by Sarah Matanah © 2008
Flo lay on the floor toward the back of the cave. It was summer, but this late in the afternoon the sun was low enough that it reached her. Her brother, Mo, and their moms were down by the ocean catching crabs. Usually that was a fun job, but Flo was feeling tired and itchy. When she had just mentioned that she hated crabs, the sand, the beach, and her family, Mama D had gotten mad all of a sudden and had sent her back to the cave.
Flo didn’t care. It was a lot nicer lying here in a little pool of sunlight in the cool cave. She liked being by herself anyway. It gave her a chance to look at her own treasures. She reached back into a hollow in the cave wall and pulled out a curved scrap of very old, leathery eggshell. It was an orange bit of the shell that Mo had been in when their moms had found their eggs. She pressed it to the side of her mouth so she could feel its gently dimpled texture against the thinner scales there. She liked to think of a tiny her and a tiny Mo lying beside each other, safely cradled in their own self-contained little worlds.
She reached into the hollow again, feeling around for more bits of shell. She and Mo had ripped them to pieces when they’d come out, but Mama G had saved every bit. Flo’s claws scraped every side of the hollow without touching any more bits of shell. She tore aside necklaces and chain mail and robes and crystal balls, looking for the shells. They were gone. Where could they be? Mo didn’t look at the shells as often as she did, but if he had he would have put them back as carefully as she would herself, she was sure of it. She started tearing through all the treasure, not even caring that Mama D might be mad if she messed it up. She had demolished two piles of treasure and was starting on a third when she saw them. The pieces of shell had been strung up almost against the roof of the cave like a row of little orange and blue boats. At first she was just a little irritated. Why hadn’t Mo asked her if he could use her bits of shell as decorations? Then when she got closer, she saw that in each shell were two hairless baby shrews, rocking gently, fast asleep.
“No way,” Flo said. “That’s my shell you’re using. You do not have permission.”
The string (which looked suspiciously like a necklace string) had been attached to the wall by something sticky. Flo almost gave it a yank, but then stopped herself in time. She picked up the squirmy babies, being careful not to scratch them with her claws, and placed them in the palm of her hand. She crouched down to put them in a pile on the floor of the cave so she could take down the eggshells. Then she noticed the tuba weasels. They had crawled down the legs of the suit of armor they lived in and were sitting on the feet, looking at the baby rodents in Flo’s hand as if they were a delicious treat.
Suddenly a shrew came running out from behind a pile of treasure. “You monster!” he shouted at Flo in a barely audible squeak, “Don’t you dare feed my brothers and sisters to those beasts!”
Flo didn’t expect the tuba weasels to talk (they usually didn’t), but the brown one, Fervent, said, “And why not? I could use a snack. Shrews have no other use but to tweak a weasel’s appetite.”
Just then Mo’s voice came from the entrance, “Flo, are you better now? We caught enough crabs. I want to go exploring.”
“This shrew stole our eggshells,” Flo said, still angry. But as the weasels started to edge closer to the babies, she could see why their older brother would want them out of reach. She stood up. “They aren’t shrew cradles. They’re ours. They’re the only thing we have from before we were hatched.”
“They make great little hammocks,” Mo said, ignoring her. He poked one with a claw to make it rock. He picked a baby off Flo’s hand, put it inside, and set it rocking again. “They can use mine. They aren’t hurting them—except for the holes, and it’s too late for that.”
“Mo, those are our egg shells. They’re special,” Flo said. She was so angry she sent a tongue of flame in his direction without thinking about it. Why couldn’t he see what she meant?
“It’s hard enough to take care of babies without big stupid dragons interfering,” the shrew said. “I have to hunt to get them food, and I have to make sure they’re safe while I’m gone. Then even when I do get them food, a lot of the time they don’t like it. They spit it back out, and I have to go hunt up something else. If our mother was here, she could give them milk. But she’s not.” The little shrew’s whiskers were quivering. Mo glared at Flo like he thought she was the meanest dragon alive.
“Fine,” Flo said. She put the babies back in the shells. She blew hard on the shells to make them rock. Then she had to grab the one nearest to her before it tipped over.
The next morning Flo woke up early. She scooped a hunk of leftover crab out of its shell. It was actually pretty good. She noticed the eggshell cradles hanging in a row at the back of the cave. She went over to look at them, stepping carefully over Mo’s tail so she wouldn’t wake him up. The baby at the end in a bit of blue shell was awake. It waved its legs and made a soft piping noise. She thought it knew she was there, even though its eyes were still closed.
“Here, try this,” she said. She offered it a bit of crab meat on the tip of her claw. It licked it up with the tiniest tongue imaginable. It piped again.
“Squeak, squeak yourself,” she told it. “You can have some more. You know what? We’re shell siblings now, you and me. But when you get old enough to hatch I want the shell back. Understand?”
The little shrew lapped up another smidgeon of crab meat. It leaned its oversized head on the tip of her finger as if that bit of eating had been too much effort for it.
Flo held her finger still.
“Mo,” she whispered. “Wake up and get me some more crab.”
