One time when I was 11 years old, my sister traveled to Ecuador for a week. During that week, I was in charge of her beta fish, named Mountain Goat. I had always wanted a pet fish, so I was very excited. The first couple of days it was fine, until the fourth day. I came home from school and went to go feed it, but what I saw was a surprise. I opened the door and saw the fish bowl on her dresser. It was all dirty and foggy. The fake seaweed was losing its color and the marbles at the bottom of the tank were getting really dull. I then saw Mountain Goat. He was floating upside down at the top of the fish bowl. I had never seen a dead fish before, so I yelled for my mom.

“HEY MOM! SOMETHING'S WRONG WITH MOUNTAIN GOAT!!” I yelled.
“ONE SECOND!” She replied.
I led her upstairs and showed her. Thankfully, she wasn’t too upset.
“I have a plan that your sister won’t figure out,” She said.
“What is it?” I replied.

“We can go to the pet store tomorrow and get a new fish. The thing is, it will be an exact replica of Mountain Goat. We won’t tell her, and she won’t even notice,” She explained to me.

So we emptied Mountain Goat’s bowl, and chucked him into my yard. It was a fantastic funeral if I do say so myself. I did my homework and waited till the next day. The next day came, and my mom and I rode in the car to the pet store after school. When we got there we went to the fish section and looked through the many fish options. We searched for a while until I found an almost exact replica. We bought the fish, some new fish food, and some new bowl decorations. When we got home I asked my mom if I could name it.

“Hey mom, can I name it?” I questioned her.
“Sure, just don’t tell your sister the new name,” she replied. I named it Mountain Goat 2.0. It looked the exact same, so I was sure that my sister wouldn’t find out about the incident.

When my family and I went to go pick up my sister from the airport, we made my little brother promise not to tell her about her fish. Apparently, you can’t trust a five year old.

Right as she got in the car, he exclaimed, “HEY YOUR FISH DIED AND MOM AND CAROLINE GOT YOU A REPLACEMENT ONE.”
“WHAT?” she yelled at us.

I then had to explain to her what happened, and she ended up rejecting Mountain Goat 2.0, so it became mine. A week later, he died. I chucked him out the window, just like the last fish funeral.

The lesson I learned from this experience was that you shouldn’t lie, because most times it just makes the outcome of the situation way worse. I also learned that I can throw pretty nice fish funerals.