Sensei Brandon

Chapter Eight: Blobfish

"It's nice, but what are you going to do with it?" Brandon's father shook his head.

It was a few weeks since Brandon had arrived back home. Except for his habits of waking up early and exercising himself daily, Brandon was still a fishy blob of disappointment in the eyes of his parents.

"Do you want to enroll into the Academy?"

"But they're already a semester in. I can go next year," Brandon replied.

"Yes, but that doesn't seem to be your plan." His mother lowered her chin and looked at him over her eyeglasses.

"I was thinking...since I already have a professional skill, perhaps I can open a dojo and train other fish."

"That's...a plan," his father said, uneasily.

"I could try it, and if it doesn't work, I'll just go to the Academy."

"All right," his father sighed, "seeing that you've managed to survive six months in the open sea, I suppose you are ready to go off and build your name."

So Brandon began to plan the construction of his dojo in a little corner on Barrier way. Firstly, he had to find a general contractor, so he visited the hiring agency to interview candidates.

"The reef is in a building boom right now," the eel at the counter informed him, "we only have one general contractor immediately available."

"Is he any good?"

"Yea, he's one of the best of the best," the eel scratched his head, "but he's kind of hard of hearing and has the personality of a blobfish that's been squished into a tube of toothpaste and all you can see are its lips."

"No problem," Brandon shrugged.

Yes problem.

The general contractor, a sardonic orange clownfish, was not an old guy, but he had been around parrotfish for far too long without wearing any ear protection.

"You want me to build a donut shop?" He shouted, spraying spittle everywhere, "do you expect me to design some type of physics-defying device so that you can fry dough in oil underwater?! What am I? An engineer?!"

"No, no, no, I don't want anything complicated. I just want you to assemble a dojo for me."

"Oh, you want a logo? Then why are you calling me in?"

"Dojo. A karate training center."

"A body training center? Do you know how many fitness centers there are already?"

After forty minutes, Brandon learned that the best way to communicate with this guy was to just show him the plans.

Things went well. Mostly.