Author's Note: Hello, folks! Yes, this story is back. I was a little dissatisfied with it when I originally began uploading it many moons ago because I felt it was missing something. (Like a plot.) I mean, I had the bare bones of the idea but I don't think I was ready to write another multi-chapter at that point in time. So I took it off ffnet and filed it away, 'for future reference'. HUGE thanks to those who were interested enough to occasionally ask me how 'Claude' was doing (Cristy W-S)- you made sure I kept thinking about it. And now that I haven't written anything for a while (at least not for Gilligan's Island), I thought it was a good time to resurrect this little fic and let Claude have his moment in the sun. And so here is 'Claude', aka the little lobster who could. I hope you all enjoy this offering of mine :)

Claude

Prologue

The Lagoon

I can still remember clearly the day that Momma told me my Daddy was missing. At first it didn't seem like much of a surprise, because Daddy would often disappear for a couple of days, crawling into the murk without so much as a goodbye, his long feelers twitching in anticipation of all the plankton he was going to eat that day with his buddies, Stalkeye and Six Legs. But he always came home eventually, a little slower and a little fatter, waving away Momma's protests with a casual pincer. "It's what we do," he'd say. "You can't teach an old crustacean new tricks."

So when Momma came to my rock one morning while I was studying a new mollusk shell I'd found and told me Daddy was gone -for good this time- at first I laughed it off. "He'll be back," I said, confidently. Stupid me! Momma waved her feelers anxiously. She looked like she was trying to find the right words. When she finally spoke again, her voice was so gentle that it had the effect of scaring me instead of comforting me. "No, he won't," she replied, quietly. "Stalkeye and Six Legs came back on their own. They say your Daddy wandered out towards the edge of the reef. They say he got taken up into the Big Blue."

Now that was something I didn't want to hear. No-one in their right mind wants to hear about the Big Blue. A cold shudder went all the way down the inside of my shell and I began to shiver violently. When you went to the Big Blue, you never came back. And the scary thing was, the old ones said the Big Blue could get you at any time. Any time, whether you were ready or not. One time a whole crab family got taken up into the Big Blue, and no-one ever saw or heard from them again.

But I loved my Daddy. My Daddy was my hero, even if he hardly ever took much notice of us any more. Even if bottom feeding with his buddies was more important to him these days than even his own family. Even if he did think I was a sissy because I stayed home collecting mollusk shells instead of going out on plankton raids every night. Daddy was my Daddy. Momma needed him, and I needed him.

And I was going to find him.

Big Blue or not.