Every child dreams about getting a cute little puppy or cuddly little kitten as their first pet. But what happens when your first pet is a fish? This is one kid's story.
Every child dreams about getting a cute little puppy or cuddly little kitten as their first pet. But what happens when your first pet is a fish? This is one kid's story.
 âDoes he do anything?â
Thatâs my friend. His nameâs Sigmund, but he hates that name. And I think itâs kind of dopey sounding too, so I just call him Iggy. âNah,â I tell him. âHe just floats there and opens his mouth a lot.â
âYour mom and dad wouldnât get you a dog, huh?â
âNo. Theyâre worried itâs going to pee on the rug or something. They worry about the dumbest things.â
âPizzoink.â We always make up words when we donât know what else to say.
Iggy walks over to my dresser and takes some of the coins Iâve been saving out of this really big plastic cup I got last year at a baseball game. Baseballâs pretty boring, but I sure got to drink a ton of soda! I bet that the cup I got holds about ten gallons! So anyway, Iâve been saving up my money so that someday I can buy a bike. My dad says you need a whole bunch of money to buy a bike, but I do have lots. I bet thereâs at least two hundred coins in there!
I think my momâs just worried that Iâll fall off a bike and break my head open. Iggyâs older brother says he used to know a guy that fell off his bike and got a big crack in his head and that his brain started leaking out of the crack and that some dog came by and started licking up his brain because it was just laying all over the street. It mustâve been one of those homeless dogs though, because if I had one, Iâd feed it and treat it real nice so it wouldnât have to eat nobodyâs brain.
Iggyâs brother is real smart and knows a whole lot of stuff about everything because heâs in High School. Heâs always telling me and Iggy stuff so that one day weâll be smart too! And I bet that by the time weâre in High School, weâll probably be almost as smart as he is.
So anyway, Iggy starts throwing some coins across the room at the fish bowl and I yell at him. âHey! Whatâre you doing!? Youâll scare my fish and heâll have a heart attack! And I just got him yesterday!â
âDonât worry,â Iggy says. âFishes like money. Havenât you ever seen the fish tanks at the pet store with those little scuba men and treasure chests? Well why do you think they put the treasure chests in there? Itâs because fishes like money. My brother even says so.â
I think about it and figure that Iggyâs right. I mean, there are lots of treasure chests in fish tanks, so fishes must like money, right? So I start to toss some coins too. A few hit the bowl and make a really neat clinky sound and then this one penny I throw lands right in the water and my fish swims under it like heâs gonna catch it and it ends up bonking him on the head. Â
Me and Iggy laugh pretty hard about that. So we go up closer and start dropping them in the water and the fish does the same thing every time. Iggy almost wets his pants because weâre laughing so hard. Iggy always does stuff like that when he starts laughing too much.
âSnorffle! Heâs a pretty neat fish.â Thatâs Iggy talking. âWhatâs his name anyway? Heâs got to have a name otherwise he wonât know when people are saying stuff to him.â
âOf course heâs got a name, mush-brain. I named him Blah, because he usually just sort of floats there not doing anything.â
Iggy and me start wrestling because he doesnât like it when I call him a mush-brain. I guess weâre making too much noise, though, because my mom yells up the stairs for us to both be quiet because weâre gonna make the roof fall down. We jump around just a little bit longer to see if it really will, but it doesnât. So we stop and look at Blah again and it kind of looks like heâs laughing at us.
âI didnât think fishes could laugh,â Iggy says, âand I should know, because I went to this lake last summer for a picnic and my Aunt Berniece farted cause she ate too much potato salad, and it sounded like a tree was falling over! I laughed so hard that I started to choke on my hot dog. My mom got pretty mad, but even though it was super funny I didnât hear any fishes in the lake laughing.â
So just then my mom calls up the stairs and tells Iggy that he needs to go home for dinner. Iggy starts leaving so I say, âbye, mush-brain,â and he tosses this coin at me that was on the floor, but misses. Iggy canât throw too well. He couldnât hit the rear end of a cow if he was staring right into it. I heard my dad say that once and I think I laughed for weeks afterwards about it. When my dadâs not being too tired, he can be pretty funny.Â
I love the ring toss game at carnivals and so do my kiddies. When I was a child, you won a goldfish. Now, you win stuffed toys. Many parents were ecstatic when the stuffed variety replaced the live prize. Let's be real here: carnival goldfish had a shelf life of a couple of days, breaking the hearts of many children. Despite their new fishy buddy going belly up rather quickly, kids used to head back year after year, ready to win another fishy friend.Â
A Bowl Full of Blah by Terry Varner points out that fish are not the most exciting pet. They can't do tricks. You can't pet them. Despite their blahness, the boys in the story found a way to "play" with Blah, the goldfish. They are under the assumption that fish like money since pet stores have treasure chests in tanks, so they start throwing money at the bowl. One coin even lands in it, causing a funny scene between it and Blah. BTW: I would instruct youngsters never to throw money in a fish bowl, tank, lake, ocean, pond, etc. I would also advise them never to take their fish to school unless given permission. That's a surefire way to have parents called to the principal's office or wind up with a dead fish. Both scenarios would be awful. Plus, kids will be in big trouble with the school and their parents. EEK!Â
Since this is a work of fiction, what happens when the boy's classmates meet Blah is rather comical. I bet your child will be laughing with Blah. Yeah, you read that right - Blah laughs! Maybe a fish isn't a boring pet after all.Â
There weren't many illustrations, but I loved the simple black and white drawings.Â
Final note: A Bowl Full of Blah discusses a pet's death, so be prepared your kid might have questions.Â
Amazon's recommended reading age for A Bowl Full of Blah by Terry Varner is 9 - 12, with a grade level of 3 - 8.
Review submitted to Reedsy on August 4, 2022. #KamsPlace