Pinched by a crab by Sandie

Pinched by a crab

  Whenever I walked past a beach, I would remember an incident that happened a month ago.

  It was a beautiful Monday morning with magnolia-white clouds floating lazily across the cerulean blue sky. Sam, Peter, Terry, Sandie and I, accompanied by Mr. Lee, our teacher, were going to East Coast Park to do our CIP. What is CIP, you may ask? It is the Community Involvement Programme..

  The five of us were waiting excitedly for Mr. Lee to come and take our attendance while we discussed about our CIP trip at our school. About five minutes later, Mr. Lee interrupted our conversation as he wanted to take our attendance.

  “Ok, I’m going to take your attendance now. Sam, Peter, Terry, Sandie and Yi Lin. If you are all here, let’s go!” Mr. Lee said.

  “Yeah!” We all shouted in unison.

  We boarded the bus and in about half an hour’s time, we reached our destination. When we saw the beach, we were disgusted at what lay ahead of us. A sandy beach was strewn with lots and lots of rubbish. How could people do that? We quickly took a plastic bag each and started picking up rubbish. Mr. Lee told us to be careful with sharp things and not to provoke any animals, like the crab, as they might pinch us. We nodded our heads in agreement and set off to do our CIP. As we were picking up litter, Sam saw a crab. He was curious about this small creature and went closer to take a look. Forgetting the advice Mr. Lee gave everyone, Sam decided to touch the crab. He used his finger to touch the crab and kept pushing it until the crab got irritated and pinched Sam’s finger, the moment it came near the crab.

  All of a sudden, there was a loud ear-piercing scream coming out from Sam’s mouth, “Owww……!” Everyone jumped in fright. We turned and saw a crab pinching Sam. He stood rooted to the ground. His terrified gaze was fixated on the crab. His face turned pale as his tears slid down his cheeks. Mr. Lee came and looked at what had happened. When he saw Sam being bitten by a crab, he hurried anxiously towards Sam and tried to pry open the crab’s pincers but to no avail. While he was doing so, Peter was laughing heartily at Sam being pinched. Both of them were arch-enemies, so I guess that he was happy that his arch-enemy was bitten. When I saw blood dripping down from Sam’s finger, I screamed. I had a phobia of blood since young. Terry was startled by the whole thing that he stood there with his mouth wide open. As for Sandie, she was a a loss of what to say and do that she stood there giggling. Beads of perspiration formed on Mr. Lee’s forehead as he put in a final burst of strength.

  After a few seconds, the crab relented and let go of the finger. It crawled back into the water. Mr. Lee told me to call the ambulance while he wrapped up the wound up. I frantically called the ambulance and told them what had happened. Within a few minutes, the ambulance came and carried Sam away into the ambulance before driving him to the hospital.

  At the hospital, the doctor said that Sam suffered a minor injury and only had to apply antiseptic cream to the wound every day. Sam has learnt his lesson that a crab is not a toy to be played with. His encounter with the crab would be etched in his mind for some time as the pain he suffered was excruciating. 

                                                                                                                                           

Sandie Chan

6 Integrity