The Fish and the Not Fish Read Online Free Page B

us with his bird eyes that liked to look through what they looked at.
    Then Bird held out his hands for us to see.
    In one hand, his left, there was a mark in the shape of a star.
    In his right hand, with an eye shaped like a moon that looked up at us, there was a fish.
    Bird took this fish and put it in his mouth.
    Bird bit the fish head off of this fish.
    Then he held out the rest of this fish for the rest of us to eat it.
    We ate it.
    Bird sang as we ate what we ate.
    Once we ate, we held our mouths in the shape of an O.
    Out of these holes in our heads, no words came out.
    There were just sounds.
    When Bird heard these sounds, Bird stood up from the ground.
    Bird looked at us with this look.
    There was this look that Bird liked to look at us with.
    It was the kind of a look that felt as if Bird could look right through us with this look.
    We wish you could see this look.
    We turned back to see what Bird had just looked at, or what it was Bird had seen when he looked this look right through us.
    There was just the road that ran its way out of our town on its way to end at the sea.
    There was just the dirt of the road with just the dirt of the road on it back there for us to see.
    Bird walked out to the edge of this road.
    Then he turned and walked out on it.
    The sea, Bird sang, is blue by day, but at night the sea turns black.

VII.
    Where the train tracks crossed this road that ran its way out of town on its way out to the sea, this was where our town came to its end and the rest of the world got its start at.
    Here we stood, all of us boys, and knew that the road ran through us.
    In two rows of four boys in each of our rows, we crossed from our world out to see the next.
    Our names?
    You want us now to give you names?
    There’s Burke and Holt, Welsh and Locke, Clark and Spur and Fisk. That’s eight when you add me to the mix.
    My name’s Link.
    You can call me The Boy Who Lived To Tell This Tale.
    Bird makes us nine.
    We are nine and there are nine of us on this road that runs its way out of our town on its way out to the sea.

VIII.
    The road that runs its way out of town on its way out to the sea, it is made out of dirt and rock and dirt and rock. When we walk, we make dust. When it rains, we make mud for us to cool our skins with. When it rains, we make mud for us to eat.

IX.
    We were on our way out of town on the road out of town that runs out and ends up at the sea when we saw Dog. Dog was on the side of the road, on his hands and knees, like a dog would be, though when he saw us he stood up on two legs like a dog on four legs can’t.
    Look, one of us boys said. There’s Dog.
    We looked. We saw.
    Dog.
    So what? one of us said.
    It’s just Dog.
    He’s not one of us.
    We did not, with our hands, wave at Dog for him to come walk out of town with us.
    The one of us who said that Dog was not one of us was right when he said this.
    We all knew this.
    Dog knew this too.
    We looked with our looks back at the road that would run us out of town to see the sea.
    Dog looked with his dog eyes back at the backs of us boys.
    Dog asked, What are you fleas up to?
    We knew we should not tell him, but one of us still did.
    We’re on our way to the sea, this one of us who said it said, though he too, when he said it, knew he should not have said what he did.
    Dog laughed when he heard us say it. The sea? Dog said. There’s no sea for you fleas to see.
    At the end of this road, we all of us then said, all of us at the same time, we said this to this boy Dog.
    We knew, in this, we were right when we said what he did, though none of us had with our own eyes seen it—the sea. And none of us had yet done it: none of us had walked on and on on this road out of town till it ran out at the blue of the sea.
    You won’t make it, Dog said.
    He looked at us with a look that we knew was looked at us to scare us.
    We took this as a dare, for us to make it, when Dog said that we would not make it to the