The Boy and the Mudskipper

Sam is a curious boy who wants to understand how animals live, so one bright Saturday he puts on his blue rubber boots, pockets a notebook and sets off for the mangrove by the bay. There, among tangled roots and salty mud, he notices a fish that props itself up on sturdy front fins and shuffles along like a small lizard, its bulging eyes turning on top of its head. A park ranger, Mr. Lee, tells him it is a mudskipper, a fish able to spend time out of water by breathing through its skin and the water it keeps in its mouth.

Sam passes the morning sketching the mudskipper as it chases bugs, hops with a flick of its tail and slips into a burrow when a shadow falls. At home he builds a shoebox model of the mangrove from clay, twigs and paint, with a clay mudskipper and two little bumps for eyes. He presents it to his friends Mia, Leo and Zoe and then to his class, and the children later visit the mangrove together. This tale by Ebru Mina TOMURCUK can be read on Onlinemasal Com.Tr.