An adventurous collection of scenes:
“There’s nothing wonderful about freaky fish, super
strong red-eyed sea-fleas and nauseous high-spinning ocean rides.
What is wonderful is taking me home, where I can rest, cook
some nice soup, and read the evening news. Oh dear, look out
for that floating billboard you high flying fool of an Octopus!”
Sailing high above the sea floor, Glirt took Snorko above a
merrying blur of carnival lights that glowed a bioluminescent
neon green shine of undersea wonder.
Narrowly missing the billboard, they dropped back toward the
sea floor, terrifying Snorko who quickly read the billboard
that joyously advertised the Fish Fair with the slogan: COME
AND FIN-WRESTLE THE STRONGEST SEA-FLEA IN ALL THE UNDER-OCEAN:
MORDIGARD THE MAGNIFICENT.
“Did you see that? You’re right, there are going
to be sea-fleas! I can’t wait,” said Glirt as they
zoomed toward the glowing festival.
“Delightful,” grumbled the old starfish.
The annual Fish Fair brought in thousands of sea creatures from
the surrounding ocean valleys, reefs, and unknown crevices.
They all appeared to be arriving at the same time. Many crustaceans
of the crab, lobster, and shrimp varieties could be seen along
with fish of every size and kind imaginable, including those
who traveled from the deep sea currents to be in the Freaky
Fish Show; those are the sea monstrosities who make a special
trip up to Fishberg’s big event from the deep sea trench
just south of the city.
There were also many sea bugs in attendance: snails, worms,
and the friendliest sort of water-breathing spiders and all
sorts of strange buggy things. This also included wandering
sea plants, which are sea creatures really, yet look rightly
enough like walking potted plants, or bouquets of underwater
lilies and tulips. They walk about and sell cotton candy and
sugary kelp bars coated with sea-bee honey. Of course there
were also octopi milling about. They could be seen bobbing along
with clouds of squid, who were all eager for plankton coated
cream bars and grilled veggie patties.
“Oh look, they’re announcing the Fish Fair food
court,” smiled Glirt, who plopped Snorko softly onto a
sandy hill just as a large whale sailed overhead. On the whale’s
side glowed the words “GO TO THE FISH FAIR FOOD COURT”
from its blubbery side like a huge advertisement. Neither Snorko
nor Glirt could see what made the lights upon the whale. If
they had been close enough they would have noticed several thousand
tiny glowing beetles who all worked in unison as they clung
to the whale’s side with special boots. Attached to those
were the finest of hooks, so that each beetle could easily march
about on the whale’s thick skin and not fall off. The
beetles worked fast, and were all under the command of a rather
plump and fast-moving beetle who barked orders to all the rest:
“Company, form up new word pattern 5-G, on three! One….two….three,
ready, go!” And then there was a quick bumping about and
hustling and changing of places as every beetle found their
new space upon the side of the whale, which soon formed the
words, “EAT NOW!” for everyone at the Fish Fair
to behold, though no one attending really new how such word
magic was done.
“Tricks for the eyes,” Snorko complained as the
whale circled above. “Doesn’t even make my stomach
growl,” He grumbled.
“Oh, but mine does,” smiled Glirt. “And now,
happy day! Look who has just got off the Ferris wheel. If it
isn’t the two most mischievous creatures in all the oceans,
my two octopus babies.”
The underwater Ferris wheel was a strange contraption of gears
and pulleys, all connected to sixteen rather plump seahorses—big
enough to each fit two small sea creatures on a wide two-horn
grip saddle for a round-a-bout ride that gave a clear and grand
view of all the Fish Fair. The two octopi appeared rather dizzy
from their ride. But that didn’t stop them as they munched
on colorful and puffy sea-algae cakes.
“Greetings, my dizzy octo children,” Glirt smiled.
“Papa, we just rode to the top of the ocean and back,”
yelped the smaller of the two. It was Gloop, a young octo-boy
with a very large blue eye in the center of a bulbous head.
The other octopus, Glop, had longer and skinnier tentacles than
his brother. He also had a head nearly twice the size of his
brother’s. In the center of his great noggin’ peered
a large blue eye, not unlike his brother’s; and just below
that was a tiny mouth that had twisted into a growl: “No,
we did not go that high. We were just above the Fish Fair, but
we could see all the way to the Fishberg Central District and
could see the sparkle glow of the baby clouds above the birthing
cannons.”
“Oh very good, sounds like you are both having a great
time. You remember Snorko here, don’t you boys?”
“My goodness,” grimaced the old starfish, “It
sure is a day of babies. I take it you octopus children aren’t
quite as mysterious as this old starfish. I entered the world
into a current that took me to who-knows-where and back again.
