Distort the world into clarity

Chapter Nine: A fancy dinner

Beatrice looked in the mirror. She had put on a different sweater. Her favourite sweater was a bit too sweaty to wear to a dinner in a fancy restaurant. Her hair was still a bit wet from the shower, but she was sure no sea creatures would mind. In her new, fresh outfit, she felt better. Taking a shower always helped, no matter the problem.

Satisfied with her look, Beatrice went downstairs to the famous restaurant. She walked past the reception, where the clownfish was still waiting patiently on the couch.

Beatrice smiled at her, but the clownfish didn't smile back. Guess she wasn't really having a good day.

For a moment, Beatrice stood still in the middle of the reception. It was a big hall, which way was she supposed to go? She looked over at the reception-desk and saw Lenny busily typing behind his computer, with a whole queue to attend to. Maybe it was best if she let him do his work. She'd bothered him enough for today, so instead she looked around to see if she could find any clues that would lead her to the restaurant. It was always easier to solve things yourself than to ask others for help, or at least that was Beatrice's experience.

Looking around, Beatrice noticed that a lot of fish were moving to the right corridor, so she simply followed them and wouldn't you know it, she ended up in front of another incredibly large door, decorated with sea shells, sapphires, coral and marmer. It was quite a sight to look at.

What lied behind this door? Beatrice could barely contain her excitement, she felt like she was about to float upwards again. Her mind was almost empty, only curiosity remained. She felt warm, energetic and ready to take on the world.

"Hey, Bee!" A loud and gruffy voice awoke Beatrice from her small trance.

She turned her head to where the voice was coming from and saw Glen standing, at the right of the door. "Hello!" Quickly, she made her way to him.

"Glad you made it. I only have a table reservation for today, so best to make the most out of it. I also invited Vivienne, the lady clownfish that was sitting next to me, remember? I don't know if she wants to come though. She seemed to be waiting for something."

"When I made my way to the restaurant I saw that she was still sitting on that couch."

"Ah, too bad. I guess she can't make it then. I really wanted to invite as many people as I could, because one table is for four people, so I wanted to make use of that. Do you have any friends to invite?"

"No, not really."

Glen grinned. "Guess we both don't really have friends here then, but we have each other now."

Beatrice smiled. "Exactly."

With a grin still plastered to his face, Glen swam over to the bouncer that was guarding the door.

"I got a table for today. Number 134, password golden sponge."

The bouncer put his fin towards his ear. Beatrice squinted her eyes to see if he had an earpiece in, but she couldn't really see anything.

He said nothing, but he did open the door for Beatrice and Glen.

If Beatrice hadn't been speechless before, she was sure as hell speechless now. There were six enormous galleries where chairs and tables of varying sizes were situated. The galleries were again decorated with shells and sapphires, giving the whole room a beautiful green and blue colour scheme. The tables were decorated with coral and everywhere she looked she saw fish with bowties on and trays in their hand. The main floor had a stage at the end of the room. The spotlights were dimmed and the blue curtains were closed, but Beatrice assumed that the show would begin shortly.

Glen noticed that she was looking around. "Pretty sweet, huh?"

"Pretty sweet? You mean, super sweet! This amazing."

"Wait until you see the food and the entertainment! You'll love it." Glen led her to their table. It was on the ground floor so they didn't have the best view of the stage, but Beatrice didn't mind. The view was still spectacular.

Still admiring the spectacle in front of her, she sat down across from Glen, who had already picked up the menu.

"You don't mind if I order a lot, do ya? I feel like celebrating, so I'm gonna order a lot of food." The shark was skimming through the menu, his drool was almost coming out of his mouth.

"Of course not, we've got to celebrate, right? You got the job?"

"Ha! Of course I did. They simply couldn't not hire me."

"Great! It's nice that we both work here. You know, I'm gonna be honest... I didn't really talk with anyone for the past two weeks." Beatrice grabbed a menu and started to nervously stare at one of the dishes. Seaweed strips with pesto.

Glen looked up from his menu and tried to catch her sight, but Beatrice's eyes were still fixed on the delicious seaweed with pesto. "You were alone for those two weeks, weren't you? Your family gone, your friends gone, your whole species gone. Must've been hard."

"Yeah..." Beatrice was afraid that if she'd say one word more, she'd start crying. She held up her menu in front of her face so Glen wouldn't see her face, just in case.

On the other side of the table, Glen was having trouble reacting to the situation. Sure, he wanted to help her, but he had no idea how. Did his new little friend want to talk about her loss or did she just want to be left alone? Maybe she just wanted a nice evening, without being reminded of her maybe dead, but definitely gone, relatives. This was hard... Consoling people wasn't really something Glen did in his daily shark-life. He used to just hunt fish all day. He wouldn't know what to do if they went too deep into it. Maybe she'd burst into tears? What then? Finally, Glen made his decision. He'd just leave it up to her.

"So uh, listen. If you want to talk about it, we can, but I don't think I'm the right guy to talk to. I'm not good with that kind of stuff. If you wanna have a good time, however, I'm your man. We can just have fun, eat a lot of food, watch the show and laugh a lot, that okay too?"

Beatrice wiped away a few tears before she put her menu down again. "That's okay too. Thanks."

"Don't mention it, Bug."

"Bees aren't bugs, they're insects."

"They fly. They're bugs. Case closed."

Even though Beatrice was sure that her smart friend Damian once mentioned that bees, ladybugs and mosquitos aren't bugs, she let it go.

She let everything go that evening. Her fears, her insecurities, her doubts, her sadness and all the negativity that resided deep inside her, because she'd found all she needed in this moment. Tons of food, laughter and a friend. That's all she needed for now.

Glen told her amazing stories about his adventures as a shark, in the Old World. He'd almost attacked a human once, he admitted with shame. He'd just been curious about the strange looking being in the water, he wasn't trying to eat the human.

Glen had also been hunted, which was a very scary and long story that he told with lots of fin-gestures and long pauses.

Beatrice had to admit, he knew how to tell stories. She didn't talk as much, but she didn't mind that at all. She was used to listening mostly, because Riley also liked to talk a lot. It was actually better this way for Beatrice, since talking made her pretty tired, but she could listen to others all day. As long as she liked them or if they had something interesting to say, of course.

When the clock struck ten, the blue curtain opened and a spotlight lit up the middle of the stage.

Beatrice immediately stopped listening to Glen's story and looked over to the stage. The most majestic creatures she'd ever seen in her life were all floating next to each other, with a microphone in front of them. They had canes in their right fin and top hats on their heads. Three whales were standing a few meters away from her, ready to sing a song.

The singing whales have arrived. Thanks for reading this chapter, see you next week!