Page 8 - Fables volume 3

“Not right now. You’re too small. But I could be harvested any
time.” Momdad was grim.
Soppy had trouble digesting this. “So there is no way for me to
look like a dead sponge and be scary? But Polly has a costume. It’s
very scary to everyone in her colony.”
“And what does it look like?”
“Oh, well, I didn’t understand the word—it’s a bunch of pink
polished shiny shells that are hanging on Polly.”
Momdad knew the word. “Necklace. That is what happens to coral
when they die. The humans harvest them, too, but they change their
dead bodies into things that look like Polly’s Hallowe’en costume. So
that is very scary to other coral.”
“Polly never told me that!” Soppy was hurt and confused.
“No,” said the parent sponge. “That is really too frightening to
discuss with your friends. Let us hope neither of you has to face the
humans any sooner than necessary.”
And the shadow of an outrigger canoe passed over them like an
adumbration of the wings of the Angel of Death.

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