Deep deep down in the Pacific Ocean, on the sandy ground of the bottom of the ocean floor, Katie the Octopus has a house made out of coral and rocks. The house is behind an enormous rock in a coral reef. There is a lot of kelp and seaweed which Katie uses to cook. The water is pretty cold, but Katie doesn’t mind. Because she’s down pretty deep, it’s really dark, and not much sunlight reaches so far down.
Katie is a bright orange octopus. She is very nice, especially to her squid friends. She has eight arms, as a normal octopus does. One thing that stands out on her is her calm, periwinkle eyes. Katie’s base color is orange, but she has burnt round orange spots. She lives alone, but her squid friends live right next door to her, and they hang out all the time. Katie also goes to school. Her school is called Academy for Young Marine Animals, and Katie loves school.
A few years before, Katie’s parents gave her a super super soft pillow made out of sand and coral. It was pretty small, green and with pictures of waves on it.
But then one day, her mom and dad were in a shark attack. The shark ripped her parents apart and she lost them. She cherishes the pillow so much because it’s the only part she has left of them. It lies on her bed day and night. Another reason she loves the pillow so much is because it smells like her parents. It smelled like fried kelp and seaweed which her mom used to make for her when she was little, like the bedtime stories her dad would tell her, and it smelled like the love her parents had for her. Katie adores this pillow and if something happened to it, she would be devastated.
Then one morning, she woke up and the pillow wasn’t resting under her head like always. It was gone! She suspected that someone had stolen it. One of her top suspects was this squid in her class named Anne. Katie used to be friends with Anne, but since the shark attack she’s been Katies enemy. Anne was probably still upset because her mom also was killed in a shark attack. Then a week later she started being mean to Katie. For instance, the other day in history class, Anne got a question wrong and everyone laughed at her. “Katie was the one who laughed first,” Anne said.
“I wasn’t the one who started laughing,” Katie said.
Anne could have easily wanted to get revenge from the day in history class. She could have gotten into Katie’s house because when they were friends she would come over to her house all the time. Katie even gave her a key.
I bet she still has it! Katie thought to herself.
So Katie goes to Anne’s house to make her give the pillow back. On the way, she saw a big school of fish swimming really fast. Something is probably chasing them, Katie thought. A great white shark was chasing the school of fish. It saw Katie and started chasing her!
Katie swam into a cave only to find a bunch of sea snakes hissing at her. So she swam and swam and swam. Finally, she saw a bunch of orange coral. She used her amazing octopus camouflaging skills to hide from the shark, and the shark swam away.
A few minutes later Katie was at Anne’s house. She heard something that sounded like crying. Oh no! She thought. Katie knocked on the door.
“Go away!” Anne cried.
“Please just let me in,” Katie said.
Anne didn’t reply.
Katie remembered she had a key, so she started digging through her coat pockets. Katie loved her coat. One time, she was in the mall. She went into the octopus clothing store and saw the most beautiful coat. It was bright orange, just like her. It had eight arm and leg holes. The body of the coat was quite small, but the arm and leg holes were long and glittery.
She unlocked the door and went to Anne’s room. It looked like Anne was hugging the pillow so tight the stuffing might come out.
“Why would you take my pillow?!” Katie asked.
“I’m sorry. It smelled so yummy, like the fried kelp my mom made me before the shark attack,” Anne sobbed back.
“But why would you break into my house to get it?” Katie asked, confused
Anne replied “ Because I knew you wouldn’t give it to me. It’s the only thing that’s brought me closer to my mom. She didn’t leave anything for me.”
Katie was cross with Anne, but she couldn’t stand to see Anne like this. Katie didn’t say anything so Anne kept on talking.
“I’m also really lonely. I dont have friends or a father. You never noticed that I had no people to play with during recess at school.”
Katie realized that Anne wasn’t mean, just misunderstood.
“Are you sure you NEED the pillow?” Katie asked. Katie really wanted to get her special pillow back, but Anne is making it difficult.
Anne said, “If I knew how to cook or sew, maybe I could have things for myself.”
Katie wanted to find a solution for Anne, and wanted to get her pillow back. Katie’s mom taught her how to cook when she was little. Maybe she could teach Anne!
“What if I teach you how to cook?”
“I don’t know if that will be enough.” Anne said.
Then Katie got another idea. “My friend Scarlet knows how to sew, she can teach you how to make a special blanket.”
“Ok, that could work maybe,” Anne muttered.
“Alright, first I need you to give me my pillow back,” says Katie.
“Fine,” Anne says, aggressively.
“Ok, I need to go to the store and get ingredients.” And so Katie left with her pillow and was off to the store.
A few minutes later, she saw the shark coming again. She tried to hide behind a rock but it was too late! So she swam as fast as she could. Just before the shark caught her, one of her friends, Carlos sprayed the shark with his squid ink.
“Thanks Carlos,” Katie said.
“No problem!” he said.
