Papaka (Crab) and Koura (crayfish)

A long time ago papaka and koura lived in the bush. They lived under the trees inthe dirt and sticks and dead leaves. When they looked up into the trees they saw the shiny green leaves and pretty flowers.

Papaka and Koura felt sad becasue their grey shells were dull.

A tui flew by and landed inthe tree above them. "Tui, how did you get such shiny black and green and blue fearthers?" asked Koura "And where did you get your clean white collar?" asked Papaka.

"I flew up to the sun and it gave me bright feathers," said Tui.

A fantail danced around them. "Where did you get all those brown feathers, shiny like brown apple pips?" asked Koura. "And where did your fantastic tail come from?" asked Papaka.

"From the sun," said fantail.

A kingfisher sat on a rock beside them, watching the creek for a fish. "How did you get your wings, so shiny blue and green, and your apricot waistcoat?" asked Papaka and koura.

"The sun made the relections of the sky and water shine on me," said kingfisher.

Papaka and koura felt dull and gloomy.

they watched the butterflies flying around the branches. "Where did you get your colours from?" they asked.

"We flew into the rainbow and it gave us our colours," andwered the butterflies.

At night the full round moon lightened the trees and turned them silver. A large puriri moth fluttered above Papaka and Koura. "Where did you get your beautiful colour from?" they asked.

"I flew up to the moon and it made me this silvery pale green, andwered the moth".

Papaka and Koura felt very ugly and crawled away to hide in the rock pools.

(That's as far as we got today - we'll finish tomorrow. Once they get to the rock pools to hide, then the birda and butterflies come to see them and tell them how beautiful their shells are now)