Gappy teeth and carassius auratus

It all started innocently enough one sunny afternoon two weeks ago. But it was doomed to end in failure. Stefanie, our friendly student tenant, appeared at the kitchen door, as we were hanging out in the garden in late August. Well, G, K.M, L, R and I were hanging out in the garden on a sunny evening in late August. J was probably upstairs watching Star Wars for the millionth time.
“I have a little favour to ask of K.M and L” Stefanie asked. “We’ve booked a week’s holiday in Turkey and are leaving on Sunday. Could K.M and L feed the fish for us?” K.M and L are all bright eyed and excited. Unlike “tidy your toys up” this order sounds like fun.
“Can we come upstairs and have a look? How many fish to do you have? Can I feed them? No I?”
“Its very simple, oops can you reach K.M?, good, errr, yes all you need to do is feed them once a week, say on a Wednesday and that’s it.”
Stefanie shows us where she keeps her pot of food and informs us that her two fish are called George and Paul. There were four, but apparently Ringo and John passed away sometime ago. Now only two of the fab four survive. Looks easy enough. No worries Stefanie you go off and have a great holiday. We’ll feed George and Paul for you on Wednesday.
“K.M remind me won’t you.” I ask her the following day. “We really must not forget”.
Forget. Forget. I wish. Fish are very much on K.M’s mind.
“Mummy I know what I want for my birthday” K.M lisps the following morning in bed. “Fith – real ones just like Stefanie”. She has lost both of her front teeth. Her seventh birthday is coming up.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea K.M. Where will we put them, in any case L will probably knock them over and R could drink the water. Real fish are for tenants not for us sweet heart. In any case whose going to clean the aquarium? Hmmm? Not you.”
K.M’s form of persistence is canny. She leaves little pictures of fish swimming in water around the house, under my pillow, on the fridge, in my shoe and talks endlessly about….well fish. Not, by the way the broken sardines, but the living things that, as far as I’m concerned, require too much attention. Ceramic fish can’t survive in this house – how on earth will the poor, real buggers fare in this family?
G, is more of a soft-touch and gives her hope.
“O.K we’ll look into it K.M I promise”
As far as she is concerned this is a water-tight affirmative.
“But, its expensive G.” I try the monetary tactic. “By the time we’ve bought all the stuff we’ll be EUR 50 down at least – far more than we normally spend on the kids for birthday presents.”
“Uncle R can chip in and Oma and Opa.”
On Wednesday, K.M, L and I go up to feed Paul and George. Stefanie has suck a note on the tank. “K.M and L. – thanks for looking after my fish while I’m away, Love Stefanie” The fish, in the meantime are swimming in muggy pea soup water. Two haunted shadows swim ….in …and ….out of our vision. Their environment must be the equivalent of fish hell. Climate change gone mad in a fish tank.
“Mummy, should fish be swimming in green water?” K.M asks as she feeds the fish.
“Not really”
“All we were asked to do was feed the fish not clean out tanks.” G. tells me when I bring it up with him.
“But, shouldn’t we just take the fish out and put them in another pot with clean water until Stefanie gets back?”
“No, no, no. We were just asked to feed the fish nothing more nothing less. Don’t do it K.”

