Ditto. Stroke, Mr. Skimmer, Niches, Chang, Tanachi, Maisey, and Rosie, exc. are my characters. Everyone else belongs to Disney and Pixar.
AFPI: There are most likely huge mistakes throughout this whole chapter since once again I didn't do any research. I really know zip about everything in this chapter. If I offend anyone with any inaccuracies, I'm REALLY REALLY sorry! For a while I considered just deleting this whole chapter, but it has a good meaning. The whole point is to give a different perspective on tank life. I just hope it isn't too bad…
This chapter might be rated PG instead of G for a little…nudity? But, it's a child that's naked, and only for a second, so does it really count? Well, just to be safe…
This chapter is dedicated to Maze, a fish who was my real-life inspiration for the character Maisey. He died on April 7, 2004.
Chapter 9: Zebraglo
When I opened my eyes again, I stared into the monstrous face of another man. Although he looked worried, Tanachi had too. I was floating, trapped in the net on the top of a big pool inside of some building.
A second man, wearing a uniform came up beside him. "Didya reel the fish in?"
"Yes," the first man replied. "But I wonder if something's wrong with her. She doesn't seem to be moving much." He kneeled next to the pool's edge and looked down at me. "What's wrong there, little girl?"
Little girl? He was calling me a girl! I couldn't help it and burst out laughing. As I laughed, I jumped about and splashed him in the face. That should teach him not to call me a girl.
I expected him to get angry and say I was a freaky fish, or something like that. Instead, this man began laughing at my little attack. "Heh…it must be a boy. He got mad when I called him a girl."
The freeze came again, and he went back to worrying if there was something wrong with me. It struck me with fright- was this breaking the rules of animal-human communication? I didn't think so.
Slowly, the man reached out and lifted me just a few inches out of the water. The only reason I let him do it was because I knew if he tried anything, I could jump back into the water. My plan was that when he tried to take me somewhere else, I would jump and twist my body so that I fell just on the side of the net and I could swim on out away from prison. It didn't work that way.
The man turned me over and set his face to a concerned expression. "Well it's not hurt, but it was hurt at some time. I'm amazed it didn't die with scars like these. Poor little fella." My body shivered as his finger ran down the scars on my nose, my eye, and my neck area. Then he took my ripped fin between two fingers and held it out to examine it. I felt a bit like I was going for a checkup. Hovering above a pool and being poked by an unknown human was bad, but at least I was not in a container, slamming against the side.
My quickly devised plan went caput as this man was clearly experienced and knew how to hold fish without them getting away. He dunked me in the water for a moment, and placed his other hand on top. If he had squeezed just a little harder, I would've been able to pop out of his hands, but he knew how to hold me just right.
To my dismay, he plopped me into a little tank, a bit smaller than the one at Phil's office. "Don't worry," he called. "I'll be back in a little while to fix you up." I heard his boots squish away as he went out through a door in the back of the room.
I gazed at the pool and sized up the distance. No, I wouldn't be able to make it if I jumped out. Suddenly, I remembered what he had said, and it seemed very odd. What did he mean by "fix me up"? Fix me up for dinner?! Somehow, that seemed a strange solution. This man's kindly manner didn't seem like one that was seeing me as a tasty meal.
A while later, I was bored, so I glanced around trying to find a clue to where I was and what might be awaiting me when the man came back. As I frantically swam around, I saw a fish symbol surrounded by words on the back wall. I squinted for a while and a few minutes later figured out what it said: Eastern Coast Official Aquatic Life Conservation Center. ECOALCC. My mind whirled around, trying to find a definition for "Conservation". Didn't that mean something like to save? I wasn't sure, since no one at Phil's office liked to read the dictionary before having their teeth examined.
It was too late. I heard the door crash close and boots squishing closer and closer. I panicked and began praying. Please, just please don't let me die now, I thought. Please, I have much more I want to do in this life before it's over.
"Okay, little guy," he said. "Just relax. This might hurt for just a second, and then you won't feel a thing."
I looked up to see what he was talking about. Something very long and pointy was advancing on me. He was pushing it towards me- trying to shove it into my body! I yelled and swam away. Every time he got close with the needle, I would cleverly zoom out of the way. At last, I got him so aggravated he wasn't a very nice guy anymore. As I tried to turn a corner, he jabbed out with the needle, and it thrust into my body.
