The Little Pink Fish by Rachel Johnson (best summer books TXT) 📕

-1-

Once upon a time there was an exceptionally interesting family. It consisted of one father and one daughter. The father, who’s name was Dr. Smith, was a marine biologist, and his house was filled with almost every kind of small, saltwater fish known to man. The daughter, who was Sydney Smith, was short for her age of 15, thin, and generally unnoticed by anyone besides her father. So consequently Dr. Smith was her best friend. Dr. Smith was a very different sort of father. He didn’t believe in the public school system but wasn’t rich enough to afford private. So he schooled his daughter alone. He taught her all about marine biology, science, math, and foreign languages. However he was quite inexperienced when it came to literature. So Sydney learned to teach herself by reading anything she came across. And with this education she was in the 12th grade according to public school standards by the time she turned 14. And this only confirmed her father’s beliefs against sending children off to be taught by strangers.
But being a scientist, Dr. Smith had to go on numerous trips to foreign lands to study marine life. And Sydney went with him on every single one. It was one of these trips that Sydney and her father planned to go on the following summer. They were to be sent to Antarctica. And usually, Sydney would use that time to catch up on her studies. However, on this trip, she planned to do some discovering herself, since she was technically finished with high school. And soon enough, the time came for them to go. All throughout the plane ride she could hardly sleep more than 10 minutes at a time. She had a feeling that something special was going to happen on this trip. Then they arrived.
The first week turned out disappointing for Sydney. The entire time she was forced to stay inside the tent and stare at her new collection of fish her father had brought her. No one was allowed to leave the tent without a special suit that guarded people from the deathly cold, and there was none extra for Sydney.
“I’m really sorry you’ve been cooped up here all week Syd. I know how you were looking forward to exploring,” said her father one evening as he was returning from his work.
“It’s okay,” she replied.
“I’m going to make it up to you, you’ll see.” But it wasn’t until the following Wednesday that he had a chance to do so.
“Hey Syd, how’s your day been?”
“Not bad,” Syd replied, wondering if her dad had forgotten about his promise.
“Well, how would you like to come with me and the team tomorrow?”
“Really?”
“I told you I’d make it up to you. We’re going snorkeling.”
“But I thought you had a limited amount of suits!” Sydney cried with amazement.
“Well, one of the guys isn’t feeling very well and is happily donating his to the cause,” said Dr. Smith.
So the next day Sydney got to see all kinds of fish that she had never even heard of. But there was one fish in particular that sparked her interest. She only saw glimpses of the creature; it was pink and curiously small. It would brush up against her suit and then scurry away in the strangest fashion.
“Dad?” she inquired after the day was over.
“What is it?”
“I kept seeing this strange fish today. It was pink and about the size of my hand.”
“Yes, I’ve seen it, only it’s too fast for us to catch and it won’t take any bait.”
“Interesting. Dad? Can I go with you snorkeling tomorrow?”
“I wish you could, but the guy who lent you the suit is feeling much better, and besides, we aren’t going snorkeling tomorrow, we’re going diving, and it’s much too cold down there for you Syd.”
So Sydney spent the next few days holed up in her tent again, thinking occasionally of the strange pink fish.
“Hey Syd, I need to talk to you.” said her father. “The team and I are going up the coast for a few days. A couple of the guys are staying behind to watch the camp and continue the research here. Do you think you’ll be alright?”
“Oh yeah. I’ll be fine,” she replied.
“Just don’t leave the tent, even if there is a spare suit, I don’t want you alone out there.”
“Okay, I won’t”
“Bye Syd.”
“Bye Dad, love you,” she called as he left the tent.
“So! I guess it’s just you and me for a few days. I don’t believe we’ve met, I’m Nancy, and you must be Sydney, Dr. Smith’s daughter. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Sydney turned around to see a middle aged woman smiling at her. She had seen her once or twice at breakfast but had never talked to her.
“Hi,” she replied shyly, she wasn’t good at talking to strangers, or anyone really besides her father. But Nancy however, was determined to make a friend out of this shy 15 year old. She didn’t like the idea of spending 3 days with no one to talk to.
“What do you want to do? We could watch a movie, I brought my portable DVD player!” Then seeing no immediate response in Sydney’s face, quickly took a different road, “Or we don’t have to watch a movie, we could go exploring outside,” Nancy said with less enthusiasm, she had been hoping to spend her three days huddling up under blankets, getting her money’s worth off of that DVD player.
