Pond People

Father had dropped the net in the empty tank where it slid down to lie flat on the gravel. The tank had tipped sideways, and the jug dipped to collect more water.

Once Flash had freed Grandad’s foot, they scrambled to higher ground, staying well behind the jug while still under water.

Its level was dropping fast. From somewhere in the kitchen, Mother said, ‘You won’t get much more out with the jug. You could try the syphon.’

The tank levelled and lifted from its shelf.

‘It’s light enough to carry now,’ said Father. ‘Where do you want it?’

‘Out in the garden where it won’t be in the way. Keisha’s mum said she might pick it up before we go.’

A thin layer of water slopped across the gravel as Father carried the tank to the garden. He left it by the shed where the ground was uneven, and water drained from the raised side to pool on the other.

He came back twice, bringing the vacuum tube and the plants, which he left with their roots in water.

Flash couldn’t see Amber’s body. She may have been buried by the gravel when the tank was tipped. They kept to the deeper water.

‘We need to get out of here, lad, or we’ll find ourselves in some other house with no hope of ever getting back to our pond.’

Flash had been wondering if he could somehow scale the smooth glass walls. ‘Or else we’ll be poured down a drain when they clean the tank.’

They both knew that was a likely scenario.

Rain began to fall, gently at first, cooling the warm layer of water in the tank. Flash breathed in the reviving oxygen. Grandad lay with his eyes unfocused above a blissful smile. The sky lit up, and an angry crash of thunder followed, grumbling into the distance as rain fell in earnest. The sky lightened again, and this time the thunder came sooner, crashing overhead as rain drove into the tank. Slowly the water level rose.

Flash and Grandad bumped fists. Flash pulled off two filaments of weed, offering one to Grandad, and they made themselves comfortable.

When the rain stopped the tank was half full. The clouds cleared quickly after the storm, but the sun had set by then, and a full moon lit the garden.

Grandad shared his thoughts. ‘Is it likely to rain again before someone comes to collect this tank?’

‘Is someone going to collect the tank before the family go on holiday?’ Flash wondered. ‘They didn’t seem sure.’

‘Good question.’ Grandad nodded, looking around him. ‘We’re all right for food. Plants’ll stay fresh. Now there’s water in here we can reach that fern on the driftwood too.’

Flash considered the angle of the tank. ‘If the rain got to the top, we could throw ourselves over.’

‘I dunno. Seems a risky sort of strategy to rely on. It’d take a lot of rain and we might not get any more?’

Both reflected silently until Grandad posed another question.

‘Assuming you gets your rain, what happens when we gets to the top?’

‘It’s a long drop,’ Flash had to admit. ‘We could walk that rim around the top and slide down the side that’s leaning back a bit.’

The tank wasn’t leaning much; could Grandad manage such a steep slide? The old mirling hadn’t been daunted by the suggestion. Flash saw he was nodding to himself, so he raised another possibility.

‘Do you think you could make it to the pond from here?’

‘Hmm, maybe,’ replied Grandad. ’Don’t let me stop you trying.’

His sharp eyes held Flash’s. ‘You could’ve been back in the pond by now if you hadn’t wasted time trying to get me outa that net.’

Flash shrugged. ‘Flo wouldn’t have forgiven me.’ Praise had never embarrassed him before. ‘Molly would have had me kicked out of the pond.’

‘You’re fond of Flo, aren’t you?’

‘I’m fond of you all. You’re the nearest thing I’ve got to a family.’ He’d known Grandad longer than he’d known his family. ‘You had a family in the river, didn’t you? When I arrived in the pond it was freedom for me, but to you it must have been like captivity.’

‘Not like the tank was. But yes, it was hard. I was angry for a long time. Still, there’s no denying I’d be fish food before now if I’d stayed in the river.’

Flash was thinking about that when Grandad added, ‘I don’t think I’d have lived much longer in that tank either. I wouldn’t have wanted to.’

Flash agreed. ‘We depended on the humans for everything. Whether they fed us or cleaned the tank… whether they even remembered to look at us.’

‘They meant well. They din’t know enough.’

‘They could learn.’ Flash remembered Father’s leaflets and manuals in the beginning. ‘You can’t just give up when people depend on you.’

‘They din’t know about us though, lad.’

‘The fish were their responsibility, and they knew about them.’ ’The pond depends on ’em too.’ Grandad pointed out. ‘Only things take longer to go wrong.’

Flash was wondering how far away the river was when Grandad broke into his thoughts.

‘Humans can muck things up in the river too, lad. There were a load of fertiliser got tipped in one time. Upstream, it were. It were watered down by the time it reached us, but dead fish washed past for days after, and we was all ill. Some of the old mirfolk didn’t make it.’

Flash gazed through the glass where safety called from such a short, impossible distance.

‘I’d settle for the pond right now. Do you think the others made it?’

Grandad nodded. ‘That boy took the bag with fish in out of the kitchen while they was emptying water from this tank. I reckons they’ll be safe home by now. That’s thanks to you and Molly, although she wouldn’t agree with me.’

Neither did Flash. ‘I don’t know how you figure that. I haven’t managed to get you home yet.’ He gestured around the tank. ‘It was Flo who nursed you and Eddy through that bad water. Amber wouldn’t have lasted as long as she did without Flo.’

Grandad nodded again. ‘That’s true. Flo gets on with things – no fuss. She has some good ideas too, and some that are more… wishful thinking. Flo thinks them up and Molly makes them happen.’

‘Never mind what anyone else wants.’

‘Sylva, you mean?’

But he hadn’t meant Sylva. Gazing into the moonlit garden, he tried to decide what he had meant, while his gaze fell on a darker bump lying out there on the grass.

‘Is that the ball the dog plays with? The one that’s split?’

The big net had retrieved it from the pond many times. The ball lay now between the fish tank and the pond. Flash pressed his face against the glass, trying to see more clearly.

He turned to Grandad. ‘Do you think you could last long enough out of water to reach that ball?’

‘I reckon I could.’ Grandad nodded. ‘What have you got in mind?’

‘The split’s at the top right now – see, it’s darker? There’ll be rain in it. Maybe enough to take a breath and rest before the last dash to the pond.’

Grandad’s eyes shone in the moonlight. ‘I’m up for it, lad, if you can get us out of here.’