Fish rescue
Greetings from Cape Town!
Tallulah has been going to an after-school art class for the last few Tuesdays. Today, the project was for each child to decorate the outside of a goldfish bowl with paint. After the bowl was finished, the teacher poured in some gravel, some warm water, and a gnarly looking, big-headed black fish.
So, this explains how it came to pass that India was driving back from town this afternoon with Zola, Tallulah, and Tallulah’s new pet, Flounder. Having seen “Finding Nemo” a bunch of times, Tallulah made a point of telling everyone in her class that she was “no fish killer,” not like Darla in the movie.
On the drive home, the open bowl sat in the middle of the back seat, braced by backpacks. Tallulah fell asleep. The road above Camps Bay is twisty and narrow, and with every turn, some water sloshed out of the open bowl. Zola kept telling India, “Water is spilling out. Danger, Mom. Not much water left.”
On one hairpin turn, the bowl tipped over entirely, and Flounder found himself lying on the backseat of the car, gasping for water. The splash woke up Tallulah, who burst into tears, screaming, “Flounder is dying!”
Fortunately, India happened to be passing the only convenience store for miles around. She screeched into the parking lot and stopped the car. She sent Zola into the shop to find warm, non-carbonated bottled water. Then she lifted Flounder off the seat (yuck), and dropped him onto the dry gravel in the bottom of the bowl. Tallulah continued to cry.
With the fish bowl tucked heroically under her arm, and the doors to the car standing wide open, India ran into the store. Zola had gotten distracted by the ice cream display, and had not found any water. India found a few bottles, opened them, and poured them onto a seemingly very relieved Flounder. Zola asked, “Why does he keep opening and closing his mouth, Mom?” And then Zola asked for an ice cream.
As India waited in line to pay, with the full fish bowl balanced in one hand, and three empty bottles in the other, her cell phone rang. She set down the fish bowl and answered. It was a colleague calling from Nairobi to review some line edits on a document. “Can I call you back?”
She had Zola hold the fish bowl in his lap for the rest of the drive home. He got soaked. It turns out that the paint on the fish bowls was not waterproof (seems like a pretty basic oversight) so he may have ruined yet another Reddam School cricket uniform shirt. Flounder appears to have survived the experience, although the cat has been eyeing him with more than casual interest. Flounder may end up finding a happy home in the stream that runs next to our house.
An afternoon of drama and heroics. Almost as exciting as when we discovered, at the end of Zola’s first-ever swim team practice, that he had been wearing his new Speedo backward. Whoops.