Synopsis for Badger and Crab’s Adventures

3 Short Stories

1: ‘The Escape’ (9,505 words)

2: ‘The Rescue’ (9,413 words)

3: ‘The Flood’ (10,326 words)

‘The Escape’ is the first story about the unlikely and unique friendship of a badger and a crab.

The night-time worlds of Welsh seaside and woodland animals have collided.

Badger and Crab have little in common; however, loyalty and conscience bring them together in ‘The Escape’ in a desperate attempt to survive and outwit human beings.

Badger is foraging on the beach at night. He rescues Crab after a thoughtless child had trapped him under a rock in a pool.

Crab later hears worrying news of a raid on a local badgers’ sett. He leaves his watery world to warn Badger and finds himself at night in a frighteningly unfamiliar woodland environment. Crab’s loyalty and strength are sorely tested as he ventures further and further into the wood to find Badger.

Badger’s friends, Tawny Owl and Fox are initially suspicious of Crab. However, satisfied that he is genuinely trying to save Badger from the men with guns and dogs, they join forces and help Badger return Crab to his beach pool before it is too late and he dies from exhaustion and de-hydration. Badger and Mrs B are forced to leave their sett and Fox offers them a temporary home.

The animals are united against the selfishness of human beings.

Book 2 ‘The Rescue’ follows ‘The Escape’. It is spring the next year. The story involves a seal pup tangled in a plastic bag on the beach. She is rescued by the combined efforts of Crab, Badger, Fox and Tawny Owl. An army of spider crabs attempt to thwart the rescue. The woodland animals prevail and finally enjoy a good supper of dead spider crabs.

Book 3 ‘The Flood’. The story follows ‘The Rescue’. It is early summer the same year and the woodland animals are struggling to find food after weeks of heavy rainfall. Crab saves Badger from drowning but their friendship is sorely tested. To put matters right Badger, Mrs B and Fox make a new fishing pool for Crab. They all have a good fish supper and friendship is restored.

The three stories have strong environmental themes and an emphasis on friendship and problem solving.

Sample Chapters

The Escape: Chapter One

Badger was snuffling along the high-tide mark. He nosed through the piles of dried bladder wrack looking for sand hoppers or maybe a morsel of dead fish left by otherscavengers. But it wasn’t his lucky night.

The molehills kindly dug by Mole in the field at the top of the wood had not produced their usual supper of earthworms so Badger had trundled on his short legs a long way down to the seashore. It was a bit like a foreign land to him. He didn’t like the sea, there was too much water and it was too wet. He didn’t like the sand, it tickled his toes and his claws couldn’t get a proper grip on it. He didn’t like walking on the bigger stones at the top of the beach either, his claws slipped off them and he felt rather top heavy. The shingle wasn’t so bad, although he knew he couldn’t make a quick getaway if he needed to as his paws sank down between the tiny stones and slowed him up. But he was hungry and badgers can’t be choosers, as his Aunt May used to say.

The sea was halfway in, or halfway out. He wasn’t sure which, not being a shore creature. He wasn’t intending to wait long enough to be certain, and anyway it had been raining so the pebbles were all wet and shiny, which didn’t help in deciding if the sea had washed them and was now going out – or not. It didn’t help either that tonight his friend Moon was being a bit on the shy side, sort of quickly squinting out every now and then and equally quickly popping back behind a cloud, playing hard to get. Badger knew a lot about Moon. On the whole they were good friends, although it wasn’t a sensible idea to become too reliant on her, she was apt to be fickle and disappear without so much as a goodbye, leaving one rather in the dark, so to speak.

Badger slipped and squelched along the seaweed for a few more metres. He was about to give up and go home again. He decide to return through the wood rather than up the valley as there might be a few leftovers from Fox after his evening hunting. Fox was a very untidy creature and often left bits and pieces lying around that Badger enjoyed hoovering up. But just as he turned to go back up the beach he thought he heard a tiny, squeaky voice shouting ‘Help!’

Badger lifted his snout in the air and turned to face the sound. His little ears strained to catch the voice.

‘Help, help, oh, please help me.’

Badger frowned. He couldn’t see anyone else on the beach. The squeaky voice sounded as though it was coming from a rock pool quite close to where the sploshy waves were indecisively pouncing on a bank of shingle, making a scrunchy noise.

Badger wasn’t sure he wanted to delay his return home. His tummy was rumbling and food seemed more important than rescuing someone in distress. He sighed, sat on his haunches to think things through whilst absentmindedly scratching his left ear with his left back paw. Then he made up his mind and trotted down towards the rock pool feeling rather noble, but also a bit wary in case this was an ambush. You can’t be too careful on dark nights.

