The Big Bridge Build
The sun was just rising up when my best friend, Cory the Crab, patted me on the back and said, “Let’s build a bridge.” As I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, I thought, “Why would anyone want to do that?” Then Cory explained to me his view of the world.
You see, I live in a stream that flows into the ocean, while Cory lives on the beach or under the waves. He wants to make it easier for me and all the other creatures that live around here to visit his home. “Everyone would enjoy visiting everyone else,” he said hopefully. “And we would all get to know each other much better.”
Cory felt very strongly about this, so I said I would be happy to help him. First, we wandered up and down the banks until we had noticed all the things that could be used for building a bridge: twigs, stones, shells. Then we sat down to talk things over.
“We have the materials,” said Cory. “Now we only need to put them together.”
“That’s the difficulty,” I said. “Neither of us can carry very much.”
“That doesn’t matter. We will get the materials together and ask our friends to come and help us.”
This seemed a very good idea to me. But there was home to be thought of. I said, “I can go on the bank if someone will lead me to the stones.”
“So I will,” said Cory. “I’ll swim round to where you can get out on to the beach, and when you’ve selected the stones, I’ll carry them to this place hidden among the willow roots, just below your house that you sleep in.”
That day, we gathered the stones and twigs that would be needed. Then we went to bed. In the morning, Cory came and called me, and we started off.
On the way, we met Caitlin the Catfish, asleep in a pool where the water was still. “What can I do for you?” she asked when we told her.
“Would you mind taking our messages for us, please, to all the people we know? Tell them we want them to come and help us build a bridge tomorrow, and ask them to bring anything that they think will be useful.”
“I’ll be pleased to do that,” said Caitlin, “and I especially hope that goose and hen may come and bring some empty bottles. YouTube Boating has some bottles too.”
“They’ll do much better than bottles,” I said. Then we parted, and we stopped and had a good conversation with every creature we met.
The next day, we worked hard. There wasn’t a single animal in our part of the river that wanted to be left out. They all came, even the tortoise and the sluggard that went to sleep on the way. There were lots and lots of ducks that carried straws, hops, and twigs. Robins picked up small pebbles, and starlings carried larger ones, and shook the feathers of their claws to get rid of the mud, and picked little pieces off with their beaks.
Mice gnawed at the rotten wood, some woodpeckers drived nails into it, and ants carried away the pieces of wood we didn’t want for rubbish.
We worked and worked without stopping, but still none of us were tired. When evening came, goose and hen could bring Baby over the water, and people said he must come over in fluxion, but the driftwood was too low; so in the end, we had to use a little of the rubbish.
Of all the rubbish we did use, this was the only bit.
We had the best part of the bridge done by one o’clock. Then at half-past one, we stood in the middle of the unfinished bridge and sang a song about it, and stopped to eat. There was such a pile of provisions that all we brought with us was food enough to go over and back.
In about three hours, the stone was finished, and hand-in-hand we all marched over to the other side. To be exact, Ellie and I in a car and coach picked ours and pushed the platform down gliding steps. And our work done, we went aboard a little boat the cat had brought, and went to all the places we’d mean to go.
All thanks to Cory and me!