A few minutes later, he was injecting something into me and I struggled to stay awake. I dropped a little and slammed against the panel. No…I told myself. Stay…awake! Don't…let him…get you! It was no use, and at last I was completely knocked out, nothing but blackness surrounding me.
---
My eyes slowly fluttered and opened. The fuzzy scenery came into focus and I realized that I wasn't in the same place as before. Where am I? I wondered. And what happened? Did I die? As I glanced around, I didn't think it looked like a heavenly pool in the sky. In front of me was another glass panel, however this panel was nine feet high. On the other side was the blue hallway of the building. This was another fish tank, but a gigantic fish tank. Bunches of fish swam around above me in content.
At last, I reached down onto the sand and pushed myself up. As soon as I glided up into the water, I realized that something was different. I hadn't touched the sand on the right side. Also, I had been able to push myself with more power than I ever could before. Slowly, I brought my right fin out in front of me. Normally, I can only see the black movable strips that remained at the top, but suddenly I realized that there were more black spaces than before, and the white strip at the top had returned. I had a whole fin again.
How had that happened? I gently reached out with my left fin and touched the suddenly restored right one. As I felt it, I realized that it wasn't a real fin- the conservationist had fitted a thin plastic strip over where my fin had been torn off. It was bendable and strong, and perfectly attached to the real fin remains. It was just as good as if my fin had really been restored. With a little more examination, I realized that he also put a special kind of filler in my scars and it looked just like they had never been there. This was today's technology, and I was learning that if used properly, technology isn't a totally bad thing for animals. With today's technology, people like this conservationist can perform medical miracles for unfortunate animals such as myself. Technology is only evil in the hands of evil.
As I floated up into the extended prison, my tired eyes fell upon the menagerie of undersea wildlife whizzing past. There were brightly colored tropical fish, dull grayish cod, a manta ray, water snakes, and even a little dolphin. (At first I wondered why the dolphin and the snakes didn't eat the other fish, and then I realized that the conservationist kept them full by feeding them fish that had already died.) I was amazed with this multiple group integration. This place was a much roomier prison with many other cellmates, but it was still a prison. The various colors and shapes danced before me, and I didn't receive any suspicious glances. In a way, this was good. Maybe I wouldn't have to deal with any lunatics while I formulated a plan for penetrating this new challenge.
As I began to swim away, someone in the crowd suddenly separated and came zooming towards me. Mere minutes later, a big, rounded face was gazing at mine from the side. "Well, hello there!" she called.
I totally ignored her for the moment, involved in my plotting. I didn't want to lose my train of thought. Besides, in the back of my mind, I now thought it a wise thing not to get involved with other fish. I had already saved an imprisoned group. One group was enough; I had to concentrate on saving myself.
"Excuse me!" the fish yelled. "I know you might not be feeling very well after your operation, but you could at least say hi."
At last, I decided to turn around and satisfy her so that she'd go away. Surprise suddenly surged up. This fish was a girl, and she was bigger than me! Well, most fish are bigger than me on terms of width, but not many normal fish are taller than me, complete with filamentous extension. This fish was a light blue and pinkish color with many other color appearing as the light hit her body. A pink strip wound itself all around her face, and her mouth puckered inward like a beak. This was a parrotfish. From the look in her eyes and the intensity of her colors, I could tell that she wasn't very old.
"Um…what do you want, Miss Parrotfish?" I asked her.
"I would like you to say hello and introduce yourself like a gentleman. Now I know most fish aren't very…"
"Excuse me," I told her. "I may not be very friendly, but that doesn't automatically make me rude. Just leave me alone; I'm trying to think." For a moment, I had a taste of the silence I craved, but I could feel the parrotfish's eyes goring into my filamentous extension. Finally, I sighed and turned back around. "Alright…hi. So who are you?"
She smiled. "Knew I'd get you into a conversation sooner or later. My name's Maisey. Who are you?"
"Gill," I replied. "Sorry, but I'm very disappointed right now."
"Why?" Maisey asked, gliding up a little closer. "Shouldn't you be grateful for that brand new fin you got there?"
