AustLit

'Peter liked the way they moved. He used to watch peter for hours after he got home from school. He would run straight upstairs before he'd even taken off his schoolbag. He would close the curtain and turn the lights off and put peter's bowl on the floor and pull his doona over peter and himself. Peter would bring his dolphin-shaped torch under there and pull back the fin so that a light would shine out and fill the fishbowl with colours, and peter would move. He would dance in and out of his house: a sunken ship filled with treasure. If the light was just right peter was the same colour as the coins scattered across the ship's deck. This was Peter's favourite colour- it made his belly warm: it was just like looking at the sun through golden cellophane. He couldn't do it anymore or his eyeballs would pop out-that's what his mum said. When his mum came up the stairs, yelling, 'Peter! Dinner!' he would curl around the bowl and press his cheek to the cool wall of peter's world. At first peter would dart to the other side, but slowly the fish would wriggle back towards him until they touched eyeballs through the glass. Everything else was black. When the door creaked he covered the dolphin's mouth...' (Publication abstract)