Just So Stories for Little Children / Просто сказки. Книга для чтения на английском языке

‘I am not afraid,’ said Pau Amma, and he rose to the top of the sea in the moonlight. There was nobody in the world so big as Pau Amma – for he was the King Crab of All Crabs. Not a common Crab, but a King Crab. One side of his great shell touched the beach at Sarawak; and other touched the beach at Pahang; and he was taller that the smoke of three volcanoes! As he rose up through the branches of the Wonderful Tree he tore off[274] one of the great twin-fruits – the magic double-kernelled nuts that make people young, – and the little girl-daughter saw it bobbing alongside the canoe, and pulled it in and began to pick out the soft eyes of it with her little golden scissors[275].

‘Now,’ said the Magician, ‘make a Magic, Pau Amma, to show that you are really important.’

Pau Amma rolled his eyes and waved his legs, but he could only stir up[276] the Sea, because, though he was a King Crab, he was nothing more than a Crab, and the Eldest Magician laughed.

‘You are not so important after all, Pau Amma,’ he said. ‘Now, let me try,’ and he made a Magic with his left hand – with just the little finger of his left hand – and – lo and behold[277], Best Beloved, Pau Amma’s hard, blue-green-black shell fell off him as a husk falls off a coconut, and Pau Amma was left all soft – soft as the little crabs that you sometimes find on the beach, Best Beloved.

‘Indeed, you are very important,’ said the Eldest Magician. ‘Shall I ask the Man here to cut you with his kris? Shall I send for Rajah Moyang Kaban, the King of the Elephants, to pierce you with his tusks? or shall I call Rajah Abdullah, the King of the Crocodiles, to bite you?’

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.’

This is a picture of Pau Amma the Crab rising of the sea. Pau Amma is trying to make a Magic, but he is only a silly old King Crab, and so he can’t do anything. You can see he is all legs and claws and empty hollow shell. The canoe is the canoe that the Man and the Girl-Daughter and the Eldest Magician sailed from the Perak River in. The Sea is all black and bubbly[278], because Pau Amma has just risen up out of Pusat Tasek. The Man is waving his curvy kris-knife at Pau Amma. The Little Girl-Daughter is sitting quietly in the middle of the canoe. The Eldest Magician is standing up at the other end of the canoe beginning to make a Magic. He has left his magic throne on the beach, and he has taken off his clothes so as not to get wet, and he has left the Magic Cloud behind too, so as not to tip the boat over. The thing that looks like another little canoe outside the real canoe is called an outrigger[279]. It is a piece of wood tied to sticks, and it prevents the canoe from being tipped over. The canoe is made out of one piece of wood, and there is a paddle at one end of it.

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[280] 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[281].

‘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 Pusat Tasek for you and your children for always.’