Once upon a time, I, the amazing mudskipper named Brianna, was exploring the sticky mud that I call home, heard human voices and I felt the ground vibrating underneath me. Groaning, I slid over to my two sisters and my brother, who were hiding in a hole. "More people are coming, tell Mom and Dad," I commanded them. My brother stayed put, stubborn as always, while my younger sister, Bree, jumped quickly from one spot in the mud to another, until she disappeared from sight somewhere in the distance. Eva, the sister who remained by my side, turned to me. "Who do you think it is this time? A few civilized humans or some trouble-makers?" I shrugged and peeked out from the hole. Shiny black shoes passed by, then more and more in a huge crowd following them. I gasped, looking at Eva and Ethan to see if they were as nervous as I was. So many people outside... what were they going to do? "Auugh!" I heard outside. "We have to walk in that?" A hand was gesturing to the mud around me. There was laughter and more voices, too many to keep track of. Faces, flashing before me, frozen mid-laugh and between words as I switched my gaze from one human to another. They were getting closer, my heartbeat accelerated and the ground shook with every step someone took. Then a blur next to me-Eva was escaping the hole. Gasps were heard outside.
"Look! Look over there! It's a...it's a..." I watched anxiously as my sister hopped to a bush and sat there in the shadows. Suddenly Ethan was next to her with cries of, "Another one!" Breathing deeply, I prepared to launch myself over to them, but then a black wall separated me from the open world. Screaming, I jumped back. Pushing myself against the wall, boots walked past me, blurring the outside and pushing air into the hole. The crowd wanted to see where those little creatures, who were my siblings, went to. I skipped to Eva and Ethan and glared at them. Ethan glared back while Eva ignored me.
"Where's Bree? Did she tell Mom and Dad about-" then she was interrupted by a yell. Startled, I looked out from under the bush and saw a human with their boot almost completely buried. Yet they were still trying to move on with the boot hugging the mud. Ethan started laughing, like he always does when someone gets stuck in the mud. I continued to watch as the human gripped the top of their boot and yanked on it. It wasn't very effective but apparently it worked.
Many voices were shouting different things, mostly about how sticky the mud was. Why couldn't they learn to move quickly like us mudskippers? And speaking of mudskipping... Ethan just decided to show off. He skipped over to the other side of the muddy path and back again with no one noticing. Turning to me with an evil grin, he said, "Can you beat that, Brianna?" I scoffed, not really sure what I was going to say next. Ethan was pretty good at not getting caught in the mud.
I squirmed, since I was sinking into the mud we were in. "Of course I can. I can walk right up to that human, in fact," I announced, then instantly regretted it. Ethan's eyes widened in delight and Eva sighed, "You two are so immature."
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| "I can walk right up to that human, in fact." |
Ethan laughed. "Do it!" Shaking my head, I stretched my legs and then leaped over the mud to the human, who chose that moment to fall, almost on top of me! Luckily for me, I jumped out of the way as he fell. I could feel their eyes pass over me as they pushed their way up and I skipped back to Eva and Ethan.
"Happy now?" I growled. Ethan didn't answer my question. "What are all these people doing here?" he wondered aloud. "They're usually here for a short time only, to see what the wilderness is like, and then they leave. Why are these humans taking so long?"
I followed some people to a taller human in a bright green shirt and he was holding a giant stick. Using it, he made a hole in which the smaller humans placed a big lump with a stem sticking out of it. It looked like a young mangrove tree! Were they... giving us more trees?
Eva and Ethan appeared behind me. I turned around and smiled at them. "We're getting more mangrove trees! That's what the humans are doing!" Eva and Ethan smiled and we hugged each other in happiness. Our forest was being helped out.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This entire story is not true. Yes, my class planted mangrove trees on a field trip to Kuala Selangor, but I am not a mudskipper.
Thanks to these sites for the pictures I used in this blogpost.
