Rodeo Reef

A sun-dappled underwater frontier town on the sandy sea floor, where the seaweed grows tall like prairie grass and the dunes roll like the Old West.

Every Cowboyapuss story happens here. It is a small town with one long main street, a great deal of open water around it, and one young octopus cowboy who feels responsible for the lot. These five places turn up again and again, so children who have read a few stories already know their way around before a new one starts.

• Main Street

  A row of coral buildings, and the middle of everything. The Coral Saloon serves kelp-shakes, the jailhouse sits where a jailhouse ought to sit, and the general store keeps a bit of everything.

• The Seaweed Prairie

  Open water and seaweed taller than a grown-up, waving all day like grass in the wind. The roly-poly sea-cows graze out here, which is why a young wrangler spends most of his mornings here too.

• The Tall Kelp

  A towering kelp forest at the edge of town. It is the tallest thing for miles, so it is where somebody small always ends up stuck, and where somebody brave has to go and get them.

• Campfire Coral

  Glowing coral the whole town gathers around at night. The day gets talked over here, warm and slow, and this is where you find out what everybody learned.

• The Dunes and the Deep

  Past the last building the sandy dunes roll away like the Old West, and then the water turns dark. That is the Deep: the mysterious edge of the map, where trouble drifts in from.