The voice called ‘help’ again. Yes, it was coming from the pool, but whoever was crying couldn’t have been properly under water or the call would have sounded more waterlogged, Badger thought. He reached the edge of the pool and peered down. Moon was helpfully shining at that moment but Badger could only see his own stripy reflection in the water and there certainly wasn’t anyone by the side of the pool. He frowned and his stripes merged into a thick black line on his forehead. His reflection frowned back at him in the moonlight.

‘You’ve been an awfully long time coming,’ the squeaky voice said crossly.

Badger looked again into the water. He looked behind him and to both sides. There was no one there.

‘Oh, come on, do hurry up.’ The voice was becoming very impatient.

‘Where are you?’ Badger asked, puzzled.

‘Here, of course.’

‘Where’s here?’

‘Under the stone you’re standing on.’

Badger moved quickly as if he had been scalded. He jumped sideways off the big black slippery stone and then peered down again into the water. Now he could see a large pincer waving in the air, reaching ominously towards his nose and a beady eye looking crossly up at him. The rest of the creature was hidden by the stone.

‘I won’t help unless you keep that pincer well away from my nose,’ Badger said sternly. He knew what pincers could do to a chap’s nose. This pincer looked pretty big and workmanlike.

‘All right, all right.’

The pincer moved away and Badger shoved his nose under the edge of the stone and gave it a push. It was heavy and it took two or three goes before the trapped, pincer-waving creature managed to scuttle sideways from underneath and scramble up onto the side of the pool.

‘Well, you took your time I must say. I could have drowned if you’d been any longer. The tide’s coming in, you know.’ Crab settled onto another stone a little way from Badger and inspected himself. He checked both his big front pincers and then he carefully counted all his legs.

‘1, 2, 3, 4,’ he changed sides, ‘5, 6, 7, 8.’ He nodded, satisfied all were present and correct.

‘How did you get stuck, then?’ Badger asked, thinking that perhaps he ought to make the first move conversationally, but really rather hoping he could now hurry home and find some supper. He had never had much to do with live crabs. Dead ones were another matter and very scrumptious too, if he was lucky enough to find one before the tiresome herring gulls got there first.

‘It was the Moonfaces,’ Crab said, rocking back on his shell and waving both pincers in the air again to describe a shape that Badger couldn’t recognise.

‘What are Moonfaces?’ Badger asked, puzzled.

‘You must know who Moonfaces are or else you’re very stupid.’ Crab seemed to have forgotten that Badger had just rescued him and was definitely due some thanks. It wasn’t tactful to be so rude.

Badger shook his head slowly from side to side. He decided that he didn’t want to continue the conversation with this impolite crab.

‘No, I don’t know who they are and, anyway, I think I’ll be going now as you’re obviously all right.’ He turned and skidded carefully off the rock he had been standing on and began to plod purposefully up the beach.

Crab edged off the rock too and scuttled sideways after him.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to be so rude. I really didn’t. I thought I might die if I was stuck under that rock for much longer. I could have drowned and the gulls would be coming as soon as it got light and I was easy meat for them. I’m very grateful to you.’ He swivelled one eye towards Badger and with the other kept a wary lookout towards the streak of light across the horizon, signalling the end of night. He hoped he had been gracious enough to please Badger. He wasn’t very good at polite conversation. It wasn’t often he had someone to talk to.

Badger stopped and half turned round to look down at Crab. ‘Okay, then, who are the Moonfaces?’

‘They have round pale faces just like Moon when she’s big, but they don’t have eight legs like me or four legs like you, they have two and two more for waving in the air or for holding horrid nets and things like that to poke and prod me in the pool.’ Crab spoke fast, as if he were afraid that if he didn’t explain quickly Badger wouldn’t wait and would disappear into the woods.

‘Oh, you mean people,’ Badger said. ‘I know all about them, they sometimes come with their dogs and spades and try and dig me out of my sett. I don’t like them either.’

‘Well,’ Crab went on, ‘I was having a nice snooze in the pool this afternoon. I shouldn’t have shut my eyes, really, it’s not good relaxing on a sunny afternoon. You never know what might happen.’

Badger nodded sympathetically.

‘Suddenly I was woken up,’ Crab continued, ‘by a small Moonface prodding me in the side. It was most uncomfortable and I’m still a bit sore.’

He stopped and carefully felt just under the left side of his shell with his right side first leg to see if it was any better. It wasn’t, so he put his leg back on the shingle.

