Entry Twenty - Bellalux 5

I've been so rubbish about posting lately, my apologies. But when travelling with not one but two amazingly entertaining companions it's difficult to tear yourself away. Especially when one of them will have to be going soon. :-(

Anyway, I woke up the other day, not unusually, to "Rooooose, wake up, it's time for Bellalux 5!" I felt like I'd slept for five minutes, and who knows maybe I had only slept for five minutes, but the Doctor was there poking my feet and it was about time to see this gigantic aquarium. Which all sounded well and good to me.

Still, I groaned, "What time is it?"

(And I only put in this conversation because his reaction to that question was hilarious) He wrinkled his nose and said; "I don't know, and I don't often say that. But really -"

I cut him off here cause I knew he was going to launch into how the hour tends to disappear in the TARDIS. No proper morning, no night, sometimes Monday, never Sunday. "I know, I'm sorry. Where's Ariella?"

He grinned like the little boy I am sometimes convinced that he is under those 900+ years. "We get to wake her up next," he said and we practically ran to her room. Then he flung the door open and I launched myself onto her bed while he yelled something along the lines of "Wakey wakey!"

I've never seen anyone jump so high. I almost died laughing. Ariella screamed and we all bounced of her bed laughing once she realised it wasn't the four horsemen of the apocalypse waking her up and rather just... well, her rather immature friends. She clutched her chest and said, "You scared me to death!" The Doctor point out that she was, in fact, still alive, and we both rolled our eyes.

Then finally, "Bellalux 5?" she asked.

We both grinned and said in unison, "Bellalux 5!" but he continued, "They have a glitter fish. It looks like an Earth fish, mostly, but like it's been dipped in glitter. The multicoloured kind, not silver. And it refracts light, they've got these lamps so that when it swims around-" he paused them and waved a hand, "Oh you'll see."

Then Ariella and I dressed while he set course of Bellalux 5.

The first thing that is notable about Bellalux 5 is that it's obviously a tourist planet. It seems that in the future, which we were currently standing in, they have entire planets dedicated to different things. Whole zoo planets and museum planets, and the lot. In fact, the entire Bellalux System was museums of sort. Bellalux 1 was an Art Gallery, Bellalux 2 was the history of the Human Empire, Bellalux 3 was a Botanical Garden (like Kew he said, only bigger, much bigger and with plants from planets I'd never seen), Bellalux 4 was a zoo, and Bellalux 5 an aquarium. There are other Bellaluxes, but I don't remember them all. Most of them are histories to other races.

But anyway, today was Bellalux 5. The Aquarium Planet with the glitter fish.




There were fish from every planet with symmetric aquatic life , even Jacowitz (Ari was very excited and told us the entire history of the Sarinya fish, which we both listened to with our faces pressed against the glass). It was snow white with a red pattern that looked vaguely like Chinese writing. And it was the size of my leg. I was about to say how pretty it was when it suddenly just changed colour. I gaped, it was now purple and black and then it turned gold and green and then orange. Ariella seemed very pleased by my gobsmacked reaction

I can't really list every single fish we saw (and its not like we covered the whole planet or anything), so I'll only say about the ones that were especially impressive.

Expressly, the glitter fish, which is really called a Istamsislutinrev, which I could not pronounce despite many attempted pronunciation lessons (much harder than Raxacoricophallatatorius).


We just called it the glitter fish.

But, first off, it was HUGE. It was like someone took two of the Doctor and stood him on end then gave it the body of a blowfish, puffed out. Then, literally, just as the Doctor'd said, it was like it was dipped into a giant vat of glitter. It was covered (even though, obviously, it wasn't glitter it was it's skin, it just looked like glitter), and beautiful; refracting light the way he'd explained. They had multicoloured lights shining on it so that the whole room lit up and it threw rainbows all over the place. The Doctor grinned like he'd just discovered the first glitter fish ever.

"It's," I laughed, "it's amazing!"

Ariella held out a hand to watch the colours bouncing off it, I watched them off the Doctor's face, and he just grinned.

We spent a long time with the glitter fish. I was long past being surprised that when the Doctor said something was incredible, it was. But I hadn't been prepared for the incredible light. Eventually, though, we had to move on and we went to the shark tank, which had some truly amazing specimens. The Doctor pointed one of them out as being an Earth Great White. It didn't look very much like one and I said so.

"Oh, well, you know. The Earth moves on, so does evolution."

It had a lot more rows of teeth, and I couldn't see any eyes and there wasn't a fin. Nothing like Jaws. Here's a postcard:


Ariella sat down on a bench and stretched out her legs, "It's amazing, there's just so much out there," she said, "I've travelled with you. Seen a lot, but I'll never see it all. I could never travel long enough."

"I could never live long enough," I added.

The Doctor was silent for awhile then looked away a moment before looking back and smiling. "No point in griping. We can see it now, Bellalux 5. Here we are. Glitter fish. Sharks. Anything else?"

My mobile rang then, and Ariella looked a bit surprised as I jumped up and chatted with mum for awhile. Told her all about Bellalux, promised to buy her a present. Then I rejoined them on the bench.

"How's good old Jackie?" the Doctor asked.

"Fine. She inquired after you, I said you were fine." The Doctor seemed a bit pleased that she'd wanted to know, but I'd never say anything cause he'd just deny it.

Ariella shook her head, "I can't believe that thing," she nodded towards his breast pocket where we both knew the sonic screwdriver was resting, "can make your mobile call through time and space."



"Oh, it can do anything," the Doctor said, "well, it doesn't blend drinks or hoover. And it jams a bit when it's around hairdryers. But, it's very good at resonating things."

"Like concrete?" I laughed. He laughed. In joke.

"Like anything! Watch this!" he went over to the tank, aimed the sonic at the grouting in between the glass, and switched it on.

"Uh, Doctor?" Ariella said, her eyebrows togther.

He didn't pay much attention, but Ari and I were on our feet. Then suddenly the glass plate came off. The Doctor frowned for about .3 seconds and then the whole room filled with water. We ran. "I guess I didn't think that through," he said.

"Never doubt his technology," I said. We reached the TARDIS laughing, and I was rather glad we saved the shark tank for last. We dematerialised before the guards even reached the tank. We spun back about a week though, cause I wanted souvenirs and the Doctor said we couldn't miss the little shop. I got mum a tiny snowglobe and a mug for the TARDIS.