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Captain Coral was the fearless, though slightly forgetful, leader of the most daring crew of land-crabs on the coast. She wore a dashing seaweed patch over one eye (for style, not necessity) and carried a magnificent compass. This wasn't just any compass; it was inside a large, temperamental clam shell, and it only pointed to the nearest, most delicious seaweed salad.

One morning, the crew—which included a nervous hermit crab named Sheldon and a very dramatic fiddler crab named Rex—was ready for adventure. "Full speed ahead to the Isle of Sandy Surprises!" Captain Coral bellowed. She lifted the clam-compass, expecting the needle to point east.

Instead, the compass's clam shell snapped open and closed with a loud CLACK! and the needle spun wildly, finally settling to point directly at Sheldon, the nervous hermit crab. Sheldon shrank inside his borrowed whelk shell.

"Sheldon, you scallywag!" cried Rex. "Have you hidden the seaweed salad?"

Sheldon poked an eyestalk out. "No, Captain! But I did have a small, rather tasty piece of green algae stuck to my antenna from breakfast."

Captain Coral adjusted her seaweed patch. "The compass never lies! Sheldon, you are now our temporary North Pole." For the rest of the morning, any time the Captain needed to know the true direction of, say, a tidal pool, she simply pointed at Sheldon. Sheldon tried to look important, puffing out his chest, but mostly he just looked terrified that he might be mistaken for lunch.

At high noon, the clam compass gave another mighty CLACK! and this time pointed not at Sheldon, but at a soggy, forgotten lettuce leaf floating near the pier. "Ah!" cried Captain Coral. "The true salad!" She saluted the leaf and declared the day's adventure a success. Sheldon let out a tiny, relieved sigh and promised himself he would eat every last bit of algae off his antenna next time.

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Mister Montgomery the mouse was a meticulous fellow, and every night he polished his favorite possession: a tiny, silver moonbeam he'd found tangled in a spiderweb. It was perfectly sized for a mouse and made his whiskers glow when he brushed it. One Tuesday, he was preparing his sleeping nest, humming a cheerful tune, when he noticed the little light was gone! "Oh, whiskers and woe!" he squeaked, his tiny paws fluttering.

Montgomery started his search. He checked under his acorn cap bed, inside his thimble-sized teacup, and even behind the portrait of his Great-Aunt Mildred (a dignified mouse who always looked a little grumpy). Nothing. He decided to ask his neighbor, a grumpy old badger named Old Man Tiberius.

Old Man Tiberius was busy trying to teach a caterpillar named Cecil how to tie a knot. "Moonbeam?" the badger grumbled, peering over his spectacles. "No, Mouse. Just Cecil here, refusing to learn the difference between a slipknot and a bowline." Cecil wiggled indignantly.

Next, Montgomery asked Olivia the owl, who was napping on a high branch. "Hoo-hoo is looking for a glowing rod?" Olivia hooted sleepily. "I saw a magpie snatching something shiny earlier, heading towards the whispering reeds."

Montgomery hurried to the reeds. Sure enough, there was Percy the magpie, trying to use the moonbeam to stir a tiny cup of invisible mud tea. "Aha!" cried Montgomery. "That's mine, you feathered fiend!"

Percy flapped his wings. "But it makes such a lovely spoon!"

Montgomery patiently explained that a mouse needs a polished moonbeam much more than a magpie needs a tiny glowing spoon. Percy, feeling a bit sheepish, traded the moonbeam back for a particularly shiny bottle cap. Montgomery hurried home, polished his recovered treasure until it gleamed, and tucked it safely beside his pillow, sighing with relief.

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Polly the parrot was practicing her human words. She could say "Squawk!" and "More crackers, please!" with great enthusiasm. One day, she was sitting on her perch, contemplating the philosophical differences between a biscuit and a cracker, when she heard a tiny, muffled voice say, "A bit to the left, please. No, my left!"

Polly swiveled her head. It was coming from the bowl of peanuts her owner had left out. She peered into the bowl. One peanut was wiggling slightly.

"Did you just... speak?" Polly squawked.

"Yes! And for goodness sake, stop staring," said the peanut. "It's terribly rude. We're trying to escape."

Polly was amazed. The peanut explained that he and his friend, who was stuck next to a rogue almond, were an adventurous pair of talking peanuts named Chester and Chatty. They were trying to stage a daring escape to the jungle.

"Why escape?" asked Polly. "This is a lovely bowl!"

"It's predictable!" cried Chatty the peanut. "We want excitement! We want to ride a wild jungle squirrel!"

