The Sharn...or the Mark... and the Wizard of Oz by Luke and Ash from Little Thurrock Primary School

If you are wondering about the title of this tale, it is about a half man, half shark, or even perhaps a half shark, half man, who had the best of both worlds - could swim and could walk about (top bit shark you see and bottom bit man).

ANYWAY the Sharn lived in the dark, dark forest and amused itself by using its legs and walked about eating all the animals there.  They were getting quite annoyed at being eaten all the time, they actually felt quite hard done by and decided "to do something about it".

The lion was elected as a volunteer (yes, I know that, strictly, you volunteer to be a volunteer but they were just so fed up they bypassed all that nonsense) and sent off to find the Wizard of Oz who was known to be handy at dealing with Sharns, Marks and others.

The Wizard was a bit confused when the lion showed up.  He had had a strange interlude with a rather cowardly version in an earlier life and kept thinking for some reason about tinmen, scarecrows, Dorothys and Totos but couldn't quite remember why right now.

However, once he heard about this particular Sharn, he leaped to his feet and rushed off.  The lion, taken by surprise, stayed where he was.  The Wizard soon rushed back again and asked "to where it was he was supposed to be rushing, exactly?"

The lion calmly rose and set off in the right direction.  The Wizard tried his hardest to rush after him but the lion wasn't going fast enough.

They made their way sedately back to the forest.

The Sharn, meantime, had snaffled a couple more elephants, just as a snack you understand and was resting, snoozing gently under a very large tree with strong branches (just thought I'd mention those - you will see why in a minute).

The lion and the wizard arrived in the forest and set about searching for the Sharn.  It didn't take long, the snoring was really quite, quite loud and they only had to follow the zizz!!!

The Wizard hitched up his robe and clambered up the very large tree with the strong branches (worked it out yet?).  The lion had a few problems here as lions are not too brilliant at climbing trees but after a few failed attempts he discovered that if he dug his claws in hard enough he could edge gingerly up the trunk.  They came to a fork in the strong branches (surely you must realise by now!) and the Wizard delved deep into his pocket.  He drew out a large piece of black pudding (left over from his breakfast three weeks ago actually but he just knew it would come in useful one day!).  He inserted into it a small stick-like object (actually a home-made bomb but am not going to give the ingredients here) and crept carefully out onto one of the very strong branches.  The lion followed (now we know why the strong branches were important - lions and Wizards weigh quite a lot when lumped together).

The Wizard lobbed the black pudding down in front of the Sharn and they waited.  They waited and waited.  The smell of the three week old black pudding wafted steadily upwards.  The Sharn sniffed.  It sniffed again and then opened an eye (shark's eye of course) and looked around.  It soon spotted the black pudding and sniffed a bit more.  Sharns are partial to a bit of black pudding so it stuck out its farm (mixture of fin and arm of course!) and snatched the pudding.  It crammed it into its mouth and swallowed.  There was a fizzle and a kind of pop.  The Sharn looked surprised for a minute and then yelped (hissed rather) with pain.  It clutched its tummy and ran as fast as it could towards the sea. 

The lion and the Wizard shook hands and looked smug.

The forest was peaceful again.

Trouble was, everyone had forgotten that the Sharn's top bits were all shark and it was, therefore, rather good at swimming.  No-one has actually seen it again but rumours abound about something dark and dangerous roaming the deep eating everything that moves and that that something dark and dangerous is getting stronger...

My advice is, when walking on the beach, or even, these days, in the dark, dark forest - just keep your eyes peeled and your wits about you!  You never know!!

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