Little Animals

This is how Mariana swims in the spa: with a kickboard.  She looks like one of those over-grown koi fish trapped in a tiny little pond.  The pond’s too small to swim in, so it just floats there.

Needless to say, Mariana failed her swim lesson class again. 

There’s three levels to the swim lessons: Sea Horse, Sea Turtle, and Sea Eel.  Sea Horse is a good description because sea horses tend to grip onto something— like sea weed— and let food come to it.  When it needs to move somewhere it just floats along in the current or sinks to the bottom.  That pretty much sums up most of Mariana’s water experiences: clinging onto something or sinking to the bottom.

It’s not really her fault of course, she’s not built for swimming.  Her body has no fat on it and is considerably more dense than water.  It takes a lot of effort for her just to say atop any fluid liquid.  Also she is inherently lazy.  She prefers not to expend any energy, so if there is a ledge or a person to hold onto, she will cling to that intently instead of swimming.

She’ll be a Sea Horse again.

Madeline on the other hand, does not suffer from these deficiencies.  Madeline is naturally industrious, obedient, listens to instructions, and has a normal aversion to drowning.  Also, through a natural disposition towards refined sugars and concentrated fructose syrup, Madeline has managed to lower her density to below that of most common liquids.

Madeline will be a Sea Eel.