Fishy and her Hat


There was this fish, named fishy. It was really fishy, if you know what I mean. Well this is kind of a fishy story, yaknow. The fish had this bright hat with a gold rim. It was a beautiful hat. It suited fishy so well. Fishy would swim around with its hat on, and everyone loved fishy’s hat. Fishy kept on the hat with this long, long twine that wrapped around her body.

One day, fishy was swimming along, and the twine got caught in some coral. Fishy struggled and struggled and could not get loose. She wriggled and jiggled until finally she got loose, but then her neck got caught, and it felt like a noose. She screamed for help, but nobody came, so she just waited, and waited, and waited, until she finally gave up waiting. She just floated with this twine all around her, and then she bowed her head, and voici!, she was free. At the same time, her hat floated away. Well, she didn’t know where the hat was. So she said HMMM. Which way should I go?? At the moment, her friend wishy came along.

Fishy asked wishy if he wanted to go look for her hat with her. Well, wishy was being very wishy-washy about the idea. He said, I don’t think I can, I hear my mother calling me for supper. Fishy said, oh, that’s too bad. So, fishy watched wishy go straight home for supper. And there fishy was, all by himself; well except for the seaweed and the sand, and the turtles, and whoever else was living in the sea. Fishy started swimming, and there was this bright light over that way. It looked like her hat. She was so excited, she swam as fast as she could, but nothing was there, so she floated along, and then she saw something else that looked like her hat, so she swam as fast as she could, but nothing was there. Well, fishy was really mad at this point. Then, she felt something tickling her body all over. She didn’t know what it was. She looked up, she looked down, she looked to the left, she looked to the right. She looked all around, and then she noticed this shiny, bright thing right in front of her nose. It was her hat!, or what was left of it. There was just a little tiny piece of fabric still attached to the gold rim. Well, the little tiny piece of fabric just fell off, and she noticed a little gap in the rim. It looked kinda like a nose ring, so she decided to call it a nose ring, and then put it on. She said, hm, I’ll wear this to school on Wednesday, ‘cause Wednesday is nose-ring day. Oh, I can’t wait until Wednesday, she thought.

Well, she went on playing, and saw Turtle. Turtle said, hey you want to go hang out by the rocks? It’s pretty cool over there. She said, sure, I can show everybody my nose-ring, So, she went with Turtle to the rocks, and hung out with Turtle and their friend. She was so happy. She noticed that the turtles were wearing these sun-glasses. Fishy said, hey, where’d you get those groovy sunglasses, and they pointed to the five and dime, and fishy got a really cool pair of cheap sunglasses. She hung out with her friend for a bit on the beach, at least part-way on the beach. She had to keep wet and salty, you now. So she was jumping the waves, and her sunglasses fell in the water. She said, oops, oh well, somebody else is going to get to wear those sunglasses, or maybe they’ll turn into something else. and when she was hanging out with her turtle friends, voici - a new hat snuck up on her when she was not looking. She said, hmm, what a life this is. You never know what will happen next.

Copyright 2002 by Chris Chalfant