Episode Four:
Blue Fish
I continued experimenting with new methods of eating my food over the next few days, trying to be graceful like Lily, but none of them worked out very well. Sometimes I got food all over my body and needed to spend almost twice as much time as usual cleaning myself, because who wants to go to sleep with old bits of dinner caked on their belly? The food’s supposed to be inside the stomach, not on the outside. A few times I made the plate clang so loudly against the floor that I ended up scaring myself, and my stomach felt all ooey-gooey inside and I lost my appetite for a few seconds. And each time, Mom and Dad scolded me and complained that I was making a huge mess (although Abigail always seemed to find it funny). Eventually, I stopped trying and just went back to eating my food the normal way.
One day, my family came home with an interesting-smelling bag. Abigail set it on the floor in front of me. “Tiger, guess what! We got you some new toys!” she exclaimed, pulling items out of the bag one by one.
The first thing she pulled out was a little blue-and-white ball, which she rolled across the floor. I crouched into a preparing-to-pounce position, and my tail flicked back and forth. It was always fun to sneak up on objects that moved and try to attack them.
Before I had perfected my position, though, the ball stopped moving. I kept my eye on it for a few seconds, in case it started up again, but it didn’t, so I lost interest and switched my attention back to Abigail.
“We also got you this!” she crowed, pulling out a long, soft, colorful thing that she swished around in a manner that reminded me of how Lily moved in the water. Abigail swished it for a while, moving it up and down in front of my face, and I could feel my tail start to flick back and forth again as I imagined myself as a tiger in the jungle, preparing for the pounce. I jumped straight up into the air and snatched the soft, fluffy object, pulling it back down to me and biting into it. It tasted like nothing and felt weird between my teeth, but I felt successful at having subdued it.
“Aaaaand…” Abigail drew the word out dramatically as she reached into the bag one more time. “This is the one that I picked out. I think you’ll like it. This!” She pulled out a small, stuffed orange thing with a round part and a kind of triangular part. “See? It’s a fish! Like Lily!”
I stared at it, wondering if I’d heard her correctly. This thing looked nothing like Lily. Lily was shiny, and mesmerizing, and beautiful, while this thing was… not. It wasn’t that it was ugly or that there was anything wrong with it; it just didn’t look the way Abigail said it did.
Abigail wiggled the toy in front of my face. “Get the fishy. Get the fishy,” she encouraged.
“That’s not a fishy,” I said, but Abigail only rubbed my head and kept waving the toy in front of my face.
“There were other colors of toy fish too,” she told me. “Blue ones and green ones and pink ones. But I liked the orange one the best, because it reminded me the most of Lily. Dad wanted to get the blue one, but I said we should save that for people who have blue fish.”
Blue fish? Again, I wondered if I’d heard her correctly. What did she mean, blue fish? I thought fish were red-gold and shiny and dazzling, like a sunset. A sunset can’t be blue; then it would be a regular sky and the sun wouldn’t be setting at all. How can a fish be blue?
I decided to ask Lily about that once Abigail left to play with the neighbor boy. “Lily,” I said. “Have you ever heard of blue fish?”
“Of course,” she replied. “Where I used to live before coming here, there were fish of all different colors.”
“There were?”
“Yep.” Lily swished her tail. "In my tank, there were white fish, yellow fish, orange fish, red fish, brown fish, and black fish. In the tank next to mine there were some blue and purple fish. And on the other side, there were some bigger fish with blue and yellow stripes and big lips. I’ve heard that in the ocean, there are even more different kinds of fish.”
“What’s the ocean?” I asked.
“Well, I’m not sure if it’s a real place,” Lily confessed. “But according to the legends I heard from some of my friends at the place where I used to live, it’s this huge place with water as far as you can see, where fish can go anywhere they want and never have to worry about bumping into walls. It sounds pretty amazing.”
“That does sound amazing,” I marveled. I thought about the outside world I liked to watch from the window, and how it seemed to go on forever and ever like what Lily was describing. The tigers on the TV lived in places like that, places where they could just run as far as they wanted and never have to worry about hitting a wall or a couch or the skinny leg of a decorative table with a vase on it (that particular incident only happened once, when I was a kitten. After that, Mom and Dad stopped keeping breakable items on single-legged pieces of furniture). I thought about how exciting it would be to live in a place where the world was so big you could explore for an entire day and never run out of new things to see and do.
“How do you get to the ocean?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Lily sighed. “As I said, I don’t even know if it’s real.”
I glanced toward the door that Mom, Dad, and Abigail used every day, the door that led Outside, where I was never allowed to go. The ocean, if it was real, had to be Outside. I could probably get Outside if I tried. I could bring Lily with me, and we could go on an adventure together, looking for the ocean. Once we saw it, I could put Lily in there and she could swim around while I went into the jungle to hunt with the tigers. Then I could go back to the ocean and Lily and I could share all sorts of exciting stories with each other.
