Once upon a time – like now – there was an Ocean full of fish. Over the years some fish grew bigger than others. Eventually there were seven large fish and millions of small ones. The big fish consumed most of the food and lived in the warmest and sunniest parts of the Ocean, leaving the small fish to live in holes in the coral and sea bed. Here they made as much of their lives as they could, but there was constant quarrelling and fighting for territory because they had so little.

The big fish were not happy with this ‘chaos’ amongst the masses so they thought up a plan to keep the little fish in their control. They decided to spread a story that the water was poisoned and the little fish had to stay in their holes and in the sand, to keep themselves and their families safe. To make the story realistic they showed the little fish pictures of hospitals full of little fish dying of poisoned water. This was something that happens all the time in the Oceans but little fish have no idea of how big the problem is and whether they should worry. So the big fish exploited this ignorance and employed scientist fish to show how plastic particles were in the water and little fish were dying. Each day the counter was displayed on their televisions of how many little fish had died that day. Up and up and up went the numbers and the scientists drew graphs to make the problem easier to understand.

The little fish obeyed the strict rules not realising that these numbers of fish die every year and the situation was unfortunate but normal. They stopped doing their work amongst the coral reefs and lived on whatever food the big fish let them have. They felt terribly sorry for themselves. They watched graves of little fish being dug in front of their holes, which was actually a clever plan by the big fish to frighten them more.

The big fish knew that when fish are frightened they are more likely to die and the whole sorry business became self fulfilling.

Eventually, after several months, the big fish allowed the little fish to come out under very strict rules. They took away most of the freedom that the little fish used to enjoy. If there were complaints, the big fish reminded them of how they had solved the problem of the plastic in the water and how arguing and quarrelling amongst the little fish had now stopped.

The big fish kept the little fish alive on crumbs falling from the warm and sunny surface waters where they lived. The seven big fish lived happily ever after.