I wondered how she knew about that, but it wasn't a major concern for me at the moment. Suddenly, I felt that I would gladly give up my plastic filler if I could be returned to the ocean. I didn't need a new fin, I didn't need a facelift, I needed a place of my own out in the ocean.
"I…I am grateful, but I don't want to stay here. I know you might not understand the feeling because you've never been there, but I do. I need to go back home…wherever that is."
Maisey stifled a giggle. "Chill out, of course you'll go home, Mr. Gill."
For a moment, this confused me. Was she trying to play a trick on me? I knew she had to have something up her sleeve. When a man captures a fish, it usually means for life.
"Haven't you ever heard of places like this? That man that fixed your fin is a conservationist. Men like him take fish they think are injured or need help, fix them up, and then a few days later return them to the sea where they belong. We don't sell to pet stores."
I stared at her for a moment, a bit dumbstruck. I couldn't believe that a place like this actually existed. Most humans thought of fish as simply things they could buy, own, and look at for their enjoyment. I couldn't believe there were actually people that thought fish were living things to be respected, and belonged where they were meant to be. For a few unnoticeably silent minutes, I absentmindedly stared at the gigantic side panel, mulling over the truth-value of her statement. It was by no means certain that I could trust Maisey, a strange parrotfish I had only just met, although I couldn't help hoping that she had spoken truthfully. There was only one way to settle the dispute once and for all, and that was to get it straight from the source.
The conservationist had impeccable timing and entered into the blue illuminated halls, holding the hand of a small human child. I gazed down at the youth and my throat constricted. I ricocheted backwards, going into a coughing spasm.
Maisey tried to mask her amusement and confusion with a look of concern. "Hey, um…are you okay there, Mr. Gill?"
At last I got a hold of my convulsions and took a deep breath of clean, widespread, yet stifling water. "Who's that little girl?!" I yelled at her.
Maisey jumped back in alarm; I guess she had been expecting me to be calm again after a deep breath.
"Let me guess- she's the conservationist's niece and she's come here to kill one of us!"
Maisey's already large eyes enlarged to add a quarter of their size. "Uh, no. What would make you think you that? Look, did something happen to you in the past? Is that why you're so crabby? Huh? It's okay if you don't want to talk about it…"
My small radar beams lost track of Maisey. Frustrated with static, I tuned my radio to a different station. It was difficult to hear on the other side of the panel, but when you're trying very hard to ignore someone, you can hear amazing things. He was talking to her, but they weren't talking about cruel and unusual punishment. He was teaching her, and she was fascinated.
"This is where they go?" her little voice piped up.
"Yep," the conservationist replied. "Then I give 'em a week or two to recover, and we send 'em back into the ocean where they came from."
If any of the former tank members had seen me at that moment, they would have instantly recognized the wide-eyed, beak opened expression as the "Aquascum fascination". Amazingly enough, it was true- there actually were caring people on this planet.
Maisey stared in amazement as my gape transformed into a grin. I could see the conservationist and his daughter looking in my direction, and I quickly scraped up some way of showing them my gratitude. Like a dart, I shot forward, pulled my body up, and turned all the way over back straight up. I hadn't done a flip like that in so long it felt awkward, and I scolded myself for acting like a little kid.
Even though I knew the conservationist couldn't see my smile, I felt that he was returning it. "Yeah," he said. "You're really happy now, aren't you, little fellow? You look much better with a full fin and no scars all over you." He turned over to his daughter and pointed me out to her. "See that one right there? He's a new one, I just found him yesterday. He had half of his fin missing, and I fixed it for him. That's a Moorish idol. We don't get many of them around here."
The little girl watched me with much more awe than I ever got at Phil's office. "How can you tell it's a boy?"
The conservationist shrugged. "Well I don't know for sure, but he got mad at me when I called him a girl, so I just assumed…"
Little pleased giggles erupted from her throat, melodious compared to the roar of the flaming baby dragon. "Well, he's…he's beautiful," she commented. "He looks like a king."
"Well, Moorish idols are quite a majestic species," the conservationist explained.
"What's his name?" the girl continued.
The conservationist looked surprised. "Well, actually, I don't usually name my fish. You can name him if you want."
She paused and laid her little hands on the glass, concentrating. "The stripes make him look like a zebra, but zebras don't glow like that. I know! I'll call him Zebraglo."
