So long, and thanks for all the fish

A funny story about the demise of my first pet

Our fish were not as exotic as these. Photo by Worachat Sodsri on Unsplash.

My Californian dad had a real love-hate relationship with America. He didn't want to live there and left aged 29, but wanted to retain citizenship; he never took me over there, but arranged for me to have citizenship too; he was estranged from his abusive father, but had stayed in touch with pretty much everyone else he knew in America, such as the rest of his relatives and his school and college friends.

Anyhow, all you need to know for this story is that my dad had an aunt he particularly liked, Auntie Ann, and that in 1989 she came over to the UK with a female friend to stay with us for a month.

Both women were very elderly, and were probably in their late seventies or early eighties. Auntie Ann had a perm and was fat, and her friend Miriam had a perm and was thin.

Auntie and her friend were very nice, and one day in late May they took eight-year-old me and my five-year-old little sister to Pinner Fair.

Pinner Fair was (and still is, I assume) a gigantic funfair that wove all the way through Pinner Village on the Wednesday of summer half-term. It was amazing and huge and boasted everything you can imagine: a carousel with beautiful painted horses; a ghost train; a hall of mirrors; bumper cars; a Fun House and Mad House; loads of food stands (hot dogs, toffee apples and candy floss) that we were never allowed to buy anything at because my mum was a health freak; and numerous insane rides you'd need a death wish to go on.

I loved the merry-go-round. Photo by Matthew Daniels on Unsplash.

The fair also had lots of exciting stalls where you could win a massive cuddly toy, and one where you could win goldfish in bags for sticking darts in three playing cards.

Now, it turned out that Auntie Ann was a dark horse: she was a bit of a sharpshooter when it came to darts.

'Please, Auntie Ann, win us a goldfish!' my sister and I begged.

Auntie Ann's jaw set in steely determination. Her wrinkled, liver-spotted hand shook as she took aim and fired a dart into the first card on the stall floor. Pow! Second dart: Pow! Third dart: Ka-pow! That's how you do it.

The man running the stall reached up and fetched us a bulging plastic bag of water with a great big fat goldfish in. We were thrilled, as we'd never had a pet before.

But being kids and always wanting more, we weren't satisfied with just one goldfish. We now wanted one each.

We were greedy kids. Photo by Shuvrodeep Dutta on Unsplash.

Auntie Ann sighed and gave the man another quid. Pow! Pow! Ka-pow! She could have been a secret sniper, for all we knew. The man lifted down another goldfish, but this one was thinner and looked scrawny and malnourished.