The Rockpool Hullabaloo Old Jack's Boat

Go on, Salty!

# Come with me We're off to the sea

# To where I used to play

# Looking back when I was a boy and the fun we had each day

# Over the cobbles and through the streets

# Playing in the sun

# Friends to meet with games and treats

# Adventures just begun

# Stories from a magical world Washed in by the sea

# Meet the rockpool creatures there It's amazing what you see

# Looking back when I was a boy

# Shrimps and starfish Crabs and snails

# In twinkly Rockpool Tales... #

Ha-ha!

# Those lovely Rockpool Tales. #

Ha-ha! Oh, hello. Salty and I, we've been listening to the sea.

It makes a great sound, doesn't it? Listen.

WHOOSH

A sort of whooshing and splooshing, you know. Good, isn't it, Salty?

I think it's one of my favourite seaside sounds.

You can't beat it, can you, girl? No.

But once, you know, I heard a very unusual sound on the beach.

Very unusual indeed.

It all happened when I was a boy, in a twinkly time long, long ago.

I used to run down to play on the beach as often as I could,

meeting up with my best friend, Little Sailor Sue.

On this particular day, we ran all the way down to the sea

to dip our toes in.

The water was so cold, it made us shriek.

Argh! But we got used to it, though, after a bit.

And then we raced back up the beach and collapsed onto the warm sand.

We closed our eyes and listened to all the sounds of the seaside.

The noisy seagulls calling, and people's distant voices,

and best of all, the whooshing, swooshing song of the sea.

But suddenly we heard another sound.

Not a sound we'd ever heard on the beach before.

It wasn't a nice sound either. It was a terrible twanging and parping.

SALTY WHINES

Yes, I know, Salty.

I think we'd call that a terrible hullabaloo, wouldn't we?

The sound seemed to be coming from the rockpool, so we decided to go

and find out what it was, and as we got closer, the noise got louder.

"The noise is coming from here," said Sue, pointing to a large rockpool.

We gazed deep down into the glittery waters

and a magical world appeared before our eyes.

There was indeed a bit of a hullabaloo

in the rockpool that day.

You see, it all started

when Sheena the Shrimp settled down to have her nap.

The rockpool was very quiet at that moment.

There wasn't a honk or a hoot, or anything to disturb her,

but poor Sheena, she just could not get to sleep.

"I want to sleep, but I can't," Sheena told Sally the Starfish,

who happened to be passing by.

"Don't worry, Sheena," said Sally. "I'll play you some gentle music.

"It might help you to fall asleep."

So, Sally found her little sea lace harp and ever so, ever so gently,

she plucked the strings and it made a beautiful, silky sound.

Sheena suddenly felt very sleepy

and it wasn't long before she was letting out little shrimpy snores.

SNORING

"I'll keep playing my harp," said Sally. "It seems to be working."

Just then, Buster the Crab came sidling by and when he heard

Sally's lovely harp music, his eyes spun round on their stalks.

"Can I join in?" he asked.

"Of course, but you must play softly," Sally whispered.

"Sheena is having her nap."

So, Buster scuttled off, came back with his scallop shell double bass

and his long bow that was made out of a little piece of razor shell.

He slid the bow across the strings

and it made a low, dreamy sound.

He played quite softly.

But with one player more,

the music was a little louder than before.

And Sheena suddenly stopped snoring.

She snuffled a bit and her antennae twitched.

Luckily she started snoring again.

SNORING

"Phew!" said Sally. "Sheena is still sleeping. Sh!"

So, they kept playing as softly as they could.

Belinda the Blenny heard the music. She came swimming up.

"That sounds lovely," she said. "Shall I fetch my pipes?"

"Can you play them softly?" Sally asked nervously.

"Only, Sheena is having her map and we don't want to wake her."

"Of course," said Belinda, darting off into the seaweed

and quickly reappearing with her pipefish pipes.

They looked like a tangle of green snakes

and made a rather unusual sound.

# Rrrrd, Da-drrr, Rrrrr-rrrr! #

She parped quite softly,

but with one player more, the music was louder than before.

And Sheena immediately stopped snoring again and she wriggled

and she jiggled and snuffled and then luckily she started to snore again.

"It was easier to play quietly when it was just me and my harp,"

thought Sally.

"It's quite hard to play quietly when there are lots of us."

