"My Fishes Are Horrible"

Clarissa found a book which is full of crafty ideas, one of which was making paper fish. We drew a fish shape on some coloured paper, cut it out and then cut out some wavy strips to stick on as scales. With an eye added, a tail, some fins and a wooden skewer stick cellotaped to the back, we had a full blown swimming fish.

Clari looked over at the fat green fish I was making and then down at hers.

"Your fishes are beautiful. My fishes are horrible."

"No they're not, they're lovely!"
"No, they are horrible." She began to screw up her face for the twentieth time in the day (I've never seen someone cry over so many little things in one day, in my life).
"Don't be silly! They're not horrible, they're really good!"
"No, my fishes are horrible."

It didn't matter how many times I said it, she wouldn't listen.

"All right then," I said, "Yes, yes they are horrible. They are horrible fish."

She looked up at me and laughed. She didn't say they were horrible again after that.

After a while she got a bit fed up of making fish, especially as she thought mine were so much better than hers. However, she still wanted more fish. So she had a proposal.

"I say you the colours and you make the fishes."

Oh really? I laughed incredulously.

"Why don't you make the fish?" I said, "I'm not going to do all the work and make the fish and you just tell me what to do! I'll only make more fish if you help me make them."

"No, I say you the colours."
"I won't make any more fish then. Not if you're just going to sit and watch me."

So she made another fish.
 

The Gremlin

When we'd finished I told her I wanted to take a picture of our beautiful fish, so I ran upstairs and grabbed my camera. When she saw me bring it down, Clari did her usual 'grabby' thing, trying to have a look at it, but I swung it out of reach pretty quickly.

"I have one," she said, going over to the chest of drawers by the door and pulling out a small 'Winkies' digital camera. But the batteries were dead and it wouldn't turn on.

"Why it not woooork?

I can take picture with yours?" She asked, grabbing towards the camera on my wrist.
"Umm…... no."
"Why I can't?"
"Because it's expensive, and it's new. And I don't want to break it."

But she didn't let up. In the end I gave in, and wrapping the string around her wrist, I let her take a picture.

I watched on edge as she took some photos, waving it around blindly in her hand. Eventually I hastily snatched it back when I had the chance and ran it back up to the safety of my room.

Of course, it was my fault her camera wasn't working - so she went crying to Dominga, who duly replaced the batteries for her. And then when it was working, it was my fault that all her photos were blurry.

                                                                            * * *

A bit later, she was playing around with her camera in the kitchen. Avidly talking to me and jumping all over the place, she wasn't paying attention and SLAP! her camera fell out of her hand onto the tiled floor.

"Oops!" she looked up at me guiltily with a grin on her face, "Good it was not yours…"

Mmm, yes.