what is the author's tone of the passage?

[1]When I was eight I brought home a hermit crab
from Chincoteague Island. He was a cluster
of six red crustacean limbs and two beady black eyes
poking out from a painted cobalt shell. One day
[5]I took him to the backyard and watched him climb over
exotic blades of grass. What was it that made me look
away?
Hermit crabs constantly grow to need bigger shells —
he surely crawled out to nothing but pavement and
shrubbery,
his soft body carried away by a robin, maybe, or
someone’s dog.
[10]But that bright blue shell must still be somewhere
in the neighborhood. A strange, alien monument that
leaves
all the backyard bugs whispering guesses.