by K.J. Ness

Created on: August 09, 2010   Last Updated: August 17, 2010

PIXIE THE FRIENDLY DOLPHIN

Hi! I’m Pixie the bottlenose dolphin.

I don’t know about you, but I sure am glad to have friends. I travel with my friends and family in a big group called a pod. We swim and eat and play together. Our pod is like your school.

My mom always tells me to be friendly to other dolphins in our pod. There is never a good reason to be mean. The worst thing of all is to be mean to another dolphin just because everyone else is doing it. My mom says, “The dolphin that everyone picks on is the best one to pick as your friend.”  

I didn’t understand what my mom meant until Mish joined our pod.

Mish was small for her dolphin age. She couldn’t swim as fast as the rest of the pod. Nobody wanted her on their team for pass-the-seaweed because she usually let the seaweed drift off of her flipper. The boy-dolphins called her “Mish the Fish”, which is insulting because dolphins are mammals, not fish.

Even though the girl-dolphins were nice to Mish, I heard them call her Mish the Fish behind her back, especially around the boy-dolphins.

Mish didn’t have any real friends.

That’s when I remembered what my mom said about being friendly.

The next day, I asked Mish to swim with me. We danced and played. We went fish-hunting in the sandy sea bottom. Mish is the best fish-hunter I’ve ever seen. She gave me two of her fish before I found my first one. We became fast friends.

One day, she even saved my life. With my nose focused on the bottom to search for fish, I didn’t see what swam only a few feet above us. Suddenly, Mish sent out a loud stream of whistles and clicks to warn me - a shark! Mish swam frantic circles around the shark’s head to confuse it until we escaped.

When our pod heard about the shark and brave Mish, everyone wanted to be Mish's friend.

She smiled a friendly smile and said, “We can all be friends, but Pixie is my best friend.”

My mom is right. The dolphin that everyone picks on is the best one to pick as your friend.

Mish is my best friend.

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