The Adventures of Luna the Little Sea Snail, Heike Siewert [ebook offline reader .TXT] 📗

An Adventure Begins

A Miraculous Encounter

The Underwater Meadow

An Educational Encounter

A Restless Night

A New Day

A Playground Adventure

The Surf

Saskia

The Rescue

A New Friend

The Return Home

Index of Fishes 1

Index of Fishes 2

Index of Shells 1

Index of Shells 2





An Adventure Begins

Luna squinted as the first rays of sunlight broke though the surface of the sea and tickled her teeny weeny little feelers.
She rubbed her tiny eyes with her little feelers and looked around – and saw countless little beds, which all looked just like hers. The beds seemed to be thousands of little rainbow bubbles, and in each bubble there was a little baby snail, which again looked just like Luna herself.

It was as if Luna was looking into a thousand little mirrors. And all these thousand Lunas were moving, too. Luna was surprised at first to see herself so many times, but then she also became so very curious to find out about the world outside her bubble and suddenly those thousand little Lunas were not really as interesting, by far.

She considered briefly how to escape from her bubble and began to nibble at its delicate skin. Soon the hole was big enough and she prepared to leave her bubble cradle.

First she poked her head through the hole and looked left and right. Oh ... what a wonderful world. It looked like a big forest. But this was a forest without foxes, birds, rabbits, or even trees.

It was a world all under water, inhabited by corals, seaweed, fishes, crabs and so much more.




The rays of the sun breaking through the surface of the sea made it all sparkle in every conceivable colour.

Luna‘s heart was beating fast, as this new world was huge and teeming with unknown creatures. But Luna was no coward.
She took a deep breath and leaned forward out of the hole in her bubble and... ooops landed softly with her foot on the sand.

Yes... Luna had only one foot, but this foot was – as big as all of herself.

Try lying down on the floor on your tummy and imagine your foot to reach from your head – to your tummy – down to your feet...

Luna hesitated for a moment, not knowing what to do next.

She had no parents to tell her what to do, and what not to do. Her parents had given her and her siblings wonderful perfect cozy little cradles, but then they had left and were nowhere to be seen. Snail parents aren’t bad parents, but they are different from our parents.

Luna took all her courage and started towards the big underwater meadow that she had already been able to see from her bed.




A Miraculous Encounter

On her way to the underwater meadow she crossed a sand bar. From time to time she also passed some coral heads which looked just like big, brown chimneys. Between the corals, and above Luna, too, the sea was teeming with fish of all sizes.

Suddenly Luna saw what looked like yellow clouds of sand rising behind a coral. Intrigued Luna crawled forward to see where those mysterious clouds were coming from.

Behind the coral she found a beautiful and gigantic snail‘s shell in the shape of a pear, and just as shiny and yellow.

A stray grain of sand in her mouth made Luna cough and the big snail turned around ... ooops, and what was that?

It wasn’t a snail after all, no, it was a big, orange-coloured hermit crab looking out from the shell. Luna’s eyes widened and she froze.

The crab looked down at Luna with eyes which were at the tips of long antennae, while it cleaned its two claws off all the sand very carefully. Was this a bad and mean thief that had stolen a snail‘s shell? Luna hugged her shell tight when then the crab suddenly began to speak. “Hello, hello, and who would you be?“ it said.

“I am Luna,“ Luna answered, her voice trembling.





The hermit crab lifted its eyestalks in surpise and said: “But Luna, are you frightened of me? Don’t be frightened. My name is Bernhard and I am very honoured and pleased to meet you.“

Luna felt uneasy. She was still worried about the idea of shell-robbery.

Bernhard tried to sit down in front of Luna with all of his eight legs and two claws.

Can you imagine just how difficult it is to sit comfortably with all those legs - plus claws?


Now the hermit crab looked a bit less imposing, and with all her courage, and it took all of her courage to do it, Luna asked: “Did you steal a snail‘s shell?“ Bernhard was giggling. “No, no, no, don’t you worry. I just take empty shells that I find lying around, which, I make sure of that, nobody else needs.“

“But - why do you live in a snail‘s shell?“ Luna wanted to know.

After all they were called ‘snails‘ shells‘ and not ‘hermit crabs‘ shells‘!

