Free For You this Month—an Interactive Jigsaw Puzzle and a Short Sea Monster Story

“I-just-got-that-deck-clean-humph,” Jane said while Molly dried the children with some towels.
“What happened to you that you’re floating out here all alone?” Molly asked.
“We escaped from an orphanage and made a raft to float to the South Pole to visit the ice dragons; but it sunk last night in that storm.”
“That horrible, massive storm!” the youngest girl said, her eyes wide.
“Oh my, poor wee orphans. There’s no such things as ice dragons, me dears!” Molly said.
“Next-thing-they’ll-say-there-are-sea-monsters-humph,” Jane mumbled.
“There was a sea monster!” the oldest, a boy, said. “We fought it hard, but it broke our raft in two!”
Jane shook her head. “Dirty,-smelly-and-ridiculous-children,” she mumbled.
Molly stepped on Jane’s toes—hard. Jane grumped and folded her arms.
“What are your names, dears?” Molly asked the children.
“I’m called Scary Eyes,” the boy said and scrunched up his face into a scowl.
“You can call me Rising Wings,” the middle girl said as she dropped the towel off her shoulders and started leaping around the deck.
“And what about you?” Molly asked the youngest girl.
“I’m just Slow Coach,” she said. “What’s your name?”
“Jane,” Jane said.
“Molly,” Molly said.
Scary Eyes scratched his head. “Really? Is that all?”
“Nothing wrong with Jane,” Jane said. “Its-a-perfectly-good-pirate-name-tis-one-of-the-best-I-chose-it-myself-humph.”
“Are you a pirate?” Rising Wings said, clapping her hands together.
“Yes, yes I am,” Jane said. “And I eat little children for dinner, so you better stay out of my way. Molly will look after you until we land, and I can hand you over to the nearest orphanage. If they’ll have you with your strange names.”
Jane stalked off, leaving Molly to find the children a cabin and feed them breakfast.
Later that day, Jane came up on deck. No-one was about. Phew. She climbed up to the crow’s nest, swung her leg over, and landed on top of something squishy.
“Ouch!” Rising Wings yelled. “Watch out!”
“You should watch out!” Jane said.
“Well, I was going to. This is the crow’s nest after all.” She giggled at her own joke.
Jane hadn’t heard anyone laugh for a long time. It was a delightful sound.
“Mumble..you-shouldn’t-be-up-here-it’s-too-high-you-might-fall-and-make-a-big-mess-on-my-deck-when-you-land-all-squishy-wishy-like-humph.”
“I don’t fall from high places. Are you going to eat me now?” she asked.
Jane patted her pockets. “I don’t have my salt and pepper with me, so you’re safe until later,” she said.
“Great!” Rising Wings said, and threw her arms around Jane, held on, and leaned back. “Let’s keep watch together.”
“Uh-huh, I guess so,” Jane said, untangling herself from Rising Wings’ embrace. That was something new, too. A hug. Weird. It felt weird. Maybe it even felt nice.
That night, Scary Eyes asked her to play chess. Jane liked chess, and Molly was not very good, so she agreed. It was a close game. Every time it seemed Jane might win, Scary Eyes started quietly growling.
“Humph-would-you-stop-making-that-noise?” Jane mumbled.
“Did you say something?” Scary Eyes asked.
Jane looked up at Scary Eyes and saw flames in his eyes. She shook her head and looked again. No, she was just imagining it. “Freaky-deaky-I’m-going-crazy-humph.” she mumbled.
She looked back at the board and remembered what she was doing. She made the winning move. Scary Eyes rested his head on the table and sobbed while Rising Wings and Slow Coach hugged Jane. This time, she hugged them back. It was good. Yes, good.
Jane reached out her hand to Scary Eyes and he looked up, his eyes sad now. “I don’t like losing,” he said as he shook Jane’s hand.
“Aye, it’s not a great feeling. But a piece of Molly’s chocolate brownie will help you feel better soon,” Jane said.
Scary Eyes smiled. “And if you eat one of those, you won’t need to eat us tonight,” he said.
“Nope, not tonight, but maybe tomorrow if you don’t behave,” Jane said. So it went on for two weeks. The children laughed and played and got in the way and did the dishes and gave hugs. And they weren’t smelly at all, especially Slow Coach, who was always last at everything, especially at getting out of the bathtub. “I love the water,” she would giggle, and flick water at Jane. And sometimes Jane laughed too.
But every night Jane said, “You better be good tomorrow, or I might eat you for my dinner.”
One day, when Molly was looking for the salt and pepper again (she hadn’t been able to find it since the children arrived), the sea suddenly grew rough. But only around their ship—out in the distance, the sea stayed calm.
“It’s a sea monster!” Scary Eyes yelled.
