Once upon a time there was a crab called Colin. Colin lived under the sea with other assorted underwater creatures. One day, Colin was watching TV at his house. He was watching a film called The Little Mermaid, in which - paradoxically - a quite normal-sized mermaid swam around under the sea and sang songs at any creature that had nothing better to do than to listen and indulge in underwater synchronised swimming.
'This is ridiculous - they'd have all eaten her by now,' said Colin with a sniff, looking across at the vacant seat in the opposite corner of the room. 'That's what Bob would have said.'
Suddenly there was a loud rapping at the door. Colin opened it to be greeted noisily and enthusiastically by a plump, speckled fish. He stood at the door grinning widely and unnaturally, holding a bulging Fish-Mart carrier bag.
'Hi Colin! It's me, Desmond! Desmond the Dogfish!'
'Oh, hi Desmond,' said Colin, 'you should have called, I'm a bit busy at - '
'Oh don't worry about me, I won't get in the way,' said Desmond, pushing his way past Colin and plopping himself down in Bob's old chair with an air of familiarity. 'I can't stop for long anyway. What's on TV? You got any dogfish biscuits, the ones with the chocolate on?'
'No, actually I - '
'Oh well, never mind,' he replied, rummaging around in his bag. 'It's a good thing I just bought some. Hey, I love this film! You ever seen a real mermaid? I haven't. She looks great! Well, her bottom half does.'
Ever since Bob had gone, Colin the Crab felt like a empty shell. The assurances of others that there were "plenty more fish in the sea" did little to help. In desperation, he joined a support group for bereaved underwater animals, where he'd been befriended by Desmond. Desmond told Colin how he'd lost his brother in a fishing accident, and - out of sympathy - Colin made the fatal mistake of inviting him around for dinner. He'd quickly realised Desmond's company was extremely irritating. Since then Desmond had been "popping in" every morning, promising he couldn't stay for long, watching TV all day and leaving late at night. Unfortunately, Colin hadn't the heart to tell Desmond that he couldn't stand the sight, or indeed sound, of him. He scurried to the TV and flicked it off.
'Hey!' Desmond exclaimed. 'I was watching that!'
'I'm sorry,' said Colin sadly. 'It's just that, well, it reminds me of Bob, and - '
'Bob?' Desmond interrupted tactlessly. 'Oh yeah, Bob! What's wrong, did you forget he was dead? He got battered and fried by that Fish Lady, didn't he? Nasty way to go, if you ask me, being fried alive. I mean, imagine it! Anyway, who cares about Bob, now you've got Desmond the Dogfish for a best friend!'
'Yeah, great,' Colin sighed, retaking his seat, while Desmond swam across to the TV and switched it back on.
'Where do these guys hang out?' said Desmond, backing up to his seat while numerous brightly coloured fish danced all over the screen. 'They're having a great time.'
'It's not real,' said Colin sadly. 'If it was, they'd have all eaten her by now. That's what Bob would have said.'
Desmond disregarded Colin's comment and continued to watch the TV in ignorance and bliss. After a while, Colin made a suggestion.
'Why don't we go out?' he said.
'What do you want to go out for? We've got everything here,' said Desmond, stuffing his face with another dogfish biscuit, his big glassy fish-eyes still glued to the set.
'I don't know, we could have an adventure, or something.'
'Uh-oh,' said Desmond, shaking his head but still not taking his eyes off the screen. 'Sounds a bit dangerous. One of us could end up getting killed! How would the other feel then? Imagine that, losing your best mate. It would be terrible! No way, let's stay here - it's safer.'
'Okay,' said Colin quietly. He stared sadly at the floor, while Desmond clapped his fins in time to yet another underwater song.
When the film eventually finished, Desmond told Colin that he had a surprise for him. He rummaged around in his bag then handed something over. It was a picture frame, containing a picture of Desmond, happily waving his fin at the camera. On the bottom it was signed 'To Colin - From Your Best Mate Desmond!'
