Animals -- Fiction; Children's stories, English; Short stories
And Pau Amma said, 'I am ashamed! Give me back my hard shell and let me
go back to Pusat Tasek, and I will only stir out once a day and once a
night to get my food.'
And the Eldest Magician said, 'No, Pau Amma, I will _not_ give you back
your shell, for you will grow bigger and prouder and stronger, and
perhaps you will forget your promise, and you will play with the Sea
once more.'
Then Pau Amma said, 'What shall I do? I am so big that I can only hide
in Pusat Tasek, and if I go anywhere else, all soft as I am now, the
sharks and the dogfish will eat me. And if I go to Pusat Tasek, all soft
as I am now, though I may be safe, I can never stir out to get my food,
and so I shall die.' Then he waved his legs and lamented.
'Listen, Pau Amma,' said the Eldest Magician. 'I cannot make you play
the play you were meant to play, because you escaped me at the Very
Beginning; but if you choose, I can make every stone and every hole and
every bunch of weed in all the seas a safe Pusat Tasek for you and your
children for always.'
Then Pau Amma said, 'That is good, but I do not choose yet. Look! there
is that Man who talked to you at the Very Beginning. If he had not taken
up your attention I should not have grown tired of waiting and run away,
and all this would never have happened. What will _he_ do for me?'
And the Man said, 'If you choose, I will make a Magic, so that both the
deep water and the dry ground will be a home for you and your
children--so that you shall be able to hide both on the land and in the
sea.'
And Pau Amma said, 'I do not choose yet. Look! there is that girl who
saw me running away at the Very Beginning. If she had spoken then, the
Eldest Magician would have called me back, and all this would never have
happened. What will _she_ do for me?'
And the little girl-daughter said, 'This is a good nut that I am eating.
If you choose, I will make a Magic and I will give you this pair of
scissors, very sharp and strong, so that you and your children can eat
cocoa-nuts like this all day long when you come up from the Sea to the
land; or you can dig a Pusat Tasek for yourself with the scissors that
belong to you when there is no stone or hole near by; and when the earth
is too hard, by the help of these same scissors you can run up a tree.'
And Pau Amma said, 'I do not choose yet, for, all soft as I am, these
gifts would not help me. Give me back my shell, O Eldest Magician, and
then I will play your play.'
And the Eldest Magician said, 'I will give it back, Pau Amma, for
eleven months of the year; but on the twelfth month of every year it
shall grow soft again, to remind you and all your children that I can
make magics, and to keep you humble, Pau Amma; for I see that if you can
run both under the water and on land, you will grow too bold; and if you
can climb trees and crack nuts and dig holes with your scissors, you
will grow too greedy, Pau Amma.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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