The Shooting Starfish

Once, a long time ago, just west of Atlantis City, there was a little one seahorse town name of Driftwood.

And, though it had a sheriff; a cowardly jellyfish named Jello, it was ruled over by an outlaw gang led by the most evilest outlaw in all of the seven seas; an ornery, eight armed villain named Billy the Squid.

Now many brave, or perhaps just mighty foolish, fish had tried to stand up to Billy and each time he had invited them to face him, fish to fish, in a gun fight at the coral corral.

But just as they were about to draw their pistols then, that vile villain would always squirt a cloud of ink in their faces so that they were completely blinded and then, well, his eight guns against their two, they just didn’t stand a chance.

But then one day, Old Jello made the mistake of trying to cheat Billy in a card game; a game of Go Fish.

At first it was difficult for Billy to shoot Jello on account of how he shook so much but when Billy was finished with him, poor Jello didn’t shake no more.

So then the folks up in Atlantis city appointed a new sherrif for Driftwood, a five pointed starfish named Finn McStarr.

But Finn wasn’t like Jello at all; he was young and idealistic, some said naive; had big dreams of being a hero and bringing law and order to Driftwood; it was a cinch he and Billy wouldn’t get along, still at first Billy just saw the young Sherrif as something of a joke, that was until he started getting too friendly with a dancing girl at the Golden Clam Saloon, a mermaid, named Pearl.

You see, Pearl was Billys girlfriend but the moment that she laid eyes on the new Sherriff she fell in love with him.

And so Billy, as he had with all the others, challenged Finn McStarr to face him in a gunfight and just as with all the others he used his trick of blinding Finn with a cloud of ink, then he shot the Sherriff through four of his five points only leaving him one to drag himself off into the desert with.

Crippled and beaten down inside, Finn found an old cave and crawled inside it to cry.

But then, as he was lying there in the dark feeling sorry for himself, he heard a voice,

“Do not give up hope”, it said, “Hold on to what is good, even if it is a handful of sand; hold on to your life even if it is easier to let go”.

The voice in the cave belonged to a young Dolphin brave called Sea Eagle who was undergoing his rite of passage to become a man within his tribe. He was meditating in the cave, closing his eyes and learning to see with that other sense that Dolphins have; seeing with echoes.

Feeling pity for the Sherriff, Sea Eagle took him to his tribe and there tended to the wounds upon his four points and nursed him back to health and while he was recovering Sea Eagle taught him to see, like a Dolphin, without using his eyes.

But Finn was still afraid inside of facing Billy again.

“Don’t be afraid, my friend”, said Sea Eagle, laying a flipper upon the Sherriff’s shoulder, “The great Spirit of the oceans made every fish for a purpose, we are all connected to it and if you are fighting for good then the great Spirit swims beside you”.

And the next day, while Billy and his gang were making a ruckus in the Golden Clam, Finn McStarr swam back into town but this time he wasn’t on his own; he had Sea Eagle beside him then, shouting, he challenged Billy to come out and face him.

Of course, one fish or two, it didn’t phase Billy none, because he had eight guns and his cloud of squid ink on his side so he just grinned a toothy grin as he eyed up the Sherriff and his companion, placing all eight of his tentacles upon his coral handled pistols.

“So you’ve come back for more, have you Sherriff?”, said Billy, “Well this time, the only way you’ll be leaving here is in a five pointed coffin”.

But then when Billy tried his usual trick of squirting a cloud of ink in their faces, Finn just calmly shut his eyes, using echoes to see with as his Dolphin friend had taught him and so, when the sound of gunshots had finished ringing out and the cloud of Squid Ink finally cleared, it was Billy, not Sherriff Finn, who was lying on the ground with a bullet in all eight of his tentacles.

Now, seeing Billy defeated all the people of Driftwood who had, for years, meekly suffered his tyranny came out of their shops and houses and cheered for the Sherriff and even Pearl seeing what he had done gave the Sherriff a big kiss upon his Starfish cheek.

And that is how Finn McStarr; a young and inexperienced starfish, through facing his fears, came to be the greatest Sheriff that Driftwood ever had; in fact the greatest Sherriff in all the seven seas.