Kiki and Gwen - a love story

It was a Saturday night that I got a wild hair and decided I wanted a fish. My friends and I went to see a movie, and after it was over everyone separated and went different directions. My best friend Chelsea and I left, intending to drive through Taco Bell and just go home.

On our way there, I decided that I wanted a fish.

Me, a fish. Everyone who knows me, please laugh now. I'm not sure if I could keep a rock garden alive, much less a fish. But I went to Petco anyway.

Chelsea and I went to the back of the store and after about 20 minutes of deliberation, we chose a simple goldfish. Ten minutes after that, we were driving away with a little plastic portable tank, rocks, a decorative shell to entertain the fish and fish food. The fish got christened "Kiki", after Julia Roberts' character in the movie "America's Sweethearts."

We got home without much fuss and proceeded to follow all the directions to let the fish get accustomed to its new habitat. Suddenly it dawned on Chels that maybe we forgot something. After a brief yet informative long-distance phone call to her stepmother, we discovered that we did indeed forget something -- the drops that take chlorine out of aquarium water.

So back to Petco we went.

That's when I decided that Kiki was lonely, and thus I bought another fish. This one I named Gwen, after Catherine Zeta-Jones' character in the same movie. In the movie, the characters tended to argue. Gwen was the selfish one and Kiki was the sweet, reliable, do-anything one. Both fish took after their namesakes.

Shortly after adding Gwen to the tank, she and Kiki began fighting. Pretty soon it was an all-out battle. I thought about separating them, keeping one in the little tank and one in an old fishbowl I found in the garage. But then Chelsea reminded me that moving the fish too much would most likely kill them sooner than they would kill each other.

Then the strangest thing happened -- they settled down. I looked over at the tank, and they're no longer fighting. It almost seems like they're friends. This is my first attempt at pet-parenting since I was 10 years old and I think there's a reason for that -- pets make me a nervous wreck! I'm so scared I'm going to wake up and one of the fish is going to be belly-up.

Maybe not, if I do a good job, but even if I don't, I'll still keep you up to date on their progress.

Emily Hendricks is a junior at Central High School. Contact her at ehendricks@semissourian.com.