Bohemia Village Voice

Bite the Shark Learns a Lesson

Bite the Shark swam proudly through the ocean looking for whatever food swam his way. He’d gobble up anything and everything as he was so greedy.
In another part of the ocean swam a school of fish all searching for food. But everywhere they went the food was very few and far between. Finbar, the bravest of them all, decided he’d go further in the water to see if he can find a place where grub was hiding out. All the fish said they’d come too but stayed a little behind Finbar.
As they swam along, Bite was getting closer to them and prowled the ocean with his mouth wide open, just like he always did. As the little fish swam closer to Bite, he announced, “Hello there. I’m not scared or anything, but please could you close your mouth?”
Bite was shocked to say the least. What was such a small fish talking about?
“Excuse me, but all the food is going straight into your big open mouth and there’s nothing left for anyone else,” Finbar shouted out quite loudly for such a small fish.
“What on earth are you going on about?” boomed Bite.
“What I’m trying to say is . . .” carried on Finbar.
“I challenge you to see if you can go a whole day keeping your mouth shut. For the WHOLE DAY. I will do the same as you. Are you up for it?” Finbar finished confidently.
“Huh! no problem. It’ll be a breeze”, Bite bragged.
“OK. We’ll meet at the large coral reef at 9.30 tomorrow morning then,” Finbar said.
With a swish of his little tail he was off, closely followed by the other fish.
“Haa, haa, that’s so easy. It’s not a challenge. I’ll win hands down,” Bite laughed out loud to himself.
At 9.30 the next morning they met up. The rest of the ocean creatures who weren’t scared were there too to make sure there was no cheating.
“Right, let the challenge begin,” announced all the creatures.
“We will be back here at 5.30 today to see who wins. On your marks, get set . . . GO,” finished everyone.
Half followed Bite around and the rest followed Finbar around for the whole day. Bite found it harder than he thought, as food was everywhere – right in front of his very eyes – and began to forget what he was doing and tried to sneak in a crafty nibble. Unfortunately he was being closely watched by lots of little eyes.
Finbar, on the other hand, went about playing with his friends.
Bite just couldn’t help himself and without thinking, his huge mouth opened up and in went lots of food. After that happened Bite felt very ashamed with himself. He knew he’d lost the challenge.
When they met back at the coral reef Bite said. “You win. I just couldn’t help myself.”
“That goes to show, greedy by name and greedy by nature,” said Finbar.
Finbar had kept his mouth closed the whole time.
The moral of the story is . . . don’t be greedy with anything and share with those around you.