He Is Risen..

...the crab, that is.

Yesterday after the boys got home from school Will yelled for me, sobbing, that his hermit crab Max had died.  I went downstairs to take a look for myself and sure enough, there were a couple of crab legs lying on the sand in the crabitat.  I picked up Max's shell right next to the legs, and saw nothing inside it.  Will was so upset.  Max was a shy crab.  Peter, Dane's crab, is very friendly.  He always comes out of his shell and walks around when you hold him.  But Max was much more shy, taking a long time to come out of his shell when he was being held.  Therefore when he would burrow under the sand and stay there for DAYS I worried he was sick or knocking on death's door to begin with.

Then we noticed Paul, the new hermit crab that Dane got from the county fair last week.  Paul was hanging his legs, lifeless out of his shell as well.  I wasn't that surprised about Paul's sudden death either, as, well, he was a county fair crab.  (and not that sad because he had pinched Dane twice!)  I did worry about 2 crab deaths so suddenly.  Were we doing something wrong in the crabitat?  Was Peter ok?  He seemed happy and normal.  Will begged to  keep Max's shell in the crabitat and since his legs had fallen out and (it looked like) he had just disintegrated, I figured why not.

This morning Dane yelled upstairs that MAX IS ALIVE! No, I thought.  No way, Dane.  Will and I looked at each other and hurried downstairs and sure enough, there he was, in the flesh and shell, little Max crawling right across the sand!  I must say I was truly shocked.  He had faked his own death?  We were duped!  I flashed back to the scene of the crime.  There were CRAB LEGS for crying out loud!  On the sand right by Max's shell!  Whose were they if they weren't his?  Was the fair crab really dead or was he playing possum too? (I didn't investigate that one much further, as 1) I did see with my own two eyes Paul's lifeless crab legs, 2) those crab legs lying on the sand had to belong to some crab! and 3) he pinched Dane twice.  Thank goodness Will begged to keep Max's shell, or little Max would have lived out the rest of his short life in the trash can or maybe at the landfill.

And one final thought... as I think about the crab legs lying by Max's shell.  And Max prancing around the crabitat this morning so uncharacteristically bold and proud...  Might we have a murderer on our hands?

Peter, watch your back.