PEOPLE STORIES

Big Fish, Middle Fish and Little Fish were just hanging around the old rotten tree which had fallen into their home waters several years ago. And as often happens when three fish are just hanging around, they started swapping people stories. Little Fish began by talking about one day she had felt very playful, and had been swimming around a fisherman's boat. After a while she thought it might be fun to taunt the fisherman a bit, so she began to break the water's surface and jump right beside the boat. Then she started feeling braver and stronger, so she decided to jump clear across the boat. She succeeded, and thought this was fun, so she did it again. By now she had caught the fisherman's attention. Since she was not a Big Fish or even a Middle Fish, she knew the fisherman had no real interest in her and if she were caught, she would simply be cut up for bait. But after Little Fish had jumped the boat several times, the fisherman became annoyed, and decided he would teach Little Fish a lesson. So the next time Little Fish jumped, Mr. Fisherman stuck out his net and tried to catch her. Fortunately for Little Fish, Mr. Fisherman was unsuccessful and Little Fish felt even more excited. So she continued jumping the boat, and each time the fisherman would flail the net a little more wildly until he finally became ranting, raving mad and with his last strong thrust of the net he tumbled head over heels and followed the net into the water. Big Fish and Middle Fish thought this was an exceptionally good people story, especially for Little Fish, who had little experience in such things.

Now Middle Fish felt he certainly could not let himself be outdone by Little Fish, so he began thinking very hard about his people story. He decided to go with the one about the shore fisherman. He spoke about how nice the weather had been that day, just a little on the warm side, and how Mr. Shore Fisherman had decided to take a little break from his fishing and lay back for a short nap. But not wanting to lose any opportunity to catch the big one, Mr. Shore Fisherman left his line dangling in the water and laid his rod beside him while he napped. The fisherman figured any kind of disturbance would wake him and he would grab the rod in time to catch any fish which bit while he rested. Middle Fish had been observing Mr. Shore Fisherman for at least a couple of hours that morning, and decided to have a little fun. He didn't really like the bait Mr. Shore Fisherman had on the line, since it was one of those artificial things and not good to eat. But he knew he could handle it without getting hooked, so he backed off a good distance so he could get a racing start, then he grabbed the bait on the run and kept going. Soon he had taken the line far enough that the rod began to move as it lay by the fisherman, and as it brushed the fisherman's hand he immediately jumped awake and sat up startled. Middle Fish was going full out now and bouncing the rod along the shore, then finally turned and headed for deeper water. The fisherman had begun running in an effort to catch up to the rod, but just as he lunged for it at the water's edge, Middle Fish pulled it off the land and into the water. He dragged it far enough from shore so that Mr. Shore Fisherman could not reach it or see it and then Middle Fish let it go. Mr. Shore Fisherman scratched his head for a few moments and looked up at the sky, then went back and lay down and resumed his nap. Middle Fish felt her had at least matched Little Fish with this story and was pleased.

Then it was time for Big Fish to tell her story. As was appropriate for Big Fish, she assumed a condescending position and briefly practiced speaking in her best condescending voice before going into her story. She spoke about the time she had been on an ocean cruise, which was intended to impress Middle Fish and Little Fish, since they had never been on an ocean cruise. Big Fish talked about how rough the weather had been on one particular day when she came upon some man thrashing around out there in the middle of the ocean in those terrible conditions. He had apparently fallen overboard from some ship. Then, quite by accident, a giant wave had washed the man into her open mouth. Well, for the next three days, she had put up with this man crawling about insider her stomach and tickling her, until finally she had started laughing so hard that she opened her mouth and coughed him out. She didn't know what happened to him after that because she resumed her cruise.

Now Middle Fish and Little Fish were appropriately impressed and knew it would be many fish years before they could come up with a whopper like that, and their respect for Big Fish was greatly increased.