Last Friday after school Hope begged to bring the class pet home for the weekend. I was hesitant to agree, but her teacher insisted that there was no way on earth we could possibly kill a betta fish. So, "Gilly" the betta fish spent the weekend at our house.
How hard could it possibly be to take care Gilly? All we had to do was leave him in his bowl on the kitchen counter and feed him three pellets of betta fish food each day. Sounds easy enough, right?
All was well until we got home from church Sunday night. I glanced at Gilly as I passed through the kitchen and noticed that he was perfectly still and floating on top of the water. I don't know much about fish, but I do know that when they are floating on top of the water, it is a very bad thing.
I frantically texted Hope's teacher and informed her that Gilly would not be returning to school. I was worried that maybe Hope's teacher had a sentimental attachment to Gilly, but she wasn't upset, just amazed that we had somehow managed to kill a pet fish in just forty-eight hours. Hope was worried that the kids in her sixth grade class would call her "fish-killer", but her teacher promised to help keep Gilly's demise a secret.
Steven drove to the pet store as soon as it opened this morning and purchased a replacement fish that was as close to Gilly's dark blue with green coloring as he could find. Then he drove to another pet store just to make sure that he had one that looked as much like Gilly as possible. (Isn't he awesome?) He felt pretty good about the fish he had purchased, so he headed to the school to drop off the *new* Gilly. Hope's classmates just thought that Gilly came to school late and didn't notice anything was different.
So, everything turned out fine in the end, though I don't think Hope will be bringing the class pet home again any time soon.
Labels: Family Life, Pets, The Kiddos