Algy perched on a seaweed-covered rock towards the northern end of the beach, and stared at the sand: tiny, pointy sand mountains had popped up in a wide swathe across an area where the water didn’t quite drain away at low tide. Algy knew that this must mean that there were marine worms living underneath, but in that case he couldn’t understand why it didn’t always look like this when the tide was out. In fact, he had never seen it look quite like this before. He couldn’t ask the worms, as they were very shy and always remained underground, so he just sat there wondering – about this, as about so many aspects of life, the universe, and everything (sorry, Mr. Adams, but Algy really does wonder…) until, after a while, the tide gently swept back in and put an end to his bewilderment.

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