Episode Six:
Water Everywhere!
It turned out, I didn’t find the ocean at the vet. At least, Lily didn’t think so and she’s super smart. While I know I saw something with a lot of water in it, once I described its size to Lily, she pointed out that it sounded only a few times bigger than the kitchen sink. And while the kitchen sink can hold lots of socks, Lily said the stories of the ocean made it a MASSIVE place. Lily thinks maybe what I saw was a fish tank. Like a bigger version of where Lily lives. If so, I didn’t see any fish, but maybe. Maybe the fish hadn’t moved in yet. I tried to think of what I would do with all that water. The thought made me shiver. Abigail tried to give me a bath once and that was horrible!
So instead of plotting out how to go back to the vet to find the ocean, I started spending most of my time when Abigail wasn’t home sitting by the window, looking out to see if I could spy the ocean anywhere near our house. It was possible, although I didn’t know how exactly I’d know what it looked like. Mostly, I just saw a lot of Big Brown Dog, who seemed a little crazy. For instance, he walked around in his yard a bit with his nose against the ground. To me that seems like an uncomfortable way to walk. And he actually chased a passing car away from his yard as it drove by - an entire car! I’d seen him do these things before, but never paid much attention to it - usually before, I’d sit by the window and in a few minutes my eyes would grow droopy and I’d sleep in the warm sunlight coming through the glass.
The third or fourth day after the trip to the vet was kind of rainy. I hopped up to my usual perch on the window sill, and found myself fascinated by all the water coming down from the sky. “Lily!” I exclaimed, making an incredible realization. “Do you think the ocean is in the sky? It could be hidden behind all those big gray clouds, and that’s why we’ve never noticed it before!”
Lily made a skeptical sound. “I don’t think so,” she said. “That doesn’t really make sense, because then how would the fish get down from the sky when they move from the ocean to their new home?”
“Same way the rain does,” I explained. “Through the little holes in the bottom of the clouds.” I was picturing clouds working kind of like how the faucet in the sink or the bathtub works, where someone can turn them on and off, and that’s why sometimes it rains and sometimes it doesn’t.
“Tiger,” said Lily. “Have you ever seen a fish fall from the sky?”
I thought about it and realized that never once in my entire life had I seen fish fall from the sky when it was raining. There went that theory.
Even though I was pretty sure watching the rain wouldn’t bring me any closer to finding the ocean, there was something soothing about it. The pitter patter sound on the roof and the graceful arcs of the droplets falling and bouncing off the pavement made my eyelids grow heavy. With a soft sigh, I closed my sleepy eyes.
“But Mom!” I woke with a start. Abigail must have gotten home from school, because I could hear talking loudly in the kitchen. “Can I please please please watch Nemo while I eat my snack?”
“There’s not enough time to watch Nemo, Abigail; we have to leave for dance practice soon,” Mom’s voice replied.
“But I don’t have to watch the whole thing! I can watch half now and half tomorrow. Please?”
Mom didn’t answer right away, but eventually said, “Get dressed for dance first, and then you can watch however much you have time for until it’s time to leave.”
A few minutes later, Abigail skipped into the living room and snatched the remote from the small table beside the couch. She turned the TV on and clicked through a few buttons, while I got up, yawned, and stretched, arching my back. I wasn’t always interested in what people were watching on TV, although I definitely found Abigail’s choices much more interesting than Mom and Dad’s, especially if there were tigers or other wild cats involved.
I jumped down from my perch on the windowsill and leapt up onto the couch, nestling myself against the side of Abigail’s leg
A moment later, I saw the screen light up blue, with a slightly distorted look about it. And then, swimming onto the screen, came an orange fish, kind of like Lily but with white stripes. I raised my head, stunned. No wonder Abigail wanted to watch this movie so much. It was about the ocean!
As the movie played, I realized that Lily was right - the water I saw near the vet’s office was much too small to be the ocean. In the movie, the ocean went on forever and ever in each direction, and there were a ton of other fish. I wasn’t sure whether the things happening in the movie were real or not, since the fish didn’t look entirely real, but I was still eager to learn anything I could. After all, the movie didn’t make up the ocean.
I watched with rapt attention, looking at the water and the fish’s interactions with it and other fish. The fish in “Nemo'', which I’ve discovered is officially titled Finding Nemo all had really huge eyes, but I guessed that that was just a specific type of fish or something.
Abigail stroked the back of my head and neck as she watched. Suddenly, Nemo (the smaller of the two orange and white striped fish, I learned) got scooped out of the ocean and brought to a smaller area of water. I wondered if this was how some of the fish Lily had talked to at the place she used to live were from the ocean.
