Fish Without A School - Chapter 4

Written by Carolyn Cole Illustrated by Austin Wohlgemuth Inspired by The Students, Staff and Fish of Jack Stuart School



“Wow!” “Cool!” “Look at this!” The Danios, Tetras and Corys all looked around absolutely astonished at what they were seeing. It was a classroom, yes, but a magical room with portals to all the classes at Jack Stuart School.

PreK Skoglund 3 Knull K Atema 4 Carlson 4 Cowan 1 Steil 3 Desjardins 5 Radchenko 1 Fleck 4 Sikorski 5 Mitchell 2 Harty 2 Hanson PE Nelson

“Where should we go first?” the usually timid Pud asked. “Do you think the kids are in there?” Zalora bravely swam towards the portal door closest to her. Zizi, Zola, Zaiden, Zeke, Zachary, Jules, Copper and Pud each swam towards a different door. With fins shaking with excitement, they swam through. And each fish came back with the same announcement. No kids.



“What now?” asked Jules, her lower lip starting to tremble and tears starting to form. “I think we need to explore this place further,” stated Mr. Green quickly before Jules could start wailing. “This is no time for tears. Let’s choose one class at a time and see what we can find.” “Excellent idea, my dear!” exclaimed Mrs. Green. “Field trip, anyone?”



Zalora had gone through the door to 3Knull. “Remember when that teacher from Spain visited? I think her name was Aroa. She had a neat accent and she taught the kids a little bit of Spanish. There was something about that in the classroom I tried. Can we check that out first?” The fish agreed that would be a good idea and all swam through the portal door to 3Knull. They found some questions and assignments but then Copper noticed an icon for Google Earth.



“Over here!!” he called to the others. “Do you remember when the grade 1 classes were talking about Google Earth? It was a way you could visit all sorts of places all over the globe! I remember that our planet is Earth and we are on the continent of North America, the country of Canada, the province of …” “Yes, we remember!” interrupted Jules. “Let’s see if we can go to Spain!” Mr. Green typed “Spain” into the search bar of Google Earth and the fish watched as the classroom transformed into a beautiful green landscape before their eyes. They were speechless for several moments. Their mouths kept opening and closing as their eyes took in the sights, sounds and smells of this new place.

Spain

“Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness,” Mrs. Green gushed. This is so incredible! I’ve never seen anything like this ever before! Look over there! And over there! And over there!” Mrs. Green kept pointing with her fins as Google Earth rotated through the landmarks of Spain.



“That water looks so appealing,” enthused Zachary, pointing at Costa Del Sol. “If you don’t mind swimming with sharks,” Zizi joked. Zachary’s eyes went wide and he quickly focussed on a different landmark.





“Isn’t that Alcazar Fortress?” Copper scratched his head with his fin. “It’s in Segovia where Aroa was from. It’s the one Walt Disney modelled his Cinderella castle off of. I wonder if we can find Aroa.” He saw a Spanish woman walking by with a mask on.



“Excuse me! Hola! Buenos días. We are looking for a woman … a mujer … named Aroa … Do you know where she lives?” The woman kept on walking like she hadn’t heard anything. “I keep forgetting humans don’t understand us,” Copper muttered.

Meanwhile, back at the aquarium, Esmerelda emerged from under the rocks, blinked and looked around. “I say! Where did all the fish go?” Araminta paused her cleaning and adjusted her antennae to look at Esmerelda. “They just disappeared. They said something about googling Earth and portals and field trips.” “Silly things. They’ve been watching too much Ms. Frizzle and that ridiculous school bus,” grumped Esmerelda.