'Er, this is great, thanks,' said Colin awkwardly, not quite sure what to do with it.
'Put it up somewhere!' said Desmond.
'Er, there's no room.'
'That's okay, we'll just get rid of this old picture. Don't know who that is in it anyway.'
Desmond picked up Colin's favourite picture of Bob from the sideboard and threw it out of the window. 'There you go!' he said, snatching his own picture from Colin and putting it in the empty space. 'Perfect!'
'B - b - but - ' stuttered Colin, his eyes welling up with water.
'Oh, don't thank me, it's nothing!' said Desmond. 'After all, you could always go out and get me something. I wouldn't expect you to spend quite as much, I mean, at twenty-five pounds it was quite an expensive frame. Then there was the picture itself, I got that done professionally. That was even more!'
Colin choked and couldn't do anything but point lamely at the new picture on the sideboard. Desmond smiled a cheesy grin from the frame, while the real Desmond sitting alongside struck almost the same pose. Two Desmonds, side by side; Colin's worst nightmare. He buried his face in his pincers, inadvertently snipping off one of his eyebrows in the process. He began to cry gently, his tears dispersing in the salty water that filled the room. His mind drifted to fond memories of Bob, to a time soon after they'd first met, and their first adventure together.
Colin had called for Bob a little too early. He waited patiently while Bob got ready for school, or more accurately, Colin waited patiently while Bob's mum got him ready for school.
'Have you cleaned behind your ears?' she asked, spitting on a tissue and wiping Bob's face. A few scales came off in the process.
'Mu - um!' said Bob, giving Colin an embarrassed glance. 'Please!'
'Don't be silly Bobbo, just stand still!' said his mum.
'Mu - um!' Bob repeated, then whispered, 'don't call me that in front of Colin!'
'Yes, of course Bobbo,' Mum replied. 'Now, I've packed your lunchbox: paste sandwiches, your favourite.'
Bob's dad swam into the room. 'Bob, I've been hearing some nasty stories about that school of yours. I want you to be careful. If the big fish flush you down the toilet, well, just swim out again.'
'Better still, don't use the toilets at all,' said Mum. 'I'll bet they're not as clean as ours.'
'You mean our Baxter's Family ThunderFlush 900-3sTM?' asked Bob.
'Yes,' Dad replied, 'with it's triple pan and integrated dining table, you can Have A Plop While You Eat Your ChopsTM.'
'It also comes in two and four-seater versions, of course,' Mum added.
At school the first lesson was science. Mr Octopus started the lesson with some basic physics. The pupils had to learn how to calculate the time taken for a shark to catch up with a human boy, based on their initial separation and their respective speeds. Bob and Colin found it hard to keep up as, with eight arms, Mr Octopus was very efficient at filling up a blackboard with scrawls and equations. Fortunately, Colin was pretty academically-minded, for a crab at least.
'How is this going to help us when we leave school anyway?' said an exasperated Bob, while Colin calculated frantically.
'Don't worry, I've almost worked it out.'
One of the good things about having Colin for a friend was that he could lock his pincers so they moved in unison. In this way, with a pen gripped in each, he could write the answers in his exercise book and simultaneously copy them to Bob's.
'There!' said Colin. 'Got it!'
Bob immediately put his fin up.
'Yes, Bob? You have the answer?' said Mr Octopus.
'Twenty-two seconds, sir.'
'Excellent, well done. Have a gold star.'
Colin glared at Bob, who shrugged by way of apology. 'It's about time I got a gold star,' he explained. 'My mum's been asking questions. You've got loads.'
Bob watched as the Mr Octopus quickly confirmed that the answer was correct, using a diagram on the board of a shark and a boy in the sea.
'There's not a lot of meat on him, is there?' said Bob. 'The shark isn't going to get much of a meal out of that.'
'He's not going to eat the boy,' said Colin. 'He's just going to take him to the factory.'
'The factory?' said Bob. 'What do you mean?'
'The sharks run the paste factory, right?'
'Dur! Everyone knows that,' said Bob. 'So what?'
