Crabby ..... by Arthur P. Bollmann

There was a little boy who was very grumpy. He did not like to eat any food besides fish. When his family ordered pizza, he insisted that it have anchovies on it, and ate the anchovies off, leaving the pizza for everyone else. At lunch, he always had to have fish sandwiches. When he didn't get any fish to eat, he became very, very, very grumpy. He also like lobsters, clams and crabs. Because he was so grouchy, his family called him Crabby.

    "Crabby," his mother said one day, shaking her head in surprise. "If you eat any more fish, you will turn into a fish."

Crabby didn't care. His parents tried to get him to play soccer, but he didn't want to. They had him join Boy Scouts, but he only went in one crabbing trip, and quit after he got the fishing merit badge. In school, he got bad grades. His parents were ashamed.

Then one day Crabby ran away from home. He moved to New Orleans and got a job working in a restaurant. He cooked the best fish in town. But he didn't bother to learn to cook anything else. So they fired him.

Then he got a job in a fishing boat. He was the best fisherman in town. He caught more fish than anybody, and, best of all, he got to eat all the fish he wanted. One day, he woke up from his cabin in the boat to find he had grown gills. He looked down at his hands, and saw they had become lobster claws. His mother was right, he had turned into a fish.

He jumped off the side of the boat to live in his new home underwater. To this day, fisherman say that Crabby looks after the fishermen of the Gulf of Texas. More than one illegal fisherman has found his nets shredded. More than one fisherman who has fallen overboard has found himself mysteriously carried to shore. Nowadays, whenever a fishins boat was had a good trip, they make certain they throw one of the fish they have caught back into the water, "for Crabby."

~