My learning time didn’t last too long, because pretty soon Mom told Abigail it was time for dance, and Abigail had to shut off the TV. That was okay with me, though. I had plenty to think about already, and I’d just have to make sure I joined her whenever she continued watching.
So instead of plotting out how to go back to the vet to find the ocean, I started spending most of my time when Abigail wasn’t home sitting by the window, looking out to see if I could spy the ocean anywhere near our house. It was possible, although I didn’t know how exactly I’d know what it looked like. Mostly, I just saw a lot of Big Brown Dog, who seemed a little crazy. For instance, he walked around in his yard a bit with his nose against the ground. To me that seems like an uncomfortable way to walk. And he actually chased a passing car away from his yard as it drove by - an entire car! I’d seen him do these things before, but never paid much attention to it - usually before, I’d sit by the window and in a few minutes my eyes would grow droopy and I’d sleep in the warm sunlight coming through the glass.
The third or fourth day after the trip to the vet was kind of rainy. I hopped up to my usual perch on the window sill, and found myself fascinated by all the water coming down from the sky. “Lily!” I exclaimed, making an incredible realization. “Do you think the ocean is in the sky? It could be hidden behind all those big gray clouds, and that’s why we’ve never noticed it before!”
Lily made a skeptical sound. “I don’t think so,” she said. “That doesn’t really make sense, because then how would the fish get down from the sky when they move from the ocean to their new home?”
“Same way the rain does,” I explained. “Through the little holes in the bottom of the clouds.” I was picturing clouds working kind of like how the faucet in the sink or the bathtub works, where someone can turn them on and off, and that’s why sometimes it rains and sometimes it doesn’t.
“Tiger,” said Lily. “Have you ever seen a fish fall from the sky?”
I thought about it and realized that never once in my entire life had I seen fish fall from the sky when it was raining. There went that theory.
Even though I was pretty sure watching the rain wouldn’t bring me any closer to finding the ocean, there was something soothing about it. The pitter patter sound on the roof and the graceful arcs of the droplets falling and bouncing off the pavement made my eyelids grow heavy. With a soft sigh, I closed my sleepy eyes.
“But Mom!” I woke with a start. Abigail must have gotten home from school, because I could hear talking loudly in the kitchen. “Can I please please please watch Nemo while I eat my snack?”
“There’s not enough time to watch Nemo, Abigail; we have to leave for dance practice soon,” Mom’s voice replied.
“But I don’t have to watch the whole thing! I can watch half now and half tomorrow. Please?”
Mom didn’t answer right away, but eventually said, “Get dressed for dance first, and then you can watch however much you have time for until it’s time to leave.”
A few minutes later, Abigail skipped into the living room and snatched the remote from the small table beside the couch. She turned the TV on and clicked through a few buttons, while I got up, yawned, and stretched, arching my back. I wasn’t always interested in what people were watching on TV, although I definitely found Abigail’s choices much more interesting than Mom and Dad’s, especially if there were tigers or other wild cats involved.
I jumped down from my perch on the windowsill and leapt up onto the couch, nestling myself against the side of Abigail’s leg
A moment later, I saw the screen light up blue, with a slightly distorted look about it. And then, swimming onto the screen, came an orange fish, kind of like Lily but with white stripes. I raised my head, stunned. No wonder Abigail wanted to watch this movie so much. It was about the ocean!
As the movie played, I realized that Lily was right - the water I saw near the vet’s office was much too small to be the ocean. In the movie, the ocean went on forever and ever in each direction, and there were a ton of other fish. I wasn’t sure whether the things happening in the movie were real or not, since the fish didn’t look entirely real, but I was still eager to learn anything I could. After all, the movie didn’t make up the ocean.
I watched with rapt attention, looking at the water and the fish’s interactions with it and other fish. The fish in “Nemo'', which I’ve discovered is officially titled Finding Nemo all had really huge eyes, but I guessed that that was just a specific type of fish or something.
Abigail stroked the back of my head and neck as she watched. Suddenly, Nemo (the smaller of the two orange and white striped fish, I learned) got scooped out of the ocean and brought to a smaller area of water. I wondered if this was how some of the fish Lily had talked to at the place she used to live were from the ocean.
My learning time didn’t last too long, because pretty soon Mom told Abigail it was time for dance, and Abigail had to shut off the TV. That was okay with me, though. I had plenty to think about already, and I’d just have to make sure I joined her whenever she continued watching.