Polly, being a good host, couldn't just let her snacks run away. She carefully picked up Chester the talking peanut. "A wild jungle squirrel is hard to find," she said. "But I know a very gentle, very fluffy house cat named Whiskers who is an excellent ride."

Chester and Chatty conferred. "A house cat is acceptable," they agreed.

Polly gently placed the two peanuts on the windowsill. The next morning, Whiskers the cat came by. Polly explained the situation to Whiskers, who, being a very good sport, lay down patiently. Chester and Chatty climbed onto Whiskers' back and had the wildest, most exciting ten-minute journey they could imagine, mostly because Whiskers kept trying to scratch a mysterious itch. They returned to the bowl exhausted but happy, deciding that the occasional short-distance ride on a fuzzy house cat was much safer than a life of high-stakes jungle adventuring.

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Chester the bear was tired of being a regular, old brown bear. He wanted to be a fancy bear. So, he decided his first step would be to procure a truly magnificent hat. After much searching, he found it: a hollowed-out, perfectly-sized watermelon rind. It was striped green and dark green, smelled wonderfully sweet, and sat upon his head like a jungle crown.

"Ah, the perfect headwear," Chester boomed, admiring his reflection in a clear stream.

His friend, Stella the stoat, giggled. "Chester, you look like a giant fruit salad waiting to happen! Does it keep your ears warm?"

"It keeps my mind... creative," Chester declared.

He decided to wear his watermelon hat to the annual Forest Feast. On his way, he met Milton the mole, who was struggling to carry a basket of particularly large, slightly bruised plums. "Oh, dear," said Milton, wiping his brow. "My biggest and best plums keep rolling out of the basket!"

Chester, feeling particularly creative in his new hat, looked down. "My dear Milton, I have a solution! I shall carry them in my magnificent hat!"

Milton looked skeptical, but Chester carefully took off the rind and inverted it. It made a surprisingly sturdy, striped fruit bowl. He and Milton carefully loaded the plums into the watermelon-hat-basket.

At the Feast, all the animals were immensely impressed by Chester's quick thinking. "What a handy vessel!" cried Penny the parrot. "It’s a hat, a bowl, and it matches your coat!"

Chester, not only looking fancy but also feeling useful, wore the watermelon rind as a hat for the first half of the party and then used it to serve the plums for dessert. It was the only time in forest history that a bear had worn and served his own hat. By the time he went home, the brim was a little sticky, but Chester decided being a useful, fancy bear was the best kind of bear to be.

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Peter the puffin was an artist, though a terribly messy one. His favorite thing to paint was his bright, colorful beak, which he considered his most dashing feature. He used a special paint—made from crushed berries and moonlight—that dried instantly and tasted slightly of blueberries.

One morning, Peter was mid-masterpiece, trying to give his beak a dazzling checkerboard pattern, when he realized he was out of his finest midnight-blue paint. “Blast and bother!” he squawked. “A checkerboard is simply not fetching without midnight-blue!”

He flew to visit Agnes the ant, who ran a highly-organized, though slightly dusty, supply shop under the old oak root. “Agnes,” Peter puffed, “do you have any midnight-blue? I need it for an emergency beak-art project.”

Agnes, wearing a tiny banker’s visor, consulted her ledger. “Midnight-blue… No, sir. But I have a very nice swamp-green with a lovely shimmer, or an excellent sunset-orange that smells of apricots.”

“No, thank you,” Peter sighed. “Only midnight-blue will do.”

Feeling defeated, Peter flew back to his nest. As he landed, he noticed a large, beautiful bluebell growing right next to his window. It was the most perfect, deepest midnight-blue he had ever seen. He leaned in for a closer look and accidentally bumped his beak against the flower.

SPLAT!

The bluebell, which was surprisingly damp, left a perfect, deep-blue circle of pollen-paste right on the tip of Peter’s beak. It looked like a tiny, magnificent, blue nose.

Peter looked in his puddle-mirror. The blue circle was far more striking than a checkerboard! It was modern! It was simple! It was accidentally perfect! He flew straight to Agnes’s shop. “Forget the paint, Agnes! I’ve invented a new style: Bluebell Beak Spot!”

Agnes, always an entrepreneur, immediately started stocking bluebells. Peter, meanwhile, spent the rest of the day carefully bumping his beak into other flowers, hoping to invent a dandelion-yellow earlobe.

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Amelia the adventurous albatross was attempting to circumnavigate the world entirely by floating on unusual objects. She had already managed a successful journey on a giant zucchini and a less successful, very wobbly trip on a collection of corks. Her current vessel was a truly magnificent, oversized, bright yellow rubber duck named Horatio.

