Chapter Nine: Give Fish to Girls

Sky slept happily that night. Not even the strange nails poking his back could stop him from smiling in his sleep. If you were to open his eyes you would see dollar signs.

Oh, the things he could buy with the money he got! He almost did not want to wake up, his dreams were filled with too many wonderful items. He imagined him, wearing that large duck hat that he had always dreamed of wearing…it even quacked when he stood up…

For the first time in his depressingly strange life, Sky woke up bright and early. The shack seemed to radiate in the morning light and Sky put on his usual attire. (He didn't know how to wash clothes yet, it was too complicated.) And he went outside into the fresh morning air. He went into the storage metal building where he had put his large hoard of money.

He opened the door and found someone inside.

At first, he thought it was some sort of ape. It had a wild tangle of dark brown hair and only reached Sky's waist. Yet it was a human, and not a child. He watched the little man dig into Sky's hoard of coins!

"HEY! WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING?" Sky yelled, advancing towards the little man.

The man turned his head and smiled golden teeth. He had wide eyes. "Murrey want! Murrey want!" The little half-animal person was holding all of Sky's gold!

"NO! MY PRECIOUS!" Sky said and leaped out for the glittering objects in Murrey's hand. It was too late, though, Murrey dodged Sky and was out the door. By the time Sky had recovered from his dramatically slow fall, Murrey was out of site.

Sky kicked the metal storage building, then began to hop on one foot in tremendous pain. All his gold! Gone! Murrey left nothing behind but cobwebs! Oh, the horrors of the world!

A few nights ago, Sky had constructed his own Very Dirty List Mark II. Now, as he walked outside in the miserable morning weather, he began through his list in complete poetry.

Now what was he going to do? His money was gone, gone! All his lifework's, gone! The creature even stole his invisible motorcycle! Why when he got his hands on that little thief…

He pretended to strangle the air.

Betsy was outside eating grass, watching him. She mooed loudly. "Get a job, dork." She said.

"This is my job! LIFE is a big job!"

"Yeah, well I think life just fired you."

"So now what?"

"Figure out something to do to earn some money! If it is so important to you. I don't really care, just give me my grass." Betsy mooed.

Smiling mischievously, Sky ran over and squeezed all the milk out of Betsy then shoved the magically-bottled milk into the storage building.

Trying to figure out exactly how he was going to get money, he walked over to his 'crops'. At least, he thought they were crops. You could hardly tell the difference between the plant and the dirt. Sky kicked the weeds that were supposed to be tomatoes.

Then, a thought occurred to Sky. Sky was quite impressed, he had had many good thoughts these past few weeks! Perhaps he was becoming mad. Geniuses were supposed to be mad, right? He was going to be a genius! The voices were right!

Sky walked over to Takakura's door and threw it open. He put his hands on his hips and stood proudly in the doorway. "I…" Sky declared, "am going to become a world famous FISHERMAN!"

"Huh?" Takakura was busy cooking a gigantic fish and not paying attention to him.

"I am going to become a FISHERMAN and live on a BOAT! I shall be known as…Sky! Sky the FISHERMAN HERMIT-WHO-LIVES-ON-WATER!"

"Oh really? Do you have a boat?" Takakura asked.

"Uhh…no."

"Do you have any money to buy a boat?"

"Uhh…nope."

"Then I have news for your, sonny, you ain't getting no boat."

Sky folded his arms and frowned. "But I wanna be a fisherman!"

"Alright, then how about this? I have an old fishing rod by my bed. You can take it and use it to get some fish. You got to start small, Sky, I thought you knew that."

Sky gave up. Life really had fired him. "Fine, fine, give me the stupid fishing rod."

Takakura handed him a stick with a string on it. Then he threw Sky some worms.

"Uhh…do I hit the fish with this?" Sky asked, making a hitting motion with the stick.

"No, you toss the string in the water with the worm on it. You'll figure it out. There's a pond on top of the hill. You know, next to the evil harvest sprites?"

"Oh…right…" Disappointed, Sky left.

Instead of going down the hill like he usually did, he went up the hill. Believe me, he would much rather go down the hill. It's no fun going up a hill, no fun at all. I mean, what was the point of making you go up a hill? There was no point! You had to go down a hill!

Still, he went up the hill and entered a magical forest.

