22. A Sad Story

Exactly at noon, Starry and I met at the sandy space below where the Crown of Thorns starfish had set up his abode in our coral reef.

Working quickly, we alerted Al Clam to our presence with our secret code knock on the sand, helped him from his hiding place and spirited him away to a quiet alcove in the coral reef fairly nearby.

As soon as we were all comfortably sitting on the sand we began to ply our "undercover agent" clam with questions.

"Here is the gist of what I have learned," Clam said. "The Crown of Thorns starfish will soon be joined by hundreds, if not thousands of his kind. They will travel here the same way this starfish did, clinging to the bottoms of ships--then when they are nearby---they will release their grip on the ship's hull and drift down into this reef."

"But why go to all this trouble?" Starry asked.

"That is the sad part of the story." Clam replied. "They have killed their own reef! They multiplied in an out-of-control way and literally ate their way out of house and home. They have destroyed their original reef!"

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