Fish in the Sky Read Online Free Page B

smoothly like a silent waterfall of sparkling darkness behind her. A long white neck and a soft spot where her arteries disappear behind her earlobes, right under the curved edge of her jaw, where I could feast my eyes forever. Small red lips, the lower one slightly thicker; those lips form the most beautiful smile in the world. If the other girls are like gazelles, then she’s the giraffe gazelle,
Litocranius walleri.
The giraffe gazelle has a long and beautiful neck and extra-long legs. She has a thin nose and very mobile lips. Her tummy is white, and her legs and inner thighs are blond. She possesses highly developed glands, highlighted by tufts of dark-brown hair. I jotted all this down in my
Life and Creation
book when I was watching a wildlife program ages ago, and now I picture Clara in among those gazelles, running free and majestically across the African plains. At the same time, I feel myself turning into nothing, at best a patch of lichen moss on the trunk of the ash. I’m sure if she were to look toward me now, she would see nothing but the tree. I vanish into a void.
    More classes come tumbling out onto the lawn, and someone shouts, “Boys chase the girls!”
    There is a sudden explosion of screaming and running in all directions. Screeching and wailing, but the predators charge through the thicket onto the prairie, and a stampede ensues as the gazelles desperately try to find an escape route. I feel my heart pounding and the taste of blood in my mouth; a tingle of excitement runs up my calves and tickles my thighs.
    I leap into action.
    Then everything turns to slow motion; I run in long bounds, soar into the air with high jumps, and land softly again, scattering the gravel under my heels, making it spin in midair a long moment. I’m the fearsome cheetah,
Acinonyx jubatus.
No animal on earth runs faster than the cheetah, who can move at seventy-five miles an hour. When he’s hunting, he quickly singles out one animal from the pack and focuses on that one alone. As soon as he comes close to his prey, his sharp claws flash out, hook his victim, and ground it with a twist.
    Clara’s black hair whips the air in front of me, and her scent fills my senses. I stretch out my hand.
    The cheetah holds his prey down with one of his forepaws and presses its head down with the other to expose the victim’s long, soft neck and bulging red artery. Then he sinks his white fangs into the flesh; the skin tears, and the blood spurts out.
    I grab her shoulder with my fingers, and she turns her head, graceful and delicate, and for a brief moment, I meet her sparkling eyes, totally still in the midst of all this mayhem. And I’m all puffed out. She swerves, proud and strong, and changes direction; I’ve almost got her, but I trip and manage to grab her shoulder again just as my leg slips. Slowly, slowly my back plunges onto the gravel. She glides above me in midair, falling closer and closer, her mouth opening in bewilderment, her eyes growing bigger. She lands on me, and our bodies are thrust together for one endless split second; black hair strokes my face, sweet perfume envelops me, and her long white neck gently brushes against my lips. I feel the artery, feel the soft spot where the artery vanishes behind her earlobe.
    A piercing shriek breaks the sound barrier as she leaps to her feet in fury. She dusts off her white sweater and stands over me, breathless, as I lie there like a fool and blink. It’s as if I’m reawakening from the sweetest dream, the magic all gone, everything running at normal speed. Far too normal speed.
    “Who said you could pounce on me?” she snaps, glaring at me as I clamber to my feet. Her cheeks are red, her hair messy, with one lock of it stuck to the right edge of her mouth. She brushes it behind her ear again with a swift move of the hand and adjusts two barrettes. She’s got pearl drops in her earlobes. I stand there like a night troll watching the sun rise, knowing that it’s too late