MONKFISHDAY

      Tomorrow my new pen pal, Coral Crab, is coming to stay with me for three weeks! She lives in a place called Rockpool. Our head teacher, Mr Snapper, told us that because summer has been so hot, all the water in Rockpool School has dried up! So the pupils will come to our school until they get their water back. It’s too far for them to go home every day, so everyone in my class has someone staying with them. It will be THE MOST FUN!! We’ve been writing sea-mails to get to know them.

      Our teacher, Miss Carp, asked us to suggest ways we could make our visitors welcome. I was bubbling with ideas.

      ‘A parade,’ I said, ‘with music and a synchronised swimming display . . . and I could do a welcome speech . . .’

      Miss Carp said that sounded nice but really she meant little things like being kind to them, and asking what food they liked, what games they liked to play and stuff like that.

      ‘I asked Melvin those things in my sea-mail,’ my friend Ozzie Octopus said. ‘Melvin’s a mudskipper. He likes mud. So I’ve made a mud corner in the shipwreck, to help him feel at home.’

      ‘Very thoughtful, Ozzie,’ Miss Carp said. Myrtle Turtle put her fin up.

      ‘My pen pal, Gloria Goby, likes painting and eating plankton,’ she said. ‘So Mum’s bought plankton pasties and paints.’

      ‘Excellent.’ Miss Carp beamed. ‘How about you, Darcy? What does your pen pal like?’

      ‘Um . . .’ I said. Luckily right then the bell rang. ‘Oh – I just remembered – I have to go to the library.’

      I shot out of the classroom. Flippering fishsticks, I wished I’d thought to ask Coral all those things! I was so busy telling her about me that I didn’t think to ask about her!

      In the library Miss Angler, the librarian, was sitting at her desk polishing her teeth. Miss Angler’s teeth are razor-sharp and she is very strict, so I’m always very polite to her.

      ‘Excuse me, Miss, and sorry to bother you but do you have any books about crabs?’ I said, nervously.

      Miss Angler glared at me, then swam off between the shelves, her little light dangling in front of her. A few minutes later she came back with a book. There was a scary-looking crab on the cover.

      ‘Attack of the Zombie Crabs,’ I read, ‘by James Halibut.’

      ‘A marvellous author,’ said Miss Angler, smiling wickedly. ‘I have all his books.’

      Hmm. I wasn’t sure if it was exactly what I needed – but I took it because it said ‘A FIN-TINGLING READ’ on the back.

      I read the first chapter in bed and am now too scared to come out from under my bedcovers. Can crabs really come back to life as zombies? I really hope Coral doesn’t do that sort of thing.

      Word of the day: FIN-TINGLING

      This means scary and exciting. I have to say that Attack of the Zombie Crabs is loads more scary than it is exciting.

      TUNASDAY

      Lots

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