The conservationist chuckled. "Then Zebraglo it is."
Immediately, my mind adapted to this new name. It wasn't much better than "Houdini", but I still found it amusing.
The conservationist was thinking for a while. He pointed next to me, at Maisey. "That one next to Zebraglo over there is Maisey, the parrotfish. See its mouth? It looks like a parrot's beak."
The little girl tore away from me for a second, looked at Maisey, and smiled. "Yeah, it does!"
Maisey, still rambling on, didn't even notice that they were looking at her.
A short while later, he led her out of the room. I noticed her face as she disappeared into the doorway. She was still looking at me. I noticed something very different about this girl, aside from her obvious maturity and gentleness. There was no flaming red hair. In fact, there was no hair at all. A piece of fabric was wrapped across her head. Slowly, I turned around, slapping Maisey out of her lecture. "So? Who was that little girl? Can you tell me anything about her?"
Maisey was shocked. "Wow. So suddenly you care about people? What happened to make that switch?"
I gave her one of my annoyed looks. I was a little apprehensive whether it would work on Maisey. Usually a key factor in getting whatever I want from other fish is intimidation by size, but she was bigger than me.
"Okay, alright," she at last agreed. "That little girl was the conservationist's daughter, her name's Rosie. That was only the second time she's been in here. Usually, he doesn't like to bring her out because she might collapse…"
Suddenly, for some reason I went frantic. It was either because I was afraid of losing a good person, or that my stay with Nemo had instilled me with a strange parental instinct. "Why? Is something wrong with her? If it is, why can't he just fix it, like he fixed my fin? What happened to her hair? Was she born without hair?"
Maisey suddenly began to laugh. "You don't know much about humans, do you?"
My beak instantly snapped shut. I had been thinking about maybe becoming a human expert. How could I be one when there was so much I still didn't know?
Maisey began a second lecture, but this time I was focused on listening to her. "Most humans are born without hair. It grows in later."
"Hers just never grew?"
"No, no!" Maisey cried. "Will you listen to me?! It fell out because she's got a very bad disease. It can't be cured, although they can do things to try and make it better. Not everything is as easily fixed as a broken fin."
For a moment, I drifted in one place, a bit shocked. Rosie would never fully be able to get rid of this illness she had. She was just like Nemo- no one would ever be able to fix his fin, but he could easily live a happy life with only one good fin. Rosie, however… Another wish came into my head. Immediately I began wondering whom this one would hurt, but it couldn't. I wished that I could help Rosie, make her life easier somehow. This was practically impossible, I thought. I'm only a fish stuck inside a fish tank, unable to communicate with her or survive in the outside environment; I couldn't do anything for her. Little did I know, I was already receiving my wish.
A few days later, the conservationist allowed Rosie to return to the building again. I was swimming laps around my side of the hallway when I heard the big set of double doors click and the sounds of hard little shoes tapping against the marble floor.
I just thought it was the conservationist again, coming in to check on us, but Maisey suddenly zoomed up beside me, gasping. "What's she doing in here unsupervised?!"
I glanced up and noticed that Rosie had entered the hallway alone. She walked around, searching the tanks for something. I blocked out Maisey's frantic voice in my ear, and listened to her worried tone on the other side. "Z…Zebraglo?" She was looking for me, I realized. Rosie slowly turned around and called again. "Zebraglo?"
Her face slowly turned orange and white stripes ran along the sides. She hovered a bit above, gazing into my world with a worried expression. She had become a little clownfish with a familiar little fin on one side. "Gill?" "Zebraglo?"
At last, I couldn't stand it, wanting so badly to help her, I darted through other small crowds of fish, and glided up in front of her.
Rosie's face lit up as she laid eyes on me. "Zebraglo! There you are!"
For the next five minutes I played stare-eyes with her. She stared at me the entire time with a fascinated little smile on her face. If the conservationist had walked in at that moment, he would've thought she had me in a trance, or I had her in a trance.
Slowly, her finger moved toward the tank. Oh no! my mind cried. I had been deceiving myself thinking that this child was different than the others like her. I backed away, bracing myself for the blast. It was only a lot of preparation for nothing. A faint bang echoed a bit as she laid one finger on the panel. The panic that had surged up in my body slowly melted away. The tip of Rosie's finger squished on the other side, trying to reach out to me, but a physical wall of glass and an unseen wall of difference obstacles stood in the way.