Katie got to the store and went to the kelp aisle. She would just pick some kelp out of her garden, but unfortunately her plants were not looking so well. A fish had been chewing on her plants. She picked up a pound of kelp and headed to the oil aisle. The oil under water is different from the kind on land. This special oil is made out of a crushed up clam and its juice. That’s all she needs for the fried kelp. She has salt at home. She paid for the food and it was only two sand dollars.
Back at home, she put the food down and went to her bedroom. She placed the pillow on her bed, and felt proud of herself for convincing Anne to give her pillow back. Then Katie remembered that she needed salt.
She went to the kitchen and did this special trick that her dad taught her. Since she’s in the salty ocean all she has to do is grab some water with two tentacles and use them to suck the water into her body keeping the salt on top of her tentacles. She brushed the salt off of her tentacles. Vóila, salt.
Next, she needed to call Anne so that she could come over to start the cooking lesson. Katie picked up her seashell phone and called Anne. “Alright Anne, you can come over. I got the cooking ingredients,” Katie said.
“I was watching a movie and you interrupted it, but fine, whatever, I’ll come over,” Anne said.
About ten minutes later Anne arrived at Katies coral house.
“This place looks worse than the last time I was here,” Anne said, walking through the hard rock door.
“You’re not here to criticize my house, you’re here for a cooking lesson,” Katie replied. Katie was getting frustrated by Annes mean comments, but managed to calm herself.
Katie started boiling the oil. “First you have to put the kelp in the oil and…” Katie paused. “Are you even listening to me?”
Anne was not, she was too busy watching some fish video on her phone.
“You know I don’t have to teach you,” Katie said, frustrated. “I thought you wanted to learn how to cook!”
“I said I wanted to learn how to cook, not have you be my teacher. But fine, I’ll pay attention.”
“So next you have to add the kelp, but don’t throw it in or else the hot oil will burn you,” Katie instructed.
But Anne threw it in anyway. The oil splashed. “OW! This is all your fault,”Anne screamed. “Just give me the kelp.”
Katie used rock tongs to scoop some kelp up and gave it to Anne.
The next day Katie went to school. After math class, the teacher, Mrs. Squid said, “Katie, Anne, I need to talk to you.”
Katie wondered if she was in trouble.
“Katie, Anne has told me that you hurt her.”
“Yes, she did” Anne replied, pointing out her oil burnt tentacle
Mrs. Squid said, “Katie, detention.”
“But – ”
“No buts, Katie, detention for one week.”
Anne swam out, giving a mean wave goodbye.
The next day at school, Katie went to detention. In her school, you spend the whole week in detention and whoever’s the detention teacher that week gives work for you to do. She walked in the detention room and saw an octopus and a squid, both the color black, they looked creepy.
The octopus said in a creepy voice, “Hi, Im Banshee, ”and that squid over there is named Bloody. What did you get detention for? We stole kids’ lunch money to buy black coats.”
Katie didn’t reply to that, she was very angry at Anne for getting her in detention for something she didn’t do.
Two days later, Katie went into the detention classroom and saw her friend Scarlet.
Katie was surprised. “Scarlet, what are you doing here?”
“Well, let me tell you the story. I saw Anne and she looked upset, so I asked her what was wrong and she told me about the cooking class you did with her, and I offered to teach her how to sew, and she said that’s what you said, so I tried to get her to agree to do a sewing class with me, but she told the math teacher that I was forcing Anne to learn how to sew, but I wasn’t, and of course the teacher wouldn’t believe me, so here I am.”
“ Wow, that’s a lot. We need to do something so that Anne won’t keep bullying us,” Katie said.
Scarlet had an idea, “All she wanted was some delicious fried kelp and a special blanket right?”
“Yeah, what are you thinking?” Katie asked
“What if you make some fried Kelp and I sew her a blanket so she will leave us alone.”
“That could work. I have some extra fried kelp from the other day,” Katie said.
“I’ll start working on the blanket tonight.”
At home, Katie went to the fridge to find the kelp. She saw some salt, sea worms and at the back of the fridge she found the bowl of kelp. She went to her room to find some fabric to tie a bow on the bowl of kelp to give to Anne. Her room is quite small. All that’s in it is her bed with her pillow lying on it, her desk where she does her homework and her closet where she keeps her cool octopus coats. Katie opened her closet and found a bit of fabric that would work perfectly.
The next day, Anne, Scarlet and Katie were in science class. Katie brought her kelp bowl and Scarlet brought her blanket. It was purple and had indigo polka-dots. It looked just like Anne. They planned to give the items to Anne after class.
“Ok, class dismissed,” the science teacher said.
“Hey Anne, me and Scarlet made something for you,” Katie told Anne.
“What did you get me?”
“Well, Katie made some fried kelp with the instructions stuck on top, and I sewed a blanket for you. It’s purple with indigo polka dots. It looks just like you,” Scarlet replied.
Anne gave Scarlet a slight smile. “Thanks, but don’t think just because you did this now we are suddenly friends.” Anne was still slightly smiling as she swam away.
“Some things never change,” Katie said.
But their gifts worked, and Anne never bothers Scarlet or Katie ever again.
The End.