The Wiggler 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, ha-ha! # Those lovely rockpool tales. #

What have you got there?

Let's have a look, come here!

Ha-ha-ha! You clever girl. Oh, dear! That's my old beach hat.

Look at that! Thank you, girl. SALTY GROWLS SOFTLY

This floppy old thing brings back a few memories,

I can tell you. It once belonged to a friend of mine.

Would you like me to tell you the story of this hat, hmm?

All right, I will.

It all happened when I was a boy...

In a twinkly time, long, long ago...

In those days, I used to run down to play on the beach

as often as I could,

meeting up with my best friends,

Little Ernie and Little Sailor Sue.

But on this particular day, we couldn't find Ernie anywhere.

He wasn't in the boat hut or amongst the lobster pots.

None of your favourite places, Salty! Ha!

We looked everywhere but there was no sign of Ernie.

Nearby, there was a boy sitting on a rock, gazing out to sea.

On his head was a large straw hat.

Sue coughed. Ahem!

And she asked him if he had seen Ernie.

The boy turned round to look at us.

And we both nearly fell over laughing!

It was Ernie and he looked very fed up.

"My mum told me to wear this hat because I got burnt in the sun

"yesterday," he said. "But it's too big!"

"It keeps falling over my eyes!" "Well, I know how to cheer you up,"

I said. "Let's go and make sandcastles!"

So, off we dashed, me and Sue rushing ahead

and Ernie behind us, stumbling along,

as he held up the brim of this enormous sun hat. Ha-ha!

I had a little flag in my pocket,

which I wanted to put on the top of our sandcastle

and Sue suggested we find some old seaweed to decorate the sides.

Well, the best place to find seaweed was by the rockpools.

Sue and I scrambled over to the rocks and when we arrived,

we gazed deep down into the glittery waters...

And there, a magical world appeared before our eyes...

It was a very sunny day deep down in the rockpool.

Sally the Starfish was scrambling over the rocks, looking

for seashells to collect, when she spotted Bertrum the Butterfish,

stretched out in the sunny garden.

"Are you enjoying the sunny garden?" said Sally to Bertrum.

"No, I am not!" huffed and puffed Bertrum.

"It's much too hot today! Much, much, too hot

"and there's not a scrap of shade."

It was very hot in the sunny garden.

And, as Sally watched Bertrum bustle off,

she thought he seemed even more grumpy than normal.

Just then, Sally caught sight of something tangled in the seaweed.

It was a piece of red, white and blue cloth, wrapped around a long stick.

WOOF! No, Salty, it wasn't a stick

you could chase. No, no, no...

Sally shuffled over carefully to take a look at it.

It must have been washed into the rockpool by the tide, she thought.

So, using her starfishy arms, she gently freed it from the seaweed

and took it back to the rocky ridge where all her friends lived.

"Look what I found!" she said to Belinda the Blenny, when she arrived.

"It's a...a..."

But she couldn't think what it was and neither could Belinda.

"It looks a bit too long and a bit too sticky to be fun to play with,"

said Belinda, in her quiet way. "Perhaps we should put it back."

But Sally wanted to know what it was.

I think I know who'll be able to tell me all about this -

Reginald the Great Wise Limpet.

So, Sally went off in search of Reginald.

Now, limpets like to stick themselves to rocks

and then stay there for a very long time.

Reginald was one of the oldest and wisest limpets in the rockpool

and he lived on the water's edge

so that he could see out into the great wide world beyond.

Reginald knew many things.

He knew that the sun in the sky was an enormous grapefruit.

And he knew that children's toes were actually little giggly sea snails.

And he knew that teddies couldn't swim without armbands.

Well, when Sally showed him the stick with the colourful cloth

wrapped around it, he opened a wise old sleepy eye and said...

"It's a Wiggler." "A Wiggler?" said Sally.

"Yes," said Reginald.

"What do you do with it?" said Sally.

"You put it into the cracks between rocks

"and you wiggle it. A bit..."

"Do you do anything else with it?" asked Sally.

"No," replied Reginald. Sally was a little disappointed.

She had hoped her discovery would be something wonderful to play with

or give her loads of good ideas for games.

But it was just a Wiggler.

"Thank you, Reginald, Great Wise Limpet,"

said Sally, trying not be too disappointed.

And she dived down into the water with her newly named Wiggler.

