— A short story

When I was about 10 years old, I conceived an ingenious plan to get around my mother’s “no pets” policy. She hadn’t said anything about giving them as gifts, had she? So I decided to give my brother some goldfish for his birthday. How could she take away his birthday gift? I knew it was foolproof. The fact that my brother was not the slightest bit interested in goldfish, only worked in my favour, because I knew that then I could kindly volunteer to care for them.

The plan worked brilliantly and soon there was a fishbowl on the TV set, complete with two goldfish. My brother, after the statutory thanks, completely ignored them. After several days, the water turned yellow and murky. The fish did not appear to be thriving. My mother refused to have anything to do with them. In her opinion, they did not exist. Whenever anyone mentioned cleaning the fishbowl, my brother was nowhere to be found. So, of course, I generously offered my pet care services and it fell to my father to teach me how to clean the tank. He took pity on the two little fish in their simple bowl, all that I had been able to afford on my meager allowance, so we went off to the pet store to get a proper tank, complete with gravel, air pump and filter. We even got some plastic scenery for them. It would be more work to clean, with all the angel hair in the filter and such, but I was very excited–it was going to be a real little underwater world. While we were at the store, I saw a beautiful little black mollie, with bulging eyes and trailing fins. My father took a liking to another goldfish with red and white patches and even longer fins, drifting like white veils behind it.

The tank was quite small, maybe one gallon at the most, and the four goldfish were a bit much for the overburdened filter, so I got lots of practice cleaning the tank every week, assisted by my father who handled the net. He was better at catching the slippery little guys.

I first discovered about the goldfish aversion to hockey about a week after we got them. The new tank was perched on the TV cabinet, in front of the rabbit ears. It was Thursday night and my brother and father were watching “Hockey Night in Canada”. I hated hockey – I found it a boring, loud and rowdy game. The hysterical voice of the announcer, rising and falling in endless crescendos, “He shoots! He scores!” or “Oh! What a save!” irritated me no end. Not to mention the fact that for two whole hours I wouldn’t be able to watch anything else. I sat at the dining room table doing my homework instead.

The game had already been on for over an hour. My brother and father were on the edge of their seats enthralled in the game. I flipped the pages of my book, unwilling to do my homework, not really concentrating, but determined to look righteous, anyway. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something shiny flopping around on the rug.

“Dad! Dad!” , I screamed, “Freddie’s jumped out of the tank! Help!”

I ran about in a panic trying to figure out what to do. There was no way I was going to pick the slimy thing up in my hands. My dad jumped up, grabbed the fishnet and got on his knees to look for the fish. Freddie had flip-flopped his way under the coffee table and was now lying there gasping. Dad dropped the little goldfish back in the tank. I prayed that Freddie would recover, but, unfortunately, an hour later, after the game had ended, I found him floating motionless upside-down, with his eyes staring vacantly ahead. Dad fished Freddie out and we gave him a burial at sea, via the toilet.

We cleaned the tank and put everything back. The three survivors swam about quickly exploring the extra space. I couldn’t tell if they missed Freddie. Goldfish expressions are hard to read.

A week later, again during “Hockey Night in Canada”, another goldfish jumped. This time we were faster with the net and it survived its ordeal.

The next week it happened again, at exactly the same time. I reasoned that if three goldfish had jumped, all during “Hockey Night in Canada”, it could prove only one thing – clearly they hated hockey. I completely sympathized with them, though I was not as ready commit suicide for my beliefs as they were. I pleaded with my dad and brother to change channels, but they remained unmoved. Instead, my father installed a plastic cover on the tank.

The next week, halfway through an exciting game, judging by the roar of the crowds and by the outbursts, cheers and groans coming from the living room, I hazarded a glance at the fish tank to see how my little friends were doing. I screamed! “Oh No!” Two of them were floating upside down in the tank. They had been unable to jump.

At commercial break, my dad fished out the two little corpses and we ceremoniously flushed them. Only Molly, the little black one, was left. I was worried for her, swimming all by herself in the tank, nudging the cover. Again I pleaded with my father and brother to change channels. No dice. But my father had a puzzled look on his face. Clearly he was thinking.

After the game, he got up and stared at the tank for a few moments. He slid back the plastic cover of the tank and put his finger into the water. Then he felt the top of the TV set with his hand. Finally, he nodded towards me, “I think I’ve found the problem,” he said, “the water’s too hot–probably from the TV – those tubes can get pretty heated up after a few hours.” He unplugged the little tank and moved it carefully over to a low bookshelf in the far corner of the room and plugged in the air pump again. “There, that should do the trick” he said, “Molly will be fine now.”

“But now she’ll have to look at the game as well as hear it! She’ll die!” I blurted out.

My dad chuckled, “Believe me, it’s not hockey that’s the problem, it’s hot water.”

Even as I admitted that logically his argument made sense, deep down I still wasn’t convinced. I was sure something dire was going to happen. I waited anxiously all the next week for the dreaded Thursday night to arrive, wondering if little Molly would survive the threat.

But when Thursday night came, Molly proved him right and swam around the tank for the whole game, completely unfazed, even seeming, dare I say it, quite happy!

As I sprinkled food flakes on the surface of the water and watched her gobbling them up eagerly, an awful realization began to filter through my mind. Out of four goldfish, she was the only one who hadn’t tried to jump. Out of a family so driven by their instinctual hatred of hockey that they would rather die that be exposed to it, she was the only one left and thriving. She was the black sheep, er, fish of the family. The conclusion was inescapable.

“Molly, you’re one of THEM, aren’t you!” I exclaimed, “You’re a hockey fan, you little turncoat! I can’t believe you did this to me!” But Molly just went on greedily gulping down food flakes, oblivious to my outrage. Disgusted, I turned back to the dining room table, which was overflowing with the pages of my homework, and knew that my Thursday nights were going to look like this for a long, long time.

The End

“Goldfish Hate Hockey” © Copyright 2003 by Gail Christel Behrend — All Rights Reserved