Fairytale with a Te Reo twist

 The Three Smart Wheke

Once upon a time, three smart wheke lived together in a large sparkling rockpool by the ocean. The rockpool used to be filled with lots of small ika, small papaka, pipi and tuangi but the three wheke ate through all their yummy kaimoana! The three wheke were very hungry and looked over at the moana and saw that there were plenty of kaimoana for them to eat. All they had to do was cross over some rough, bumpy rocks and climb into the moana.

Little Wheke agreed to go first. He started squiggling over the rocks with his tiny tentacles when all of a sudden a huge hungry karoro flew over and stopped  Little Wheke in his tracks. “HEY YOU! WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING? COME HERE SO I CAN EAT YOU!” squawked the hungry karoro. Little Wheke was so frightened and said, “Please don’t eat me! I’m too little to eat. My brother is coming soon and he is much bigger than me.”

The karoro stopped and thought for a moment. “You’re too small for a snack. You can go ahead and I will wait for your brother”, said the karoro. The Little Wheke squiggled over the bumpy rocks and made it into the moana.

A little while later, it was Middle Wheke’s turn to squiggle over the bumpy rocks. All of a sudden, the hungry karoro swooped down again and squawked, “HEY YOU! WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING? COME HERE SO I CAN EAT YOU!”Middle Wheke was afraid and said, “Please don’t eat me! I’m too little to eat. My brother is coming soon and he is much bigger than me.” The karoro stopped and thought again. “You’re too small for a snack. You can go ahead and I will wait for your brother”, said the karoro. The Middle Wheke squiggled over the bumpy rocks and made it into the moana.

Finally it was Big Wheke’s turn to cross the bumpy rocks.  With his huge, long, sloppy and slimy tentacles, Big Wheke started to pull himself across the bumpy rocks. The hungry karoro saw Big Wheke from above and felt super excited because now he could finally eat his yummy meal. Big Wheke saw the karoro flying in the air. The karoro circled the rockpool and was ready to swoop, but when he looked down again, Big Wheke was nowhere to be seen. The karoro was so confused and flew down onto the rocks to look for him. He searched and searched, but couldn’t find Big Wheke anywhere. That’s because Big Wheke had a special trick. He could camouflage himself to look like the bumpy rocks.

The karoro searched for a long time until he finally gave up and flew away. Big Wheke happily crawled over the bumpy rocks and slipped into the moana and joined his brothers. The three smart wheke’s lived happily ever after in the moana where there was lots of kaimoana for them to eat.

         

Can you tell what the original story is?