Why, you little bigheads were probably born in the Fishberg
hospital and all that. Probably only have a few brothers and
sisters unlike me. As a matter of fact, I’m related to
at least seventy-two million starfish. And those are just first
cousins and brothers and sisters; world-wide of course.”
“We are mysterious too, I think,” grimaced the larger
of the two octopus children.
“What does mysterious mean?” questioned the smaller
of the pair.
“Oh, mysterious…well,” smiled Glirt. “That’s
just when you want to know the answer to something but don’t
know what the answer is.”
“And so do you find out the answer, or do you just go
on guessing?” questioned Gloop who squinted his curious
eye toward his brother and then plopped the last handful of
sea-algae cake into his beaky mouth.
“I guess that depends on what the mysteriousness is all
about,” Glirt gave a curious look back.
“OK, well, we have to go now dad, right Glop?” Gloop
gave a sly smile and then thumped the back of Glop’s head
with a slimy tentacle.
“Oh, right. How could I forget!” Glop added as both
octopus children suddenly zoomed away into the spinning lights
of the Fish Fair.
The Freaky Fish Show was held inside a big black tent that
rose above bubbly spinning gizmo carnival rides and pink flashing
candy stands like an ominous castle. Jagged spires topped the
tent with spiraling points. On the tips of those stood bright
white limestone carved deep sea fish. The statues towered over
the rest of the Fish Fair as if about to eat the entire festival
with their dagger-like teeth.
A huge sign advertised the words FREAKY FISH SHOW in blinking
and flashing multi-colored lights that were powered by the scariest
looking light eels imaginable. Fiery lightning patterns lit
their long tails, while shards of glass-like teeth armed their
large mouths. They had green flashing eyes and armor plated
heads that looked especially ferocious. Upon their heads they
wore fancy black helmets. Connected to those were wires and
electrodes that ran from each helmet’s ear hole up to
the sign, powering the massive display that itself had been
brought from the depths of the sea trench. The sign was from
who-knows-where, really, as it was from a deep place that no
Fishberg resident would ever dare descend to.
The tent was a scary house and deep sea freaky fish extravaganza
all rolled into one. It seemed all the local sea creature children
and their parents massed at the tent gates for the soon-to-be
opening show. The bravest of Fishberg’s finest were there.
All of the football players from the sea dog school leagues,
including the very militaristic minnow youth squads stood in
a tight formation that could not be broken. Even if one minnow
scratched his nose, turned about, or sneezed, so would follow
the rest. Several of the glow snails stood in line, no longer
reading, though they held on to strange works of fiction, all
about topsiders, those things that lived above the water in
strange cities like Los Angeles, New York, Tuscaloosa and Bakersfield.
Their underbellies glowed as if they were already very frightened
from the show. Ticket lines went around the corner of the tent
and wound somewhere out of sight as the commotion for the show
hung in the water with a feverish glow of bright eyes and sparkling
and stirring under-oxygenated water.
And then there was Gloop and Glop. They stood behind the big
black tent. They both wondered about mystery and mysterious
things and how their father Glirt told them, in a silly sort
of way, to ‘find’ the answers. And that was what
these two mischievous Octopi intended to do, as they meant to
sneak into the scariest place in all of Fishberg just so they
could answer one very simple question that every creature in
Fishberg really wanted to know: Would there be a Vamphyro Infernalis
at the Freaky Fish Show? That was the scientific name for what
every fisk-kid in Fishberg knew as “the deep sea squid
from heck”. That was what the name meant, because such
a creature is a real honest to goodness sea creature with fins
on its head, a giant glowing red eye, jet black skin, and a
grin that could only mean, disaster; not to mention, such a
strange creature was rarely ever seen, except in little sea
creature nightmares as it bared its white fangs in just the
instant when a sea baby is asleep but doesn’t know it’s
asleep.
Why? Just why, would two very small octopi want to brave a face-to-face
meeting with one or more of the scariest deep sea monstrosities
ever assembled in all of Fishberg? Why not just buy a ticket
and attend the Fish Show and wait to see whatever you might
see?
Perhaps only Gloop and Glop could answer that. Good sea of all
seas! No one could even say just how safe this could be! Such
creatures from the deepest and darkest places of the planet
could only conjure up nightmarish and fiendishly gloomy thoughts
in the very biggest and bravest of all Fishberg’s residents,
which of course were the very reasons everyone just had to see
what could possibly come up from the depths of depths, the chasm
of chasms, and the deep sea trenches of all deep sea trenches;
just so deep sea creatures could be gawked at by little bug-eyed
fish and other whimsical sea creatures.
And so under the tent went Gloop and Glop, two very curious
young sea creatures who hoped perhaps to witness a sea creature
very unlike themselves. They hoped it wouldn’t be too
scary of a journey into the black tent. They certainly didn’t
know what they would find. One thing was for sure. It never
took much for an octopus, or two to squeeze through a small
space.
