Edward Is Only a Fish

 

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CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright Notice

Dedication

One: How Wet Can You Get?

Two: The Biggest of the Big

Three: Fourteen New Friends

Four: One Hug Is Too Many

Five: The Cow in the Bottle, the Horse in the Mail

Six: Captured!

Seven: Dogs on the Rooftop, Fire in the Tub

Eight: The Best Fish in the World

Nine: The E & B Goldfish Express

Ten: High and Dry

Copyright

 

To

Carole (the Big Fish) and Casey (the Little Fish) and all the Florida Fishes who listened to this story

—
A. S.

 

To

Mark Fisher III

—
R. W. A.

One

HOW WET CAN YOU GET?

Edward the fish watched Mr. Billingsly run the bathwater again. The white suds made it look like a Boston Cooler—ginger ale and vanilla ice cream all whipped up together in a froth. Edward wished that he could be swimming around in a Boston Cooler. Edward wished that he could take a trip to Boston to visit the famous Boston Cooler in the center of Boston Harbor, 650 times bigger than the bowling ball-sized fishbowl he was living in now. Edward wished that he could take a vacation.

Mr. Billingsly left the water running while he ran outside to pluck a tangerine from one of the tangerine trees in the backyard.

“Take it from me, partner,” said Mr. B as he hip-hopped across the floor in his bare feet, “nothing tastes better in the tub than a nice, ripe, juicy tangerine.”

Whoomp!
The fishbowl shook as the door slammed behind Mr. Billingsly. Edward swam around and around in his tiny circle of water. He tried to imagine what a tangerine would taste like, or what a tangerine blossom would smell like, or what a vacation to Jamaica, a trip to the nation of Jamaica, a dip in the tangerine-flavored waters of the Jamaican nation would feel like, but Edward was a fish, and fish do not get to take a vacation.

The water sang a tune as it tumbled out the spout, like a piper and a drummer in a marching band.

Ba-bam-bam-bam! Ba-bam-bam-bam!

It was Mr. Billingsly. He stood at the window with a towel around his waist and a tangerine tucked under his arm. He was pounding on the door, shaking the water from his arms and his legs, and chattering through his teeth in the wind.

“Edward! Edward!”

Edward held his breath and popped his head out of the fishbowl.

“Edward! I've locked myself out of the house. Open the door, Edward, open the door!”

Edward blinked his eyes at Mr. Billingsly. He liked Mr. B. He liked the cowboy songs Mr. B would sing to him and the rain dance Mr. B would dance for him and the sourdough Mr. B would bake for him, but Edward was a fish, and fish do not know how to open the door.

While Mr. Billingsly ran around and around the house, pounding at the doors and the windows, the bathwater bubbled up and over the soap dish and the washcloth and the silver platter of corn bread he was saving for later in the day. It was picking them all up and carting them all away. It was rolling out over the walls of the tub like an avalanche.

“Turn off the water, Edward, turn off the water!” cried Mr. Billingsly. He was calling down through the kitchen chimney. “Stay calm, Edward, stay calm! Go over to the faucet and turn the water off!”

Edward was very calm. In fact, Edward was almost peaceful. The water rolled itself out across the blue tile floor. It was very beautiful in the morning light, like a blanket of melted butter on a bed of blueberry toast.

“Do you hear me, Edward?”

The water licked up the stamps in Mr. B's book of stamps—
slurp, slurp, slurp
—and swallowed them whole. Brick by brick, Mr. B's sugar-cube castle—
sssssssss-ssssssss
—dissolved into a sugary goo. Boot by boot, Mr. B's cowboy boots floated out of the closet and down the hall—
clippity-clunk, clippity-clunk, clippity-clunk
—as though they were taking themselves out for a walk.

“Turn off the water, Edward!”

Edward decided that, well, maybe it would not be such a good idea to turn off the water after all. Water is good. Everybody likes a drink of nice cold water. It's water that makes the plants grow. It's water that makes the clouds burst and the rapids run, that puts the snow into snowmen and the hurry into hurricane. Without water there would be nothing but a big empty hole where the ocean is supposed to be. Water is good.

“Edward!”

And besides, Edward was a fish. Fish do not know how to turn off the water.

Two

THE BIGGEST OF THE BIG

Blub-blub.
Mr. B's yellow-checkered walking shorts disappeared beneath the water.
Blub-blub, blub-blub.
Down went Mr. B's eagle-feather war bonnet from Buffalo Gap, South Dakota.
Blub-blub, blub-blub, blub-blub.
One by one, the portraits of Mr. Billingsly's parents and grandparents and great-grandparents held their noses and leaped into the rising water.

By and by, even Mr. B's cats began to notice the change in the weather.

“Meeeeooow!… eeeoow … eeeoow-eow-ow-ow-ow!”

They skittered across the top of Edward's fishbowl—
zip zip zip zip,
fourteen in a row—and then landed, hissing and spitting, high up in the branches of Mr. Billingsly's silver-plated hat rack. Edward wondered why they were so upset. He wondered what could be chasing them. The only thing that he could see was a few pieces of furniture floating across the living-room floor.

Ta-tat, ta-tat, ta-tat … ta-tat, ta-tat, ta-tat …

Edward wheeled around. It was Mr. B's covered-wagon kite, already half underwater, rattling back and forth against the garden window. Edward pressed his face against the walls of his fishbowl and smiled. He knew what this was about. The kite was trying to break out into the sky on the other side of the glass. It was trying to take itself out for a little vacation.

Ta-tat-tat-tat.

The water poured into every corner of the house, into every socket of every pocket, every lock and every locket, every cranny, every nook, every page of every book. It poured into the thimbles and into the pots. It danced across the countertops and shimmied up the windowpanes and giggled its way down into the cracks between the floorboards. At last it rumbled up over the top of the fishbowl.

“Ki-yi-yippee-kai-yay!”
cried Edward as he shot straight up toward the ceiling. He looked like a balloon when you cut the string and it shoots straight up into the sky.

He scurried to the piano and bounced along the keys. “I can play whatever I want!”

He crashed into Mr. Billingsly's jar of cherry jelly beans and snatched them up as they fell. “I can eat whatever I want!”

He flew from one end of the house to the other with a snip and a snap of his tail. “I can swim wherever I want!”

Far above him chugged the telephone like a tugboat out to sea. “I am a dolphin,” hummed Edward, “scooting quick across the bay.”

Far below him rolled the hills and the valleys of Mr. B's electric train set. “I am an eagle,” cried Edward, “sweeping tall across the sky!”

Alongside the track was a small brown box with a glimmer of light underneath it. Down Edward swooped. It was … no, it wasn't a box. It was a station for the trains, a tidy little station house with a porch and a swing, and a cow and a stable, and a tidy little man dealing cards upon a table. Edward imagined that the tiny stationmaster was Mr. Billingsly, begging for someone to build him a larger house.

“I am bigger than you, little man,” said Edward. “I am the biggest of the big, and if you want a bigger house, then you are just going to have to—”