The Jar

On the second morning, Chiara brought a jar to Pasta's tank. The jar had a screw lid. Inside was a live crab.

Chiara dropped the jar into the water. It sank slowly. Pasta did not lunge.

Polly perched on the rim. The crab moved inside the jar. Pasta touched the jar with one arm. Her arms can taste what they touch.

Pasta gathered the jar with two arms. She turned it slowly. A third arm worked at the lid.

Octopuses can open screw-top jars. They have done it in labs since the 1950s. They feel the threads with their suckers. Then they turn the lid.

Pasta turned the lid. It popped off. The crab tried to escape. But Pasta's fourth arm was waiting. The crab was gone.

Chiara wrote on her clipboard. "Three minutes. She is getting fast."

Octopuses are very strange. They have three hearts. Their blood is blue. They live only three to five years. Pasta was already two.

She would learn everything she would ever know in the time she had left.