There wasn’t a single soul on the beach who hadn’t heard of CrazyClaws, the formidable enemy of toes and the most feared crab on this side of the ocean. Every year an absent-minded tourist would fall foul of a great big pinch that made them leave and not want to come back. Scared swimmers would often get together to try and catch the crab but every time they thought they had succeeded, the pinches returned to let them know they had caught the wrong crab.

CrazyClaws had a mean streak but he was also very clever. Instead of concealing himself and going unnoticed like all the other crabs, he would hide in the sand and prepare his attack. CrazyClaws was a little resentful because, as a baby crab, he was stepped on by a child and had lost a leg. It grew back but it was shorter than his other legs and he got very angry and upset every time he looked at it.

He was thinking about how mean swimmers could be when he spotted his next victim. It was a big fat shiny toe and its owner was barely moving. ‘How easy!’ he thought. Now he could pinch with all his strength. He remembered the different steps he had to follow: emerge, move forward, pinch, release, retreat, and disappear into the sand again. Go get’em!!
Something went wrong, however. CrazyClaws got stuck on the fourth step and was unable to release the toe. His pinch was so strong that he had broken through the skin and got stuck in the flesh. Flesh? It couldn’t be, there was no blood. Only then did CrazyClaws realise it was a trap!

But CrazyClaws was exaggerating as always. He thought that no one could be so smart as to trap him with a fake toe. The fake toe did belong to someone though: a girl called Vera, who lost her leg in an accident when she was little. She didn’t realise that CrazyClaws was attached to her toe until she came out of the water to go and play in the sand. She released the crab, but he didn’t run off because he was scared to death. Vera discovered that CrazyClaws had a shorter leg and she felt sorry for him, so she decided to help him. She made him a wonderful little house using rocks and fetched him small animals to eat.
What a feast! This girl sure can look after a crab. She was happy, fun and - most importantly - she put him back in the sea before leaving.

“What a lovely girl” he thought that night. “I’d like to be just as nice as her. If only I didn’t have this little leg …”.

It was at that moment that he realised that Vera’s leg had never grown back and that children aren’t like crabs. They only have two legs and yet she was still really nice. He could certainly be a happy crab even though he had been through very difficult times.
The very next day and every day after that during that summer, CrazyClaws attacked Vera’s toe again so he could play with her all day. Together they learned how to turn pinches into tickles and a bad temper into a laughter and glee.

In the end, Vera’s crab became very famous on that beach, though nobody suspected that it was actually CrazyClaws. It was better that way because there were still people who had not learnt that you don’t need to be resentful and bad tempered, no matter how badly you are pinched by a crab.

Translated by Ginalda Tavares Manuel, Manchester Metropolitan University