Silliness Makes Life Fun

Crab in the Forest

Headphones -Check.
Storybooks - Check.
Junk food - Check.

I scramble around my house, grabbing things left, right and center. I stuff everything that I think would be useful on my first holiday without my parents, into my backpack.

I was super excited. I was going on holiday with my grandparents, aunt, uncle and all my cousins. We were four adults and six kids in total.

"Come on!", shouted my cousin, John as he barged into the house. He dragged me into the small mini-bus that we had hired.

Sitting in the back, we sang at the top of our voices making quite a bit of ruckus. After trying very hard to keep the noise level in control, the adults finally gave up and stuffed cotton into their ears.

It was late evening by the time we reached the forest. The cabin was isolated and there was no other structure in sight. Everywhere we turned, there were only tall trees. An isolated cell tower could be seen here and there breaking the scenic view. The air was refreshingly fresh and cool. The trees were laden with apples, mangoes and papaya. The sweet smell of ripe fruits lingered in the air.

"Come children. It's time for dinner", shouted Grandma. We all ran inside carrying the fruits that we plucked from the trees.

Yum!

I think food is even more delicious on a holiday. We gorged on the delicious food that mom had packed for the trip and enjoyed the freshly plucked ripe fruit. We then played a few board games until the adults got tired and chased us into the bedrooms.

The cabin had only two bedrooms. Two of my cousins and I shared one room with my grandparents and the rest of the family took the other room.

My grandparents slept on the bed. My two cousin brothers slept on one side of the bed on the floor beside the entrance of the bedroom. I slept on the other side of the bed on the floor.

Pretty soon, I could hear snores from my Grandpa and two brothers. There were heavy breathing sounds from my Grandma as well.

I tossed and turned. I couldn't sleep. I missed my mom. Looking underneath the bed, I could see my brothers sleeping beside the bedroom door. They were illuminated by the light in the main hallway seeping beneath the bedroom door.

I tried very hard to sleep. I tried closing my eyes, counting to 100 and reverse counting as well. Alas, sleep evaded me.

I kept watching the light under the bedroom doorway from across the room.

All of a sudden, I saw something black. It looked like a crab. It slowly made its way under the door and crawled past my brothers' legs. It then went behind a huge chaise in the room.

"Grandma. Grandma", I whispered, shaking my Grandma.

Grandma struggled awake.

"What is it, Sarah? Why aren't you sleeping?", she mumbled sleepily.

"Grandma, there is a crab in the room. I saw it crawling inside", I whispered.

"How can there be a crab in the forest? Just go to sleep", said Grandma. She tossed over and went back to sleep.

I felt bad that my Grandma didn't believe me. I'm sure Mom would have if she was here. But, what could I do?

I frowned and lied down on the floor. I finally fell asleep after my little adventure.

The next day morning, my Grandma told all my cousins of what I said the previous night. Everyone was laughing at me. I was embarrassed.

Hahaha, Hohoho.

"Do you even know what a crab is? You are so silly Sarah?" "What did you say? A crab crawled into the room? And that too, under the doorway?", laughed my cousins.

Hahaha, Hohoho.

I pouted. I tried my best to defend myself. But, no one was ready to listen.

John was walking out of the cabin quickly, eager to know what was going on and why everyone was laughing so hard.

"JOHN! JOHN! RUN!", screamed my Grandma.

The crab was right on John's heels.

Grandma pushed John away while my Grandpa grabbed a long stick and chased the black crab away.

"See that's the crab. I was not making it up", I shouted.

"That's what you saw! Have you gone mad? Why didn't you wake us up?", shouted the same cousins who were laughing at me earlier.

"But I woke up Grandma", I mumbled.

"Why didn't you wake US up?", shouted John.

"Enough John. She didn't know", scolded Grandma.

"That was not a crab sweetie. Crabs only live near the sea. That was a scorpion and a black scorpion at that. Black scorpions are the most poisonous of all", explained Grandma.

Scorpion? I never heard of something called scorpion.

Silly brothers. They are angry with me. But, what they don't realize is that they too wouldn't have believed me like Grandma if I had woken them up.

After the holiday, I researched crabs and scorpions. Interestingly, I found out there are two species of crabs that do live in the forest. They are found only in India. But, I daren't tell Grandma just in case I offend her.