Free Fish by L.S. Matthews Page A

have a swig of the valuable water to wash it from our dry mouths and throats.
    Meanwhile, Dad had started to make the fire. He was good enough at it now, it seemed, to satisfy the Guide, because he let Dad get on with it and stopped hovering and helping, as he had done when Dad had first tried.
    “I am not a hunter, just a guide,” said the Guide, passing the water bottle back to Mum after his turn, “but I will just see if there isn't a rabbit. I don't know why there would be, with so little to eat up here, but the dogs we've seen must eat something.”
    And he dusted off his khaki shirt and trousers and set off, with the donkey watching after him, but seeming to know she wasn't supposed to follow.
    While Dad fussed around the fire, poking in a twig here and there and blowing on it when it was going perfectly well, I checked on the Fish.
    He seemed all right, but hung near the bottom,looking smaller than I'd remembered and paler. Mum had tutted about the little plastic water bottle the first night we'd camped after transferring the Fish to it from the bowl.
    “It's far from ideal,” she'd complained. “Fish need a nice big open area on top to let in the air. The shape of this bottle does exactly the opposite. I would normally cut it down about halfway, but you can't carry it open like that. The water would come out as it sloshed about.”
    Finally, she'd had to make two tiny holes in the plastic top with a needle, and we'd jammed the bottle upright for carrying, among my clothes in the top of my backpack, so that the neck of it just stuck out from the flap into the air.
    “Sorry, Fish, there goes your view,” I'd said.
    Whenever we'd settled for the night, I'd taken off the lid to try and let in more air, and just hoped no one would knock the bottle over. I always found the best rock I could to avoid this happening, andtwitched and shouted, “Watch the Fish!” every time anyone went past it, until the grown-ups started mimicking me.
    “What do you think?” I asked Mum as she came to inspect the bottle and its contents. “Do you think he'll make it?”
    “How do you know it's a he?” she asked, staring at him.
    “I don't. Actually, he looks as much like a she. I just don't like calling him ‘it,’ ” I explained.
    “Anyway, he, she or it is going to make it, I'm sure,” she answered. “As the Guide said, none of this is ideal. We are just hanging on because things will be better soon.”
    “Does the Fish know things will be better soon, though? Maybe he—or she—won't really try, if he thinks he will always be stuck in that bottle?”
    “Creatures are so tough,” said Mum, “it's amazing what they'll put up with. Poor Fish was still trying to breathe in the mud puddle, wasn't he, when you pulled him out. Maybe thinking, It's worth it, morerain might come and fill this pond again—who can tell?”
    “That's true,” I said, “I do hope the Guide finds something to eat. I'm so hungry. I can't imagine walking tomorrow on no tea and no breakfast and no lunch.”
    Mum put her arms around my shoulders and gave them a big squeeze. She is small, as I told you, but has arms with an iron grip.
    “But we will if we have to. And we can, can't we? Because we know the border is at the bottom of the mountain. And Dad can call a truck from the other aid workers to carry us to the camp. And there'll be food and water at the camp. And then—”
    “
Then
we get to go on an airplane?” I asked hopefully. You have to remember, I was only small when I'd come to this country on a plane and couldn't really remember it. The idea was still pretty exciting to me.
    Mum laughed.
    “Yes, then,
then
we'll go on an airplane, back home. And we, at least, will be a bit more comfortable.”
    While we had been looking at the Fish and talking, night had come and gathered the sky, dark and cold, around us. There were a few stars, but the moon only shone as a grayish haze.
    “Cloudy,” said Dad, squinting up at the sky from