Eric is a x-ray fish. Just in case you were wondering, yes, he is transparent and looks like an x-ray of a fish, where you can see his bones and little else. So unusual. He couldn't pretend he hadn't just eaten a sweetie - it would be visible right there in his tummy.
Eric is one of those fishes you only hear about in children's stories. He is more like a person than a fish, which is odd, because I've never met a fish who is like a person (though I have met people who were like fish - but that's a different story). Eric even wears clothes. He wears a beanie hat with holes for his gills (without those holes, things wouldn't work properly. He'd probably drown). He wears a red belt and blue braces but no pants or shirt. I find myself asking why would an x-ray fish need pants or shirt. Yet I don't question his need for the red belt and blue braces. I guess it is all a matter of style.
Like human beings, Eric has many personality traits: things he is and things he isn't. Unfortunately for Eric, he's unpopular, scared of strangers, invisible, small, sneaky, bossy, and he always feels cold. I suspect the cold thing is because you can see right through him. Can you think of anything transparent that's warm? I can't, apart from bath water.
And Eric never settles or fits in because everyone sees the belt and braces and beanie hat, but otherwise just sees right through him. All apart from Connie, his best friend. She's a sea urchin, of course, with her punk rocker tentacles. But Connie and Eric aren't the easiest of company, even for each other. Let's just say that positivity doesn't exactly abound when those two are around. Most of the time they're bored and grumpy. Together.
Stella, a fairly wise mermaid, tells them both that they will find unheard-of treasures if they go and swim round a haunted shipwreck to look for treasure chest. They do this, under some pressure from Stella who refuses to have them around anymore if they don't buck up and cheer up. Eric does, in fact, manage to swim into the treasure chest through its damaged lock. Inside is a mass of plankton who can change its form into anything at all...
Eric, of course, is unsure. Suspicious. Hateful. The Mass is weird and odd. He's not sure. So he shuts the plankton back into the treasure chest and swims away. He got in trouble later.
When he’s asked what went on in the shipwreck, he cannot lie. That’s the problem when you’re totally transparent.