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You ascended to the surface and allowed the crocko to pass through. It swam past you and surfaced to turn around and stare at you. Without even a trill it swam off somewhere. You and Bubu swam back to the docks where the grown-ups made a headcount of everybody who went swimming. Puki seemed to have a lot of fun with the nice crocko as it was now following her out of the docks.
<span class="mu-r">"Uh... don't tell Kari but... I just kept feeding her..."</span> said Puki. You and Bubu shook your heads at Puki.
You and your friends visited your Auntie Baba for dinner, that nice crocko was following Puki around, probably wanting to be fed more. Inside you found Moochy being pampered by Little Ones while Kari was helping your Auntie Baba cook. Auntie Baba had told the Little Ones they could play with Moochy as long as they didn't feed him.
You and your friends sat down to eat with your relatives, Kari and Auntie Baba prepared steamed acorn buns sprinkled with crushed pinecones. You asked Auntie Baba about that mean crocko and its shorter leg.
Auntie Baba frowned. <span class="mu-g">"Aiya, what a poor thing... It's so hard to keep track of all Our friends as Our family grows bigger. We thought We were blessed to be surrounded by love but it seems that each of us only had so much love to give and we sometimes ran out before everybody received some. And with so much family, it's hard for some of us to be noticed..."</span>
You thought the mean crocko was only behaving the way it did because it was lonely. But you decided to swim with it today, surely it couldn't be that lonely, could it?
<span class="mu-g">"Our crocko friends are deep divers, taking us to the bottom of the lake to harvest as much kelp as we could. I think that crocko has a hard time beating all the other better swimmers. Maybe it just wanted to play with you as long as it could before tomorrow's dive."</span>
After dinner, you and your friends returned to the canopy to claim the view of the lake below you together. You all tied your hammocks together to create one big hammock to share. Moochy was pleased to have so many bellies in a row to sprawl on, although Puki wasn't in a good mood since her crocko friend returned to her family for the night.
<span class="mu-r">"You know what, I think I'm okay being unnoticed!"</span> said Puki. <span class="mu-r">"It's so easy to get noticed when you're unnoticed, but it's so hard to get unnoticed when you're noticed, and I like to be left alone!"</span>
<span class="mu-g">"What do you do to get noticed?"</span> asked Kari.
<span class="mu-r">"...I don't know! I've always been trying to get unnoticed..."</span>
<span class="mu-b">"I never notice whether I'm being noticed or not,"</span> said Bubu.
<span class="mu-s">"I think that crocko was just trying to get noticed since nobody would swim with it during the dive," you said. "We should swim with it tomorrow."</span>