By Tony Sharp
Hermie was a hermit crab, who was feeling very lonely because hermit crabs don’t have a family. The reason why all his family had moved away was normal for crabs of his kind. Hermit crabs must keep moving home and often find a new shell to live in as they grow, otherwise they get stuck.
In a crabs life growing is the most important thing, but to enable the crab to do this, it must change its shell for its own protection.
At low tide, the cone and spiral shells stop the sea gulls from eating them and at full tide the shell stops the big fish from eating hermit crabs.
Hermie’s mistake was that he did not listen to his elders. With no family, his only teaching in life was to listen to wise old hermit grabs.
Only the large hermit crabs were wise (but not all of them). It was easy to tell which ones were wise and which ones were not and there were lots of wise old crabs on the seashore. He didn’t need to search very far, but he chose not too.
It was a very dangerous time for crabs when they changed their shell.
In the day time the soft bodies of crabs outside their protective shells were the most favorite food of sea gulls. It was just as dangerous to change shells underwater as soft crabs are the favorite food of fish.
The best time to change shell was at night time when the tide was low. Hermie held onto his new shell to make sure that no other crab could steal it and waited for darkness to fall.
At midnight, when all the seagulls were asleep, he tried to climb out of his shell, but he found he was too big to get out. He was stuck.
Some other crabs tried to pull him out, but he was too stuck. An old wise crab called out, “You will have to jump.”
“But I am too scared to jump,” Hermie cried.
The jump is the most fearful thing a crab ever has to do. Only crabs that refused to change in time had to jump.
Hermie looked up at the big rock. He put his new shell at the bottom of it and started to climb. Up and up he went. Breathing got harder and harder. Exhausted, he reach the top, which was many meters above the rocks below.
It was such a long way down. Hermie was scared. The fall would crack open his shell, so he could quickly run to his new shell. For those few seconds he was in great danger.
“Hermie!” called the other crabs, who had all gathered to watch a jumper “Jump! The sun is about to come up. Jump now!”
Letting go is the hardest part of the change. Now he wished he had gone through it the easy way by taking good advice from the wise crabs.
For hermit crabs it’s change the easy way or the hard way but change you must. Hermie took a big breath and jumped. Tumbling down the rock tucked up inside his shell felt like rolling around in a concrete mixer, then the crack on the rock below was very painful.
“Quick, Hermie, run to your shell!” yelled his friends. But running fast was a struggle just after the jump. His new shell was a meter away. The dangerous journey seemed to take for ever.
Thankfully, he made it before any of the early morning birds saw him. As he tucked himself up inside his bigger cone shell, he made a promise to himself never to leave the change too late ever again.
He had learned the most important lesson the hard way, don’t hold onto the past for too long.