I settled down into a comfortable position, tucking all my paws beneath my body, and closed my eyes happily. I liked my plan. Now I’d just need to figure out when to do it.
One day, my family came home with an interesting-smelling bag. Abigail set it on the floor in front of me. “Tiger, guess what! We got you some new toys!” she exclaimed, pulling items out of the bag one by one.
The first thing she pulled out was a little blue-and-white ball, which she rolled across the floor. I crouched into a preparing-to-pounce position, and my tail flicked back and forth. It was always fun to sneak up on objects that moved and try to attack them.
Before I had perfected my position, though, the ball stopped moving. I kept my eye on it for a few seconds, in case it started up again, but it didn’t, so I lost interest and switched my attention back to Abigail.
“We also got you this!” she crowed, pulling out a long, soft, colorful thing that she swished around in a manner that reminded me of how Lily moved in the water. Abigail swished it for a while, moving it up and down in front of my face, and I could feel my tail start to flick back and forth again as I imagined myself as a tiger in the jungle, preparing for the pounce. I jumped straight up into the air and snatched the soft, fluffy object, pulling it back down to me and biting into it. It tasted like nothing and felt weird between my teeth, but I felt successful at having subdued it.
“Aaaaand…” Abigail drew the word out dramatically as she reached into the bag one more time. “This is the one that I picked out. I think you’ll like it. This!” She pulled out a small, stuffed orange thing with a round part and a kind of triangular part. “See? It’s a fish! Like Lily!”
I stared at it, wondering if I’d heard her correctly. This thing looked nothing like Lily. Lily was shiny, and mesmerizing, and beautiful, while this thing was… not. It wasn’t that it was ugly or that there was anything wrong with it; it just didn’t look the way Abigail said it did.
Abigail wiggled the toy in front of my face. “Get the fishy. Get the fishy,” she encouraged.
“That’s not a fishy,” I said, but Abigail only rubbed my head and kept waving the toy in front of my face.
“There were other colors of toy fish too,” she told me. “Blue ones and green ones and pink ones. But I liked the orange one the best, because it reminded me the most of Lily. Dad wanted to get the blue one, but I said we should save that for people who have blue fish.”
Blue fish? Again, I wondered if I’d heard her correctly. What did she mean, blue fish? I thought fish were red-gold and shiny and dazzling, like a sunset. A sunset can’t be blue; then it would be a regular sky and the sun wouldn’t be setting at all. How can a fish be blue?
I decided to ask Lily about that once Abigail left to play with the neighbor boy. “Lily,” I said. “Have you ever heard of blue fish?”
“Of course,” she replied. “Where I used to live before coming here, there were fish of all different colors.”
“There were?”
“Yep.” Lily swished her tail. "In my tank, there were white fish, yellow fish, orange fish, red fish, brown fish, and black fish. In the tank next to mine there were some blue and purple fish. And on the other side, there were some bigger fish with blue and yellow stripes and big lips. I’ve heard that in the ocean, there are even more different kinds of fish.”
“What’s the ocean?” I asked.
“Well, I’m not sure if it’s a real place,” Lily confessed. “But according to the legends I heard from some of my friends at the place where I used to live, it’s this huge place with water as far as you can see, where fish can go anywhere they want and never have to worry about bumping into walls. It sounds pretty amazing.”
“That does sound amazing,” I marveled. I thought about the outside world I liked to watch from the window, and how it seemed to go on forever and ever like what Lily was describing. The tigers on the TV lived in places like that, places where they could just run as far as they wanted and never have to worry about hitting a wall or a couch or the skinny leg of a decorative table with a vase on it (that particular incident only happened once, when I was a kitten. After that, Mom and Dad stopped keeping breakable items on single-legged pieces of furniture). I thought about how exciting it would be to live in a place where the world was so big you could explore for an entire day and never run out of new things to see and do.
“How do you get to the ocean?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Lily sighed. “As I said, I don’t even know if it’s real.”
I glanced toward the door that Mom, Dad, and Abigail used every day, the door that led Outside, where I was never allowed to go. The ocean, if it was real, had to be Outside. I could probably get Outside if I tried. I could bring Lily with me, and we could go on an adventure together, looking for the ocean. Once we saw it, I could put Lily in there and she could swim around while I went into the jungle to hunt with the tigers. Then I could go back to the ocean and Lily and I could share all sorts of exciting stories with each other.
I settled down into a comfortable position, tucking all my paws beneath my body, and closed my eyes happily. I liked my plan. Now I’d just need to figure out when to do it.
Next > Episode Five: The Vet
