The Boy With The Fish

The bell rang for the end of the school day. Bree was out of her classroom, packing up her desk in the teachers lounge almost before her students had left her room. She’d had enough for the day. For the week. It had been such a trying week. So many little incidents, so many demands on her time. Twice this week she nearly wet herself because she simply didn’t have time to go to the toilet. Such is the life of many teachers. Working long, thankless hours. Constantly being berated and teased by friends and family members over the holidays. “It must be so easy to be a teacher, having all that time off”. Yet, nobody would ever join the ranks at the chalk-face. Or spend hours stuck fast in front of the mimeograph, that distinctive smell clinging to your clothes all day. She’d heard about other schools in better off areas getting these new, fancy things called photocopiers. Bree could only hope and pray it would be in her school’s budget one day for them to arrive. If only to avoid the smell.

Bree worked hard. Conscientiously. Carefully. She worked with every one of her students, trying hard to help them grow and learn. Soothing over the teenage angst and hurt. Supplying them with valuable life advice that they inevitably ignored. All in the hope that one day they’ll realise what she was trying to say. But no matter what abuse was thrown at her, she kept at it. Always trying. This week she’d caught two of the girls smoking in a staff toilet. Why a staff toilet? “Dunno, nobody ever goes here” was the response. Bree sighed at the disturbing lack of thought processing, given it was a place frequented by teachers. Still she sat them down. And despite the constant disrespect, the abusive attacks, she tried. But in the end she got nowhere. So she gave them the “smoking is bad for you” speech, wrote them up, gave them detention that she knew they wouldn’t attend and called home. The call home was just as predicted. Both mothers coughing from their chain-smoking, both only concerned that their daughters were stealing their cigarettes. When Bree mentioned that the girls would have to do a detention to avoid being suspended, the response was flat out abuse and threats to have her fired. So Bree hung up, confident she’d tried her best, knowing for certain that those two would be suspended before long. They’d fall behind, never catch up the learning they’d miss while away. Of course they’d do none of the work sent home with them, Bree knew that. She knew that in all likelihood, those girls would drop out before the end of school, probably pregnant, maybe on drugs, with a high chance of turning tricks in the red-light district. All because of a cigarette in a staff toilet. Bree sighed, but she never stopped trying to change the dangerous courses her students were on. Always hopeful that maybe she could change things for them before they went too far down an impossibly hard road.

But that was the week. And today was Friday. Bree was free for two days. Two whole days where she didn’t have to be mother, counsellor, teacher, friend, disciplinarian. It was the first weekend in so long where there wasn’t a pile of work to be done after hours. Her heart was light, nearly skipping as she passed through the school gate. She did her best to leave the worries of the job at school and enjoyed the walk in the sunshine. To save money she caught a bus to school, fortunate that the bus she caught rarely had children from her school on it. The odd times it happened they all studiously ignored her. Which was more than fine for her. When she clocked off work, Bree liked to truly clock off work and avoid thinking about it as much as she could. She walked down the hill, down to the quaint little newsagency on Hunter Street. The kind of shop that looked like it was put there a thousand years ago and the old man behind the counter was installed with the first flip of the light switch. Cool and dark, just the kind of place to stop off for a can of drink and the latest celebrity gossip magazines on a hot summer’s afternoon. This only way anyone could keep up with the news. Celebrity gossip from America or the rest of the world rarely made the nightly TV news. How Australia was doing in some sporting contest was always more important. Bree loved the gossip mags, it was her little escape into a world of glitz and glamour she could only dream of. She checked her watch, her paper bus timetable and realised she’d better get a move on if she didn’t want to wait an extra hour.

