The Children of Canvey Island

Once, on Canvey island, an island that lies of the south coast of Essex in the Thames Estuary, in a little dutch cottage with an eight-sided roof, there lived two little children called Jack and Jill.
And, one summer day, because the sun was so bright, they thought they would go to the beach to collect seashells.
And while they were exploring on the beach they found lots of seashells of different sizes, some shaped like spiralling cones and some like spreading fans; some that were white and some that were speckled and they put them all into a bag and Jill thought, "I'll make them into something when we get back to our cottage".
But then it started to rain and so the two children took shelter in an old cave.
While they were in the cave however, suddenly they both heard a terrible roar from behind them and, turning round, they saw the Canvey Island monster.
"Children", said the monster, with a wicked grin, "I like eating children. Usually all I get to eat is seaweed but children are the tastiest thing of all".
And reaching out with two long tentacles, it wrapped one around Jack and the other around Jill and opened its big mouth full of sharp teeth to eat them up.
Just then, however, all the seashells that the children had collected in their bag, hearing the monster with their shell like ears and fearing for the children, started to make a noise; the cone shaped shells blaring like trumpets and the fan shaped shells clattering like castanets and, frightened by the noise, the monster let go of the children and instead stuck its tentacles in its ears to block out the sound.
"Oh somebody stop that awful sound", said the monster, slithering away deeper into its cave to hide from the noise.
But then, Jill picking up the bag of shells, the children both ran out of the cave as fast as they could and then, when they got back to their little dutch cotage with its eight sided roof, Jill made a dress all covered in shells.
But it wasn't just an ordinary dress; it was a musical dress because some of the shells on it blared like trumpets and some of them clattered like castanets.
"I'll always wear it when we go to the seaside", said Jill, "And then that monster will keep far away".