บท 2: Chapter 2: The fish disappears silently
It was a morning like any other.
The sky over London was as hazy as ever.
Mr. Evans, who lives on Christchurch Road, opened his store at seven o'clock in the morning, as usual.
Mr. Evans' store is one of the most common restaurants in England, selling only fish and chips.
Although not a well-known establishment, Mr. Evans' store is well known in this part of Christchurch Road and is often visited by people who work and do not have time to cook.
Unlike most fish and chip stores, Mr. Evans does not use cod as the main ingredient in his chips, but rather the larger albacore tuna.
And the reason Mr. Evans chose albacore tuna...
That is, of course, because albacore tuna is cheaper!
As for the taste... the fried fish he sells is cheap and in large quantities, does it matter how it tastes? Anyway, it's the same when fried.
And not to be presumptuous, but with the tongues of most of his compatriots, it's not easy to tell the difference between albacore tuna and cod.
After opening the door to the store, Mr. Evans, humming an inaudible tune, headed for the kitchen and set to work on the ingredients.
Although he chose the cheapest albacore tuna, Mr. Evans insisted that all the fish be alive and fresh.
The albacore tuna in the kitchen had just been pulled from the old Wright was still alive and kicking.
Grabbing a white tuna, Mr. Evans expertly tossed it onto the cutting board, where the struggling white tuna instantly collapsed and was quickly disassembled with a kitchen knife and placed neatly on a side plate.
After processing a dozen albacore tuna in the same manner, Mr. Evans stopped his work, picked up the plate with the fish and prepared to coat it in flour and breadcrumbs before pan frying it.
But as soon as Mr. Evans picked up the plate, he realized something was wrong.
They were lighter in weight.
Having been in the business for more than a decade, Mr. Evans had a clear idea of how much fish he had cut, and the weight of the fish in his hands was clearly a little different from the amount he had cut.
"Strange...," Mr. Evans looked around and saw that there were no fish on the floor.
Had he accidentally thrown the fish in the trash with the guts and bones when he had cut it up?
Scratching his hair in confusion, Mr. Evans didn't worry too much, as it looked like only two or three pieces of fish were missing, and it wasn't worth wasting time over, as the first customers would be arriving soon.
This aside, Mr. Evans followed his usual procedure of frying fish and chips.
Even after the customers arrived, Mr. Evans used it as a topic of conversation with the regulars.
What Mr. Evans didn't expect was that today was just the beginning.
As the days went on, Mr. Evans lost more and more fish, even rummaged through the trash can, but didn't throw the fish away himself.
However, no matter how much care Mr. Evans put into the pieces of fish, he couldn't stop them from disappearing, he even put the plate with the fish under his nose, but it was as if the fish had grown legs of its own and disappeared in the blink of an eye.
After another mysterious fish disappearance, Mr. Evans finally relented and hired John, a seven-year-old boy, from his neighbor's house, at the price of fifteen cents "a huge sum," to help him see how his fish had disappeared.
It was a new morning,
Mr. Evans took little John to his store, where he put him in a box he had prepared, while he handled the fresh albacore tuna, as he always did.
Little John hid in one of the boxes, looking at the dishes on the table through the holes in the box.
At first nothing happened, but as the quantity of fish grew, a ghostly figure suddenly appeared in the cabinet over Mr. Evans' head.
It was a silver-gray tabby cat, Little John couldn't tell if it was a British cat or an American cat, the kitten didn't look very old and was only the size of an adult's palm, with emerald green eyes that stared through the cracks in the cabinet at the fish on the table.
The cat turned its ears, as if sensing Little John's presence, and its big green eyes turned toward the box where it was hiding, pausing there for a moment.
Little John met those green eyes through the gap in the box, and his little hand covered his mouth and nose, fearing that he might accidentally disturb the kitten by making noise.
Sensing that little John wasn't going to stop, the tiger-spotted kitten withdrew his gaze and turned his attention back to the albacore tuna meat on the table.
Making sure Mr. Evans wasn't paying attention to the fish, the tabby swooped down from the cabinet like a ghost, landing softly on the table without a sound.
Looking at Mr. Evans, who was still engrossed in his work, the kitten quickly grabbed some of the fish on his plate, bobbed his head up twice and swallowed it without a sound, then quickly devoured almost as much fish as his body in the same manner before jumping into the cabinet, scampering across the top of it to the kitchen skylight and bursting through the gap and disappeared.
It wasn't until the tiger-spotted kitten was gone that little John jumped out of the box with excitement, "Uncle Evans! I've seen him! He's a beautiful kitten!"
Little John started dancing around, describing the kitten to Mr. Evans, and pleading with him for mercy, "He doesn't eat much anyway, so don't hurt him, Uncle Evans! If you can't, I'll pay for it out of my own pocket money!"
Looking at the excited little John, Mr. Evans rubbed his head in amazement, knowing that little John had been saving for a soccer ball for so long that he had been as careful with his money as the famous old miser at the corner tailor's shop.
What was the magic of the fish-thieving kitty that made John give up his favorite soccer ball?
But...
Isn't that cat eating too much?
According to Little John, he's just a kitten, so how could he eat so much?
I guess the hole in the box was too small for Little John to see clearly.
Mr. Evans shook his head and laughed, then patted Little John on the head and said, "Save your money for soccer ball, I can pay for this fish."
And so the Evans store had another topic of conversation for the day, the mysterious gray tiger-spotted kitten that only little John had seen.
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