But the bowl did not blow up. The fish popped out of the bowl. And then another, and then another, and then another. One by one, the fish landed on Mrs. Taylor's clean yellow carpet where they continued to grow until they were as big as Mr. Taylor.

"What in the world are you two doing?" Mrs. Taylor hollered, running in from the kitchen. She screamed when she saw the popping fish. Mr. Taylor ran in from the backyard where he'd been cleaning the grill for a barbecue.

"Holy Moly," he said.

The Taylors huddled together as more and more fish popped out of the bowl, squeezing them out of the living room, into the kitchen, and then straight out the backdoor.

"Quick! Up here!" cried Nicky, climbing the ladder up to his tree house. Hannah and Mr. and Mrs. Taylor quickly followed, taking the ladder up with them.

An awful lot of noise was coming from inside the house. They tried to see what was going on, but they couldn't see very much.

Nicky remembered he kept a pair of binoculars in the tree house.

"Give me that!" Mr. Taylor said. He looked through the binoculars and whistled.

"Martha," he said to Mrs. Taylor, "you are not going to believe this. They're wearing our clothes!"

"What? Let me see that." Mrs. Taylor looked through the binoculars. It was true. There was a fish wearing her favorite sun dress! Another fish was looking very comfortable in Mr. Taylor's checkered robe. They were even wearing her jewelry, including the long strands of pearls she only wore on special occasions.

"I'll never be able to wear that sun dress again. And my pearls!"

"What are they doing now?" Nicky asked.

Mr. Taylor just shook his head in disbelief.

Two fish came out of the house and into the backyard. One was wearing Mrs. Taylor's frilly apron. The other had on Mr. Taylor's chef's hat and apron. They were carrying a huge platter of meat. Some of the other fish came out wearing sunglasses and lounged near the pool. Fish were even playing badminton!

"They're grilling my steak," Mr. Taylor said.

"Gee, I'm hungry," Nicky said. The steak smelled awfully good.

It was dark soon. The fish hung Christmas lights out in the backyard. Music came blaring out of the house.

"Why, they're having a party!" Hannah said.

"And they're dancing!" Nicky said.

"They're dancing the Cha Cha!" Mrs. Taylor cried.

"They call that a Cha Cha?" Mr. Taylor said contemptuously.

Mr. and Mrs. Taylor were the Latin Dance champions of Ludner County.

"It's really more than I can take," Mrs. Taylor said. She started to climb down the ladder.

"What are you doing, woman?" Mr. Taylor called after her.

"I'm going to show them how to dance the Cha Cha. What do you think I'm going to do? Well, come on. I can't do this on my own."

"Teach fish to Cha Cha. Why not? Can this day get any crazier?" Mr. Taylor said. He followed his wife down to the pool.

©J.A. Pak