“Guess what K.M” I tell her on her birthday after picking her and the others up from school. “Mummy and Daddy have a surprise for you”.
“Fith” she says breathlessly “You got me my fith”.
“I’m not saying – you’ll have to wait and see until we get home”.
“Tell me Mummery, tell me” J. insists. “I won’t tell K.M I promise”
“Nope it’s a surprise. Wait and see”.
J, K.M and L try finding names. It’s a surprise but they’ve all guessed.
“Marie had a fish called Meeeeeeouw Meeouw. That’s what I want to call my fish”.
“That’s a stupid name K.M” J says. I agree but try and put it more tactfully.
“How about Pacific, Atlantic and Indian” I think they’re very clever names but there’s not a roar of enthusiasm from the children.
They all shout out names.
L. suggests “handbag” I like it, I like it – but K.M doesn’t.
J. wants “Swimming fish”. K.M. agrees on condition that its called “Swimmy”. J. wants “Swimming fish”. K.M wants “Swimmy”…. swimming fish…swimmy….swimming fish…swimmy.
K.M. sees some students playing music in the park and comes up with “guitar”. We all like that one.
“I had a gold fish once K.M, when I was four, just before Aunty R was born, and I called it “Goldie”.” K.M. likes this too.
“Tell me the surprise” J asks for the fifteenth time.
“No – it’s a surprise. Wait and see.”
The mood turns sour as J. keeps insisting.
“Alright I’ll whisper it in your ear J. as long as you don’t tell K.M.”
“I won’t”.
“O.K. we got her two gold fish and one black fish”.
J. is jealous.
“They got you two gold fish and one black fish” he calls out.
I’m furious. He looses all rights to pocket money for the rest of September (which they had all already lost anyway re: previous fish incident). How else can I impose punitive sanctions on the kids? What other measures can I resort to?
J. has spoilt the fun. He’s out of order and he knows it. He even apologises under his breath.
K.M. and L are still excited and head straight up to her bedroom to check out Guitar, Goldie and Swimmy (or Swimming Fish depending on who you talk to). The two carassius auratus are accompanied by one Black Moor and swim around in clean water with red and white pebbles on the bottom. L. immediately sets to work. She grabs a chair and stands on tip toe to peek inside. She starts banging on the tank in order to get their attention (don’t do that L. they’ll get scared), she try’s to fish them out (L. if I see you one more time with that net…), and begins to plop her toys inside (L. will you please come away from the fish tank. Do you want to kill them….)

“Sad news G” informs me on Sunday evening as we come back from a week-end by the sea.
“K.M has been to check on Paul and George. They are both dead.”
“I knew we should have changed the water. Why didn’t you let me.”
K.M., who takes her fish responsibilities seriously, looks stricken and explains
“Mummy, I went upstairs to check on them and the water smelt and its so dirty I couldn’t see anything and then I saw George covered in white slime and floating on the surface with his eyes wide open just staring like this…..” She cocks her head side-ways, opens her eyes and mouth wide and stares up a the ceiling in a remarkably good likeness of what a dead fish , which has slowly been suffocated and poisoned to death in putrefying water, must look like.
“Shit we’ve killed the fish.” I think. “What is Stefanie going to say”
“I’ll fish them out” G says, who has already had to clean Guitar, Goldie and Swimmy’s tank after K.M poured all of her sandy shells, collected on the beach, into the tank. “But, I’m not cleaning their tank out. They can do it.”
Its already 8 and the kids are in their pj’s ready for bed.
Paul and George are flushed down the loo – there is no time for a decent burial.
Later that evening G and I notice that our aquarium, having just been cleaned, has gone all cloudy and dirty again. What has happened? Next to the tank stands Stefanie’s pot of fish food (borrowed since we forgot to buy some). The lid is open and its completely empty. Two years worth of food has been put into the tank by L. …."I was just trying to feed them Mummy”. Great not only have we killed Stefanie’s fish, we’ve emptied her feed and are in the process of killing K.M. birthday present as well.
G, who is less than amused, gets to work and cleans the tank out for the second time in two hours. K.M. howls convinced that her fish are going to die. J. shouts. “Your fish are going to explode”. L. stares at me as I tell her off and bites on her sandwich faster than is normal. R. crawls in between and starts to pick up grains of fish food and examines them before they are grabbed out of his hands, by me. We notice that the pot of fish food states “Feed daily”. .. “…but I’m sure she said just once a week…didn’t she G?”

So, to tally up. We have two dead fish, a stinking fish tank in the attic, one empty pot of feed and three over-fed (they survived) fish. Water in Goldie’s, Guitar’s and Swimmy’s fish tank is still looking dodgy and cloudy in spite of recently acquired filter. Poor Goldie, Guitar and Swimmy….welcome to the VC-G’s.