I swam a little closer and, hopefully not breaking the rules of animal communication, placed my left fin (although it didn't really matter which anymore) on my side of the panel, opposite her fingertip.
At first, Rosie's big eyes just widened in fascination, and then her face broke into the brightest smile I have ever seen on the face of a human. "Zebraglo…" she whispered. When her mouth opened again, it was for a triumphant call of "Daddy!"
As Rosie continued to call for the conservationist, I lowered my fin. I didn't know if this was breaking the rules, but the communication barrier was always thicker with adults.
At last, the conservationist came dashing into the room. He screeched to a halt in front of Rosie. "What? What is it, honey? Is something the matter?"
Rosie just beamed at him. "Zebraglo likes me, he tried to touch my finger! Watch!" She pressed her fingertip against the panel again.
I had been afraid of this. There was no way I could do something like that in front of the conservationist. He might start getting ideas that I was "special" and "intelligent". With observations like that, I could end up in a cruel scientist's laboratory.
"C'mon, Zebrglo…" Rosie said, concentrating. As last she turned, disappointed, from the tank side. "He's not doing it anymore, but he did it, I know he did it!"
I felt a small pang in my heart for disappointing her, but in some instances, disappointing a person is a better consequence.
Maisey jabbered at me for the rest of the day. "Wow, she's never done that before. She must really like you. It's amazing. Um, not that you're not likable…But, she's never liked one of us that much before…"
---
The next day, I aimlessly swam around, avoiding traffic and meditating at the same time. Waiting was the hardest part of this strange experience. The wait was killing me. I wanted to make sure that conservationist had been telling the truth, and I wanted to make sure I had nothing wrong with my hearing. Maybe I had a hearing impairment in which instead of hearing the truth, I heard what I wanted to hear.
For the past few days, the conservationist had noticed how happy Rosie was when she was around his fish, so he decided to let her come over and visit every day. Normally he'd be afraid to let her be walking around a place that was potentially wet and dangerous, but she usually felt better when she was happy.
That afternoon I eavesdropped on their conversation as they entered our chamber. "Now, Rosie," the conservationist told her. "You may stay in here with the fish, but remember, you have to get ready for your bath in a half hour."
"Sure, Daddy," Rosie answered him. She seemed to be glowing with eagerness. As soon as her father turned and closed the door behind him, she hurried over to my side of the tank hallway. "Zebraglo!" she called. "Oh, Zebraglo, come out! I've got a surprise for you!"
This had me stumped. What was the surprise? Fish food? Rosie couldn't get to the top of the tank to put anything in, so how could she give me a surprise? I swam out of the crowd and up to her. Maisey followed close behind. Maybe she wanted to show me something. And people say a fish's behavior is hard to decipher!
"There you are!" Rosie cried. "You getting to know Maisey? She's a pretty fish, too. You make a good couple."
Maisey's bluish cheeks flushed pink.
I turned around to look at her.
"Oh…" Maisey replied, snapping out of her embarrassed trance. "A long time ago they named me, even though they usually don't name their fish."
Rosie smiled at us, and then she quickly walked to the end of the tank hallway.
"Where's she going?" I asked.
"Oh no!" Maisey shrieked. Then I realized why. Rosie was beginning to climb the ladder at the end of the hallway. It led up to the top of the tank. "Someone get her down from there before she falls!"
I zoomed as fast as I could towards that end of the tank. Then I wondered how I could get her down.
"Do something!" Maisey cried.
"What am I supposed to do? Yell at her to get down?! Humans can't hear fish talk!" I instantly began tapping on the panel on the side, trying to get her attention.
"Shh, Zebraglo," Rosie said to me. "My dad will hear!"
I tried as hard as I could, making mad faces, pointing down, and shaking my head at her. She didn't seem to get the message and began laughing, thinking that I was playing with her. Frantically, I searched around, trying to find some way to alert the conservationist. Unfortunately, there was no underwater pull rope to sound the emergency alarm. I quickly swam to the top. Maybe I could try jumping up and trying to hit the alarm above. I never got a chance to try out that method.