Amelia loved Horatio, but Horatio had a small problem: he was excessively buoyant and refused to take anything seriously.

"Full speed ahead, Horatio!" Amelia would shout, flapping her wings for emphasis.

"Woooo-hooo!" Horatio's squeaker would sound, an unsettling, high-pitched noise. "Let's catch that wave! Wait, no, let's chase that cloud! Wait, no, let's just spin in a circle for a bit!"

They were floating through a quiet bay when they encountered a grizzled, old sea lion named Captain Salty. Captain Salty was trying to teach a class of young, serious sea pups about the proper etiquette of the open water.

"Lesson number one, pups," Captain Salty boomed, "is that you must maintain a serious and professional demeanor on the open sea. No nonsense! No frivolous play!"

Just then, Horatio the rubber duck spun a full three hundred and sixty degrees, made a noise that sounded exactly like a giggle, and sprayed a jet of water from his beak, narrowly missing Captain Salty's very serious whiskers.

Captain Salty was not amused. He let out a roar that echoed across the water. "Sir! This is a serious maritime environment! Contain your merriment!"

Amelia quickly covered Horatio's squeaker. "My apologies, Captain! He's just a little overly enthusiastic about buoyancy!"

Captain Salty, momentarily speechless, simply pointed a flipper at the duck. "I have sailed for eighty years, and I have never seen a vessel so disrespectfully cheerful! Now, tell me, is that thing quacking at me?"

Amelia decided a tactical retreat was necessary. She steered Horatio away as quickly as a giant, spinning rubber duck could go. As they left, Horatio let out one last, defiant, tiny squeak of delight.

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Reginald the rhino was a creature of habit and refinement. Every afternoon at precisely 3:00 PM, he enjoyed a cracker, a slice of cheese, and a dollop of his favorite, highly exclusive Dijon mustard that had been imported all the way from the neighboring county.

One crisp Tuesday, Reginald sat down for his snack, opened his pantry, and gasped. The beautiful, crystal jar of mustard was gone.

"This is an outrage!" he bellowed, which sounded a bit like a foghorn gargling marbles. He suspected everyone. He suspected the local squirrels (too small to open the jar), the visiting duke (too dignified to steal mustard), and even the wind (too airy to unscrew a lid).

Reginald’s best friend, Wilhelmina the wise woodchuck, popped her head out of a nearby burrow. "Mustard, you say, Reginald? Are you quite sure you checked everywhere?"

Reginald snorted, sending a small cloud of dust flying. "Of course, I checked everywhere! The counter, the shelf, the refrigerator! It's a mystery worthy of a detective novel!"

Wilhelmina emerged fully and pointed a small, discerning finger at the rhinoceros's own face.

"Reginald," she said gently, "I believe the mystery is not one of theft, but one of absent-mindedness."

Reginald tilted his large head. "What do you mean?"

"Look closely," Wilhelmina instructed.

Reginald lumbered over to the tall, antique mirror above the fireplace. He peered intently at his reflection. There, clinging to his large, gray left horn, was the crystal jar of Dijon mustard, lid still on, caught perfectly in the slight curve of the horn.

Reginald blinked. "Oh. That is where I left it. I must have been using it as a convenient hat-rack for a moment while I poured my tea. Very silly of me."

Wilhelmina simply chuckled, shaking her head. Reginald carefully retrieved the jar, enjoyed his perfect snack, and decided that for all future snacks, he would only use his horns to look impressively majestic, and for nothing else.

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Penelope the piglet lived in a pristine, picture-perfect farmyard. Her favorite thing in the entire world was her small, perfectly messy puddle. It was a respectable puddle: cool, squishy, and wonderfully mud-scented. It was, unfortunately, also located directly next to the prize-winning rose bushes of Esmeralda the exceptionally tidy sheep.

Esmeralda could not abide the puddle.

"It's a stain on the landscape, Penelope!" Esmeralda bleated one morning, daintily pushing a mud splatter away from her wool with a single hoof. "It's an unnecessary accumulation of damp earth! It simply must go!"

Penelope loved her puddle too much to let it go. "But Esmeralda," she squealed, "this is where all the best thinking happens! And the best wallowing! I can't think of a single solution to a problem outside of my mud."

Esmeralda decided to take matters into her own hooves. She procured a large shovel and, when Penelope was away investigating a particularly interesting berry, she attempted to move the puddle.

She scooped up a shovel-full of mud. As she did, the wet, heavy earth immediately plopped back into the hole she had just created. She tried scooping it all into a wheelbarrow. The water simply leaked out the bottom, and the remaining mud became a much larger, slightly mobile mess.