'Where do you think the paste comes from?'
Bob looked towards his lunchbox quizzically. 'You mean?'
'Dur!' Colin exclaimed. 'Why do you think it's called kiddie paste?'
Bob pushed his lunchbox across the desk and away from him. 'But - that's my favourite,' he said.
'You've been stuffing your face all this time with kiddie paste sandwiches and you didn't know what it was made from?' Colin asked in disbelief.
'I thought kiddie paste was just a cute name for it. I didn't realise it mean it was made from kiddies. That's disgusting!'
Colin laughed while Bob held his fin to his mouth and turned a distinct shade of green.
The next lesson was human history with Mrs Manatee. Her large bulbous body gently undulated, and bobbed up and down as she spoke at the head of the class.
'Humans, of course, populate the land, whereas we populate the seas, which cover four-fifths of the planet. We therefore represent the largest living group of creatures on the planet, even though the humans believe they are the most significant life form. This is due in part to their overdeveloped brains, which enable them to believe they are superior to all other living things. The reality is that humans are really very stupid. For example, they are the only life form which is actively destroying the planet. Your mothers and fathers might appreciate lower heating bills as the oceans get warmer, but the reality is that if this goes on for much longer they won't need any heating at all, and all the underwater plumbers will be out of work. Imagine that!'
'It's not their fault they're stupid,' said Bob quietly, as Mrs Manatee continued. 'I mean, they didn't ask to be human did they? Just like I didn't ask to be a fish.'
'I suppose,' said Colin.
'And to think, all those human kiddies splashing about in the sea, ending up in little jars on the shelves of Fish-Mart. I don't think that's right. What if it was the other way around? What if a human pulled me out of the sea, mashed me up and squeezed me into a jar?'
'Well, actually - ' Colin started.
'I'm going to do something about this,' said Bob decisively, banging his fin on the desk. 'We're going to the paste factory!'
'Hold on,' said Colin, noticing that Bob had quickly gone from 'I' to 'we' in that sentence. 'Why do I have to get involved?'
'Because this will be the first of many adventures and obviously I'll need a sidekick,' said Bob. 'Let's go!'
The paste factory consisted of a huge, flat, single-storey building under the sea. Chimneys rose out of it, spewing gaseous bubbles up to the surface. At one end sharks towed kiddies inside before returning to the beach for their next catch. At the other end jars were being loaded into boxes where more sharks distributed them to the Fish-Mart stores.
'Yuk!' said Bob. 'It's horrible!'
'Hurry up!' said Colin 'I'm supposed to be home by half-past-four, my mum will be worried.'
Inside sharks were busy at various stages of a long, winding production line. The expanse of space was dominated by a huge black cylinder in the middle, from which a distinct crunching and mashing sound could be heard. Bob and Colin sneaked up behind two sharks standing alongside, monitoring the machine. Suddenly there was a loud lurching sound before it ground to a halt.
'Blimey, there it goes again Joe,' said one of the sharks, with a cigarette in his mouth. 'This keeps happenin', every ten minutes at least. Wot's goin' on?'
'They've gotta update the machine Charlie,' said the other. 'Kiddies are just getting fatter and fatter. Remember this was built twenty years ago, fings were different then. It's bigger profits for the company, more work for us. Same old story.'
Joe shook his head and swam up to the top of the cylinder and peered inside. 'Phew!' he whistled, 'that is one big kid. I'll need 'elp 'ere, Charlie.'
Charlie joined him inside the machine, then Bob saw his chance. He swam to the control box and quickly rewired it so the machine would run in reverse.
'All done!' he said proudly as he returned to Colin, slapping his fins together.
'What do you mean?' said Colin. 'How's that going to help?'
'Instead of mashing the kiddies up, now the machine will put them back together!' Bob exclaimed. 'Problem solved!'
'Brilliant! Good work Bob!' said Colin. 'Come on, let's go home, it's tea time.'
'Where have you been?' said Desmond. He had a bit of a stern look on his face as he stared at Colin.
