Coral lay floating above her bed, trying to come to terms with everything Ramone had told her.
‘Don’t worry, Coral.’ Fabulous wriggled her way under the door, coming to comfort her friend. She had made a remarkably swift recovery. This was one tough little fish.
‘It’s hard not to, Fabulous. I just need to try to work this all out…’
The fish swam right up to Coral’s face and tilted to one side as she peered deep into her eyes. It was slightly unnerving.
‘Not much time for that, Coral. Ramone has called a tactics meeting in the living room. He thinks Stealth is on the warpath, and we need to be prepared.’
‘Stealth is ready to attack?’ Coral felt sick to her stomach. She couldn’t face him yet, it was too soon.
‘Don’t worry, it’s going to be fine,’ soothed Fabulous, seeing the fear on her face. To try to distract her, Fabulous spun around and started tickling Coral’s nostril with her tail fin. In spite of herself, Coral giggled. It was ridiculously tickly, and made her want to…
‘A-A-A-A-ATISHOOOOOOO…’
As she sneezed, hundreds of teeny bubbles shot out of her nose, sending Fabulous shooting backwards. When the pair of them had stopped laughing, Coral looked again at her little friend.
‘OK,’ said Coral. ‘We can do this, right?’
‘Yes!’ Fabulous somersaulted.
‘And do you know what, Fabulous? I want to do something for all of you. Mum and Dad said that doing things for other people makes them happy and makes you happy inside too, so I may just have a little surprise for you at the tactics meeting!’
‘FIN-SLAP!’ squealed Fabulous, madly waving the most minuscule fin Coral had ever seen. Coral offered the tip of her little finger in return.
Fabulous zipped to all four corners of the room, zoomed up to the ceiling, down to the carpet, whizzed around Coral’s head, somersaulted three times and came to a stop in front of her, quivering with excitement.
‘And in case you’re wondering, Miss Fabulous,’ teased Coral, ‘I know exactly what I’m going do.’