‘I tried to get away but the Moonface put his foot in the pool just beside me so I grabbed his toe with my right pincer and squeezed hard. He didn’t like that and made an awful noise and backed off. I thought it would be all right but then he shoved the big rock from the side of the pool and pushed it on top of me and I was trapped.’

‘Oh dear,’ Badger said.

‘I thought that would be the end of me but a bigger Moonface shouted and said something about having to go home, so the smaller Moonface took his foot out of the pool and ran back up the beach. Then I found I was stuck and there was no one else around to rescue me – until you came.’

Crab drew breath and sat down heavily on the shingle. Both eyes worked together to focus on Badger.

‘Well,’ Badger said, ‘I’m glad I was able to help, but now I really must go as I haven’t had any supper yet and it will be light soon and too late to find any.’

Crab didn’t want Badger to go. It was nice having someone to talk to. He’d been a bit lonely since his wife, Mrs Crab, had left and the babies were no company as yet, they were too small.

‘Do you like fish?’ he asked casually.

Badger loved fish. The thought of a mouthful of fish made him drool. But he was cautious.

‘Why?’ He put his head on one side a bit suspiciously.

‘If you stay a few more minutes you could help me make a trap in the pool over there.’

Crab waved his left pincer towards another pool further along the beach.

‘If we moved some stones around the edge of the pool, when the tide comes in the fish will follow and when the tide goes out they will be stuck in the pool. You could come tomorrow night and have your supper here with me.’ He looked hopefully at Badger. ‘It would be a sort of thank you for rescuing me.’

It was a tempting offer. Badger lifted his snout and sniffed the air and scanned the horizon across the sea. The night was definitely over and Moon was now a pale glimmer, a shadow of her former self. He ought to be going. But the thought of fish was very tempting and he began to anticipate a possible fishy feast. Quickly he licked up the dribble from his chin with his long tongue and made up his mind.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘But I can’t stay for more than a very few minutes, you can see how light

it’s getting and I really should be at home by now.’

‘Come on, then,’ Crab swivelled round and set off, scuttling quickly sideways towards the pool.

Badger followed and together they heaved and pushed until the pool was surrounded by quite big stones with sand wedged carefully between them. It was going to be a lot deeper than it had been before. The tide was now coming in nicely and would soon fill it up.

‘See you tonight, then?’ Crab asked in an off-hand way, brushing a strand of green seaweed from his shell with his right pincer.

‘All being well,’ Badger replied a bit breathlessly. It had been harder work than he expected as Crab hadn’t really done much. Noses and paws were more useful than pincers, he realised.

He waved his paw at Crab to say goodbye and scrambled as fast as his short legs would let him across the sand and the shingle and then over the bigger stones until he was once more in the wood, where he felt a lot happier and safer.

Crab watched him go. ‘I hope he comes back tonight, it’s always good to have a chat.’ He also needed to scurry away before daylight finally broke.

Badger stopped for a moment when he reached the edge of the wood. He could just see Crab hurrying towards the rapidly approaching waves and quickly digging himself down into the sand until he was buried. In a moment a wave washed over him and then there was no sign of him at all.

The sea busily sploshed and splashed its way back up the beach, filling the pool with lovely fresh salty water. Hopefully the fish would follow.

Badger’s legs were aching: it had been a very long night and he was tired and his tummy was rumbling. He walked as quickly as his legs would let him up through the wood. He stopped once to catch his breath and snuffle into the leaf mould under the beech trees to see if there were any bluebell bulbs worth eating. He found a few, and then there was a leftover frog carcass carelessly discarded by Fox and a small mouthful of earthworms on the bank by the little brook. He sighed. That would have to do for tonight’s supper. Maybe tomorrow there would be fish. That would be good.

He reached the sett much later than usual and Mrs B was already in bed. She had changed the bedding, too, with newly cut bracken fronds – not the green ones but last year’s brown ones. They were lovely and scratchy and he wriggled down into them, easing the itches on his back as he did so. He put his snout on Mrs B’s paw and shut his eyes. She murmured something about the sweetcorn being nearly ready to eat and with that comforting promise he sighed and fell into a deep sleep.

The Escape: Chapter Two

Badger slept the day away. It was dusk the next evening when he woke and stretched lazily before poking his nose out of his door under the hawthorn tree to see what was going on. Mrs B had already gone hunting, probably to the sweetcorn field, he guessed. He sniffed the air carefully and then remembered Crab’s promise of fish.

