Selwyn The Hungry Seal
Selwyn the Welsh seal lived in the sea with his mummy near a nice, quiet beach in Wales. He was fully grown now and so, as all fully grown seals must, it was time for him to leave home and live on his own. As he left, with his little bag strapped to his back, mummy said to him, a little tearfully:
“You be a good boy now, Selwyn, make sure you find somewhere nice to live and make sure you eat fish every day. A lovely pretty boy like you should soon find a nice seal girlfriend and when you do, you’ll bring her to see me, won’t you”?
“Yes mum, bye”
He waved a flipper at her as he excitedly swam off. He swam a long, long way and it started to get dark so he looked for a place to stay for the night. He found a little rocky island just off the coast with a snug little cave just perfect for a seal to sleep in. He went in, took off his bag and unpacked his seal sleeping bag and his seal pillow. He was tired and hungry after his long swim, so he was pleased that mummy had packed a nice big fish for him as well. He yummed the whole fish down quickly, cleaned his teeth and was soon fast asleep in his cosy cave.
He woke up when the warm sunshine flooded into his cave the next morning. The sea was green, the sky was blue and he could hear seagulls merrily chattering to each other.
“Time to find some fish for breakfast”, he thought to himself. So he dived into the sea and swam all around the island hunting for fish. But there weren’t any fish. So he swam over to the mainland but there weren’t any fish there either. He hunted up the coast and down the coast but no matter how hard he looked he just couldn’t find any fish.
“What am I to do”, he wondered to himself. He had a little sunbathe on the beach while he thought about it. A baby seagull was sat near him on a rock and it must have been hungry too because it kept crying out. Soon, it’s mummy came back and she had some thin yellow things in her mouth which she fed to the hungry baby gull.
“Excuse me”, asked Selwyn, “What sort of fish is that and where did you get it”?
“These are chips“, said the seagull, “there are no fish round here because the people have taken them all! I go to the town that way” - he pointed with his wing - “and sometimes the children throw them to me and sometimes I just find them on the beach”.
“Thank you very much, Mr Seagull”, said Selwyn gratefully, and off he swam in the direction of the town.
He soon got to the harbour and swam up to the quay side where the boats were gently bobbing up and down. Sure enough, there were two big people and two children sat down dangling there legs over the quay eating chips from white bags. He shouted up to them to say hello, and they waved at him. It seemed rude to ask, so he just waited patiently. Then, after a short time, one of the children threw him a chip and he cleverly caught it in his mouth.
“Yuck, ugh, poo“, he thought to himself, “These are horrid and don’t taste at all like fish”!
He swallowed the chip anyway, because he was very hungry, shouted a quick thank you and swam back to his cave because it was getting dark. He’d had no dinner and now he was going to bed with no supper either. He settled down to sleep with his stomach rumbling.
The next morning, he woke up very early and very, very hungry.
“There are no fish here, so I must go look for them somewhere else”, he thought. So he packed his bag and off he went, away from the town, searching all the way. He swam and swam and the coast got more and more rocky and poor Selwyn got more and more tired and hungry. He’d seen no more people and no more seagulls, and now it was getting dark again.
“Oh, what am I to do”, he thought, “Mummy said I must have fish every day and all I’ve had for two days is one nasty chip”. He had nowhere to sleep either. Desperately hungry, he shouted:
“Hello, has anyone got any fish or a place to sleep”
Silence. He shouted again:
““Hello, I’m hungry and tired”!
This time, he heard a faint reply back.
“Hello”!
He swam towards the sound as fast as he could. He soon came to a little cave at the bottom of a cliff and there was a lovely girl seal. She shouted to him:
“Hello, I’m Gwen. I have a place to sleep but I haven’t got any fish”
“Hello Gwen, I’m Selwyn. It’s not quite dark yet, shall we look for fish together - maybe with two of us we‘ll be lucky”?
She agreed and together they searched and searched and just as the sky was almost black, Gwen spotted a nice big, juicy fish and shouted to Selwyn who was closest to it. Selwyn just managed to grab it before it swam off and they both carried it carefully back to the cave.
They shared the fish, got in their own seal sleeping bags and went to sleep. The next morning, the sun streamed into the cave and they woke at the same time. Selwyn looked at Gwen, smiled and said:
"You know Gwen, neither of us could find a fish on our own, but together we found one straight away. Would you like to stay with me and we can hunt for them together”?
She smiled back.
“Yes, Selwyn, I’d love to”.
They lived in the cave for a whole month and caught fish together and ate them together every day.
“Would you like to come meet my mummy”, Selwyn asked Gwen one day.
“I’d love to”, Gwen replied. So they fished and fished for the rest of that day to get fish for the trip and the next morning they set off. Two days later just as it was getting dark, they arrived at Selwyn’s Mummy’s cave. Selwyn shouted
“Mum, are you in, I’ve brought someone to see you”
She rushed out to see him, clapping her flippers together with delight and gave him a big hug. Then she gave Gwen a big hug too, when Selwyn introduced her.
“I was just about to have my supper”, Mummy said.
“Do you both like chips”?
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Cheers, Tom.