Dear Diary:
Today we went gefilte fishing in
Loch Ness. Of course gefilte aren’t exactly fish. They’re skinless, boneless,
free-floating blobs, living by filter-feeding. The gefilte has limited mobility,
an electric sense, an electric defense,
and coordinated electric attacks. They reproduce by fission; a tiny crumb of
gefilte can grow into a big one. When Nessie, the gefilte’s natural predator,
attacks, she tends to be a messy eater. Nessie leaves gefilte crumbs all over,
that means a gefilte population explosion.
Fwee-bah explained this all, in a
bored voice, to doting Gazzik. It was just another dumb school project.
As I said, gefiltes are electric, so
you need rubber nets to fish for them. Jayadu caught lots of them, but Gazzik
only caught a ludefisk. They made him throw it back; ludefisk taste awful;
that’s their defense. Fweebah caught some twix, also useless; they’re
too chewy, they get caught between your teeth and stuck to the side of your
mouth, and they have no taste whatsoever.
Mid-afternoon, Zweedrix yelled,
“Mom! Dad! I got a big one! Or maybe it’s got me!”
It had him, all right; it was all
over him, and starting to squeeze. It was Nessie; a giant water-worm with 8
eyes and sharp teeth. Nessie coiled around Zweedrix and said, in Nessie,
“Riddle me this; why do 10% of the fishermen catch 90% of the fish?”
I flew my saucer up to Nessie and
landed on her forehead. “I know, I know!” I said in Nessie. (I knew that
language would come in handy someday!)
“Because 10% of the fish are smarter than 90% of the fishermen!”
Nessie squinted, winked and shook
her head, but couldn’t shake me off. “You’re itchy. Would you mind
flying off my head?”
“Would you mind letting go of my
friend?”
“Hmm...”
“Besides,” I said, “my friend’s from
the methane moon. He’d taste awful.”
“Oh!” Nessie said, and unwound from
Zweedrix. “Why didn’t you say so?”
As Nessie swam off, I said to
Jayadu, “Take a photo!”
But Nessie said, “Photographs don’t
work on me. They always come out looking blurry and fake. You can’t prove I
exist.”
“Why not?”
“Because 10% of the fish are smarter
than 90% of the fishermen,” Nessie said, and dove.
Yours, Sogwa
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