‘Oh, yummy, yummy, yummy,’ he crooned to himself in anticipation and set off round the edge of the field towards the wood that led down to the beach.

On the way he met Grey Squirrel, who was chattering noisily in the beech tree as he passed underneath.

‘Keep away, keep away, keep away,’ Grey Squirrel shouted at him, her tail all fluffed up and twitchy. ‘They’re my hazelnuts down there, so don’t you dare pinch any.’

‘I don’t want your hazelnuts, Squirrel, I’m off to have a fish supper,’ Badger said looking up at her over his shoulder as he trotted purposefully on towards the shore.

Grey Squirrel twitched her tail some more from her branch and made her scolding noise, but didn’t follow.

Badger reached the edge of the wood and paused for a moment before leaving the cover of the trees. He knew it was always wise to sniff out the lie of the land and make sure there are no enemies lying in wait before you break cover. He didn’t have many real enemies except the Moonfaces, but he didn’t want an argument with Fox or with another family of badgers whom he didn’t know and who might be bad tempered.

He couldn’t see anyone around. Moon was still in bed, lazy girl, so it was quite dark and very quiet except for the swooshing of the sea as the waves flipped and flopped gently onto the sand. The tide was further out than last night but as he carefully crossed the bigger stones at the top of the beach Badger thought he could see the pool he and Crab had made. He began to be excited at the possibility of a fish supper.

Crab was waiting impatiently for him. He was sitting on the edge of the pool and waved his right pincer in the air as Badger approached.

‘At last!’ he complained. ‘I thought you’d forgotten or something and I was about to eat them all myself, even though I’m not really very partial to sprats.’ He sidled close to the water.

‘Sprats?’ Badger said in delight. ‘Are there sprats?’ He reached the pool and put his snout into the water, ruffling its surface so that he couldn’t see anything underneath.

‘Slow down, slow down,’ Crab said crossly. ‘We need careful tactics to catch them. They’re very slippery customers, you know.’

Badger soon realised that though Crab could be lazy and rude he was also a canny fisherman. He watched as Crab eased himself slowly into the pool at one end. He didn’t make a ripple.

Crab waved his right pincer to tell Badger to stay at the other end of the pool with his snout in the water and his mouth open. Badger lay down on the stone and lowered his snout into the water and held his breath. Very carefully Crab rounded up the sprats. There were about a hundred of them, all silvery and spinning round the pool in excited circles. Somehow Crab gently guided them towards Badger. The silly sprats didn’t know what was happening and most of them ended up in front of Badger’s mouth. All he had to do was to open and close it quickly a few times to have the best fish supper of his life.

Too soon it was all over and the pool was spratless.

Badger lay on the big stone at his end of the pool licking his snout to make sure he had eaten every last morsel of fish. His tummy felt comfortably full, which was a lovely feeling. Crab sat watching him on the big stone at the other end. He was pleased that it had gone so well. Perhaps Badger would be his new best friend now. He waited while Badger washed his face.

Was that good, then?’ Crab finally asked when Badger had finished washing.

‘Very, very good,’ Badger replied and then, remembering his manners, he added, ‘Thank you very much.’

‘My pleasure,’ Crab said.

‘I ought to be going,’ Badger said after a little while, with his eyes half closed. He was getting sleepy.

‘We could try again tomorrow, if you like,’ Crab said casually. He didn’t want to seem too eager for Badger’s company. ‘The tide will be okay for another night or two, though soon it won’t come in far enough to fill the pool.’

‘Tomorrow would be splendid,’ Badger replied, yawning. ‘But what about you? You haven’t had anything to eat this evening.’

He was feeling a bit guilty about having guzzled all the sprats while Crab had eaten nothing.

‘That’s all right,’ Crab replied airily. ‘I ate earlier. There were some good bits of plankton sloshing about when the tide first came in and a dead bit of herring. I’m okay. Same time tomorrow evening, then?’

Badger nodded.

‘Bye for now, then,’ he waved a paw at Crab and slithered off the rock and started on his way up the beach. ‘Thanks again.’

He knew he was going to find it hard work climbing up through the woods as his tummy was so full.

‘Bye.’ Crab scuttled off his stone and began his sideways walk back towards the breaking waves.

The Escape: Chapter Three

The following evening it was raining when Badger came out of the sett. The raindrops settled on his nose so he wiped them off with his paw as he looked around to see if anything unusual was going on near the sett. It seemed peaceful enough, just the pitter-patter of the rain on the hawthorn leaves above him and the distant baa-ing of the sheep in the field nearby. Mrs B had said she’d heard unusual noises in the lane when Badger was still asleep. She said he must be careful tonight.

