Chapter 21
Joining the Party
Hi, Angie here. And as you can guess, I'm still here with the kids. Except with now, they're suggesting some names for my baby, ain't that sweet?
"My name's Gwendolyn." Said a little girl Anglerfish, she was a lot smaller than Chloe. "Maybe if the baby's a girl, then that might be a nice name."
"Gwendolyn?" I thought about that name. "Well, like I said to the others, I'll have to think about it.
"What about me?" Said the glassfish behind her. "It's my turn to think of a name for the baby!"
'Gwen?' I thought to myself. I like the sound of that name… Gwen… Gwen… If I had a little girl then maybe… Hey, that name didn't sound bad at all.
"Angie!" Jaiklin the glassfish jumped up and down in front of me, waving his fins about to get my attention.
"Oh, I'm sorry, honey."
"You like the name Gwendolyn, don't you?"
"Yeah, actually I do."
"But what if it's a boy?"
"Well, I already know your name. Jaiklin, right?"
"Right." Jaiklin nodded with a sad little look on his face. "Do you think you'd call the baby Jaiklin if it's a boy?
"Well…" I thought about it for a few seconds. 'Jaiklin'… 'Jay'… Jay… Hey! 'Jay' didn't sound too bad either. Wow, I was actually finding some baby names that I liked!
"Well?" Jay… I mean, Jaiklin was eager for an answer.
"I'll have to think about it."…
I told Jaiklin just what I told the other kids. I didn't want any of them getting disappointed if they knew I liked the names 'Gwen' and 'Jay'.
"O-K!" I smiled at the others. "Who's next?"…
But then… "JACK'S BACK!" Somebody yelled from the cavern entrance.
All of a sudden, the kids who were all lined up in front of me all scattered and swam for the entrance crying out things like "It's Jack!" "Jack's back!" "Jack!" "Yay, Jack!"
Three of the kids got me up off my seat and encouraged me to swim to the entrance…
"You HAVE to meet Jack, Angie!" - "Yeah! Jack's gonna help you find your friends." - "Jack's our leader! He'll help you!"
So, I was hurried round the corner or the rocky wall… But as I got there, I could hear the children change the tones of their voices… now they sounded shocked and amazed… and they were saying things like: "Cor!" "Shark!" "It's a shark!" "It's enormous!"
A shark? I thought Emily said that there were no sharks in the Twilight Zone…
I then turned the corner… and there in front of me was this 'Jack' the kids had been talking about; A Red and black Lionfish staggering drunkenly… and he had company…
Oh my gosh!… "LENNY! EMILY!"
…
Oh my gosh! I just couldn't believe it… "Angie!"…
Hi, guys! It's everybody's favourite vegetarian shark! That's right! It's me; Lenny!
Now, all this time I wasn't so sure about trusting this 'Jack' guy. But the moment we swam into the cavern and I saw a pretty little pink angelfish swimming towards us I guess he proved me wrong.
"Angie!" I swam straight for her. "Angie, Angie, Angie!" I squeezed hold of her. "You're alright! You're ok! Me and Emily have been so worried!"
"Lenny…! Uh!" Oops, I think I was hugging Angie a little too hard. "Lenny, not so hard… my baby."
"Oh, right, right, right…" I was quick to let her go. "Sorry."
"Oh, Angie…" Emily paddled across to where Angie floated. "Angie, it such a relief to know you're alright!" Emily gently hugged Angie as Angie hugged back.
"Where's Oscar?" Emily said hopefully.
"Yeah." I hoped so too. "Didn't he catch up with you when you sank?"
Angie suddenly sounded distressed. "But… But I thought he was with you!"
"We thought he was with you!" Emily talked in a tense, high-pitched voice.
And that's when Jack caught on to what was happening.
"Hang on, now, mates." He swam to the three of us with all these kids following him, (I guess they must be the Minions that Emily was talking about). "Now, I get it that this pink lady's one of the friend you have been looking for, aye?"
"Yes, Jack!" Emily swam to him as Angie was clearly starting to panic. "But Oscar's still out there! AND my little brother Tyler's somewhere out there too!"
"A wrasse and a glassfish?"
"Yes!" The three of us all yelled out.