“Shiver me timbers, it is!” Jane shouted. “Quick, Molly, hide the children.” She raced to the harpoon, ready to fire it at the sea monster.
Out of the water reared a giant octopus, five times bigger than their ship. It stretched out four of its long tentacles and waved them over the top of the ship, from one end to the other. Water slid off them and bucketed over the deck.
Jane fired the harpoon at the octopus’s head. It pierced the skin and hung out just above the octopus’s many eyes. He grabbed it with a tentacle and pulled it out, roaring. Jane turned and saw two tentacles reaching from underneath the ship, up the other side and over the rails. The octopus picked up the ship and held it above the water. Would he throw it?
Jane rubbed her eyes and looked again. Standing further along, beside the rail was Slow Coach!
“Noooooo!” Jane screamed and tried to move across the deck toward her, but it was too slippery. Slow Coach reached into her pocket and pulled out the pepper shaker. She put it in her mouth and then wriggled her body like a giant worm. Before Jane could take two steps, she’d turned into a turtle and dropped into the water!
“I-must-be-seeing-things-humph,” Jane mumbled, and swung around to grab the rail as the ship shook. She heard a shout of anger and looked up to see Scary Eyes on the cabin roof. He was turning into a roaring dragon. Beside him, Rising Wings was transforming into a giant hawk. They leapt off the roof and flew at the giant octopus.
Scary Eyes breathed fire at the octopus’s tentacles. It screamed and let go of the ship on one side, but still held up Jane’s side above the water. She clung to the rail with both hands as the deck gave way beneath her—she was dangling in mid-air. When she looked again, Rising Wings was flying straight for the octopus’s eyes. She pecked at them, but there were so many! Every time she pecked at one, the octopus swung at her with some of its tentacles, while it’s other free tentacles were trying to grab hold of Scary Eyes. But Rising Wings and Scary Eyes darted and dived and spun out of the way. It would have been fantastic to watch if it wasn’t so frightening.
Finally, the octopus was so angry he let go of the side of the ship Jane was clinging to and it smashed into the water. An enormous wave surged up from underneath the ship beside the octopus. Jane watched as the water rose higher and higher, and with it rose Slow Coach the turtle, still with the pepper shaker in her mouth.
The wave reached its peak and fell, and Slow Coach landed on top of the octopus’s head. Clinging to the rails as the wave stormed back over her, Jane watched in amazement as Slow Coach turned the shaker in her mouth and started bouncing it up and down. Jane couldn’t see it, but she guessed the pepper must be coming out.
And then she knew it had. The octopus bellowed and reached his tentacles to the top of his head. Slow Coach had dropped the pepper shaker. The lid must have fallen off because Jane could see a cloud of pepper around the octopus’s head. The octopus picked up Slow Coach, who was hiding in her shell.
What would he do to her? Jane felt her heart sink. What if he threw her miles and miles away? What if he cracked her shell open? What if he swallowed her whole?
What if she never saw Slow Coach again? It felt like her heart was being torn in two. She let out a long, loud cry, and the octopus turned towards her.
And then he sneezed. A great big, globby, yukky, smelly, sticky blob of octopus snot hit the cabin beside Jane and splattered all over her.
Clatter, clatter, bang, bang! Beside her on the deck was Slow Coach—the octopus had dropped her! Jane let go of the rail and reached out, grabbed Slow Coach the turtle and held her close. She watched the octopus sink into the ocean. He left behind a line of breaking water as he swam away from their ship.
When she looked back down, Slow Coach the turtle was Slow Coach the little girl, and she was clinging to Jane.
Jane hugged her hard. “Well-you-could-have-told-me-you-were-a turtle-and what-are-we-going-to-put-on-our-mashed-potatoes-now-you’ve-thrown-the-pepper-away-humph,” she mumbled.
Scary Eyes and Rising Wings landed on the deck and transformed into people again.
“Ew, you smell like octopus snot,” Scary Eyes said, standing back as Rising Wings joined in the Jane and Slow Coach hug.
“And you should have lit the fire the other night when we ran out of matches, seeing as you’re a dragon. If you don’t get over here and hug me, I’m going to eat you with or without salt and pepper,” Jane said.
Scary Eyes laughed and joined in the hug.
Molly let go of the cabin door she had been clinging to. “Did someone say salt and pepper? Any chance you know where they are?”
She winked at the children and they ran towards her.
“Well, now Captain Jane. I think I know where we can buy more salt and pepper. It’s on an island far away from the octopus. Mind you, there’s no orphanage there.” Molly said.
“Orphanage, why do we need an orphanage?” Jane said. “Let’s go, now I have my family with me, I could sail away forever!”
“Please. Not until after you’ve had a bath.” Slow Coach pinched her nose. “Stinky, Snotty Pirate.”

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