Eric the dolphin lived in the deepest part of the ocean with his mother and his two sisters, Erin and Eva. One day, he woke up with a playful, wriggly sort of feeling in his belly.
“It’s just the sort of day for mischief,” he said.
Erin and Eva, who were very well-behaved dolphins, didn’t like the sound of that at all.
“Let’s go and leap through the waves with our friends,” said Eva.
But Eric shook his head. He had suddenly thought of a brilliant idea. “I’m going to look for sea slugs in the giant squid’s garden,” he said.
The giant squid was very bad tempered, and he didn’t like the little dolphins eating the sea slugs from his garden. If he saw them, he always tried to catch them in his huge tentacles.
Eric dived down to the giant squid’s garden and swam through the colorful coral beds. Then he spotted some juicy sea slugs just outside the giant squid’s cave entrance. He swam closer and snapped one up.
“You pesky dolphin!” roared a voice. It was the giant squid! The giant squid’s long tentacles whipped out of the cave and wrapped around Eric’s tail.
“Help!” squealed Eric. “Let me go!”
He wriggled around, and suddenly the giant squid started to giggle. “Stop it!” he roared. “You’re tickling me with your tail!”
Eric wriggled even more, and the giant squid was soon laughing helplessly. His grip loosened and Eric darted free, swimming away as fast as he could.
“And don’t come back!” yelled the giant squid, shaking his tentacles.
Erin and Eva gasped when they heard about Eric’s adventure.
“Of course you’ll never go there again,” said Eva.
“Of course not,” agreed Eric, with a twinkle in his eye.
“Not unless I can make the giant squid laugh again!”