Badger turned his head from side to side, listening hard to check if the coast was clear. It was almost dark and Moon was still in bed. Badger couldn’t see anything suspicious and he couldn’t hear anything suspicious either, so he trotted across the field into the woods and down the path leading to the beach. He couldn’t smell Fox, so maybe he was still asleep, and he didn’t see or hear Grey Squirrel, but that was probably because it was wet. He knew she didn’t like rain and so was probably curled up cosily in her drey.

Tawny Owl swooped over him as he reached the clearing where the wood ended and the seashore began. Tawny Owl wasn’t going to leave the cover of the woods either and risk his feathers getting waterlogged.

‘Keep your snout away from my mouse hole,’ Owl hissed at him menacingly, then glided away to sit on a branch and watch.

‘All right, all right,’ Badger said tetchily. ‘I’ve got a better meal waiting for me. I don’t want your pesky mice, thank you.’

‘Good,’ said Owl settling his wings down by his side one after the other and cleaning his beak on the branch. ‘I’m watching you.’ He sniffed loudly.

Badger took no notice and cautiously left the cover of the beech trees and trotted onto the top of the beach. The tide was quite a long way out and the rain was muffling the usual roar of the waves. Badger slipped and slid his way across the rocks and then trotted more quickly on the sand to the new pool. He was beginning to think happily about the forthcoming fishy feast.

There was no sign of Crab. Badger climbed onto the big rock at one end and looked carefully into the water, but the rain didn’t make it easy to see what was underneath.

‘Where are you, Crab?’ Badger called in a whispery voice. ‘It’s me, Badger, are you there?’

There was no reply.

Badger sat down to think for a minute what he should do. He absentmindedly scratched his left ear with his left back paw. If Crab didn’t come could he, Badger, catch fish on his own? Were there any fish in the pool anyway?

It wasn’t really a good idea to stay too long on the beach, you never knew who might come along, but on the other hand maybe Crab had got the time all wrong and would come soon. Fishing would be so much easier if there were two of them.

Badger waited patiently for another few minutes, but still Crab didn’t come.

Well, he thought, I had better see if there are any fish and try and catch them by myself. He was getting really hungry by now. He remembered how Crab had rounded up the sprats and shepherded them to the end of the pool. But of course it was very different doing it by himself.

Badger slid off the big stone and into the water. It was deeper than he expected and he had to swim. He didn’t like that. He looked for the sprats and found there were quite a few swimming frantically around, trying to get away from him.

Time after time Badger herded the sprats to one end of the pool by waving his paws at them underwater but just as he opened his mouth they swam away, under him or around him, tickling his ears as they whizzed past. He was left with a mouth full of horrible salty water.

It was also very annoying when the sprats flicked their tails rudely into his face.

Badger got hungrier and hungrier but still Crab didn’t come and help.

The rain stopped and Moon came out. She smiled at Badger trying to fish.

Badger gave up. He climbed out of the pool onto the big rock and gave himself an enormous shake. The water drops spread far and wide in a great silvery arc and he felt a bit better, though his coat was now standing up in wet black spikes all over his body and he was rather cold.

He sighed sadly and looked again into the pool where the sprats were still zooming around in crazy circles.

‘Oh well,’ he thought. ‘I suppose badgers are better at digging than fishing. But I’m awfully hungry. Now I’d better get a move on and see if I can find something to eat in the wood.’

He trundled away across the beach. ‘That’s the last time I believe a crab when he offers me supper,’ he said crossly to himself as he plodded up the hill.

The Escape: Chapter Four

Crab had forgotten all about his promise to meet Badger by the pool. He had had a nice lazy day in another pool with some of his crabby friends. When the sun had gone down and it started raining he decided to explore the shingly bank on the furthest side of the beach. It was quite a long way from the fishing pool so he didn’t hear Badger when he called. He didn’t see him either as there were some very big rocks between them.

It was much later after Moon had come out that Crab remembered his promise. He rocked back on his shell on the shingly bank and waved his legs in the air as he wondered what to do.

‘Badger is sure to have found lots of food in the wood,’ Crab said to himself. ‘It’s not my job to feed badgers. It’s not my responsibility. It’s much more important that I keep an eye on fishy things on the beach rather than furry things. Badger won’t have missed me, he’ll be fine. I don’t need to do anything.’

Now that his conscience was clear, Crab sidled along the edge of the incoming tide until he reached the pool where he liked to take a nap. He slipped into the water, eased himself under his favourite rock and went to sleep.