‘Well, be an eel then,’ said the Carp, and swam away sneering and stately. Kenneth had to swim his hardest to catch up.
‘Then if I get out of the water, shall I be a boy again?’ he asked panting.
‘Of course, silly,’ said the Carp, ‘only you can’t get out.’
[p252]
‘Oh! can’t I?’ said Kenneth the fish, whisked his tail and swam off. He went straight back to the amethyst ring, picked it up in his mouth, and swam into the shallows at the edge of the moat. Then he tried to climb up the slanting mud and on to the grassy bank, but the grass hurt his fins horribly, and when he put his nose out of the water, the air stifled him, and he was glad to slip back again. Then he tried to jump out of the water, but he could only jump straight up into the air, so of course he fell straight down again into the water. He began to be afraid, and the thought that perhaps he was doomed to remain for ever a fish was indeed a terrible one. He wanted to cry, but the tears would not come out of his eyes. Perhaps there was no room for any more water in the moat.
The smaller fishes called to him in a friendly jolly way to come and play with them—they were having a quite exciting game of follow-my-leader among some enormous water-lily stalks that looked like trunks of great trees. But Kenneth had no heart for games just then.
He swam miserably round the moat looking for the old Carp, his only acquaintance in this strange wet world. And at last, pushing through a thick tangle of water weeds he found the great fish.
[p253]
‘Now then,’ said the Carp testily, ‘haven’t you any better manners than to come tearing a gentleman’s bed-curtains like that?’
‘I beg your pardon,’ said Kenneth Fish, ‘but I know how clever you are. Do please help me.’
‘What do you want now?’ said the Carp, and spoke a little less crossly.
‘I want to get out. I want to go and be a boy again.’