You don’t have to be small to be a shrimp

Everything went along swimmingly for Prince Scampi, heir to the Jumbo Shrimp Empire, until the day he was caught in a dragnet by the Fish Interpol of the Caribbean Sea.

It all began with an APB on a criminal crustacean named Crab Legs Louie. A known master of disguise, Louie played a different shell game that day, donning the exact attire of Prince Scampi’s royal armor, albeit more garlicky.

While Prince Scampi vacationed in the Virgin Islands, Louie made an anonymous call to the Interpol tip line. From the neighboring kingdom of Shrimp Creole, he spewed out his lie. “Crab Legs Louie,” he said, “will be trawling Caribbean waters wearing a Prince Scampi disguise.”

Louie had heard about Prince Scampi’s travel plans from an ex con pal, Bing the Sting Ray, who had sneaked inside the Jumbo Shrimp Empire earlier in the week and blended in with the wall décor in the palace dining hall.

The Fish Interpol netted poor Prince Scampi while he enjoyed a tangy lemon rum swill at the Coral Reef Bar and Grille. Scampi was hauled off to jail, held without bail, and denied his one conch call. The arresting Officer, Lobster McGee, an old crusty cop, became suspicious when he couldn’t remove what he thought was a disguise hiding the mug of the notorious salty thug Crab Legs Louie.

Meanwhile Louie, who had entered the Jumbo Shrimp Kingdom disguised as the much beloved Prince Scampi, had slipped into the linguini library to steal the royal heirloom, a necklace of pearls strung with a weave of Samoan seaweed, a gift from Esther Escargot, a distant cousin in the Mediterranean.

However, Louie overlooked one important detail, a hook tattoo on the tip of Prince Scampi’s tail, which was known to Officer Lobster McGee, a shrimp connoisseur and part time historian extraordinaire who never tired of facts about the Jumbo Shrimp Empire.

Crab Legs Louie now sits on death row in a Caribbean jail where he is first in line to be breaded and deep-fried.