Once there was a crab and an octopus, and they were the very best of friends.
They did not agree about much. The crab liked to hold things. The octopus liked to let go of them. But there was one thing they loved exactly the same, and loved more than anything in the whole wide sea, and that thing was music.
One evening a tired old fish drifted past and told them a secret.
"Far across the ocean," said the fish, "in a country called Italy, there is a singing so beautiful that grown people weep to hear it. They call it the opera."
"We have to go," said the crab.
"We have to hear it," said the octopus.
They did not have a boat. They did not have any tickets, or any money, or any shoes.
But that very night a great ship was leaving the harbor, and when it opened its belly to drink the sea to steady itself, it drank the two friends up along with it.
Nobody noticed. Nobody ever notices the small things a ship swallows.
All the long way across the ocean the two friends sat together in the dark and hummed.
They practiced their very best clapping. They practiced saying bravo, which is what you say when the singing is so good you cannot stay in your seat.
They had never in their lives been so happy.
At last the ship opened its belly again, and out they tumbled into a beautiful city built right on top of the water, with music drifting from every window.
"We're here," whispered the octopus.
"We're really here," whispered the crab.
And then everyone began to scream.
ALIEN!
KILLER!
MONSTER!
And they were pointing, and they were pointing at the crab and the octopus.
The two friends did not understand. They had not taken anything. They had only just arrived.
But a man in a uniform was sent down to the water to catch them, with a net and a very serious face, because in that city there was now a rule about crabs and octopuses, and the rule was that they must go.
"Please," said the crab. "There has been a mistake. We only came for the opera."
"We only wanted to hear the singing," said the octopus.
But the man with the net did not speak crab, and he did not speak octopus, and he did not stop.
So the crab and the octopus held onto each other, the way you do when you are very far from home and nobody will listen.
Somewhere above them, behind a bright window, the opera had already begun. It was the saddest, most beautiful song either of them had ever heard — a song about a clown who has to put on his costume and make everybody laugh, even though his own heart is breaking.
They listened to the whole thing. It was even better than they had dreamed.
"Why do they hate us?" asked the octopus at last.
The crab thought about it for a long, long time.
"We didn't take anything that wasn't already floating," said the crab.
"We came the way everyone comes. We only wanted to hear the song."
But nobody was listening to the crab.
Nobody, it seems, ever listens to the crab.