pool. There’s a big race next week, so I’d better get back to training. It’s been nice talking to you. Here we go
Push-a-foot-out, grab-a-rock and he-ea-ve. Heh!
Push-a-foot-out, grab-a-rock and he-ea-ve. Heh!
(His voice gradually fades away )……..
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