A New Friend

Hi!  This is BUU again—you remember don’t you.  I’m a fish.  I live in Kisstrina’s fish tank.  I wanted to tell you about a new friend I have met.  One day while I was swimming around in my wonderful fish tank, being careful to avoid the ugly green Billfrog who is constantly going up to the air at the top of the tank, and then kicking down to the rocks at the bottom, over and over again, I happened to go very near the hard stuff which is not water or air, but I can see through it, over at the edge of the tank when I noticed something moving around slowly in another fishbowl.  If you look at the picture here you can just barely see the other fishbowl, and maybe just a little bit of my new friend.

  I pressed my nose up real close to the hard stuff and squinted my eyes and looked and looked.  There is another fish in there I thought, but a really strange looking fish.  I watched and watched him, but he did not seem to see me.  I even tried bumping my nose and flapping my tail against the hard stuff trying to make a noise so he would notice me, but he just kept moving around real slow.  I guess maybe I can not make enough noise that way, or something.  I was so, so curious.  How did the strange looking fish get in the other fish bowl.  How is it possible for there to be two fish bowls.  The water in his bowl looked just the same as mine.  Day after day I watched him.  The Billfrog said it was just another fish.  What was so interesting about it?  I couldn’t explain well enough to make him understand.  He just doesn’t think like a fish.

One day the guppy and the Billfrog were talking while I was looking at the other fish.  The guppy told the Billfrog if BUU likes the new fish so much why doesn’t he go over there and live with him.  I think the guppy was upset because I was not paying as much attention to him as I used to—I really think the guppy is in love with me.  I was not listening to them very much, but then the Billfrog said something that made me think.  The Billfrog said I don’t know why BUU doesn’t just jump over in the other tank if he likes the new fish so much.

Quickly I swam back down to the other end of the tank while I was thinking about what the Billfrog said.  My goodness, I thought.  I know I can swim fast, why almost every time Kisstrinas hand brings the food to drop in the tank, I am the first fish up there to grab a bite.  What if I just didn’t stop, but swam really hard to the top of the water, and leaped up in the air—some fish do that you know.  What if I swam really, really fast, jumped up in the air, and landed in the other fish tank.  Could I do it?  Would I land on the floor instead of the water in the other tank—it did not seem to have a very large top?  I decided to practice and swam over and over again to the top of the water, jumped up in the air a little bit.

Finally I was ready.  One night when Kisstrina was laying in her bed with her eyes closed being very still I decided I was ready.

  I told the Billfrog I was going.  He laughed at me.  He told me that the other fish was a mean old kind of fish that would eat me up if I made it into his fish tank.  I didn’t think so.  When I looked at him he looked like a really nice fish friend.  So I went all the way down to the bottom of the opposite end of my fish tank, swam around and around until I was going really fast and shot up toward the air at the other end of the tank.  Out of the water I flew, up into the cold, cold air.  I had calculated just exactly right so that I landed right in the other fish tank.  I did scrape my left fin just a little going in.  Plop!  I landed in the water by my new friend.    He was startled.  He swam all the way to the other side of his fish bowl and looked at me.  He asked me who are you, and where did you come from.  He said that he had heard of it raining cats and dogs, but never fishes.  I told him my name, that I lived in the other fish tank, that I had been watching him.  He was surprised.  He had not been looking around very much.  He had not seen me in the other fish tank.  We really had a nice visit, played around and swam together.  Finally I noticed that it was getting lighter outside in the air, so I needed to get back home before Kisstrina began moving around.  I swam real fast to the top of the fish bowl, jumped up in the air, but landed right back in the fish bowl.  I tried it again, and again but I could not get up enough speed in the shallow water.  I had not thought that there was less water in the fish bowl than there was in my tank.  My friend wondered what I would do, and finally said maybe I could make it if he helped me.  He held me in his fins while we both swam as fast as we could to the top of the fish bowl.  He jumped up in the air holding me, and just before he began to fall back in his water, pushed me up as hard as he could.  I just barely made it back into my fish tank, and do you know what happened.  I landed right on top of the Billfrog who was coming up for air.  Ouch, I said!  Get off me, the Billfrog said!

So that is how I met my new friend in the other fish bowl.  Now, when I go over to the side of my fish tank and look at him, he swims to the side of his fish bowl and looks at me.  The Billfrog thinks I am going crazy, and the guppy is mad at me, but I don’t care.  I have a new friend.