Miss Grosvenor’s Goldfish Is there any creature on Earth who experiences as much abject suffering as the common classroom pet? Looking back, the elementary school experience hardly seems incomplete without a small animal tragedy of some description, either repressed or remembered as comedy. Miss Grosvenor meant well, but she was very young and hardly knew how to teach; much less keep a goldfish. Maybe, if she had been given more years to learn and settle into her job, then her skills in both areas would have improved. There was the potential for a middleaged Miss Grosvenor helming a third-grade classroom with a large and vibrant community aquarium. But that was not the case yet. Bubbles lived in a plastic drum bowl by the window, so that the light trickled in when the window-blinds were open, filling the bowl with a dull and cloudy glow. The color of his gravel was neon rainbow, the plastic plant which loomed over him was birthday-cake-puke pink. Bubbles lived in a technicolor hell. By the end of the first quarter, the students were already debating among themselves who would get to take Bubbles home. Miss Grosvenor told them that whoever was the best behaved would be able to have him, as long as their parents agreed. And as the conversation turned to misremembered care advice, both children and teacher were too busy talking to notice that Bubbles had stopped hanging listlessly at the top of his tank, and had instead swum over to the side of the bowl closest to them, listening intently. The kids were put to work in group activities, and Miss Grosvenor stepped out in the hall to walk down to the supply room. The door swung shut behind her, and the sound of her footsteps faded as she walked briskly down the hallway. When she was gone, the kids began to laugh and talk loudly among themselves, getting up and darting between | Sara Thompson 14
tables. They had been warned not to be naughty, but what good is a warning that can’t be enforced? “Kids!” a man’s voice called out. The classroom ground to a halt. “Who said that?” said one boy, putting down his marker. “I did,” said Bubbles. Immediately, every kid in the class jumped from their seats and ran over to the table where Bubbles’ bowl sat, crowding around him in a sea of giant, grinning faces. Bubbles floated in the center of his bowl, his fins flared around him, hanging in the center of the water column as he addressed the class in a deep baritone voice. “Bubbles, you can talk!” a girl squealed, springing forward to hug the bowl. The water sloshed. “Let go, please,” said Bubbles, bumping into the side of the bowl. “Of course I can talk. I’ve always been able to talk.” “I knew it!” said a tall, curly-haired boy. “Why didn’t you talk before?” “I haven’t felt like it,” said Bubbles. “But now I think I do.” “Then you’ll be our friend,” said the same little girl, who was still stroking the side of the bowl. “A friend forever?” “A friend forever,” Bubbles said, sinking down to the bottom. “Of course.” He then fell silent again, for five, six, seven seconds, until Miss Grosvenor re-entered the room. When she did, the kids ran to her, tugging at her shirt and demanding that she come and see how Bubbles had talked to them. At first she thought it was some kind of fairy tale, a story they had all made up to prank her somehow. But with the entire class very insistent on what had happened, she acquiesced and walked over to the tank to see what all the fuss was about. Bubbles sat on the bottom of the tank,