Meanwhile, Andrew the Anemone had heard the music

and he wanted to play too.

So, he searched in his rock cupboards for his whelk shell tuba.

Then he curled his tentacles around it, raised it and blew.

It made a low, tummy-wobbling sound.

# Bwoh-bwoh-bwoh. #

"Sh!" whispered Sally. "We need to play softly or we'll wake Sheena."

"Ooh, whoops! Ooh, sorry, sorry," said Andrew.

And he blew more gently.

# Ba-wa-wa, ba-ba. #

But even so, with one player more, the music was louder than before.

Sheena let out a little squeak in her sleep.

"Ooh-ahh-ooh!" And she wriggled and jiggled about a bit

but luckily she didn't wake up.

Sidney the Snail popped his head out of his shell.

"You're all playing music without me," he protested.

And with that, the grabbed his drumsticks with his feelers

and banged his oyster shell drums along to the music.

STEEL PAN MUSIC

"Sh!" cried Sally. "We are trying to play softly to help Sheena sleep."

"Well, why didn't you say so?" said Sidney.

And he muffled has drumsticks with some seaweed, which made him

sound much softer.

But still with so many rockpoolers playing, the music was getting

louder and louder.

Sheena's eyelids fluttered, but luckily she kept snoring.

Bertrum the Butterfish whizzed by.

"Music time? Wait for me. I'll go and get my tower shell clarionet,"

he told everyone, and it wasn't long before he was playing along too.

CLARINET PLAYS

SALTY YELPS

Oh, yes, Salty, yes, you like a bit of clarionet, don't you?

Soon, all the rockpoolers were trying to be the loudest.

And to make things worse, Bertrum thought that everyone was

playing too slowly, so he started to play faster.

None of the others could keep up.

And, oh, dear! The music didn't sound beautiful any more.

It had turned into a terrible hullabaloo.

I mean, it was so loud that you could hear it at the beach.

SALTY WHINES Yes, I know, Salty.

It was enough to make you stick your paws over your ears, wasn't it?

Yes. "Quiet," Sally hissed, "or we will wake Sheena."

But no-one could hear a word Sally said.

They were all playing too loudly.

Oh! Then suddenly, there was a sound that was louder

than all their parping and hooting and thumping.

"STOP!"

Everyone stopped playing immediately.

It was Sheena. She had woken up.

"You were too loud," she said, frowning.

Well, the rockpoolers were very, very sorry indeed.

"I think we've played enough music for today.

"We'd better put our instruments away," said Sally.

But Sheena didn't want her friends to stop.

"Can't you just play nicely?" said Sheena.

"I'm not sleepy any more and I'd like to listen."

Then Buster the Crab snapped his claws together with excitement

because he'd had a bright idea.

WOOF!

Salty has bright ideas sometimes, don't you, girl?

Yes, and when she does, she whiffles her whiskers.

"We need a conductor to help us play our instruments together,"

said Buster. "It's a very important job."

"I will do it," said Sheena, bobbing up and down with excitement.

So, Buster showed Sheena how to be a conductor.

When Sheena kept her antennae low, the rockpoolers played quietly.

And when she stretched them up high, they played much louder.

Sheena had lots of fun being a conductor, and the music,

it sounded really lovely.

So lovely, in fact, that Sally caught the sound in one of her favourite

shells and she gave it to Sheena as a special present.

"You can listen to it at nap time," she told Sheena,

"and it will help you to fall asleep."

Sally is a very kind starfish, as you probably know.

The hullabaloo in the rock pool was now lovely music, which got

quieter and quieter as Sue and I skipped back down the beach.

The sea was still whooshing and splooshing

and the seagulls were calling.

I found a lovely shell and I picked it up and I listened.

MUSIC PLAYS

Was that the sound of Sally the Starfish

and her friends playing their music again?

Or was it the sound of the waves as the tide started to come in

and cover over the rockpool like a great seaweedy blanket?

Ha-ha-ha! So, Salty, all that hullabaloo we heard that day sounded

lovely in the end, didn't it, girl? And do you know what?

From that day on, whenever I find a shell, I always

listen for the sound of the sea, or maybe other things like music too.

You can have a listen when you find a shell.

So, why don't you join us for some more Rockpool Tales next time?

Bye-bye. Come on, girl.