Kurria the salty crocodile swam lazily down the Murrumbidgee He was hunting barramundi for his dinner.
He spied a blue Yabbie sunbaking in the mud. Curious, he landed on the muddy shore.
"What are you doing?' Said Kurria.
Yabbie, bright blue turned to the huge salty and told him he was sunbaking!
" What for?" Kurria opened his gigantic jaws, this helped him cool down. He was no threat to the tiny crustacean.
"Well, I dropped from the skies when we were created and all of us are the colour of the skies - bright blue! I have seen my tribe in red dress and thought If I sunbake I will turn red!"
Kurria shook with laughter. Then he spied grandmother and her two grandsons with a newly knotted catch-em-bag.
"Ma, Ma? We have plenty tucker today. Catch many yabbies' cook em up good." Carra, her youngest grinned. Grandmother squeaked and creaked when she bent down, her knees had seen many summers.
"What you doing in da sunshine, Yabbie?" Animals and humans could speak to each other many moons ago.
"I is not happy being bright blue. So I am sunbaking so I can be red like my big brother's, craw. And I have seen muddy crab in bright red dress, so handsome. He no like brown. Coming down to be born, he got caught in gum tree and turned brown! Now he big red fella!
Grandmother grinned her toothless grin and started to cackle until tears made tracks down her grubby cheeks. The grandsons, Carra and Unde danced around in circles joining grandmother in fits of laughter.
Yabbie was upset, thinking they were making fun of his wish to be red.
He slipped back into the Murrumbidgee and dug a hole in the riverbed. All his kin gathered around him and asked what was wrong?
"I was sunbaking to become red and they all burst out laughing at me."
The myriad of bubbles from his kin was likened to laughter from the humans. They were laughing underwater.
Grandmother and the boys had netted many yabbies' for dinner. Bright blue. Now big Yabbie got his wish, he had turned red in the water grandmother had boiled! Pity he didn't know this was the only way to turn red - be cooked!
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Author Notes
Silly Yabbie. All seafood turns red when cooked. Yabbie are a sweet-tasting morsel, much like crabmeat. They live in rivers and creeks and can give a good nip picked up the wrong way! They look like a miniature crayfish.
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