When Penelope returned, she found Esmeralda covered head-to-toe in mud, panting, and leaning on the shovel. The puddle, however, was exactly the same size and shape as before.

"Oh dear, Esmeralda," Penelope said, trying not to giggle. "It looks like you've been doing some serious wallowing! Did you solve a complicated problem?"

Esmeralda sighed, a defeated, muddy sound. "I solved the problem that puddles, it turns out, cannot be tidied. You may keep your perfect, messy puddle, Penelope. I, however, need a full day's bath."

Penelope happily jumped into her beloved puddle. She decided she'd never felt more intelligent or more comfortable.

Visit the “A Bedtime Story” show website to submit your story ideas for a future episode!

Constance the curious cat lived atop a windy hill in a lighthouse that hadn't seen a ship in fifty years. Her biggest fascination was the weather, especially the rare sight of a rolling rainbow—a full, brilliant arc that inexplicably rolled like a hoop across the valley before vanishing. She knew it had to be tied to Professor Fitzwilliam, a slightly mad inventor, who lived in a brightly painted submarine moored in a nearby meadow.

One Tuesday, a particularly vibrant rainbow rolled right past her window, knocked over her favorite potted basil plant, and kept rolling toward the Professor's submarine. Constance grabbed her telescope and scampered down the hill.

She found Professor Fitzwilliam, a small man with a perpetually surprised expression and a coat made entirely of shiny foil, wrestling with a long, iridescent strip of fabric extending from a small chimney on his vessel.

"Professor!" Constance called. "Is that… the rainbow?"

Fitzwilliam sighed, mopping his brow with a silk handkerchief. "It's my 'Instant Color-Stripe-and-Sunbeam-Dispenser,' Constance. I'm having a small technical issue."

He explained that the device worked by shooting a giant, brightly dyed canvas parachute up into the atmosphere, letting the sun reflect off it, and then reeling it back in. The problem? The canvas had become too colorful. It was coated in ten layers of paint, glitter, and a highly reflective taffeta.

"It's heavier than I anticipated," the Professor admitted, pointing to a small electric winch that was smoking slightly. "It's not just a rainbow, my dear, it's a massive, over-dyed, rolling tarp that I can't quite get to stop."

Constance, being a practical cat, simply found the garden hose. "Perhaps," she suggested, "if we get some of the ten coats of paint off, it will be lighter?"

Professor Fitzwilliam's face lit up. "Brilliant! Water! I should have thought of a simple solution instead of a complex one involving magnetic reversals!"

Together, they hosed down the gigantic, rolling, canvas rainbow until it was a manageable, much paler yellow. The professor promised to stick to watercolor paint next time, and Constance went home to retrieve her slightly squashed basil plant.

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Clive the crocodile lived in a small, cozy swamp and possessed a dream as delicate as spun sugar: he wanted to be a famous, dignified oboist. He practiced daily on his antique oboe, which he had affectionately named Octavius. Unfortunately, Octavius was not cooperating. Instead of the soulful, reedy tones Clive imagined, every attempt produced a sound that could only be described as a cross between a startled seagull and a rusty hinge—a resounding "SQUONK!"

One evening, during a particularly frustrating rehearsal, Agnes, a tiny, sensible turtle who lived on a floating lily pad nearby, paddled over.

"Clive," she said, peering up at the crocodile with concern, "that last note sounded as if you had swallowed a bicycle horn and then sneezed. Are you quite well?"

"It's Octavius!" Clive wailed, holding the instrument dramatically to the swamp sky. "I follow the music! I use the proper embouchure! But all I get is the mournful Squonk of despair!"

Agnes, who had a knack for solving tiny mysteries, pointed a tiny claw at the top of the oboe. "Is that," she asked slowly, "a very small, very dusty acorn jammed inside the bell?"

Clive lowered the instrument and peered into the opening. He poked a careful, enormous claw inside. Tink. A perfectly preserved, glossy brown acorn tumbled out.

"Oh," Clive whispered, his cheeks flushing a faint swamp-green. "I wondered where my snack went yesterday. I must have tucked it away for safekeeping."

Agnes simply shook her head and paddled back to her lily pad. Clive raised the oboe to his lips, took a deep breath, and played. The sound that emerged was a smooth, clear, and perfectly dignified Middle C. It was still a little reedy, but it was certainly not a squonk.

Clive smiled, a very large, toothy, musical smile. He decided to stick to grapes and plums for future snacks, far, far away from his musical instruments.