NIKKI and the CRAB

By the way Nikki looked into the blue gray expanse before her, you would think it was her first time to see the ocean. Only when she asked me why the sand wasn't white did I realize that this wasn't so. We found a bunch of crabholes along the shore and in no time she was poking sticks into them to get them out. When the crabs would come out, she'd shriek and run away all of a sudden which seemed very amusing to me.

"why do you run away after you get them out?" I ask.

"They scare me." She replies.

"But, you're bigger than the crab. And if they scare you, then why try to get them out of their holes anyway?"

She completely ignores the question and continues to poke into the holes. She'd poke and run, then poke and run and then poke and run some more. I just laugh to myself when I realize I have to leave her for a while to do some work.

Later on after lunch I ask her if she had caught any crabs. She takes me out to the shore with excitement with her white summer dress glowing against the sun, leading me to a plastic cup near the ebbing waves. I could see that the crabs were dead, cooked in that plastic cup by the noon sun. Nikki shakes the cup a little bit. not sure of what had happened.

"I caught a big one and 6 small ones. But I think the others were able to get away. Can you see if the big one is still alive?" With a bit of hope in her voice.

I take the big one out of the cup. Part of it had already turned orange and notice it's big claw missing.

"It's dead. It got cooked by the sun. You forgot to to put water into the cup. Poor crab didn't have a chance."

I continue to explain to her how it got cooked, how it needed water, and why it frothes by its mouth. She listens intently as I try to explain that crabs and people aren't the same...or at least they don't experience the world in similar ways. She asks me to put the crab by the water, in vain hope that it is actually still alive, so I obliged.

She seemed quiet when it finally sank in, though I was not sure if that fact made her sad.

Then she goes, "Help me find another crab."

"What? So it'll die again? Maybe we should just leave them alone."

"But I'll take better care of it. I'll put water into the cup..."

"Why do you want to catch crabs anyway? It's hard to take care of them."

"Coz I want to tell my friends I caught a crab on the beach and that I have a new pet.". she declares.

"But there's a big chance the crab will die."

She falls quiet, but I do still end up trying to find her a crab. It took me a while to actually catch one and when I did I tell her that she better tell her friends that it was I who caught the crab. She giggled when I said that.

"Oh, how about if we added some sand in the cup, would that be good?" She seemed quite proud of her own thoughtfullness.

"Yeah, that would be great. Maybe we can add some rocks too. But we have to put the rocks inside in a good way so the crab is happy."

"Help me fix the rocks in the cup please."

When everything in the cup is in order, we finally put the crab in. She holds it with both hands and is quietly absorbed with her new crab.

After a while she asks me, "Do you think that when it gets bigger, and that if I really take good care of it, it won't pinch me with it's claws? Would it let me hold it then? Do you think we could become friends?

I try to think about it carefully and say, "Maybe...but most likely that might not happen." She stares at me blankly so I continue, "Well you see, you're very big and it is very small, so it will always be afraid of you. So it will always try to pinch you or run away. It wouldn't know any better."

She stares into the cup again, "But I'll take good care of it."

"Well, it can't really see you, so it can't recognize you. They just don't see things the way people do."

"But it has eyes!" she declares.

"Well yeah, but...it's not like ours. Their eyes are probably better in the water."

"Oh! So what if I take it swimming with me in our pool? Will it see me then?" suddenly excited at discovering a possible loophole.

"Well, maybe...but if it does, it just might swim away coz it'll still be scared of you."

She falls quiet again. I try to explain to her that it is difficult take care of a crab, especially one that used to live by the sea. We wouldnt know what to feed it and wouldn't know what else it might need. I try to caution her that there is a big chance the crab will die if she takes it home.

"If you really want a crab for a pet, you can buy freshwater lobsters in a pet store. They're easier to take care of."

"But it's different when you buy something from a pet store. I want to tell my friends I caught this at the beach." she explains. Oddly enough, I sort of knew what she was trying to say.

"You know, this crab probably has family and friends here. If you take him away, he might never ever see them again. And it's home is here, not in a plastic cup..."

"But this is just for now." she clarifies. "When I get home, I'll make a really nice home for it."

"Maybe so, but it will still be very different from the sea. It won't be able to experience the
same things as crabs would normally have."

She seemed puzzled so I continued," I mean, would you like it if you were stuck in a room forever. Even if it was the best room in the whole world, you would have a window that would show you what was outside, but you could never be a part of that...that would make you very sad wouldn't it? The crab might feel very lonely."

"So what if I catch one or two more crabs? Then it would have company, it would have friends...so it won't be lonely anymore."

"Yeah, but if they started dying coz you wouldn't know what to feed them, you just might feel bad about it."

For the next few minutes, she asks around if people knew what it was that seacrabs would have to eat. If anyone knew how to take care of it. When she gathered a few ideas she came back to her little crab in the plastic cup.

"You know, if you let it go, it doesn't mean you won't see it again. You can come back someday and..."

"No, if I did that, I'll never see him again." she said quite frankly. And at this point I wasn't sure if she was more worried of the crab's loneliness or her own.

Nikki and I continued to talk about the crab in her plastic cup until the time I had to leave. I pat her head and she lets go of her cup for a second to wave goodbye. I wasn't there to see how the day ended with Nikki and her crab, but I was told that before they left the beach, she sat quietly at the back of the car for a good five minutes or so looking at the crab in her plastic cup. She started to cry, went down the car, walked to the shore and set the little crab free.

....

"Him that I love, I wish to be free -- even from me."- Anne Morrow Lindbergh