Legend of Redcap

The Legend of Redcap

When does life Begin?  For Redcap it began when he was poured from a hatching vat into a growth tank at the hatchery. 

 There he was, one of thousands tiny Koi fish vying for flakes of fish food.  At first, the more vigorous fingerlings hogged the flakes and smaller fish such as the red headed fingerling barely consumed a morsel.  Finally, he gained strength and was able to take more than his share.  He was, after all, a growing and hungry fish.  He noticed that gradually there was more room and fewer fish in the tank.  Those fish with only gray scales were daily disappearing, leaving a majority of more colorful fish in the tank.  He hoped he was one of those.

            One day some different forms entered the room containing his tank world.  A tall figure that bent over the tank, and a smaller one that barely peeked over the rim of his world.   

“Dad, Dad!”  Penny’s six-year-old excitement was palpable as she pointed to the many fish with multiple bright colors.  Dad had just built a backyard Koi Pond and Penny was anxious to see fish swimming among the stones they had carefully placed.  The water had been in the pond long enough to be dechlorinated.  Pond plants had been added and now it should be suitable for habitation.  Penny pointed to the fish and picked out several.  Then she saw a special one, “Dad, Dad, look at the fish with the red head.  He looks like he’s wearing a red cap.”  Dad and Penny arrived home with six fish.  Penny instantly loved them all, but she favored Redcap.  Her dad explained to her, “In Japan the red on the head of Koi is a sign of beauty and good fortune.  Such fish resemble the Snow Cranes that are so revered over there.” 

 With the loving attention of Penny and her dad, the fish thrived in their new environment.

Redcap enjoyed the freedom he had in his new home.  He no longer bumped into hard metal walls that kept him from swimming freely.  He felt as though his little six-by-ten-foot pond was a wide world.  He nibbled on tasty plants, and found all sorts of wiggly food that made him grow big and strong.  He was visited regularly by the smaller figure.  It routinely tossed him small bits of food.  He had outgrown the flakes he consumed as a fingerling, and now hungrily gulped floating nuggets of fish food.  One day the short figure knelt down to the water and held a few bits just at the surface.  This was at a time when Redcap was very hungry.  He was also greedy.  He knew that if he didn’t venture close to get the food, another fish would gobble it up.  He slowly hovered a fin’s length from the figure’s pink fleshy tendrils and then snapped the food away.  The tendrils were soft and warm.  They didn’t hurt and he heard a noise come from the fish food provider.  

“Dad, did you see that?  Redcap just ate fish food from my fingers.  Wow, that was cool, REAL COOL!”   From then on, almost every day would find Penny feeding the fish.  It became her regular chore.  Actually, she took over the entire job of pond maintenance with her dad’s advice.  The fish all thrived, but Redcap easily grew to be the largest and his colors brightened as he matured.  It is said that a fish has a memory of only a minute or two, but Redcap remembered Penny.  He watched for her, and when he saw her coming, he would hover at the rock where she routinely knelt and snap the food from her fingers.  She would giggle as his cartilaginous lips brushed her fingers.

Redcap developed a routine.  At dawn he would begin looking for the short feeder.  Again, in the evening, just when the sun’s light dappled the surface of the pond, he would expect his visitor who always came and fed him from outstretched appendages.  Several of his fellow pond dwellers had gone.  A raccoon got two and a hawk got another, but Redcap was a good hider.  He noticed that his short feeder had changed too.  It was no longer the short figure he had known before and was now almost the size of the other figure—the one called Dad.

“Penny, we’re so proud of you doing so well in high school.  Not only did you graduate with honors, but you’ll be on full scholarship at the University.  Do you have any idea what you’ll study?” 

 “Mom, I’m interested in so many things, but ecology seems to be where I’m headed.”  

Mom looked seriously at Penny, “Now, I know you’ve been obsessed with that pond, and you should be proud of it, but there are a lot of other things in this world.”

“Mom, that small pond is a little world of its own.  If we can take care of that world, maybe we can learn to take care of our own.”

“I should have known that you would be idealistic.  But now I have something for you.”  Mom pulled out a small box from her apron pocket.  Penny opened the box and saw the ring.  “That’s grandma’s ring—Its lovely!”

 “She was as idealistic as you are, and I know she would want you to have it.  It’s a bit large for your finger.  You’ll need to have it resized, but its yours.”   The next two months passed in a whirlwind and soon Penny was leaving for college.  One last thing before she left was to feed Redcap and the other fish.  

Redcap was waiting.  He hovered in the water beside the big ‘feeding rock.’  He no longer fit easily in the shallow edge.  His size had made that area difficult to navigate.  She knelt down and held the food.  There was something else on her pink appendage.  What was it? He gulped the food and felt a heavy feeling in his gullet that must have been due to an extra-large amount of food.  He made a big splash of pure joy that took his entire body out of the water and splashed across his beloved feeder.  Penny tumbled backward and was laughing hysterically at the antics of Redcap. 

As she was packing her last case, she realized the ring was missing.  She searched her bags, her room, her bathroom, trash cans, and everywhere she could have left the heirloom ring.  Finally, it dawned on her that it could be in the pond.  The family searched every inch of the pond.  They put the fish in tubs, drained the pond and still there was no ring.  Penny was heartbroken, but life moved on.

Thanksgiving arrived and Penny returned home.  After warm greetings to her family her next visit was to the pond.  

Redcap missed his regular visitor.  The other figure had continued feeding, but was not his familiar friend.

  He was a bit sluggish due to cool late fall water, but he easily recognized an old acquaintance.  He saw her kneel, bringing her hand to the surface with food.  He rose up from the depth of the pond and addressed his old acquaintance.  He lunged to get the morsels of food but in doing so gave the fish equivalent of a burp.

Penny looked at her hand.  Redcap had, indeed, taken the food, but had left something.  It was fishy smelling and covered with greenish slime, but was, without a doubt, her lost ring.