'Oh, I was just daydreaming,' Colin replied, feeling a little disorientated. He'd been away with the fairies so long it was starting to get dark outside.
'That's all very well, old chum, but I'm ready for a bit of dinner now, if you know what I mean.' Desmond patted his voluminous belly with a fin. 'You go and fix something up, I'll stay here and make sure the TV doesn't get stolen.'
Colin scurried into the kitchen, pleased to have an excuse to get away from Desmond for a while, and, at a leisurely pace, started putting together something to eat.
'Hey Colin!' shouted Desmond from the front room, 'make me extra, please. I'm hungry!'
Colin opened a jumbo tin of Fish-Mart Extra Value Fishy Peas with his claw and let it slowly ooze out into a saucepan. He stirred the gloop gently and stared vacantly out of the window, still lost in part in his earlier thoughts. In the front room he could hear Desmond laughing at some TV show or another. His laughing was punctuated by the occasional loud burp, followed by an exclamation of surprise as if to say 'ooh - where did that come from?'
Suddenly a silhouette shot past the kitchen window. It was so close that Colin jumped back in surprise. This merest glimpse of a shadow had bought with it a feeling of déjà vu. Somehow Colin had recognised it, but he shook his head in disbelief and continued stirring. Shortly after there were three loud knocks at the front door.
'Desmond, can you get that?' Colin shouted. 'I'm busy in here.'
Desmond tutted. 'I'm supposed to be the guest, some friend!' he muttered to himself. He swam slowly towards the front door, keeping his eyes on the TV screen the whole time, and opened it without looking.
'Yeah?' he said curtly.
'Who the hell are you,' said a voice.
Desmond was so surprised he was forced to look away from the screen to see who had spoken in such menacing tones. The light outside had almost faded, so that all Desmond could see was the black shadow of a fish, floating perfectly still in the dark water.
'I said, who the hell are you?' the voice repeated.
'I'm Desmond, Desmond the Dogfish!' Desmond replied nervously. 'Can I help you?'
'Where's Colin?'
'He's in the kitchen, making our dinner.'
'Making your dinner?'
'Yes, Colin's my best chum. He's making us some dinner, and then we're going to watch some TV.'
'I found this outside,' said the shadow, handing over the picture that Desmond had thrown out of the window earlier. 'I believe it belongs to Colin.'
'Oh, it's just an old one, I threw it out to make room for a new one of me.'
'Really?' said the voice.
'I don't know who this is,' said Desmond, examining the picture.
The shadow moved slowly into the light of the house.
'Oh!' said Desmond in recognition, 'it's a picture of you!'
'That's right. And I believe you have been sitting in my chair.'
Colin finished serving up dinner in the kitchen. On his plate were a couple of pieces of soggy prawn toast coated with a generous layer of fishy peas. The remainder of the peas he poured into a bucket for Desmond and garnished them with a few squids which were well past their sell-by date. He scurried into the front room and, without looking at him, dumped Desmond's bucket next to his seat before taking his own and tucking in. Realising that he wasn't hearing the usual sound of Desmond slurping noisily, he looked up and spat out a mouthful of food.
Some time after, Colin woke, having fainted instantly at the sight of Bob the Fish sitting in his usual armchair, watching TV as if the past three months hadn't happened. Bob was slapping him gently to rouse him.
'That was a nice way to welcome me back,' said Bob, smiling. 'Gobbing a load of fishy peas at me.'
'Bob! Bob the Fish!' cried a trembling Colin, 'is it really you?'
'It's me, old friend.'
'But how, you were killed? I saw you, dead! You - '
'Calm down, calm down. Let's fix you something to ease your nerves, then I'll tell you everything that happened.'
Soon Colin was cradling a glass of Oyster Whisky, his nerves having almost returned to normal, while Bob related his story.
