"High-Flying Blu" by Shaylen N

            The bright, yellow fireball came up over the edge of the earth, brightening everything in its path. Its light beamed on the great ocean, illuminating it with a lapis blue hue. The same light touched the tall, green palms to the mocha brown coconuts, to the high flying seagulls to every grain of sand that shimmered. Everything came alive.

 Alive with the fireball’s light was also a very tiny and bright mandarin fish named Blu. Blu was covered with vivid and wavy orange stripes across his aqua-blue skin in addition to yellow speckles on his fins and face. He was no bigger than a fishing hook yet always looked for adventure no matter the danger.

Blu never seemed to care for his own world that much. He had lived in the coral reefs, but eventually  got bored of seeing the same purple and pink corals all day long, so went in search of a better, more amusing life to live.

 One day he came across a flatfish who had poked his eye out from underneath the sand to see who was there. Amused of this stranger, Blu tried to imitate the flatfish by hiding under the sand with him.

“Scram!!!” yelled the flatfish. “Who do you think you are just taking my sand and blanketing yourself with it, huh?”

Shocked to find out how angry the flatfish was, Blu nervously replied, “I’m really sorry. I thought I could just try to be like you. You did make it look pretty fun hiding under the sand like that.”

“Well, be sorry!” the flatfish shouted back. “You’re not even a flatfish yourself so you shouldn’t be hiding under the sand in the first place. Get outta here!”

With a rejected look upon Blu’s face, he swam away from the flatfish and continued his search for his new life.

A few days later, Blu came across a school of dolphin. He saw the way they effortlessly flew up and out of the water all together like a harmonious dance. This greatly fascinated Blu, so he approached one of the dolphins to see if he could swim with them.

“Excuse me,” Blu said with an optimistic tone, “do you dolphins think you could fit one more into your group? I just thought it was pretty fascinating the way you guys flew out the water like that. I’m kind of looking for my life and I think I’ve found it swimming with you guys.”

“Little fish, I don’t know if this is the life for you” one dolphin replied. “For one, we swim extremely fast so you’ll most likely not be able to keep up, and most importantly you’re not even a dolphin. How can you be in a school of dolphin and not even be one, hmm?”

Blu was speechless. He thought the dolphin did have a good point of him not being able to keep up with the others, but still disliked the point where he couldn’t be in the group because he wasn't a dolphin.

“I’ll tell you what,” said the dolphin. “You can’t be in our group, but I will tell you how to jump out the water. All you have to do is swim your fastest and flip your back fin as hard as you can to launch yourself up and out the water. Got that?”

Blu wasn’t pleased that he couldn’t be in their group, but was thankful for what the dolphin had taught him. With a genuine smile on his face, Blu thanked the dolphins as they began to leave him. He again continued his journey.

While swimming, Blu thought of trying to do what the dolphin had taught him. With a steady start, he swam as fast as he could then flipped his back fin as hard as he could. All at once he flew out the water and into the air then splashed back in the ocean. While in the air, Blu caught the attention of a seagull directly above him. The seagull glided down and sat on the water, bouncing up and down on the waves, waiting for the little blue fish to come back. As Blu splashed back in the water, now having thrill rushing through him because of the magnificent jump he accomplished, he noticed the seagull waiting on the water and approached him, hoping he had seen his successful jump too.

“Hello” said Blu enthusiastically to the seagull.

“Hello little blue fish” said the seagull with a very content voice.

“Did you see me flip out the water back there? It was pretty cool, right?” said Blu.

“I did, it was very spectacular indeed,” said the seagull. “How did you learn that? I don’t think fish like you are supposed to be jumping out the water like that.”

“A dolphin showed me, although I didn’t get to swim with the rest of them,” said Blu in a glum voice.

“And why is that?” asked the seagull with a curious look on his face.

“They said it’s because I’m not a dolphin like them. The same thing also happened when I met a flatfish who I thought was amusing but didn’t let me stay because I wasn’t a flatfish like he was. I take it I’m supposed to just live the life I was meant to, and not try to be something I’m not.”

“Nonsense! You can be whatever you dream of,” said the seagull with much certainty. “Like if you wanted, you could be a seagull like me.”

“You really mean that?!” asked Blu with an amazed look on his face.

“Why sure. Just jump out the water and I’ll fly with you.”

Overjoyed and filled with great elation, Blu flipped out the water to soar through the air with the seagull. Only the seagull wasn’t flying, but had his mouth open. The satisfied seagull gulped and flew away into the darkening sky with Blu.