The man jumped into the water. Jesse waited for him to come up, but a minute passed, then two and then five minutes passed but the man did not come up at all! ‘He should have come up!’ thought Jesse, ‘How can someone stay for so long under water?’ Jesse was afraid the man had been drowned. The next day, Jesse looked through the entire newspaper, hoping to find the news of a drowned man. However, there was nothing. The next week, Jesse went around midday and saw the same man jump into the water again! ‘What is he doing?’ thought Jesse, ‘I will wait and watch what he does. Mom does not expect me back home till 3 pm, so I have enough time.’ Jesse sat and waited. In his mind, he was calling the mysterious man ‘Man-fish’.
After about an hour, the Man-fish came out of the water. For a moment, he looked like a dangerous shark with big teeth, scales, fins and flippers instead of legs! Jesse jumped back in fright. But within a minute of coming out of water, the Man-fish turned into a man again. Jesse ran back home, scared that the Man-fish would eat him up. ‘How did the man turn into a fish?’ he wondered, ‘I must see what he does and how he becomes a fish.’ So, for the next few days, Jesse would sit and wait by the lake for the Man-fish. Terrified, yet curious, he wanted to know how the man changed. One day, Jesse found a beautiful shell at the place where he used to sit by the lake. The next day, there was an oyster and another day there was a pearl. Jesse would collect the trinkets but never thought much about them. Once Jesse came early and was surprised to see that the Man-fish was standing at the place where Jesse usually sat. ‘Oh! What a beautiful shell he has left behind!’ Jesse said to himself. It was beautiful, blue-coloured and had a huge pearl in it. ‘I think the Man-fish wants to be friends with me,’ he thought. Jesse forgot his fear. From that day on, Jesse would bring a fruit for the Man-fish and the Man-fish left small gifts from the water for Jesse. They had forged a strange friendship!