Beautiful trees surrounded him, blocking out a good portion of the beating summer sun. Little flowers that glowed blue were surrounding an enchanted pond. And it was all so magical.

Then he saw the Harvest Sprite's home.

It was a gigantic dead tree towards the edge of this oh-so-enchanted place. There were holes in the tree that made it look like the tree had eyes. Red Eyes. There was a very small door at the bottom of the trunk. A miniature sign had the word 'Beware!' painted on in red.

"Definitely staying away from there. Evil Elves." Sky snorted, approaching the pool.

"We're HARVEST SPRITES!" A tiny voice suddenly said. Sky jumped high in the air. The voice had come from nowhere!

Shaking himself, Sky sat down on one of the blue flower beds and threw a worm into the pond.

The worm floated, and then sunk.

"Oh yeah!" Sky exclaimed. He tied another worm to the string which was tied to the stick. He threw the worm in the water.

This time, the worm just floated there.

Sky sat, full of excitement, and waited. He waited, and he waited, and after that he waited some more. He waited so much that his excitement faded and he fell asleep.

A tug on the line woke him up.

"AHH SOMETHING HAS ME!" Sky squealed like a girl. Then, remembering his non-existent Fishing Guide 101, he pulled the stick and the string jerked out of the water.

There was something on the line, but Sky couldn't see it. He took out his microscope and looked again. After a moment, he saw a fish.

"Great! This is the fish I get! This is just sad!" Sky exclaimed, throwing the dead fish in his bag. He threw the worm-attached-to-a-string out again.

He waited, and he waited, and after that he waited some more. He waited so much that he fell asleep again. This time, he slept for quite some time.

Then, he felt this humongous tug on his arm. It nearly yanked his arm out of his socket!

"HEY! CUT IT OUT!" He said, feeling his sore arm. He tugged the string out of the water.

Taking is microscope out once more, he found the fish. It was bigger than the first, at least.

"These guys are strong! What are people feeding these pathetic things!"

"Man flesh!" The fish replied.

"Shut up! You're supposed to be dead!" Sky said, terrified.

The fish died. Once more, Sky threw the fish in his bag.

He threw the worm-attached-to-a-string out again. He waited, and he waited, and after that he waited some more. Almost falling asleep, Sky muttered, "Why do I feel like things keep repeating themselves? How dull." He yawned.

Suddenly there was a humongous, gigantic, oh-my-gosh-my-arm-is-gone yank. He got pulled straight from the ground and his arm sank into the water. Sky planted his feet, trying to hold himself.

"AHH! What is this thing?" He yelled as he struggled to hold onto the stick. The fish was dragging him under. Eventually Sky could not hold his feet anymore and he plunged straight into the water.

Inside was completely dark, kinda like the inside of his head. He couldn't see what was tugging him so much! And how did this water get so deep?

Oh, by the way, Sky could not swim.

He tried to hold his breath like he saw people do on TV, but for some reason he really wanted to open his mouth and do this breathing thing. Finally, he managed to let go of the rod and it sank to the bottom of this bottomless pond. His body floated to the surface and he gasped for air.

"Hi, Sky! You have fish!" A girl said.

Getting his soggy body out of the water, Sky turned and saw Celia staring at his bag of fish.

"Yeah, I am becoming a fisherman!" Sky exclaimed proudly, his clothes dripping water everywhere.

"Oh. Can I have a fish?"

Sky decided he hated fish. "Sure, whatever."

Celia then muttered under her breath. "Do I want fish?" She asked herself.

"Yes." She replied to herself.

"Okay." She said to herself again. She snagged up a fish and ran down the hill gleefully. "Thanks! Bye, Sky!" Celia said as she ran. Unfortunately, she had taken the biggest fish.

Gathering up his belongings, Sky began his way back down the hill. On his way down he saw Nami walking up.

"Where you fishing?" Nami asked him pleasantly.

"Yeah." Sky said, still feeling utterly disappointed.

"In…in WATER?" Nami asked, horrified.

"Uhh…well…I'm kinda knew at this whole 'fishing' thing and so I'm still starting on water." Sky said.

"Oh…well…can I have a fish? A dry fish?"

Sky honestly did not care any more. "Sure, take this one." He tossed her a very tiny fish.

"Ohh, this is very dry! Perfect for burning!" Nami hastily began to search for some of her matches.

"Right…have fun!" Sky said and ran for the hills. He smelled smoke all the way back from his home.