Reginald watched her go with a gloopy gaze.

He was rather pleased with his answers

and he was sure he knew everything about Wigglers.

WOOF!

I don't think he did, really, did he, Salty?

Now, as Sally swam down through the clear waters of the rockpool,

the colourful cloth wrapped around the Wiggler started to open up.

And by the time Sally reached the bottom, it had unfurled completely.

Sally looked in wonder at its beautiful red,

white and blue colours. Just then, Andrew bounced by.

Andrew was a very adventurous anemone and today

he was perched on a bouncy red ball that had plopped into the rockpool.

Boing! Andrew bounced past Sally. Boing! He bounced back again.

"Hi, Sally!" he said. "I like that!" Boing! And he bounced off.

"It's a Wiggler!" said Sally.

Reginald, the Great Wise Limpet told me.

Boing! Andrew bounced back over to Sally and came to rest on the rocks.

"A Wiggler?" he said, a little out of breath.

"It looks more like one of those flappy things I've seen

"on the top of sandcastles on the beach."

WOOF!

What's that, Salty? You know what that flappy thing was?

WOOF! Yes, that's right, it was a flag.

Yes, good girl.

Well, Sally was very surprised. "You mean it's not a Wiggler?"

"Well, that might be what it's called, I suppose," said Andrew.

"I've seen lots of them. They're on big poles at the harbour walls,

"on the ends of boats in the water and they're always

on top of sandcastles." "Oh, shall we build a sandcastle?" said Sally.

"We could put our Wiggler on it." That sounded like a really good idea.

So, Sally and Andrew got to work, digging the sand at the bottom

of the rockpool, creating their very own sandcastle.

And finally, after a lot of hard work,

they were ready to put the Wiggler in.

Using her little arms, Sally pushed it into the top of the sandcastle.

And then she and Andrew stood back to admire it.

But as they did so, the Wiggler started to float up.

It didn't want to stay under the water.

But they tried and tried to put it back. But it kept floating off.

I don't think Wigglers like being underwater, said Sally,

shaking her head sadly.

They watched the flag float up to the surface of the rockpool

and there it lay like a colourful blanket over them.

And as it lay there, Sally the Starfish had a brilliant idea.

The kind of idea that makes your whiskers whiffle, Salty.

Sally turned to Andrew and she smiled.

"I know what we could do with it," she said.

And with that, she swam up to the surface to gently guide

the Wiggler across the rippling water

until it settled right over the sunny rockpool garden.

Down below, a very hot Bertrum looked up in surprise.

A wonderful, cool Wiggler-shaped piece of shade had appeared

and suddenly he didn't feel hot any more.

He stretched his long body and all the grumpy grumpiness seemed

to fall away from him, like spray off a pebble.

He beamed his biggest Bertrum smile and called up,

"Thank you, young Sally. Oh, that's just what I needed!"

So, for the rest of the day, hot rockpoolers came to stretch out

under the cool shade of Sally's wonderful Wiggler.

Well, Salty, we looked up from the rockpool

and I realised I still had MY flag in my pocket.

So, I called to Ernie, who was on the beach nearby.

"This needs to be on the top of a sandcastle!" I shouted.

Ernie was smiling broadly and he wasn't wearing his hat.

"Hey, Ernie," I said. "What happened to your sun hat?"

"Oh, it blew away!" said Ernie.

SALTY WHIMPERS Yes, I know, Salty.

Sue and I were a little surprised to hear that too.

It wasn't a very windy day.

"Well," I said, "At least there's somewhere to stick this flag now."

And so I stuck the flag in the top of Ernie's sandcastle.

"No!" cried Ernie.

And can you guess what was underneath? Yes.

The enormous sun hat.

"Well, it was too big for me," said Ernie.

"So I thought I could turn it into a sandcastle instead." Oh, dear!

We all fell about laughing.

And then we played and played until it was time for us to go home,

when the tide came in and covered the rockpool,

like a great seaweedy blanket.

You know, Salty, this old hat was always too big for Ernie.

So he gave it to me.

And it's perfect for keeping the sun out of my eyes. Stay there, girl!

There we are. Look at that! Ha-ha!

And you can have that one on, can't you? Here you are!

Keep the sun out of your eyes, won't it?

So, why don't you join us for some more rockpool tales next time?

Goodbye!