All the colorful books on the shelf, the children’s books, the nursery rhymes, the geography books, popular culture — everything was swimming around and spilling out into the little room.

“Hello,” the voice was saying. “Hello hello hello!”
It was alive. The room was alive, and it was breathing.

And a fish was also alive. The dolphin was walking about, flapping its great water-bottomed tail around viciously in front of its face. The wolf was curled up asleep on the loose-backed skull, while the whale and the walrus hung upside down on their great shoulders, both motionless, respectively, the head on top, the arms out sideways, like a pair of swimming gloves.