Ellee Says She’s a Fish
Ellee and I are amphibians, though Ellee says she’s a fish. I tell her that my mom signed me up for the tadpole class at the Y.
“We’re amphibians,” I say.
Ellee says no, she’s a fish.
Then Ellee says, “Come on, Celia!” and runs through the sprinkler in her flowered underwear and matching undershirt. The grass is July dry, scratchy and wet, prickly and cool, each blade of grass momentarily quenched as the sprinkler see-saws between my yard and Ellee’s.
I tell Ellee that we were hatched. “Your brother. My sister. My brothers. You. Me. All of us. Hatched. But not our parents. They’re too old to have been hatched.”
But Ellee insists she’s a fish, has always been a fish, will always be a fish.
Tadpoles are usually fully aquatic. I think my mom signed me up for the wrong class.
Ellee says, “Come on!” again, and I tentatively pull my green shorts down and step out of them. But I’m not wearing an undershirt, just a T-shirt that says “I [heart] NY” on it, and don’t want others to see the rest of me, how smooth, how unblemished my skin is. There’s the Quigley boys across the street, one a year older than us and one a year younger, and Olivia, the strange girl with prodding eyes, two doors down. None of them are amphibians, so they’d make fun of me if they saw me without my clothes.
Ellee points to my underwear and says, “Look, we match! That means it’s a good day.” The petite polka dot-like flowers on my underwear are yellow, just like hers, which, indeed, means it’s a good day, no matter what. I take off my T-shirt and hug myself.
And again Ellee says, “Come on!” and doesn’t flinch when the water hits her blonde-white skin or blonde-white hair, both of which will darken as she gets older. My skin will only burn, now and later. My mom always has the Coppertone ready. For my nose, cheeks, and shoulders. She says that otherwise my skin will get rough and wrinkly like a reptile’s.
Amphibians generally have moist, breathable skin. I’ve never seen any mothers of frogs, salamanders, or newts putting Coppertone on them. But even so, I know for certain that Ellee and I are amphibians.
Ellee says she’s a fish.
Our mothers watch us, making small talk with each other. They sip iced tea and pick haphazardly at the weeds and dandelions spotting their respective yards. I think the dandelions look nice, yellow like summer, but our mothers don’t. My mom says they’re weeds — unwelcome and wild.
Ellee says she used to be a minnow, but now she’s a flying fish.
As she runs through the sprinkler again, Ellee says, “Fly, Celia, fly!” And then she flies like a bird through the blue-sky suburban neighborhood. I watch her disappear, turn to a speck.
I guess maybe I was wrong. Maybe we’re birds instead. Maybe we’re all birds.
But Ellee says she’s a fish.
“They’re everywhere,” my mom says to Ellee’s mom. She pulls a dandelion and tosses it into a bucket. Then, seeing the way I’m covering my flat, undeveloped body — the body of a larval amphibian with only external gills — she says, “It’s okay, Celia. No one’s watching.”
But the Quigley boys might be birds, hiding in the trees.
“They grow so fast,” Ellee’s mom says as she plucks one dandelion and then takes a long but small sip of her tea, stretching it out for infinity, the way my mom drinks when she wants to either avoid conversation or prolong it.
Ellee glides back then, lands, and as she runs through the sprinkler a fifth time, she says, “I flew, Celia! Did you see me?” And then she flaps her arms and goes again, her hair wet, her skin wet, her undershirt wet. The flowers on her underwear wet.
And it’s only then that I run through, too, but only so the flowers on my underwear will be wet like Ellee’s. Only so we’ll match and it’ll continue to be a good day.
And because I want to be a bird, too.
And because I also want to be a fish.
Jessica Klimesh is a US-based writer and technical editor whose flash fiction has appeared in Cleaver, Atticus Review, Ghost Parachute, FlashFlood Journal, and Bending Genres, among others. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Cedar Crest College and an MA in English from Bowling Green State University. She is currently working on a novella-in-flash.
