Mira, the small hermit crab with a blue-green shell and one oversized curious eye, was busy at the center bowl of Mooncup Grotto. She was picking at a tiny pile of bright sea seeds Toma had lined up on a flat shell, because Toma always liked things counted neatly. Above her, silver light quivered through the crack in the ceiling, and the round walls held their little cup-shaped hollows like quiet watching eyes.
Pip darted through the bowl and sent a nibble of water over the sand slope. "I saw something shiny in the wall holes," he said, his orange spots flashing. "Something tiny. Something important. Maybe a secret!"
Mira leaned so fast her shell tapped the shell plate. A thin thread of bubbles tickled up from the ceiling and popped over her head. In the same moment, one of the sea seed piles slid apart, and the neat little line Toma had made went crooked.
Toma turned his gentle antennae toward the mess. "Wait," he said, very quietly. "The hollow nearest the pink sea grass is open now. It was full this morning."
Mira looked from the broken seed line to the dark cup in the wall, then to Pip, who was already drifting closer to the holes with a look that meant he might be halfway into trouble before anyone else arrived. She could chase the shiny thing, stay and fix Toma's order, or hurry after Pip before he vanished into the wall paths.
What happens next?
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