Harriet the hermit crab lived on the Pacific Coast. She was a friendly little hermit crab, fond of scuttling sideways over the shells and rocks the waves would toss up and joking with her friends.

One day her friend Lucy got a little too close, and bumped Harriet’s shell HARD. In spite of herself,
Harriet shrieked in pain.

“HEY!” she yelped. “DON’T TOUCH MY SHELL! IT HURTS!”

“Oh, I’m sorry!” said Lucy, unaware that she did anything wrong.

“That’s all right,” Harriet replied, still a little miffed and sore.

Harriet’s life resumed its normal pace again…until her friend Sandy the seahorse managed to brush her shell.

So did Cora the clam.

And Samantha the seagull.

And Oswald the otter.

And Gerald the garibaldi.

Finally, Harriet decided something must be wrong with her shell, so she set off to see the Sea King, who always had an answer for everything.

It was a long, cold, dark and perilous journey to the Sea King’s cave, and Harriet was thoroughly exhausted as she knocked on his door. The Sea King promptly appeared. But before Harriet could say a word, he scooped her up in his large and gentle hands.

“Why you poor child,” he said, “that shell is far too small for you! Let us cast it off and find a new one!”

He removed her shell in a single swoop, and replaced it with a newer, prettier, and (to Harriet’s relief) much larger version.

“There you are, little one”, he said kindly, letting her out of his hands. “Now go forth like the happy creature you are!”

Harriet gloriously made her way home, soon discovering how heavy her beautiful new shell happened to be. But when her friend Robert the ray accidently brushed against it, giving her a welcome-back hug, she felt nothing but joy at seeing him.