“I would love to go exploring! It’s just my dad said he didn’t want me going outside while he’s gone…”
“Oh! That’s fine! We can watch movies.”
“…But I don’t think my dad would mind if I went with you. He was probably just scared of my going alone. We could go snorkeling! I’ve always wanted to go when there weren’t a lot of people around.”
They ended up going snorkeling and Sydney was amazed at how many more fish she saw compared to the time she went before. And just when she was thinking that she would never see the pink fish again, there it was! Right in front of her, staring at her with large blue eyes was a small pink fish. Slowly, ever so slowly, she reached her hand out to grab it. And just when she thought the fish was hers, it leaped out of sight behind a rock. Frustrated, she swam around the rock with a bag of fish food, hoping to attract it, but to no avail. It always stayed just out of her reach.
“Are you ready to go back in?” Sydney could barely hear as Nancy whizzed past her. And as she went by her net caught the fish by surprise.
“Stop!” Sydney screamed, her heart pounding, if that fish got out of the net she thought she would go crazy. “Stop! You have a fish in your net.”
After a moment of confusion and struggle, Sydney got the fish safely into a plastic bag filled with water.
“At last! I’ve been trying to catch this fish for what seemed like forever!”
“Oh, I didn’t know you had such an interest in fish.”
“I don’t usually, it’s just that this fish is so different, look at it! Its eyes are huge and it’s pink! Talk about a weird fish.”
“Well, you better put it in the tank before it dies from being in that bag.” Nancy suggested.
“Right.”
“I’ll go get the camera, we can monitor it better that way.”
“That’s a good idea.” Sydney was starting to like this Nancy and didn’t think that the next two days were going to be so bad after all.
First thing the next morning she realized that all the fish were dead! The only one left in the tank was the pink fish! “I wonder what happen to them,” she thought. “How strange.”
The next day everything became stranger, when they tested the water for temperature and salinity, they had to make sure the conditions were as similar as the ocean’s in order to keep the fish alive, the temperature was fine, but the salinity levels had gone way down. They had to add a ton of salt to get things working again. The change in the water had killed the other fish. And the next day, the same thing happened again. It was as if the fish was eating the salt out of the water. Sydney wrote everything down in her notebook, she wanted her father to be as up-to-date as possible when he came back. Her father was supposed to return that night.
“Hi Syd! How has it been, not too boring I hope,” said her dad as he was coming in the tent.
“It was amazing, I went snorkeling with Nancy and…”
“You went snorkeling? I thought I asked you not to go outside…”
“I know, but Nancy went with me and I thought it would be alright. But dad, I captured the pink fish!” Dr. Smith completely forgot about his daughter’s disobedience when heard about the fish. Sydney then explained in detail everything that had happened with this strange fish.
“Well, congratulations! I didn’t think anyone would ever be able to capture that thing. I’m going to go take a look at that fish. Do you want to come?”
“Sure!” Sydney replied.
“Mind if I tag along?” Nancy asked as she appeared from the background.
“Not at all.” said Dr. Smith.
So the three of them walked into the other section of the tent where the fish were held. And once again, the salt level had dropped dramatically.
“This is awfully strange, I wonder what would happen if we didn’t add salt to the water.” Dr. Smith suggested.
“There’s only one way to find out.” Nancy said.
“But what if it kills the fish? The likely hood of us finding another one is one in a million, and then we’ll never know!” Sydney protested.
“Well, we can just try it for one day, and if the fish is showing any signs of discomfort then we’ll add more salt. One day won’t kill him.” Sydney’s dad replied.
For twenty-four hours they restrained themselves from adding salt to the water. And when they went to check on the fish, he seemed perfectly fine.
“Well, no harm appears to have come from it. How about we go see some of the other tents Sydney, I just found out that one of the other scientists brought his kid along too, you might have someone to talk to now. Nancy, you keep an eye on the fish for us.”
“No problem.”
About an hour later, after they had gotten some hot coffee and put their suits on, they left.
“He said it was tent number 7, ah! Here we are… Hey George!” Dr. Smith called as he saw his fellow scientist. And Sydney was left alone to explore the tent. The first thing she noticed was that it was a much larger tent than the one she had