'Before the Fish Lady threw me into the fryer,' he began, 'she coated me with a generous layer of batter. The thing is, in her haste, she'd put a little too much flour in the mix, so it was extra thick. It protected me from the hot fat for the time I was in there, forming a hard shell around me. I was just starting to feel the heat when you pulled me out. Being encased in a hard shell of batter meant that I couldn't move a muscle, and as it was so thick my shouting couldn't be heard.'
'You mean, all that time you were alive?' said Colin in horror.
'Yes, my initial relief at being pulled from the pan was short-lived, when I realised that no-one was going to break open the shell. What made it worse was that one of my ears was caught in a bubble in the batter. There, it was thin enough for me to hear what was going on outside. I heard everyone crying, the plans for the funeral being made, everything. All the time I was shouting back but no-one could hear me. It was pretty terrible.'
Colin shook his head, aghast. 'Oh Bob, I'm so sorry!'
'You don't need to be sorry Colin. You didn't know. Anyway, if it weren't for you I would really have been dead - you pulled me out of that pan just in time. You're the best friend a fish could have.'
Colin nodded. He knew if he tried to speak he'd just start crying.
'So there I was, six feet under, without a hope in the world. But it wasn't long before I could feel movement above me, then after some time, I was lifted out. Whoever had hold of me wasn't saying a word, then I felt myself being put down, followed by the sound of a car door slamming. I felt the motion of the car as we drove for what seemed like hours, then I was lifted out. Anyway, eventually I was put down again and I heard the gentle crack of the batter around me. Before long bright white light flooded into my eyes for the first time in a week. I was in a laboratory, and a mad professor-type person was standing over me, smiling. I could tell he was a mad professor-type person because he was wearing a white lab coat, and his crazy hair was all over the place.'
'I saw that man at the funeral!' Colin cried. 'He was writing notes! I was too upset to think about it at the time.'
'Yes, the professor was calculating that there was a good chance I was still alive. However, he didn't want to ruin his reputation by testing out his theory publicly, which is why he sneaked back that same night and removed me.'
'So that's how you survived,' said Colin, but then he put a claw to his chin and pondered. 'But, hold on. You said he came straight back. You've been gone for months!'
'That's because the story's not over yet. I'd spent a week encased in batter without food, and although I was still alive, my body had started to deteriorate. My mind was fine, but the professor told me I would never swim again.'
Colin gasped in shock.
'Unless - ' started Bob.
'Unless what?'
'Unless he could rebuild me. He told me he'd been experimenting with fish-bionics, and - although he'd never tried it on a live fish before - he might just be able to rebuild me, better and stronger than ever.'
'Wow!' Colin exclaimed.
'So he spent the next three months hacking bits off, putting new bits in, and here I am! The first bionic fish. I have bionic eyesight, bullet-proof scales and a tiny turbo jet engine in my tail. As you know Colin, I was pretty special before, but now I'm a hundred times better!'
Colin involuntarily clapped his claws together. 'Bob The Bionic Fish!' he exclaimed. 'Incredible!'
'Wait!' Bob exclaimed. 'I've told you all this Colin, but you have to promise to keep it a secret. If anyone else finds out, they'll try to find my weaknesses and destroy me. Best to stick to "Bob the Fish", okay?'
'Sure thing, Bob the Fish!'
'There's one other thing,' said Bob. 'My house has been sold to a family of sea-horses. I was wondering, could I come and live with you?'
'It gets better and better! Of course you can!'
Having instantly resumed his clapping, Colin suddenly stopped. 'Hold on, there's a problem,' he said, looking around the room and noticing for the first time that Desmond wasn't around. 'What happened to Desmond?'
'Put it this way, you've won't see him again,' Bob replied. 'Or his picture. I told him never to come back.'
'Thanks, Bob,' said Colin gratefully. 'This is the happiest day of my life!'
'But just to make sure, I dragged him outside and fish-slapped him into a million flakes of fluffy white meat,' Bob added. 'These new powers of mine are pretty good - it looks like it's been snowing out there!'
Colin laughed. 'I can't wait for our next adventure. Welcome back, Bob!'