The fish festival

One rainy day in Calico Village, Sarah and I were playing together. We were playing critters together but couldn't seem to get very far with the story. Just as we finally got to the best part, Savannah came in with cookies. I don't mean to suggest that cookies aren't interesting, but this was another distraction and we really just wanted to finish the story. "Sarah," Savannah said, "don't forget to get ready for the fish festival."

Once her mother had left, Sarah sighed. "I'm a fish catcher for the fish festival," she said, "but I'd rather make the seasoning."

"Wait," I said thoughtfully, "I'm doing seasoning, but I'd rather be catching fish. We could ask Harlan, who is organizing the festival, if we could switch jobs."

"Yes!" Sarah said. "We can!"

Harlan liked the idea. "I didn't realize you didn't like the jobs you had," he said. "But Leyla, you will need to call up Simon Sandy. He will tell you what the fish-catchers need to do."

One of the things fish-catchers had to do was catch fish early. Because of that, I stayed at the Persians' house for the night. They were in the pink part of the village. This was a neighborhood that had mostly pink painted buildings. I was there because it was closer to the seaside. We were advised not to wear our fishing clothes the day before. Since that was a late notice request, most of us had to wash our fishing clothes at the Persians'.

We got an early start the next morning. There was groups of two or three who would be in fishing parties, and Sarah was supposed to go with her brother. When we switched positions, nobody had thought of putting me on a different team. Either that, or Buster Slydale assigned the teams in the first place.

Later that morning, the inevitable happened. Trouble! While Dominic and I were fishing, we got into a conversation about who could catch the better fish. "I," said Dominic, "plan to catch the mythical Rainbow Fish. If I could get a hold of its scale, I could get a wish!"

"What if I catch it?" I said. "Oh! I just caught another fish." I added.

As it happened, we got our wish of getting scales from the Rainbow Fish. About halfway through our fishing, the fish leapt out of the water. As it did, two scales fell onto the boat.

"Now," said Dominic, "I can have my wish: to catch more fish than you."

"We already lost track of who caught what," I pointed out. Fortunately, we saved our wishes for more important things.

At three in the afternoon, the fish festival truly began. But just as it started, it began to rain!

"NOOOOO!" cried Dominic.

"Fish!" I whispered to him.

"I wish the rain would stop so the fish festival could go on!" Dominic said, holding up the scale. And the rain did stop. The fish festival could truly go on. As I thought later, the scale did so much more than Dominic had wished for. The festival was truly the best ever!