Hovering right in front of Coral’s face was the tiniest, most exquisite little fish she had ever seen. Its excited, trembling body was a dark, velvety blue-black, covered with glittering spots that seemed to shimmer with a life of their own. Bright blue, pale blue, turquoise, silver, deep violet, all twitching and gleaming, illuminating her room like a disco ball. Coral was transfixed. She had never seen such a wonderful fish.
‘I’m Fabulous!’ said a sweet voice.
‘Wow,’ breathed Coral. ‘Yes, you are!’
‘No,’ the fish giggled, like soft, tinkling bells. ‘Fabulous. That’s my name!’
As if to prove just how fabulous she was, she flipped a triple backwards somersault and blew a huge stream of bubbles, right at Coral.
‘Fishes’ kisses!’ chuckled Fabulous. Her laughter was the first music in Coral’s room for a long time. Coral giggled too as the bubbles popped against her face.
Seeing her smile, Fabulous launched into the somersault routine once again, whirled three times around Coral’s head, tickled her nose with her tail fin, spun back around, blew another stream of splendid bubbles and took a bow.
‘Definitely completely and utterly FABULOUS!’ laughed Coral.
‘That’s me!’ The little fish was clearly very pleased with herself. ‘Right. You need to come and meet the gang!’
‘You mean … there are more of you?’
It struck Coral that she was talking to a fish. And the fish was talking back. What was happening? But she didn’t have time to think about it. Fabulous was on a mission.
‘Come on, Coral, let’s go! We’ve all been waiting for you. Everyone’s going to be so excited! Especially Ramone.’
‘Ramone? Who’s Ramone?’ asked Coral.
‘You’ll see, you’ll see. We’re going to have so much fun all of us, well, maybe not all…’
‘What?’
‘Ooops. Never mind, never mind. No need to worry about that now. Ramone will explain everything. Come on! It’s going to take ages to get downstairs to see him because everybody is going to want to meet you.’
‘They are? Why?’
This was all so much to take in.
Coral started to get out of bed and began to float up to the ceiling. She was lucky her parents had taught her to swim well! She gulped as happy memories of them filled her mind again. But Fabulous darted past, jolting her back into the present.
Floating above her bed, Coral looked down at her familiar, brightly striped duvet cover. This was unbelievable! She swam down, brought her feet under her and pushed back off the mattress, straight up to the ceiling. She brushed the yellow lampshade with her hand. Sea moss was already beginning to grow on it. Next, a swift dive back down to the floor to touch the green weed that was now covering most of the carpet. Coral swam around her room, skimming the walls, her desk, her wardrobe, kicking as fast as she could past posters, over her toys, her books, her skateboard, swimming right up to the door of her bedroom where Fabulous was waiting. The fish was looking at her with amusement, slightly puzzled at why swimming should be such a big deal.
‘Seriously, Fabulous, you have no idea how weird it is to be swimming around your own bedroom – but it is SO, SO COOL!’ Coral floated on her back, smiling.
‘Okay … whatever you say…’ said Fabulous, looking at her as if she was the one who was strange. ‘But we have to go. Trust me, Coral, you’re going to be doing a lot of swimming around your house from now on. Can you open the bedroom door? Oh and brace yourself, it is really busy out there!’