Bernhard blushed a bit, especially around his eyestalks, and scratched his head with his claws with an ashamed look on his face. “Hmm, this would be a bit of a private matter. But, I will tell you.“
He looked left and right, lowered his voice and said: “Look, I have tried to build my own suit of armour as my larger relatives do. Unfortunately, I just can’t seem to do it. „


“As the end of my abdomen is very soft, very delicate, and very tender,
I need to protect it some other way. I look for a beautiful snail‘s shell and put it on, and then wear it until I find one even more beautiful.
If I don’t find one, I just don’t grow any bigger myself for some time.
I don’t take just any shell, you see, I wait until I find one bigger and better. Classy, isn’t it?“
“Ooops“, was the only thing Luna could think of to say.
Well, that was something of a surprise. That big orange hermit crab needed a snail‘s shell to protect himself . And only her and her relatives were able to build them: colourful, winding, solid, marvellous.
Luna felt a little less tiny as she was able to do something that others just can’t do. Luna thought what next to say to Bernhard, something nice, preferably, when she heard a low rumble. Bernhard looked surprised for a moment but then rose and said: “Well, I that this was my stomach.
When you came around the coral I was about to eat.“ Bernhard stepped from one leg to the – others and Luna realised he did not want to be disturbed while eating. “Bernhard, it was very nice to meet you! But now, I must be on my way to the underwater meadow. Bernhard, too, bid his farewell and watched Luna as she slid off. Luna turned back to wave to Bernhard with her tentacles, Bernhard lifted one of his claws and waved back.

And Luna happily slid on towards the big underwater meadow.


The Underwater Meadow

Slowly Luna left the bank of sand behind her. Before her was a sand drift, and she climbed up on top. And, lo and behold, what did she see from there?

The gates of the underwater meadow!

The gates were guarded on either side by two large noble penshells. The long and slender stems of the neighbouring seaweed were rocking softly with the current. It seemed they were stroking the fish swimming about amongst them. Luna had never seen so many colourful, fluorescent fishes before. All of this was very exciting and she slid down the sanddrift as fast as she could. Nevertheless, it seemed to take forever to reach the gate to the underwater meadow.

Completely out of breath she arrived after all and again felt really tiny between the two noble penshells which now looked gigantic from up close.

Suddenly a scallop shot past Luna from the left. It looked as if she was moving in reverse. Luna was shaking her feelers all confused, never before had she seen anyone swim backwards, when something obscured the light from above. Luna looked up and saw a giant turtle swimming past the gate to the underwater meadow. The turtle seemed to float weightlessly like a bubble. And then the current suddenly carried the delicious flavour of algae tickling Luna‘s osphradia.




Of course, now you are wondering what osphradia might be. I will tell you: snails‘ noses are called osphradia. What is more, they don’t have only one nose, or osphradium, like us, but two!! And they are positioned behind the gills on either side of the body. Yes, Luna breathes through gills, like fish do!! Ooh... the delicious scent of algae made Luna‘s tummy rejoice in anticipation.

She had to eat, now. Luna followed the wonderful scent and soon reached the meadow with ita lusciously green, juicy and yummy algae. She forgot all else around her for a while and fed and fed and fed, until her tummy was nice and full and rounded. And then she decided it was time for a little afternoon nap. No sooner had she found a cozy cranny between two corals she withdrew into her shell and was fast asleep. A few hours later Luna woke again. She came back out of her tiny shell and stretched good and proper, which felt really nice after lying all twisted in the shell for such a long time. While she was stretching, Luna looked around. On her right hand side was the underwater meadow, on her left hand side the scenery was made up of corals of every conceivable shape and form.

Wherever she looked, there were feather stars glowing in all the colours of the rainbow. Above her circled a gigantic manta ray. It was breathtaking, like paradise. So colorful, so magical. She was indulging in the beautiful sight, when she suddenly heard voices.


>
An Educational Encounter

“Left, right, straight ahead, hand to hand, in a band,
one behind, one ahead, single file, like on a thread,
Soon to land, song and drum, Florida, here we come!
Left, right, straight ahead, single file, pearls on a thread.“

Luna climbed as fast as she could to the top of a large round coral to find out what was going on.

Hardly had she reached the top when a long, very long, procession of crawfish filed past below. And each one held on to the one before with long antennae. I looked a bit lik a freight train with its countless carriages.

“Those were the good old days!“ there suddenly was a deep grumpy voice from up very close. Luna had not realized that a lobster had settled next to her and almost fell off her coral in fright.

“What days?“ Luna asked.

Slowly the lobster turned its head towards her and looked