Sam Wu is NOT Afraid of Sharks!. Katie Tsang
until this point I’d had exactly three experiences with the deep sea:
1. On my favourite show, SPACE BLASTERS, there was once an episode where they flew to a water planet and met a flying space sea turtle named Stephanie. There was also an Evil Shark Lord who was in cahoots with the Ghost King5. It was a great episode. Most people would have found it TERRIFYING, but I was only a little bit scared.
2. The beaches in Hong Kong (where my family is from) very sensibly have shark nets. To keep out the sharks. My little sister Lucy wondered what would happen if a shark got IN the shark net, but I told her that was impossible.6
3. When I asked Na-Na (that’s my grandma – she lives with us) what an aquarium was, she told me it was like the big fish tanks at the seafood restaurants in Chinatown, which we go to on special occasions. Na-Na always picks out a fish that is STILL SWIMMING in a fish tank for us to have for dinner. One time I named the fish, but then it came out on a plate, so I don’t name the fish from the tank ANY MORE.
So I thought that the aquarium was going to be like a giant fish tank where you picked out your dinner. When I told Bernard and Zoe that their mouths dropped open.
‘EW!’ said Zoe.
I frowned. ‘Zoe, you eat fish. Just yesterday you had fish fingers for lunch,’ I said.
‘That’s different!’ she spluttered. We were on the bus on our way to the aquarium.
‘How?’ I said.
‘It just IS! Tell him, Bernard,’ she said.
Bernard frowned and then took out his thinking glasses. He only wears them when he is thinking VERY HARD.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘Fish fingers come in a box. So obviously it is a completely different thing.’
‘Yeah!’ said Zoe. ‘And fish don’t even have fingers.’
‘Exactly! Why are they called fish fingers?’ I said, wiggling my own fingers.
‘I don’t know,’ Zoe said loudly (the more unsure about something she is, the louder she gets). ‘They just are. But I do know you don’t eat the fish at the aquarium.’
I shrugged. ‘Try telling Na-Na that.’
And then we arrived at the aquarium.
From the outside, the aquarium looked a lot like the Space Museum. It was a BIG building and we had to queue up to go inside.
‘Hey, Sam Wu-ser,’ someone further back said with a snort. ‘Do you have a stupid outfit for the aquarium too?’
It was Ralph. Only Ralph thinks it’s hilarious to call me Sam Wu-ser because it rhymes with loser. And only Ralph snorts like that. I took a deep breath and tried to remember what my dad had said to do about Ralph. His advice was:
Ralph pushed his way up through the queue until he was right behind me. He started poking me in the back. ‘Hey! Hey! Sam Wu-ser! I’m talking to you! Hey! Hey!’
This was, as you might imagine, very hard to ignore.
‘He doesn’t have his SPACE BLASTERS outfit on because we’re going to the aquarium not the Space Museum!’ said Zoe.
I was, in fact, wearing a SPACE BLASTERS T-shirt, because it is the best show ever. I made it myself. And in honour of the aquarium trip, I’d even drawn on space turtle Stephanie. I didn’t feel the need to point this out though.
Ralph was quiet for all of FIVE SECONDS. But then he barrelled on. ‘Hey. Hey, Sam. I heard there is a submarine simulator in there. Bet you are too scared to get in it. Especially after what happened at the Space Museum.’ He started laughing, but it wasn’t a real laugh, it was some sort of pretend villain laugh. Then he pushed past me, because Ralph always pushes in queues, and went to the front.
‘I’d like to put him in a submarine simulator,’ Zoe muttered. ‘And send it to the BOTTOM OF THE SEA!’
‘Yeah!’ said Bernard. Then he patted me on the shoulder. ‘Don’t listen to him, Sam. Everyone has forgotten about—’
‘Don’t say it!’ I said. ‘We don’t talk about it,
‘Sorry!’ said Bernard. Then he coughed. ‘But, um, you aren’t going to get into the submarine simulator, are you?’
‘Bernard might have a point,’ said Zoe, tugging on her ponytail.
‘I wasn’t planning to,’ I said. ‘But please can we stop taking about it?’
They nodded. Spaceman Jack, my favourite character on SPACE BLASTERS, never has to deal with this kind of thing. He NEVER does anything embarrassing, but if he did, his friends would definitely NEVER bring it up.
‘Come along, you three, hurry up!’ It was our teacher, Ms Winkleworth. ‘We have lots to see – and we don’t want to be late for the feeding at the shark tank!’
THE FEEDING?
AT THE WHAT?
WHAT KIND OF FEEDING?
WHO IS FEEDING
WHO WHAT?
Before I had a chance to think about all the ways a live shark-feeding was more than a little dangerous, we were shuffled into the aquarium.
It was nothing like the fish tanks in Chinatown.
‘See, Sam! How COOL is this?’ Bernard waved his arms around. I tried to look at everything all at once but it was impossible.
It was as if we were underwater but somehow breathing air. It was like being on a spaceship in water – dark and filled with aliens! Luckily, I have lots of experience with aliens from watching SPACE BLASTERS so I was TOTALLY fine. But otherwise I might have been a tiny bit afraid.
‘That thing isn’t a fish,’ I spluttered, pointing