“Do you think the fish is from France, then?”
“Eighty percent of the ocean is unexplored,” Arthur reminded him. “Could be many French fish named Frank.”
“And now we get to meet one. Because he can talk to them.”
“Frank!” Chauncey bellowed at the water. “You there? Frank.”
“Maybe he’s in another part of the ocean,” Talia said, joining Chauncey to peer over the side of the boat. “It’s pretty big, you know.”
“I know,” Chauncey said, lifting his eyes to look at Talia. “But Frank’s school lives around here, and he wouldn’t have gone too far. Fraaaaaaannnnnk!”
Which was how they found themselves all bent over the side of the boat, shouting “Frank!” at the water. Arthur had never yelled at the ocean before and found it to be more soothing than he expected it to be. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw David standing back from the edge of the boat, once more looking unsure. Before Arthur could speak up, Phee made room for him, waving him over. He approached cautiously, standing between Phee and Talia, peering into the water. They reminded him that, as captain, he needed to be louder than everyone else.
David must have taken this to heart, because he lifted his head, pulled his lips back over his fangs, sucked in a deep breath, and then let out the most fearsome snarl that Arthur had ever heard, and he’d once known a griffin named Jessica. The sound carried over the sea, and Arthur wouldn’t have been surprised to find out they’d heard it all the way in the village.
“How was that?” David asked, only to find everyone staring at him. He flinched. “I … I didn’t mean to—”
“That was so awesome!” Chauncey screeched, grabbing David by the shoulders and spinning him around. “How did you do that?”
“So loud,” Talia said with stars in her eyes. “Do you think you could do that when Linus is in the shower?”
“I bet we could line up a row of drinking glasses and he’d be able to break them all by yelling at them,” Phee said. “Or all the windows.” She tilted her head back to look up at Arthur. “Can we blow out the windows when we get home?”
“We cannot,” Arthur said. “As it turns out, windows are important.”
“Frank!” Chauncey bellowed in excitement. “I knew you’d come!”
They all hurried to the side of the boat, looking over, the rowboat leaning precariously. And there, swimming just underneath the surface, a fish. It was not the most beautiful fish Arthur had ever seen, far from it: it was flat and wide, slightly bigger than Sal was in his shifted form. A beady eye on either side of its head, its scales gray near its top, fading into white toward the bottom. Its mouth opened and closed as it swam.
“Everyone,” Chauncey said. “This is Frank. Frank, this is my family that I told you about.”
The fish poked its mouth out of the water, opening and closing. As far as Arthur could tell, no sound came out, but Chauncey was nodding along as if deep in conversation. “Right. Right. Yeah. Oh, really? Wow. You don’t say. Yeah, I can tell him. Hold on.” Chauncey looked over at them. “Frank says Arthur reminds him of a seahorse he once knew called Madam Esmerelda.”
“Chauncey,” Arthur said, “please extend my gratitude to Frank. As far as I can tell, I’ve never been told I look like a seahorse or like someone called Madam Esmerelda, but I’ve discovered it tickles my fancy more than expected.”
“Ooh,” Lucy said. “If you love Madam Esmerelda so much, why don’t you marry her?” He slapped his hands against his cheeks. “Oh no! Linus already asked you to marry him, so you can’t marry a seahorse! Drat! Of all the luck.”
“Drat, indeed,” Arthur said. “Is this what it feels like to have dreams dashed? More’s the pity.”
“She can have you,” Linus grumbled.
Theodore decided that was the perfect time to ask Chauncey the question everyone had been thinking about for the last three minutes.
“I don’t know how I can talk to them,” Chauncey said, his face inches from the water, Frank swimming just below the surface. “I think it was kind of like my ink. Just something I can do now.” One of his eyes lowered into the water while the other raised over the lip of the boat, turning to look at each of them. “Which brings me to the reason we’re here. Since I can talk to Frank, that means I can probably talk to other fish. So I’m sure you’ll agree that we can no longer eat seafood of any kind.”
“Oh, thank God,” Phee said. “Fish is gross.”
“What?” Lucy yelped. “No! I like crab! And shrimp! And lobster! And those little sardines from the can that I eat in front of Linus with my fingers because it makes him gag.”
“But why would you eat something that can talk to you?” Chauncey asked. “Isn’t that wrong? Frank says that people who eat seafood are going to Hell.”
“Great,” Linus said. “Now that I know fish are aware of the concept of Hell, I’m questioning everything.”
“What about other animals, then?” Talia asked. “Just because you can talk to fish doesn’t mean someone else can’t talk to cows or pigs. Doesn’t that make it bad too?”
Phee glared at them. “If anyone tries to take bacon from me, I’m going to turn them into a tree. And not a good tree. A bad one, like a Bradford pear tree.”
They stared at her.
She threw up her hands. “Have I taught you nothing? The Bradford pear tree has thorns and the flowers smell like tuna. No one has ever said, oh gee, let me get a good, long sniff of fish flowers.”
“We could consider vegetarianism,” Arthur mused. “Take meat out of our diet and—”
“I will literally blow up the entire planet if you do that,” Lucy growled. “You think meat is bad? Try breathing when you’re hurtling through space.”
“Well, it is Chauncey’s day,” Linus said. “Let’s see what he thinks. Chauncey, would you like to explain a little more?”
Chauncey jerked back into the boat, face dripping with water. His eyes darted side to side. “Um. I think we’ve talked about this enough. We should just go home and—”
“Chauncey,” Sal said. “Did you eat Frank?”
“What! Of course not! That goes against everything I stand for! I would never—”
“We can see him in your stomach,” Phee said.
Sure enough, through Chauncey’s translucent green skin, Frank swam in slow circles, little bubbles trailing from his nose. “Oh, that?” Chauncey said. “I can explain. You see, Frank said he’s very interested in stomach acid, and wanted to see it for himself.”
“Wow,” David whispered. “This place is crazy.”
