It is rare to see all of Simon because usually most of him is in the water. Thus when various bits of him surface, the uninitiated will tend to assume that they are seeing many different sea monsters. But no, it’s just the one Simon, with all his many appendages.

Every now and then some other sea entity gets it wrong, sees a bit of Simon and mistakenly assumes this bit of Simon is lunch, or a viable breeding partner. Lunch certainly occurs in these scenarios, and it happens often enough that Simon seldom has to make the effort to actually hunt for something.

After a few false starts, and several hearty lunches for Simon, the Hopeless Maine Scientific Society established to their satisfaction that he really was just the one sea monster. This led to obvious questions about the reproductive habits of Simon and to an ongoing study of his behaviour. Remarkably, this study lasted for more than a year without incurring further lunch opportunities.

Some seven months into the study, scientific observers identified numerous extra appendages in Simon’s bay and postulated either that he had grown dramatically, or that a second Simon had come along. Debate raged over the likely gender of the new Simon as in many species it is the female who stays in one location while the males have a larger range. Except where this is the other way round. Could the original and resident Simon be a female of the species? While no definite conclusions could be drawn, it was agreed that Simon would always be Simon, regardless of gender.

Simons tend to be active around midday, it had been observed. The Simon is an unusually lunch motivated creature. Thus when the Simons began a midday flurry of activity, it seemed likely that each wanted the other on the menu. So often, science calls for the close scrutiny of other people’s reproductive habits. The attending members of the Scientific Society concluded that the Simons were indeed breeding. It may be worth mentioning that in one of their more anthropological episodes they had also identified belching as a key mating ritual for members of the Chevin family.

When it was all over, and the sea foamed with what might have been blood, or Simon ink, or some other fluid, there was indeed, still just the one Simon. There were those who said that eggs had been released into the waves, and those who said that you probably grew new Simons by breaking bits off the old Simon, but that’s scientists for you.