"Alrighty then, time together a little search party…"
Jack then turned to the Minions and cried out…: "Quick! Kids! All of yas! We're going hunting!"
And just like that, all of a sudden, the kids scattered! Swarming around like mosquitoes and racing to get supplies.
But as they when to gather their things… well, err… they seemed to be a little distracted by me…
"Hunting?" Angie didn't like the sound of that. "What do you mean 'hunting'?"
"I mean were gonna go out looking for your hubby, savvy?"
"Oh…" Angie still didn't seem to happy about how Jack talked or the terms he used. But, she just took a big, deep sigh, shook her head and tried to calm herself, (I guess all that stress couldn't be good for the baby. "So." Angie sighed. "You must be Jack."
"Aye. That I be."
But in the background… Well, let's just say that the kids were taking an interest to me…
"You must be exhausted looking after all these kids." Angie said to Jack. "Oh… but they're all so sweet…"
"Err…" Emily noticed what was going on with the kids… they were a little distracted from their packing and gathering… "Jack… I think you'd better help Lenny out, here."…
I was surrounded by thirty children who were all staring at me and swarming around me and saying things like. "He's massive!" - "He's a little squidgy for a shark, isn't he?" - "How would I know? I've never seen a shark before and neither have you." - "I wonder if he does any tricks!" - "Maybe we could teach him to roll-over!" - "Yeah! Roll-over!" "Look at the size of his teeth!" - "I think that's the part you've gotta worry about." - "His mouth's as big as the Onsthorpe Fountain!" - "I bet the Onsthorpe Fountain would FIT in his mouth!"
Ok…
Suddenly I was VERY popular…
"Err, kids?" I tried to get their attention.
"COR!" They all swam back and stared wide eyed. "He talks!" Said one of them.
"Oi, you lot!" Jack called over to them.
They all suddenly rushed over to Jack and started chattering thinks like: "Can we keep him? Please?"
Jack tried his best to hush them all down and organise them.
"Hey, Lenny?" Emily swam next to my nose. "How does it feel to be so popular?" She jokes a little.
"Well… at least they're not scared of me." I shrugged.
I looked over to Angie who had one fin on her baby-bump and was staring over at all these chattering kids. I think she was feeling over whelmed by them all. She must have been relating her own kid to all these kids who were completely uncontrollable!
"Hey, Angie." I called to her. "At least you only having one." I smiled.
Angie smiled back at me. I she was really looking forward to having her baby. She didn't look like she was worrying about a name anymore… Maybe she'd thought of one now!… I wondered if Oscar had thought of any names yet too… wherever he was…
"OI!" Jack yelled at the kids. "Simmer down! We've still got two poor lost souls to find out there!"…
But suddenly… three of the kids on guard outside came swarming into the cavern shouting… "INBOUND! INBOUND!"…
We all turned our heads to the cavern entrance, even the kids stop chattering and turned their attention to the loud alert.
The three catfish kids swam right up to Jack! "Intruder inbound!" - "Someone's coming this way!" - "And their being chased by crabs!"
"Wait a sec!" I swam to the kids gathered around Jack. "What's going on?"
But they didn't take any notice of me this time.
Jack then leaped into action… he suddenly didn't seem to drunk anymore! "Right!" I swam up over the kids. "Lights-out! The lot of ya!" He started to give orders. "Chloe, Gwendolyn, you go check it out. Rest of you, darken this cavern!"
The kids then all suddenly started scattering and calling out: "Lights out!"
"Wait!" I hear Angie start to panic as much as me with all the commotion.
"Wait!" I called out as the cavern started to get darker. "What's going on?" As the light in the cavern disappeared it was then that I realized the it was the kids themselves who were lighting up the cave; some of them made their own light! And as each of them turned their lights out, the cavers eventually became pitch black.
"Lenny, Angie." Emily swam over to us both in the dark. "Come with me. We've gotta hide!" Emily placed a fin on my nose and guided me in the pitch black. Angie was holding Emily's other fin as Emily was guiding us both to somewhere were we could hide.
"Emily." Angie asked urgently. "What exactly is going on?"
"I'll explain in a sec… But right now we need to take cover…"