Blubber Blubinsky, Just Blub for short, finished putting his tank in order. Blubber lived alone. He preferred it that way. The fish discouraged any visitors, sometimes getting violent when another fish dropped in to visit.
Although a loner by nature, Blub did like some movement. It got too boring with only an occasional television program to look at. He did have a human slave to feed him and change his water; however, the fish did sometimes get bored with his lot. Watching the human occupied some of his time, but the guy mostly sat around reading or watching television.
And humans had their own language; he could understand them, but they didn’t read bubble talk. That was a bummer. He had so much to say, and no way to say it. Blub had tried everything he could think of to talk to his human; even scratching his name on the glass. Nothing worked.
Blubber liked everything to be in order, a master of routine. His mother had taught him that “Everything has its place, and should be in it.” Blub was a serious tank-keeper. He had just finished arranging stones at the bottom of his tank, carefully pushing his droppings under the little castle to get them out of the way, when the door to the room opened.
Of course it was his human, who else would it be? And the guy had a box with him. Mildly curious, Blubber watched as the human – by the way, the human’s name was Amy – put the box down on a table and opened it. Just some more groceries or stuff, Blub figured -- boring.
There was a streak, as something jumped out, then off the table, and disappeared under the bed.
“What was that?” Blubber, blubbed to himself in astonishment.
“Oh, how I wish you’d clean the outside of my tank,” Blubber blubbed, “The first interesting thing to happen in days, and its too blurry to see.”
Anyway, his human chased the thing all over the room. She looked silly crawling under the bed, just to see the streak run out from under the bed and under a chair. When she reached under the chair, the streak jumped up on another chair and paused right in front of his tank.
Finally, Blubber could see it clearly as it turned around, butt against his tank, and waved a paw at Amy. Blubber had seen them things before. There had been a bunch of them in the pet store where he was born. He just couldn’t remember what they were called was all. It was an animal, and much bigger than Blubber. His view, from the rear, was of a large black and white mountain on the other side of his tank. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to like his Amy very much.
Amy finally caught the thing, getting scratched in the process, and sat down with it. It struggled in her arms but she held on and it eventually stopped fighting. Well, at least something else to look at, Blubber figured.
Later, Amy left the room, leaving the animal behind with the door shut. It saw Blubber and jumped onto the table next to him. They looked at each other. Blubber, getting nervous, moved over to the side a few inches. Those big dark eyes followed him. He moved across to the other side and a large furry paw swiped at him. Cat! Yes, that’s what it’s called, Blubber remembered. The pet store sold a lot of them.
The cat stood up, putting both front paws on his tank. He could feel a kind of "thunk" as they hit, and then Blub heard scratching, as one of the paws slid over the glass. He was glad to be safe inside. Darn, but that thing was big up close; ten, no twenty, times his size.
“Hi, I’m Blub,” he blubbed, not really expecting an answer.
“How can you guys breathe in that water?” the cat asked, “I could never understand that.”
“What’s your name?” Blubber asked, “and what are you doing here?”
“I don’t have a name,” the cat shook it’s head, “nobody ever gave me any. All they say is ‘there are the cats’ and stuff like that. I heard you have to have a human give you one. And I guess I live here now. I miss my sister though. She’s back at the store.”
“You don’t want to eat me, do you?”
“Not particularly. You’re not a tuna are you? I like tuna.”
“Na, tuna’s are big, big enough to kick your butt. My mama said never to mess with a tuna.”
“Ha. No tuna can kick my butt.”
“Just try it. I hear those tuna are mean.”
“How’s the human? Is she mean?”
“Na, I got her trained. She won’t hurt you. Boy, I had a hard time training her; you should have seen her when I got her.”
Blubber told the cat all about training Amy. About having to slap her around when she didn’t feed him, and having to show her how to clean his tank -- and all that stuff.
When Amy came back with some cat food in a bowl, she named the cat “Trouble” because of all the trouble he had given her when she brought him home. Not to mention all the trouble she had with her mother. She hadn’t asked her mother first, and her mother was mad.
Trouble and Blubber got along. When Amy caught the cat drinking out of Blubber’s tank, she spanked him. After awhile, seeing that the cat wasn’t trying to eat Blubber, only getting a drink, Amy left them alone.
Blubber now had someone to talk to and his life wasn’t as boring. Trouble would sit or lay up by the tank, with Blubber on the other side of the glass, and they’d talk for hours. They even slept together, one on each side of the glass.
The only problem between them was that Blubber couldn’t see very much from the room’s lone window. Although it looked out onto a well traveled street, with a lot of activity, all Blubber could see was a building across the street. The fish hadn’t even known what else was out there until his friend Trouble told him. Trouble would sit on the window sill and tell Blubber about all that was going on outside.
“I wish I could see it too,” Blubber blubbed, “It must be fun. I already know what’s in this room, and Amy does the same thing all the time, just sits and reads and watches television.”
“I can do tricks for you.” Trouble jumped up and did a double flip flop, more a flop since he landed on his head. Blubber blubbed a bubble kind of giggle, but it wasn’t the same thing.
Maybe we could get some help, and move that table over by the window?” trouble thought out loud, “that way you could see out?”
“Fat chance, you’re too small and I can’t help at all.”
Well, as it happened, fortune smiled at them. There was a mouse family hidden in the woodwork. They had just moved in a few days before and wanted to make friends with all the pets in the house. One of them, named Plumpy, happened to hear the two friends talking. Well, since he wasn’t looking at Blubber, he couldn’t read the bubbles. But he heard Trouble talking.
“Uh, excuse me, uh,” he whispered loudly from a safe spot under a closed closet door, “uh, you need any help? My family can help.”
The two friends looked down at the shadow under the door and couldn’t see anything.
“Who dat?” said Trouble.
“Who dat say who dat?” from Plumpy.
“Who dat say who dat say who dat?”
“Who dat say who dat say who dat say who dat?
“Who dat say who dat say who dat say who dat say whodit?”
“Got'cha!” said Plumpy, laughing his squeaky laugh.
So all the meeses, including Plumpy and his brothers :Plumpy Jr, Plumpy III, Silky, Star, Pee Wee, Creamsicle (aka Minsky Mouse), Klaus, and of course Mickey, tried to move the heavy table. They even had to get help from the girl mice : Sweetie, Sweetie Jr, Rosie, Tiger, Strawberry, Ziggy, Inky, and Lotus. They, along with Trouble the cat, of course, could wiggle the table. They could shake it, but it just wouldn’t move. Even when Blubber tried to push from his side of the tank.
The smarter Mickey had an idea. There were two yardsticks standing in a corner of the room. A rather smart little critter, he remembered hearing of the term, “Mechanical Advantage.” That and the theory of the “Lever.” Micky had the others get those yardsticks.
Pushing a pair of shoes against the two closest table legs, they propped the sticks up at an angle. With Trouble jumping on the far end of one, and the plumpy mice on the other stick, along with everyone else helping to push, the table moved. Not only jerked into movement, but slammed into the window sill, splashing water from the tank on all of them.
The wet mice and cat cheered, while Blubber got his first sight of the outside. He had come there in a closed box of water. He saw cars, he saw people, he saw buses, he saw dogs and cats walking around, he saw..., he saw everything, the whole darn world was out there.
Blubber was the happiest fish in the whole wide world. Now Trouble and him could sit and talk, while looking at all that stuff. Often, when Amy was gone, the mice would bring over some lemonade and they’d all watch together. And Amy didn’t even notice the table was moved. She was too busy thinking of that cute boy in school.
Oscar Rat