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The
War Between the Sandpipers and the Whales |
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One morning, a small Sandpiper walked down to the beach for her breakfast. With her long, tiny legs she ran into the water to gobble up tiny fish. |
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Just then a whale who lived in the nearby bay lifted his big head out of the water and called out, "Hey, you, keep out of my water! The sea belongs to the Whales!" |
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The Sandpiper said, "The sea belongs to the Sandpipers, too! And anyway, there's more Sandpipers than Whales!" "Not so," said the Whale. "There are many more Whales than Sandpipers." |
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So they both called their brothers, sisters, and cousins. Whale called out, "Brothers and cousins from the north, south, west, and east; come to this island!" Whale's brothers and cousins all came and the bay was so crowded with whales, you could have walked across their backs without getting your feet wet. |
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Then Sandpiper called out, "Sisters and cousins from the north, south, west, and east, come to this island!" Sandpiper's cousins all came and covered the entire beach and filled all the trees. |
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It was hard to tell if there were more sandpipers than whales. So the Sandpiper and Whale had an idea. Whale's idea was to eat all of the land up so that the birds would drown. Sandpiper's idea was to drink up all of the sea so that the whales would die. |
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The birds flew down to the ocean and drank up the water. They saw the whales slowly dying without water, but they also saw the fish, crabs, and other sea creatures dying in the hot sun, too. Then they realized that the crabs and other sea creatures were their food. "If they die, we will die, too. This is not a good idea! We must spit back the ocean!" The birds all spat back the ocean and the sea creatures began to live once again. |
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As the whales munched on the beach, they thought of something. "This is not a good idea!" said the whales. "The beach is part of the ocean where we live. We are destroying our own home. We must spit back the land!" So the whales spat back the beach. |
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The Sandpiper and Whale both realized that war was not the best way to solve their problem. There was plenty of ocean for them to share and war almost destroyed their homes. So from that day on, they shared the sea and lived in harmony with one another. |