Suddenly, Rosie, at the top of the ladder now, swooped down, and bagged me. I was surprised at how such a little girl could be so sneaky.
Maisey gasped. "Mr. Gill?!"
I was unsure about what was going to happen. Rosie had seemed like such a sweet girl, she couldn't want to swirl my bag and kill me…could she? No, she was holding my familiar crinkled sphere shackles gently while descending the ladder.
I saw Maisey glide up and press her fins against the panel in worry. I guess Rosie had never bagged any of them before.
She seemed to be taking me somewhere. I tried to wiggle the bag top out of her grasp, but she had a very strong hand. I thought that if I could get free of her, I could roll myself around and find the conservationist. I did get a nice tour of the conservatory.
Rosie at last halted as she reached a small bathroom on the side. I guessed that her father didn't only work here- he lived here. Rosie slipped into the room and set me down on a shelf. I was confused as she began to strip her clothes off and grab a towel out of a nearby closet. I did remember her father saying that she needed to take a bath. That's what this is, I realized. She wants to take her bath, but she doesn't want to have to leave me. I figured she'd just be looking at me while she cleaned.
Once she was fully disrobed, she grabbed my bag and placed it on the edge of the tub and then climbed into the tub herself. I turned around, posing for her. Great, I thought, I've become a shelf ornament. However, I was wrong, and this wasn't the reason for my transportation.
She gently opened the bag and plopped me into the tub beside her. I coughed for a moment, adjusting to the warm bathwater. She stared down at me with fascination. With one smaller finger, Rosie reached out and petted my filamentous extension. "You're so pretty, Zebraglo," she cooed, gently stroking it again.
I stared up into her eyes, unlike the cruel, glittering eyes of old memories. And then, I knew that there were good and bad people in the world. I had experienced both. Poor Rosie. All she wanted was to be part of my world, but this bath adventure was the closest she could get.
A few minutes later, the conservationists stomped into the bathroom. "Rosie! Oh my God!" he quickly scooped me out of the water and stuffed me back in the bag. "Did you take this fish out of the tank?"
Rosie frowned. "Yes…Daddy, I only wanted to see him closer. I wanted to touch him…"
I felt my throat constrict in sadness. This little girl just wanted to love me, but because of species differences, it was impossible.
"Zebraglo is not a toy. He's a living creature. If you handle him too much, he'll die. Tropical fish like this are very delicate…"
Suddenly, Rosie began crying, a heart-wrenching sight. She got up from the bathtub, wrapping a towel around herself, and rushed up beside me. "No! Zebraglo, I love you; I don't want you to die!"
"Then let's put him back in the tank where he's safe," the conservationist said. I felt as if the mental tape of my field trip to the bathroom was being rewound. I floated back through the halls in my crinkly sphere, this time with a much stronger hand gripping the top. The conservationist climbed up the ladder and deposited me into what I now considered not to be a jail cell, but a huge, community hospital ward.
Of course Maisey swam right up to me, asking for all the details, but I put off telling her for a little while.
What would I do if Rosie tried something like that again? How could I get rid of this love she had for me without breaking her heart? For the next two days, she still came over, but just gazed into the tank listlessly. I didn't really feel bad about what happened- it hadn't been my fault, but I just felt bad for her. There had to be disappointments in her life, and unfortunately, she had a lot of disappointments.
On the second day, I found out that she was going to have to go back to the hospital soon, and I felt even worse for her.
The day after that, I got a pleasant surprise when the conservationist briskly walked into the room, gazing at me, and smiling. "Well, Zebraglo," he said. "Today's your lucky day; you get to go back into the wild with your brand-new fin!"
Rosie snuck in behind him and heard everything he said. He noticed her little bald heard peeking around the door. "Rosie…you can come say good-bye to the fish, if you want. I've got to get the nets and the boat ready." Rosie shook her head and disappeared back into the hallway.
I felt a pang of guilt, although I didn't know what for.
Maisey's big, colorful body glided up next to mine. "So you're leaving, huh?"
"I better be leaving," I absentmindedly muttered to myself.
"Yeah, I know," Maisey said. Her voice was dull and expressionless. "You can't stand this place, right?"
