Story Hour

Danny and the Octopus

Written by Gene B. Williams

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All About the Octopus

The octopus is a creature that lives in the ocean. They have no bones, unless you call a hard, sharp beak (much like that of a parrot) a bone. It has a head with two eyes and eight arms, called tentacles. These tentacles are covered with suckers on one side. Most octopuses are fairly small. They weigh just a few pounds. However, some have been found that weigh 600 pounds.
Since they have no bones, they can squeeze through amazingly small places. They also have the intelligence to make good use of that. They also learn, and remember. As just one example, if you put something they want inside a bottle, they’ll figure out how to open that bottle – unscrew the cap and pull out the cork. They are also terrific escape artists. This (and other things) make it extremely difficult to keep one as a pet.
The octopus has three hearts. It also has a fairly small brain. That’s okay, though. What it has is used very effectively. Also, that brain is actually only about a third of the total brain. The rest of it is spread throughout the body and into the arms. That’s part of why it is so clever.
Despite what you might see in movies, the octopus isn’t a vicious creature. Their main defense is the ability to hide. Many of them can change color to match the background. Studies have been done. As the camera watches, the octopus will change both color and texture, then disappear even as the camera watches.

Another defense is speed. They have a water bladder. Think of a water balloon, and then all that water squirting out suddenly. The octopus becomes jet propelled!
Its third defense is the ink it can spray out. That helps to hide the octopus.
It also confuses whatever is chasing it. Many kinds of octopus have something special in the ink. Many predators (creatures that hunt) use a good sense of smell. A shark can smell what it wants for dinner from miles away. The octopus ink throws that sense of smell out of whack. The shark or whatever can no longer smell where the octopus is – or has gone.
          Now on to the story.

DANNY AND THE OCTOPUS

          Danny didn’t mind taking a bath. He especially didn’t mind when he could take a bath with his best friend, Nicker. Mom had made sure that everything was just right. Then she said, “Get washed up. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Try to not make a mess this time.”
          As Danny began to wash his arms, a green head came up out of the water. Danny rubbed Nicker on top of that green head, and Nicker gave Danny a big green grin.
          Nicker said to Danny, “I don’t like octopuses. They’re mean.”
          Danny knew a little about octopuses/octopi, probably about as much as you know. His word for them was “squidgy.” That’s not really a word, but it works. They had a bunch of long arms coming from a head that looked a little like a squidgy (there’s that word again) balloon. Those arms were full of suckers – not the kind you eat, the kind that grab on and hold on.
          He had seen pictures and could never quite tell if they had eyes or not. But he could imagine being in the water to have a bunch of sucker arms from a squidgy thing (there it is again!) grabbing on.
          Danny said, “I don’t think I like octopuses, either.”
          As it happened, that night when they were playing in the bath water, they saw this squidgy (again?) shape.
          “OCTOPUS!” screamed Nicker.
          While Nicker is hiding behind Danny, and Danny is trying to figure out how an octopus came to be in his bathtub, let’s talk a little about the octopus.
          Octo- is from an old language called Latin. It means “eight.” So, an octagon is something that has eight sides. An octopus has eight legs. It’s hard to count because they wiggle so much, but an octopus gets its name because it has eight legs – or are they arms? At least that’s what I’m told. I count one, two, three, four, five … and by then it has moved and I’ve lost track.
          Why the -pus, I don’t know. They’re not at all like kittens and have no fur. And you can be sure if someone is calling, “Pus, pus, pus, pus, pus,” even if they do it eight times they are calling for cats, not squidgy sea creatures.
          Here’s another puzzle. If octo- means eight, October should be the eighth month. It’s not. August is the eighth month. October is the tenth month. Don’t take my word for it. Get a calendar and count.
          So … if August is the eighth month, shouldn’t it be an Augustopus? Or to make things easier, maybe we should just make a new calendar.
          What gets even more strange is that the eight arms (or legs) of an octopus are called tentacles. Why are they TENtacles if there are only eight of them? They should be OCTOcles.
          Maybe somebody mixed up naming the calendar with the naming the octopus? Don’t tell Mom or Dad, or your teacher, but I agree with you. Adults can be pretty silly sometimes. So, shhhh. Adults don’t like being called silly, and you didn’t hear it from me.
          Now that you know a little more about the octopus, let’s get back to the story.
          Danny still didn’t know how the octopus got into the bathtub, but there it was, and you can’t argue with that. Sometimes you think that they have eyes and are looking at you. Other times you can’t really tell. You sure know that grabbing onto one might be a little difficult. They really are squidgy. Anything you can actually grab onto is going to grab you back!
          Danny didn’t want to grab. He had heard stories from Nicker. He’d never personally met an octopus (and I bet you haven’t, either). Facing one, as he was right at that very moment, it was easy to believe that it was a “bad creature.” He sure wished that Simon was near.
          Then Nicker noticed that the octopus seemed afraid. Danny noticed, too. It squidgied itself deeper into the rocks. “I won’t hurt you,” Danny tried to explain.
          The octopus said nothing. (They don’t talk much.)
          I just have to say it. What Danny did next was foolish. He moved in closer. Never EVER do that! Not with a dog or cat or polar bear, and certainly not with an octopus.
          The octopus, at least this one, seemed to know that it wouldn’t get hurt, and it came out a little. Then a little more. It reached out with one of its eightacles (call them what YOU want). Then two, and three. It squidgied out of the hole in the rock. (I don’t know how a rock got in the tub – maybe you do?)
          It didn’t take all that long before even Nicker was leaning over to sniff, and to smile. He whispered to Danny, “This isn’t a bad creature.”
          Danny said, “I don’t think so, either. It just goes to show. You can’t always tell.”
          Not only wasn’t it a bad creature, it wanted to play. Pretty soon, the three were racing around, kicking up water everywhere. Oh, my, it was such fun! Nicker swam this way, the octopus another, smiling as best an octopus could. Danny tried to keep up, but mostly just splashed with his arms.
          Two boy arms, and two boy legs, plus a frisky sea dragon, plus the eightacles of an octopus, all going at once – you can imagine the amount of water being splashed. And, oh my, were they having fun.
          Just that moment, the octopus shot between them. You’ve probably never seen an octopus grin, but Danny did. And he splashed into the water, with Nicker right behind.
          And then …
          Nicker and the octopus (or eightopus) both disappeared faster than Danny could see. One second they were there. The next second, Danny was all alone.
          Maybe you already guessed it. The bathroom door opened.
          “What is going ON in here?”
          You’re right. It was Mom.
          “You were just supposed to take a bath,” Mom said.
          She wasn’t very happy about water being all over the bathroom floor. Danny looked around. No Nicker. No octopus. (And no rock.)
          Danny looked up from the bathtub. “Mom, …. Nicker was here and ….”
          That didn’t work.
          “Well … Mom … uh … it was this way.”
          Moms don’t often understand things like that. With a scowl on her face, she handed Danny some towels. She didn’t have to tell him. Cleaning up the mess on the floor was HIS job. That’s not an easy job – not with that much water on the floor.
          Danny got down on his hands and knees with the towel to wipe up the mess. He turned and saw … I bet you can already guess … Nicker and the octopus peeking over the top of the tub.
          Ya know what, though?
          Cleaning up the floor with the help of a sea dragon and an octopus with its eightacles just might be kinda fun.

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