She gathered up her shopping and headed for the bus-stop. Getting there in time she took a seat on one of the benches to wait, partly reading, partly fanning herself with the magazine. Summer was brutally hot this year. Not a day going by that wasn’t around the 40 degree mark. Or, as her father would say, “100 degrees on the old water bag in the shade”. What that actually meant she had no idea. She suspected her father didn’t either, just that it was bloody hot. She looked around the bus-stop. Kids from other schools playing and carrying on. Shouts of delights, threats, promises and plans for the weekend. She smiled. They were so full of life, so full of energy. On another bench she saw a small boy. Sitting, waiting patiently. He was 8, maybe 9. Definitely not a high school student. And in his hand was a plastic bag with a single goldfish in it. He wasn’t clowning around. Nor making a nuisance of himself. He was focused, staring intently. Examining the goldfish in the plastic bag of water. Bree look at him for a moment, but thought nothing of it. Sure it was a little strange. There was one child out of many that wasn’t running around like their hair was on fire or playing pranks on their friends. But it didn’t seem like anything was wrong. Just a quiet boy, sitting by himself and waiting for the bus. With a hiss of the air brakes, her bus pulled up and she watched as he clambered onboard, the plastic bag tight in his fist.

The little boy didn’t choose to sit down the back with all the other school kids. He chose to sit down the front, watching the road ahead intently. Not speaking to anyone. His focus only distracted by the goldfish. He checked it often. Poking the bag gently. Watching the long, flowing fins swirl around as the fish swam in the water. A stop before hers, the boy rang the bell and got off the bus. Bree watched him walking alongside the road as the bus pulled away. Not happy. Not sad. Very serious. Still examining the fish. Bree thought it a little strange, but nothing to be concerned about. The next stop came and she got off the bus, slipping her heels off moments after she got in her front door. Fans on, misting spray of water, Bree shed clothes and lay out under the ceiling fan, trying to cool off before the cool change came later that afternoon.

Next Friday, the same routine happened. Almost identical. Like clockwork. Bree left the school as quickly as she could, as quickly as she dared. She walked down the hill, bought a can and a magazine, then sat on the same bench at the same bus-stop waiting for her bus. The little boy was there again. Same bench. Same plastic bag with a goldfish in it. Again they got on the same bus. He sat down the front, watching the road, examining the fish. Again he got off the bus a stop before hers, walking alongside the bus with a very serious look on his face. The next Friday was the same. Exactly. Same boy, same plastic bag with a goldfish in it. And the Friday after that. And the one after that. For two months, every Friday that same little boy caught the same bus home, never clowning around, always serious. Always with a goldfish in a plastic bag of water. Bree had become concerned. Something in her gut told her that there was something very wrong going on here. The chief question she had was why is he buying a goldfish every Friday? And why is he always avoiding all the other kids? The splinter in her mind had been growing. So this Friday, she did something about it. She approached him. Introduced herself using her teacher name. For a moment the boy looked at her, very puzzled. Frightened. Worry etched across his features. Then something clicked and a smile tugged at his face. He’d recognized her name. When he spoke to Bree he was very soft. Almost a whisper. Like he didn’t want anyone to hear him. No matter what question she asked him, it always came back to the same answer. “My name is Reece. This is for Adam. He liked fish.”

All weekend Bree thought about Reece and his fish. Why was he buying a fish, a single fish, every Friday? Who was Adam? A splinter in her mind, her instincts telling her that there was something more there, something important. She sat on the couch on Saturday night, the only comfortable place in her flat that the long phone cord tethering her to the wall could reach. Talking with her mother. Also a teacher. Bree discussed the little boy, Reece. Telling her mother everything she could think of, every theory she had. Then her mother spoke.

“That little boy, the one who got hit by a car when he was crossing the street. Wasn’t his name Adam?”

It suddenly made more sense to Bree. Adam was a boy in year 7. He’d been tragically struck and killed by a car earlier in the year. He’d run across the road in front of the schoolbus, the driver never saw him until it was too late. Bree remembered the talk in the staffroom at school. About a younger brother. How tragic it must be for the family. Bree couldn’t help it, she leapt to the conclusion. Reece must be the little brother.

