“I hate boats, they make me motion sick!” complained the boy in a black t-shirt. The hot sun beat down upon the small fishing fleet of hollow log canoes. Tan faces of the black-haired men frowned at me. I had done nothing but complain.

My line jerked. I pulled hard to set the hook and reeled in the fish with an egg beater tied to the willow branch. The men watched me, fascinated. They still preferred their nets.

“Let me go!” rasped the large fish, gills wide, searching for water. The Aztec natives bowed low in their boats when they heard the talking fish, then quickly paddled to me, and took me to shore. I put the fish in a makeshift bucket fashioned from a goat stomach stretched over a wooden frame. “Where are you taking me?! I’m a talking fish! I can grant you any wish!”
“Shut up, and maybe we both can be free,” I hissed.

They ushered me and the fish up to the stone palace. A cherubic little girl with silky pigtails skipped from the courtyard to them. “What do you have?”

“Oh, it’s you.”