An Unusual Breakfast

The next morning the twins found something in their net. They called it a fish, for it wriggled and had fins and lived in water. However, the fins (there were six) were evenly spaced around the back of the thing, making a ringed sort of tail. It had three eyes on either side of its head, and a great rounded lower lip that protruded over its upper lip. It was a rusty orange-pink in color, with a pattern of pale purple spots beginning lightly at its head and intensifying so that it was mostly purple at the tail.

Mirabelle held it in the net while Annabelle hit its head with the side of the pick. She worked quickly so that no one (including her) could get attached to the creature and forget it was supposed to be food. When it stopped wriggling they examined it and made quick notes and sketches in Mirabelle’s observation book before borrowing a pocketknife from Gerhardt. (For all the tools and assorted objects in their pinafore pockets, they did not happen to have a knife, comb, or handkerchief.)

The skin was smooth, not scaly, and thick – difficult to cut through. And the inside! It was not like the inside of any fish or any other animal the children had ever seen or read about. It was all the same inside, a white, pulpy flesh more like an eggplant than anything else. There were no internal organs, just a tube connecting the mouth to the tail. The twins discarded that.

They threaded the rest on sticks and roasted it over the fire. It gave off a disturbingly floral scent while cooking, rather like the orchids in Mother’s greenhouse. This made the children feel homesick, for nothing on earth has more power over emotion than smells do.  It tasted a bit like flowers and a bit like asparagus. The children were too dispirited to discuss the strangeness of it though.

The twins emptied out the cheese tin and boiled water in it, which they pretended was tea. No one, not even Adolphus, had a strong enough imagination to enjoy it, but they all knew boiled water was much safer to drink than plain river water.

After breakfast and washing up Bettina said “Boat!” and they all agreed to give the river another try. They ventured into the woods again for poles. The geology pick made a poor hatchet, and they keenly felt the loss of the axe. It felt late when they got underway, but as there had been no sunrise (the sky just got lighter all over) and no path of the sun to follow (the sky got brighter and somewhat less violet all over), they could not guess the time. Adolphus’ pocket watch, after surviving the great fall, had succumbed to the river and the mud. He wanted to take it apart and fix it, but Claire dissuaded him from doing so on the river. Fixing a pocket watch needs a flat, non-moving surface, not an upside down mushroom in a rapid current.

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This story began with On Grandmothers and continues weekly. The last episode was The Last of the Gouda and the next is Downstream.