Bree deliberated about it all weekend. Wondering if she was overstepping her boundaries. Wondering what she could do, or say. In the end she decided that she simply had to do something. So first thing Monday morning she made the toughest phone call of her teaching life. She called Adam’s home. His grandmother answered. The conversation was cold, stifled at first. But slowly the grandmother’s defensiveness softened and hearing Brees friendly, compassionate voice on the phone opened the floodgates. The words started to tumble fast out of Reece’s grandmother. She was so relieved that someone, anyone was willing to listen to her. She’d felt so lost and alone, watching her family crumble. Adam and Reece’s father had disappeared years ago, before the boys were even in school. And their mother had turned self-destructive, inflicting as much pain on herself as she could handle to distract her from the reality. Every night, most days, she was at the bottom of a bottle. When she had enough coordination, she went out on the town to seduce anybody she could. Just to feel something other than the emptiness eating away at her.

The grandmother said “Reece barely speaks. Barely eats. I’ve tried getting him to go talk with a counsellor, but they’re always too busy. He’s on so many waiting lists. All he does is come home with a goldfish every Friday afternoon and puts it in a goldfish bowl. And every Tuesday or Wednesday I flush the dead goldfish down the toilet. It’s devastating him, but I don’t know how to help him, I don’t know what I can do”.

“Would it be okay if I helped him set up an aquarium? So at least his fish will live?” asked Bree.

“Please, that would mean so much” said the grandmother. “how much will it cost?”

“Absolutely not. No charge at all. Don’t even think about it” said Bree.

That afternoon Bree took the bus home. She pulled the small, old fish tank she hadn’t used in a few months from the hallway closet. She cleaned it thoroughly, making sure the seals were still good and not leaking. Then she packed a bag. Some bags of gravel in a few different colours. Some decorations. And a small filter setup. She tossed the spare filters and media in a bag, along with a handful of starter chemicals she’d need. Then she went downstairs to her car and drove to Reece’s house. She knocked on the door and the grandmother ushered her into Reece’s room where he was crying into his pillow. She set the tank down on a fairly sturdy desk and his grandmother announced that he had a visitor. He wiped his eyes, looking at her with suspicion. But his expression changed when he saw the fish tank on the desk.

Together, they spent the evening setting it up. Bree carefully and patiently explaining the important tasks about water conditioning, filtering and everything else he would need to know about keeping fish. Reece carefully wrote down some notes, his face serious as he worked to write as clearly and neatly as he could. Then he saw the decorations. The gravel, in bright green and blue catching his eye. He liked the pirate ship, but it needed something else. “Could I put a Lego man in there too?” he asked shyly. Soon he was digging through his Lego collection, finding some of Adam’s favourite Lego men and his creations. Bree helped him superglue some tiny weights to some hidden spots on the Lego, and then Reece half buried some of them in the tank. Just like it’d crashed into the ocean and sunk to the floor. His face shone brightly, and he carefully filled it with water. Soon the tank was ready. Bree crouched down, her hand up to high five Reece. But instead he threw himself at her for a big hug. She smiled, and soon she was bidding them goodnight. With the promise that she would accompany Reece to the fish shop on the way home from school tomorrow.

The next day, Bree met Reece and his grandmother at the fish shop. They picked out two elegant goldfish. Long flowing fins, they were so graceful in their movements. This time, as Reece rode the bus home with his fish in a plastic bag, Bree and his grandmother sat with him, just listening to him chatter away excitedly. Moments after they got off the bus, Reece was eagerly running to his room. And after acclimatizing them to the water, Reece spent the night enthralled, watching the two fish glide around the little world he’d created for them.

Several weeks went past. School became hectic again for Bree, but she regularly saw Reece at the bus-stop. He’d occasionally stop and chat with her, but mostly he was running around with the other boys his age. She smiled when she realised that she hadn’t seen him with a little plastic bag with a goldfish in it since that night. Then, just before the bus reached his stop, Reece shyly turned around and asked Bree to come home with him. He had something to show her. They got off the bus together, his stop. He led her into his bedroom. There, on the nightstand was the fish tank. With two beautiful, elegant goldfish, swimming around the Lego. “Thankyou Miss” said Reece. And Bree left his house, a warm smile on her face.