There are fish in the swimming pool

Clara turns three this week, so we enrolled her in swim lessons. Today was her first day. In the locker room of the local Y, we put on her blue gingham bathing suit, tucked Floppy the stuffed dog under her arm and wiped the blackberry jelly -infused snot from her upper lip with the corner of our swim towel. Floppy and I watched the lesson from the pool deck, where we sat in white plastic patio chairs. Louis drowsed on my shoulder, bedazzled and hypnotized by the sunshine streaming through the windows and reflecting off the turquoise pool water.

Clara did great, and even jumped from the edge of the pool afterwards and into the waiting arms of her swim teacher. She put her head underwater, too.

After the lesson, she seemed concerned and distracted. Surprisingly, she declined to splash around in the kiddie pool.

"A fish swimmed into my mouf," she whispered to me, huddling in her towel next to my knees.

"It did? Honey, there are no fish in the swimming pool."

"Yes, there are. I saw her. There's a mama fish."

"Here, come here. Show me." I put Louis in his infant seat and crouched at the edge of the big pool.

"Right rair," she said, pointing to the bottom of the pool, where the concrete was splotched with dozens of yellowish stains. "Oh!" she shouted. "There they are!"

"Those are just stains. Fish can't live in this pool. They put special juice in this pool the fish don't like, so they stay away. They say, 'No, thank-you very much! We're going to stay in the pond!'"

"The mama fish swimmed to the bottom and planted a tree in the dirt," Clara whispered conspiratorially. "And then she swimmed into my mouf. And she wants to go into my belly to be with her baby and big girl."

"Ohhhh-kay," I said, deciding to join her in her reality. "How are you going to get them out?"

"They will come out when I go potty. He will swim in the toilet."

"Alright. Let's go pee then."

We did, in the sodden restroom next to the pool.

The fish didn't come out.

"They will come out with a toofbrush," Clara decided when we found ourselves back on the pool deck. (Louis was an absolute doll. Throughout the fish epiphany he cheerfully sat in his seat, giving Clara his best idolatrous drool-filled grin.)

"We don't have a toothbrush. Shall I scrub your teeth with my pinkie finger?"

That didn't work, either. Back in the girls locker room, Clara stood on the stool in front of the vanity mirror and stared into her mouth.

"He's in there," she confirmed. Then she grimaced hugely, inspecting her teeth.

"Hey, that lady is taking our room!" she said suddenly, pointing to a woman who was undressing and putting her clothes into a nearby locker.

"They're called lockers. They don't belong to anyone in particular. When we come we just find whichever one is open to use. Last time we used the one that she's using. But that doesn't mean it's ours. It's just the one that happened to be open last time. This time we're using this other locker. See?"

The trespassing, villainous woman smiled at Clara. Clara blinked.

"I think the fish are stuck in my teeth. I will try not to eat wem."

We went upstairs and Clara opened her pink My Little Pony lunchbox. I gave her half of her peanut butter and jelly, but withheld the other half until she ate three green beans. She stuffed them all at once into her mouth and chewed deliberately. After a moment she spit them out in a little fibrous, slimy green pile on the table.

"Right rair! The fish is in rair!" she said, pointing to the pile.

"The fish is in the green beans?"

"Yes."

"Well, you're going to have to eat more green beans since you spit those out."

"Okay."

Later in the afternoon I came upon her looming over Louis in his Jolly Jump Up, her mouth gaping.

"I'm giving my fish to Louis. The fish is jumping out of my mouf and into Louis' mouf."

By the time Simon arrived home from work, the fish was back in Clara's body and had worked its way down to her feet. No sign yet of how it'll make its way out.