As I stared out across the hallway, a curious thought crawled into my brain, and once again I wondered why I hadn't noticed this before. "Maisey, you're a fish and you're here in this conservatory. How come you haven't been sent back to the ocean?"
"Oh," Maisey replied in a bored fashion. "I can't leave."
My one-track mind of this time instantly jumped to a conclusion. "What?! You can't leave? They must be holding you hostage! Don't worry; I'll get you out of here!"
Maisey stifled a laugh. "Well, that's very kind of you, Mr. Gill, but you see…I want to stay here."
I froze in place and turned back around to face the corridor.
Maisey swam around and looked me in the face. That was the one thing that always fascinated me about Maisey. Maybe it was because she was a bigger fish, but she was never intimidated by my large snout, filamentous extension, or serious facial expressions. "I want to stay here, because I feel like this is a part of my life. The conservationist, Rosie, and the other people who work here…they're all like family to me. Besides, I get to meet lots of fish like you who are just passing through." She paused for a moment to sigh. "I know you can't understand how I feel, but I'm just trying to explain it to you."
I shook my head and smiled at her. "I understand. This is where you belong; this is your home. I'm still trying to find a place like that for me. I don't know where that is, but I know it's not here."
Maisey gave me a smile back. "Well, good-bye, Mr. Gill. I hope you find your home."
"Good-bye, Maisey," I replied. Now I was satisfied.
I turned back over to look out the panel and was surprised to notice little Rosie, her kerchief off, curled in a ball and sobbing. "Zebraglo," she said, looking up at me. "I love you, I want the best for you, but I don't want you to leave me…"
The agony of her tears was too much. I didn't care anymore about rules; this girl deserved a special farewell. I took a seaweed stick that had been lying in the sand in my left fin, and carefully I began to write backwards, so she could read it. She watched in fascination as I formed characters on the tank siding. "I will never forget you, Rosie. Please don't cry."
The shock dried her tears and her face broke into a smile. She stood up on the other side. "Zebraglo! You can write!"
Quickly, I scrawled, "Don't tell."
She grinned. "Don't worry, it'll be our secret."
I gave her a little wink. This was breaking all the rules of human-fish communication, but Rosie's smile was worth it. She opened her mouth again, probably to ask me a question of some sort, but at that moment the conservationist returned to the hallway.
"Okay, Rosie, are you ready?"
"Sure!" Rosie cried.
The conservationist was surprised at her enthusiasm. "You sure? You're ready?"
"Yeah," Rosie said, turning to look at him. "I bet he'll be happier out in the ocean where he's free."
"I'm glad you understand," the conservationist and I both said at the same time. This made me suddenly break into laughter and Maisey looked at me like I was nuts.
Then, the conservationist picked me up in another bag, and I happily let him. He then emptied me into a cooler, kind of like the one Tanachi had out me in years ago, except he handled it with care as we all walked out to the docked boat.
The conservationist and Rosie got into the boat, placed me on the floor, and opened the top of my container. The conservationist trusted me not to jump out. A few times during the boat ride, I popped my head out of the water to feel the wind whipping around my face. It reminded me a bit of being shot out of the volcano. I was being shot out of this obstacle, except I was moving backwards instead of forwards.
At last, the conservationist stopped the boat. "Okay, we're closer to the reef now. It's time for Zebraglo to go." He picked up my container and tossed me over the side.
I felt the triumphant slap of the water around me. At last I had my freedom, and this time I hadn't had to fight for it.
"Bye, Zebraglo!" Rosie called.
I poked my head up to give her a final farewell, waving my fin at her before dunking into heaven. As I began to swim away, I heard their voices from the surface.
"Daddy, did you see that?! Zebraglo waved to me!"
"Um…" the conservationist said, a little baffled. "Maybe he was just stretching his new fin."
I chuckled to myself. I knew that he had plainly seen me wave, but he just couldn't believe that a fish had waved to his daughter.
With the extra plastic filler, I could move a bit swifter and faster than I could before. With a restoration of both body and spirit, I zoomed off into the beautiful blue expanse, heading to my future. What I had set up for myself was impending, and I could feel it in my soul, although my mind remained clueless. The distant spot of light had grown and grew closer with each experience. However, before I could arrive at my destination, I had to make a detour first.