The Crab and the Painted Rock

A crab lived beside a tide pool where a white gull came every morning. The gull watched the water for little fish, but whenever the crab crossed the open sand she snapped at him too. He grew tired of waiting beneath his stone until she flew away.

One evening he found red clay near the cliff. With a shell as a brush, he painted two enormous eyes on the rock above his pool. In the dim morning light, the eyes seemed to belong to a creature far larger than any gull.

The gull landed, looked once, and beat her wings in alarm. The crab laughed so hard that he nearly rolled onto his back. For three days he walked wherever he liked. He told the limpets that the beach was now guarded by a terrible beast and that he alone knew its temper.

On the fourth day, a storm rolled in. A wave lifted the painted rock and dropped it across the crab's shelter. He was trapped in a shallow hollow beneath it. Water seeped in slowly, but he could not reach the pool or push the rock aside.

The limpets heard him call. They had no claws to dig with. A passing fish could do nothing on dry sand. By afternoon the sun had warmed the hollow, and the crab's voice grew thin.

The gull landed on the cliff. The limpets called to her, but she saw the painted eyes and would not come closer.

“There is a crab under the beast,” they said.

“Then the beast can keep him,” said the gull.

The crab understood that his warning had worked too well. He scraped clay from the rock with the point of one claw. The opening was narrow, and he could reach only the bottom of one painted eye. He scraped until a streak of red ran into the sand.

“It is a stone,” he called. “I painted it.”

The gull came down carefully. She watched him scraping, then pushed her beak beneath the edge. The rock shifted. The crab hurried into the pool and stayed underwater until his shell cooled.

When he emerged, he asked why she had helped. The gull said she had disliked being frightened by a stone, but she disliked being fooled by one even more.

The crab offered her the little fish trapped in a drying puddle beyond his pool. After that, he pointed out puddles she could not see from the cliff. She left his crossing clear.

The painted eyes faded in the rain. Neither of them repainted them.