"I feel very queer," she said. "Can you see what is the matter with my left eye?"
The whitebait crowded round to look.
"Why, it has moved!" cried one. "It seems to be coming round the corner of your head."
"I thought it felt strange," said Fanny.
"What a comical shape you are!" said another little fish. "You seem to be growing flat."
"Oh, dear! I wonder whatever is the matter with me? I don't think I shall ever come up to the top again," sighed Fanny.
The others tried to cheer her. "Don't be downhearted," they said. "Perhaps you will feel better to-morrow. Maybe you have eaten something that disagrees with you."
"But what a pity! She is certainly losing her beautiful shape," they remarked to one another as they swam away. "And that eye is a most mysterious business."
They came back again a day or two later. Fanny—could it be Fanny?—was on the sand. She wriggled up to meet them, and they stared more and more. She was not now long and slim, but flat and wide. And her eye! It had gone quite round the corner, and was now on the same side of her head as her right eye. Strange to say, she looked perfectly happy.
"I am well again," she said. "See, my eye has gone round out of the way, and I am so flat that I can lie comfortably on this nice sea-floor. Isn't it splendid?"