Girl Crush Crawdad Fixed May 2026

This is the story of how a seven-year-old girl named Ellie, her secret crush on a boy named Leo, and a broken crayfish led to a moment of pure, unscripted kindness that has teachers, parents, and even marine biologists tearing up. It started in Mrs. Hendricks’ second-grade classroom at Maplewood Elementary in Lebanon, Missouri. The class had a small, 10-gallon “wetland corner” aquarium—a standard educational setup with a few minnows, some aquatic plants, and a single male crawdad (colloquially known as a crawfish, crayfish, or mudbug) named “Pinchy.”

“Fixing him,” Ellie said, with a confidence that should have alarmed any adult in the room. girl crush crawdad fixed

Pinchy was the class pet, but he wasn’t in great shape. One of his claws—a smaller pincer, not the large dominant one—had been missing since a molting accident the previous spring. For a crawdad, a missing claw is not usually life-threatening. They can regrow limbs over several molts. But in a small tank with faster fish, Pinchy struggled to eat. The other minnows would dart in and steal his food pellets before his remaining claw could grasp them. This is the story of how a seven-year-old

So she built what she called a “crawdad cafeteria.” The class had a small, 10-gallon “wetland corner”

Ellie’s mom posted the photo on Facebook with a simple caption: “My girl had a crush on a boy in her class. She saw he was upset about their class crawdad, so she built a feeding station. Girl crush crawdad fixed.”

“Girl crush crawdad fixed.”

Sometimes, it’s just a twist-tie, a Lego tire, and a seven-year-old who wanted to make a boy feel better.